May 20, 2019
Adopting a child can be a long process, full of waiting and hoping and so much paperwork. Friends, family, and coworkers can be unaware of the stress and high emotion involved. Beth and Andy Long share the story of bringing Drew from the forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo to Bloomington, Indiana and the hardest six months of their lives. In that story, they reflect on how people supported them well, the dangers of work/home compartmentalization, and the bravery it takes to create change in a workplace culture.
Opening Quote:
[00:17:54.430] - Beth Long
It was extremely chaotic. You've got this little boy, Drew, who's two and a half at this point, who we've we've been preparing for, you know, we've got a room for him. We've been talking about him but really to him we're strangers.
Intro
Today, we talk about adoption. But the conversation is much broader than adoption, it ranges from the forests of the Congo to the NICU to a car dealership in southern Indiana. Along the way, we will talk about how the stress of work impacts home, learning to say yes to offers of help, and the bravery that it takes to create change in a workplace culture.
My guests are Beth and Andy Long, two people that I have had the pleasure of calling friends for more than half of my life.
[00:00:00.610] - Andy Long
So should we introduce ourselves? What's our format? I'm Andy Long
[00:00:01.910] - Beth Long
I'm Beth Long.
[00:00:08.790] - Liesel Mertes
Tell us a little bit about yourselves. Andy, what do you do?
[00:00:12.890] - Andy Long
So I grew up in Indianapolis and then, after college moved down to Bloomington to join my family's business which is automotive retail we own several dealerships in Bloomington Ind.. So that's what brought us down here
[00:00:26.560] - Liesel Mertes
Beth, a little bit about you.
[00:00:28.900] - Beth Long
Well I stay home with our four kids. They're 9 7 5 and 3 at this point and, at this point, I've been in Bloomington eleven years.
Beth and Andy met in the halls of Heritage Christian High School, where Beth was my teammate on the soccer team and Andy was my co-lawyer on the mock trial team.
[00:00:51.880] - Andy Long
I tried to date her in high school, but she was having none of that. I didn't drive a hard top Jeep Wrangler that wasn't several years older than her. So I did make the cut.
[00:01:05.380] - Beth Long
Yeah. No, what he means by trying to date me was he was trying to date everybody else.
Musical interlude
Beth always knew that she wanted to adopt.
[00:01:42.010] - Beth Long
we had always talked about adoption. It was something I knew before we even got married that I had kind of put on Andy's radar.
Beth and Andy had two biological children, daughters that had come after complicated pregnancies. They were advised to take some time before conceiving again, and this was when they embarked on the adoption journey.
[00:02:26] - Beth Long
And so, that's when we drove in to the world of international adoption which is what was really on our radar at the time. And we're not really like super organized chart people but we made this big chart of all the countries in the world that you can adopt from and just sort of the different regulations there were because they're all different in terms of family size and length of stay in country and age of child you can adopt. And so we just made our chart and from there sort of narrowed down to the Democratic Republic of Congo which is where our son Drew is from.
One of the reasons that Andy and Beth chose the DRC was because it only required a ten day stay in country
[00:03:44] - Andy Long
I get two weeks off a year and so that ruled out countries that require like 30 days in country or multiple visits that would be a couple of weeks apiece. So we had ruled those out. So Congo fit with our with my work schedule being off two weeks. So a 10 day stay in country was what they what the program called for. So that fit. And then they had estimated a timeframe from the inception of the program to bringing your child home and about nine months.
About nine months, at least that was the hope. But things did not go as planned
Music here
[00:04:46.030] - Beth Long
Well we were matched with Drew, our son, when he was nine days old and that was in August of 2013. And in September of 2013, the country essentially shut down adoptions. There were the adoptions were still proceeding but they were not allowing adopted children to leave once their process was complete. They said you cannot have an exit letter. And they had done some suspensions like this before and they didn't last very long. They said initially it would last up to a year and everybody thought, oh it'll be a month maybe two months...Given the history, it ended up lasting about two and a half years.
[00:05:24.580] - Liesel Mertes
Wow. So two and a half years. What, what did that look like relationally for you guys to navigate that journey? I assume that it wasn't just calm and, OK, this is another delay, this is the next thing. How is it feeling to you in real time?
[00:06:12] - Andy Long
We were relatively new to the program and some of the people that had been either, they had adopted previously from the DRC or they had friends or family that had, they had seen some of these suspensions kind of come and go. And so they gave us the expectation of, oh it'll be a few months or maybe a year. So then as it exceeded those timeframes. I think everybody that was in the program we're really confused and nervous about, well maybe this is going to be a permanent suspension of the adoption program or maybe our son will never come home and we certainly had those thoughts as well. There was no timeframe given. So you know after a year or two we thought, you know maybe, maybe that Drew will never come home. Maybe this is just not going to happen.
Musical transition here
[00:06:57.280]
We didn't really know what to do. There wasn't anything we could do on our end in order to speed the process up or to do that. So there was a lot of confusion. I think Beth and I were on the same page which brought us closer together, probably because it kind of felt like us versus them or us versus the world.
[00:07:16.720] - Liesel Mertes
Was there a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy?
[00:07:18.220] - Beth Long
Oh, absolutely. Oh yeah so much.
[00:07:22.390] - Liesel Mertes
And how much time did that take up for you and a given week or month because I picture there's a cost of just your bandwidth of having to do all of this.
[00:07:32.740] - Beth Long
Yes so I mean every day, and I was sort of reporting back to Andy, but every day I'm online looking at the rumors talking about the chatter of what's going to happen. I heard this, you know the senator said this, I heard this from DRC. You know, everybody was just kind of putting the information together because like Andy said we really had no idea, we're going on rumors and tweets
[00:07:57.850] - Andy Long
There are different Facebook groups and different message boards that we were a part of that we're trying to get information out. There was a big push to contact your representatives in Congress and let them know, hey this is what's happening over there. We need governmental support to put pressure on the Congolese government to get these kids home.
[00:08:18.460] - Liesel Mertes
Did you have much... So you're here in southern Indiana. Did you have much in the way of real time community of people who understood what you're going through? Because I imagine that this potentially could feel like very isolating and particular sort of experience as you're dropping your kids off at the local school and going grocery shopping at Kroger and checking about the geopolitical functions of the government in Congo.
[00:08:46.960] - Beth Long
Yes. So we had a lot of online support as any sort of Facebook groups but I think we had wonderful people in person but you know how it's difficult to follow another person's health journey or you know their court dates. It's hard to keep all that straight. I'm using a whole different language when I'm talking about this adoption world. And so there were definitely times when people were kind of like, oh you're you're still doing that you're still trying to bring that kid home? Yes this is my daily reality. I'm daily still working on this every day is our son and every day we're thinking about it talking about it trying to figure out how I can make this happen.
[00:09:22.870] - Andy Long
I think that even for close friends and family, after after it went past two years of this indefinite, you know like we're going to try to bring Drew home one day, I think even our friends and family were a little skeptical, maybe nervous for us that it wasn't going to happen and they didn't really know how to feel about that. They didn't, they were nervous that we were going to be really hurt and obviously just crushed if this adoption failed and we weren't able to bring Drew home. I think that they processed that and that manifested itself in the way that they dealt with us and the way that they dealt with our adoption. Maybe it's kind of like a hands off or arm's length that you didn't want to become too invested because they were nervous for us and maybe nervous for their own emotions and that felt isolating or that felt like they weren't invested like we were invested or they weren't sure they were skeptical.
Musical interlude
10:40, Andy
They were really nervous. And so I felt like they maybe moved to, maybe be wary of the way that they approached it. They kind of didn't want to talk about it or ignored it. In some ways, because it felt like they were really nervous for us and we interpreted that as, they didn't care as much or they were skeptical, which I think they had every right to be because it was an indefinite suspension. They didn't know what was going on, neither did we. But, it felt hurtful in the moment.
Musical interlude
[00:11:23.370] - Andy Long
They had a friend that had tried to adopt from the Soviet Union or a country. I think in the early 90s or the mid 90s and they were close friends with my parents and they had pictures of this little girl and they had spent a lot of money and they had invested over I think over a couple of years and trying to bring her home. And then, at the end of the process, the adoption was scuttled. They didn't have any answers. There was you know, accusations of fraud and maybe that there was never a girl that they were going to adopt. And the family that they were friends with were devastated. And I think that that informed their opinion and they saw maybe that coming back around and they were nervous for us that we were being defrauded or that there was a scheme to bilk us for money and that Drew was never going to come home, which were legitimate concerns because there was no timeframe and very little information. But, that felt really hurtful, because it felt like they were skeptical of the process and they weren't rooting for us to bring Drew home but were maybe rooting for us to have our guard up.
[00:12:32.720] - Liesel Mertes
Do you feel like, by extension, there was any sort of implication of: you're being foolish in this, you're being taken or had ,that felt offensive in its own way?
[00:12:46.330] - Beth Long
Yeah.
[00:12:46.730] - Andy Long
We are both shaking hands before we answered yes. I don't think it was intentional in their mind to make us feel that way.
Musical Interlude
[00:13:24.750] - Beth Long
And I think, just in general just in, sort of in the way that when you're pregnant, like that baby isn't as real to everybody else as it is to you. That's sort of how I felt with Drew. You know, I knew this child. He was ours. I had the pictures. I was invested and it wasn't real to anybody else. They couldn't see him. You know they weren't, they weren't experiencing him and so, I think that was the hard part for me just in real life. Friends seeing, you know I think sometimes they felt so worried for me and concerned that I was really invested in this thing that really wasn't going to happen, maybe.
Andy also felt missed in his workplace
[00:14:49] - Andy Long
Well, I think the people knew; I had been very open that we were adopting. I've got pictures of Drew. This is my son. So I think they're aware of that, but I don't know if they were super supportive. Well, our workplace is very much like you try to leave your problems at the door, you come in when you're in the office you're focused on work. It's not really a community where we would share problems from home or family life, But there was a moment, towards the very end of the process when Drew was coming home and was literally flying home that there was a major hang up and a copy of the visa wasn't the right one and there was a big problem where they were stopped on literally on the way to the airport. He was stopped and detained with his escort. And I remember getting that phone call at work and I literally just took the phone callm found out that that was happening and just left the office and went home. I don't think that I told anyone that I was going they probably thought that there had been a big emergency, which there had been, but that was the one time maybe where I have a really vivid memory of just having to leave work and it was that environment wasn't gonna be suitable for handling or dealing or processing what was happening with our adoption.
Although there was a disconnect with family, friends, and work, there was still a community of people that supported Beth and Andy.
[00:16:13] - Liesel Mertes
Where were the places that you were finding people that came alongside you and supported you well and what did that look like?
[00:16:20.850] - Beth Long
I would say mostly our family and our church here in Bloomington
[00:16:25.110] - Andy Long
Our small group a church was extremely supportive throughout the entire process.
[00:16:29.190] - Liesel Mertes
What were some of the best, tangible things that they along this two year journey with you?
[00:16:36.650] - Beth Long
Well, I would say, to back it up just a little bit. So Drew did come home as we said in February of 2016 but in December of 2015 we had a baby. So that's a whole other part of this because it led to sort of a six month period for us that was probably the most difficult of our lives. So we had Luke the baby as he will forever be known
[00:17:01.610] - Liesel Mertes
As babies are.
[00:17:04.370] - Beth Long
So he was born a month early in here in Bloomington and he spent ten days in the NICU and, unfortunately, I had the same crazy delivery but but worse with him. So he had to spend some extra time sort of getting used to life on the outside and and then Drew came home February. And then Luke, in April, began having seizures. And so, we took an emergency trip up to Riley and a second trip up to Riley the following week.
[00:17:36.680] - Liesel Mertes
And Riley is in Indianapolis, which is about an hour and a half drive.
[00:17:42.470] - Beth Long
So that was December to May was really taken up with, I mean it just felt like to us, absolutely more than we could handle.
[00:17:52.390] - Liesel Mertes
It sounds so chaotic.
[00:17:54.430] - Beth Long
It was extremely chaotic. You've got this little boy, Drew, who's two and a half at this point, who we've we've been preparing for, you know, we've got a room for him. We've been talking about him but really to him we're strangers. We'd been to visit him for a week. But, the language, the food, the clothes that everything every place that he went, every person he saw was new to him. And so you can imagine, that that was an extremely difficult transition for him. And then we had this baby who had these health problems that of course we were not anticipating. So this was a really difficult time for us. And we just we feel so thankful to the people that are in our life that were really there for us. I mean we had friends that were stopping by too because Andy was still working very long hours at this time too.
[00:18:45.550]
And I had a friend that came over many nights during bedtime just to help me with bedtime because I've got now four kids to put to bed. I have friends that would say hey, I'm running to the grocery store. What can I get you today? We had so many people bring its meals. People take our older girls, you know for a playdate, so I could just handle the boys.
[00:19:06.100] - Andy Long
My parents came down, your parents came down to watch the kids and help you around the house.
[00:19:11.360] - Liesel Mertes
Because Andy, you're still operating on, I have 14 days to use over this year. Did you, did that feel like a pressing concern all through this of I can't be present because I have...
[00:19:25.470] - Andy Long
Yeah, that was, that was it I'm not proud of the way that I handled that but, I was so ingrained in the culture of my particular workplace which was you don't miss work, that is unacceptable. As a leader, as a manager, you're gonna be at work no matter what. And I had had over 10 years of being in that environment and it seemed so natural and I had blinders on to how unreasonable that would be. But I I had taken time off for Luke's birth and I had been to the hospital and I would go my lunch break to the NICU but I didn't feel like I had enough time or I had already taken off too much time. So, I had my mom pick up Beth from the NICU when they were released to bring them home. So, I didn't even go and pick up my own child when he was released from the NICU to bring him home for the first time because I felt like I didn't have enough time in my day right or I taking off too much time for this for the birth and that that kind of came around when Drew came home I took off one day but then after that worked my normal schedule, which was really close to 8 to 8. So, I was gone all day throughout the week and then Saturdays.
[00:20:43.170] - Liesel Mertes
That sounds exhausting for both of you on a number of levels when you talk about that culture, Andy, so you're going to the NICU on your lunch break and then coming back and needing convince someone that this is the car for them to buy. Was it difficult for you to re-engage with work? What did you find your capacity for coping or compartmentalization needed to become in the workplace?
[00:21:11.430] - Andy Long
You know, looking back, I'm not sure how I did that or if I did a very good job. I probably suffered at work and wasn't aware of how distracted that I was. It felt like, maybe I probably was trying to do my best but I would imagine if I look back now was probably very distracted and was underperforming. I think the part that suffered the most was home life because it's more difficult to turn off work and being on stage and you know trying to be pleasant, providing great customer service acting like everything is fine, leaving your problems at the door. I think I became very good at turning that off and when I was at work focusing on work, so that it became more difficult to engage when I came home to pick that back up and then engage with the problems and the difficulties that we had which became a major stress point for Beth and I. Probably the hardest thing that we've been through was my inability to say no to work or to change what I was doing there, which lasted for months and months probably six months. Throughout that time when we had both boys home and Luke was diagnosed as epileptic and we just had tons of reasons to not be at work as much.
[00:22:26.960]
But I wasn't able to see it that way. And didn't turn that off and was really embarrassed and ashamed of how I dealt with that. Looking back. But in the moment, it felt like that was just the reasonable way that you would handle life's problems would be to check them at the door go to work act like it was normal leave work come home and try to re-engage.
[00:22:50.970] - Liesel Mertes
Beth what does it feel like even as you listen to that and reflect on that season?
[00:22:57.470] - Beth Long
Like Andy said, he was so entrenched in, this is just the way we do it. It's not like anyone at work was saying, you better get back here, you know. That was just the expectation. Sort of an unstated expectation but he had been in it for so long that he didn't see what it was doing to our family life as well. And, honestly, during that time I mean I was barely hanging on. I felt like I was barely treading water and I really needed him and he wasn't there. And so thinking back on that time I just it brings back a lot of emotions for me and I'm just trying to navigate all of that and also to help him see, hey this is not the right path for us.
[00:23:42.200]
Something needs to change about your work life and that's a hard conversation to have. For me it's a family business. It's work that he loves. He loves working for his grandfather. So those are really difficult conversations to have. He wants to be the one who's working the hardest. He wants to be there and I really respect that about him, he's a hard worker. But there are also times in life when that cannot be the focus.
[00:24:08.720] - Andy Long
We didn't have real clear policies at work about, hey if you have a baby or if your family has a baby, this is what's normal to take off or these many days or this doesn't count against your vacation time or if you've got a medical emergency you know take this amount of time away from the office. We didn't have any of those policies really, really clearly stated at all and so then it was kind of, we were jumbling through it together where there was a lot of weird expectations on my side and I'm sure my co-workers at work needed me there and so they didn't really know how to process that or, you know, they, I'm sure would have liked to have me there more but they also understood it was inappropriate to ask me to come home or to skip some of that family time, so that I made it more difficult that we didn't have any clear policies on how much time I should take or what the procedure was for something like that like a medical emergency or traumatic birth.
[00:25:11.440] - Liesel Mertes
Do you think back oh let's update the audience though. How is the Luke doing?
[00:25:16.800] - Beth Long
He's doing very well. So, it took a while to find the right medication for him that would control his seizures. And then once they were controlled, he was on the medication for about two years without any repeat seizures. And so we did another EEG last summer and he was able to wean off the medicine. So he's been doing very well.
[00:25:39.850] - Liesel Mertes
And Drew's here, he is going to be starting kindergarten not next year but the year...
[00:25:44.420] - Beth Long
No, this year. So crazy. So yeah he's ready. He's very excited.
[00:25:51.310] - Liesel Mertes
And Andy and Beth, you guys made some purposeful shifts in some of your work life structuring in the aftermath of this. What decisions did you make for your life balance moving forward based on some of what you experienced?
[00:26:07.350] - Beth Long
Well I think after the NICU situation and having his mom bring me home and then only taking a day off when Drew came home those two situations and the chaos that was our life at that time, for me was the final straw. Really
Weave some music through the drama of the following section…
[00:26:27.160] - Andy Long
The breaking point
[00:26:28.130] - Beth Long
Yeah, breaking point, I just said I can't I can't keep up with this anymore. And so when, when we were Riley for the seizures, Andy was there for all of that, he was able to take time off and I think everybody at work was really understanding about it. It was just your own I think expectations to it, you you felt really bad because the nature of his position is that he is the one who does that work. You know it's there isn't it.
[00:26:55.780] - Andy Long
We a very lean operation. So there wasn't a second person or third person who did my role. I was the president who was in charge of those dealership roles and those tasks. So, if I wasn't there there, I was nervous that those were going to get done and the dealership was going to suffer substantially because we don't have someone else who backed up my role
[00:27:18.730] - Beth Long
But, that's when we did make some major changes.
[00:27:22.860] - Andy Long
Yeah it wasn't that Beth had not brought up the work life or work family life balance before, but she said it was a lot more urgency in, I think that the combination of events finally got through to me and I realized, man this is crazy. I'm putting work way before my family. I need to make some big changes. And we did after that. It took about a year to enact all the changes. But there is a shift at work. I requested to be moved from what I was doing to another role, which required some really difficult conversations over a period of about six months with my grandfather, who's the owner of the dealership, and we had some conversations about what that would look like and how that's very different than the way he came up in the business, which was a lot more old school of, you work every hour that the dealership is open. You're at the at the bridge of the ship. You're commanding it. You've got to be there every minute every day. And what that would look like maybe for my schedule, which was going to be more family focused and maybe more new school and millennial where I'm placing a greater, a greater value on being with my family and having time away from the dealership, which was some pretty new territory for him but we were able to work it out.
[00:28:41.500] - Beth Long
Yeah. It's a difficult conversation as you can imagine to have with your grandfather, because I think it feels a bit to him like an indictment of the way he raised his family. And so, he had five children and they are greatly loved and he showed his love by working super hard for them and providing for them. And so, when Andy says I want to do it this way it feels a bit like, hey you did it the wrong way. And that's a really difficult conversation to have with your grandfather.
[00:29:06.940] - Liesel Mertes
The complications of what is a culture shift in a lot of ways, and even a translation of a different set of values coming in and being, still furthering the mission of the company, but not the way things have been done before. This been a really helpful conversation on so many levels, as you think back and have snapshot in your mind of yourselves as you're going through that super intense season, what words would you offer back to that to that version of Andy or Beth from where you are now?
[00:29:47.410] - Andy Long
Well, hindsight is 20 20. And as I look back at the younger Andy of those years he was so wrapped up in the culture of the business that he was in. He was really blinded to the effects that it was having on his family and the tremendous amount of stress it was putting on Beth and his kids. And it seems crazy now that I would have thought, yeah it's totally normal, I should have my Mom pick up my wife and newborn baby from the NICU and bring him home. In the moment, that felt like the appropriate thing to do for work. So, sagely old Andy would tell that young guy,hey there is, that's crazy and you need to try and seek that balance way before you get to a point where you're at your wits end and you're really just treading water and trying to make it through each day. We should have addressed those concerns years previously and tried to figure out, hey what's a, how can we slide gradually into a different schedule or how can we have some backup at work that or some overlapping roles that would allow not just me but other managers to take more time off if something like this happens or to to enjoy a better work life balance? We should have addressed those years ago not just when a crisis comes.
[00:31:04.150] - Beth Long
Yeah, and I would say, for me, this is something I really had to become more comfortable with. But, in the beginning, did not know what to do when people said, let me know how I can help. You know, alright, let me let me...even when they were specific about it, let me take your kids or you know, in the beginning I felt very uncomfortable taking that kind of help. But pretty quickly realized like nope, I just need to say yes you could take my girls or you could come over you know whatever those things were that were going help, I had to get real about that because I I couldn't do it. I really needed that backup.
[00:31:39.750] - Andy Long
Beth is really independent. And I do remember us having that conversation about, it was it was unnatural and a little bit against your personality to accept help especially from strangers or people that we didn't know really well. It was different when your best friends like, let me take your girls. But when someone from church was like hey let me bring you a meal or can I bring you some groceries. That felt maybe uncomfortable at the beginning, especially because Beth is very independent, so that was a big change, but it was a good change once we said hey these people are wanting to engage with us wanting to help. This is the way that they're going to show us love. We need to be way more accepting of it. That was huge.
[00:32:19.570] - Beth Long
And I think, also, one thing I wish that I would have done is just feel more comfortable to be, to tell people, this is how I'm struggling I feel, I actually later in the year started extreme problems sleeping. I started having chest pains and I felt like I was going crazy, which I think if I had just talked to people they would say know that, you're experiencing anxiety and you probably should be based on your life circumstances right now. It took me slowly telling people small parts of that to put that all together, but I wish that I would have been braver with those emotions to say, hey here's what I'm experiencing. What do I do with this? Or even start, as I ended up seeing a counselor starting in the fall. And I wish I would have started much earlier. So that's something I would have told myself like: hey look at your life right now. In fact I remember once in that time in that six month timeframe someone gave me a picture that said something about: in mountains high and valleys low, ttill I am with you. And I was like, why did they give me this? Which is like, I was so unaware of like how chaotic my own life was that I was like, Oh this is a valley low. You know, I didn't even, I wasn't aware enough to know that I needed help beyond groceries, that I needed to see a counselor that I needed to work through the aftermath of watching my son go through seizures that I needed...the traumatic birth, I needed to go through that. You know I need to talk to me about that. So that took me a long time to realize, hey I need to deal with this and my body betrayed me, because I thought I was doing so well. I thought I was holding it together so well. But then I was not sleeping. You know, I started sleeping as you're having chest pains and my body said, Look you're not handling this as well as you think you are
Musical Interlude
Here are three take-aways from my conversation with Andy and Beth
- What are the implicit demands that your company makes on employees? Have you stopped to wonder? If not, now is a good time to ask. Go ask a coworker or a direct report about how they think the company views time off. And, call this lesson 1, part b, do you have established policies around time off and leave? Andy and Beth were trailblazers in many ways, creating policies and precedent around NICU stays and adoption. If you don’t have established policies, its time to get some things in writing. As you create these policies, ponder, what kind of a culture do you want to create?
- If you are going through the stress of an adoption or a prolonged hospital stay or any sort of substantial stress, coax yourself to be able to accept the help that is offered.Taking your other children to play, receiving a delivery of groceries, it is good to be able to accept the help that is offered.
- Beth talked about the world of adoption policy and news and updates that was “an entirely different language” than what was being spoken around her in southern Indiana.If you are part of a support system for someone that is going through an adoption process, take time to ask them about the policy and the Facebook groups. And then listen. Really listen. Andy and Beth spoke about how it was difficult for them to feel that some people close to them were not “in their corner” and rooting for the adoption to go forward, as you hear about difficulties or obstacles, before rushing to judgment and advice, instead consider offering a statement like, “I’m so sorry for that hassle! That sounds complicated and difficult; I imagine that you just want to be united with your son or daughter as soon as possible.” This sort of statement conveys empathy without pronouncing judgment.
Outro