309: Seriously Though

Seriously Though

[00:00:00] Intro: Tired. So tired, Overtired.

[00:00:04] Brett: Welcome to Overtired. I am Brett Terpstra. I am here with, as always, Jeffrey Severances, Gunzel. And Christina Warren. Uh, Jeff, how’s it going?

[00:00:18] Jeffrey: I’m trying to match your brightness. I’m, I gotta do some stretches.

[00:00:22] Brett: during the countdown, before we start recording, I’m like, all right, I’m gonna, I’m gonna put on a new face, I’m gonna come out bright, I’m gonna come out hard. And, uh, and I just decided to go for it. I am not actually feeling that, but, uh, Christina, how are you?

[00:00:37] Christina: Well, okay. Yes. Similar to Jeff. I’m like trying to kind of like, find the energy. He’s like, Hey, I’m so glad to be here. This is, and like, and I can totally do that, but I was like, that doesn’t sound like Fred. Okay. So, no, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, um, no, I’m doing pretty well. Um, there’s, Well, we’ll talk about it, but no, in general I’m doing pretty well.

[00:00:56] Um, I, uh, I had, you know, the last week or so off, which was nice. And, um, now I don’t know about YouTube, but it’s like, just kinda like winding down before the end of the year. Um, so there’s a lot of meetings and projects and stuff, but it’s, you know, just kind of trying to get, get things squared away before, before the holidays.

[00:01:14] So I’m doing pretty well.

[00:01:16] Jeffrey: time off

[00:01:18] Brett: Yeah.

[00:01:19] Christina: indeed.

[00:01:21] Jeffrey: Sounds like a wild few weeks before

[00:01:22] Brett: Well, so we all had last week off. It was, uh, I, we just needed, we needed a week off. We did. It was

[00:01:29] Jeffrey: the whole podcast break on the beach,

[00:01:33] Brett: you serious?

[00:01:33] Jeffrey: No, I’m joking,

[00:01:34] Christina: Damn. I was, I’m

[00:01:35] Jeffrey: don’t have to record the podcast this week. I’m going to the beach.

[00:01:39] Brett: So I found, I found the, the style of music I want, uh, for the mental health corner. And I posted it in our discord. Let me just send you real quick. Um, copy link, and I’m gonna drop this in our chat and you guys can just hear this so that it puts you in the mood, uh, for, for what’s about to happen.

[00:02:06] Jeffrey: It depends on my mental health status.

[00:02:11] oh shoot. It went to a, oh, can you hear that? Sorry. But it actually, it went to a, I’m in Chrome so I’m not signed in, which it means I got this big ad and I was like, wow. Banging. Na na. Yeah. No, I’m doing pretty good. I was kind of depressed.

[00:02:27] Brett: it’s uh, it’s EMBAs and Cassinet.

[00:02:30] Jeffrey: I remember you sent me that

[00:02:31] Brett: Just with the cast and nets going. Um, can I tell you before we head into the mental health corner, I, uh, I did a guest spot, Rosemary was sick for, uh, automators with uh, David Sparks and he brought me in to fill in for Rosemary. And I went ahead and just told anyone who’s listening, cuz I’m used to, you know, our relatively modest listener numbers.

[00:03:04] I’m like, anyone who’s listening who wants into the n b ultra beta just, you know, drop me an email and. Holy shit. They have a lot of listeners, because I have, I have spent the last, I have spent the last five days just constantly fielding emails. Thank God for text expander and like, just like pu push pushing people towards like the private email, beta list, um, beta email list.

[00:03:33] But man, I, it, it’s, it’s, it’s fascinating to me that some shows have so much more appeal than we do. I feel like we’re very appealing. I just, I don’t understand why, why we don’t have that kind of audience.

[00:03:51] Jeffrey: Yeah, well it’s a very different kind of show. I mean, I feel like having listened to that show quite a long time, David established a sort of formula that um, is always met pretty precisely. And I think that as having been someone who listened for like a year or so, it was a phase in which I just wanted to hear people talk about that sort of thing.

[00:04:16] It was Mac Power users in this case. Right. Um, And the thing that can, that, that is interesting to me about podcasts, and this is in no way a critique of David Sparks or either of those shows. Um, is that like, how long can you do the formula before you feel like, oh, I just cycled through for the 50th time.

[00:04:39] Go to this app, go to this app, go to this app, go to this app, go to this type of thing,

[00:04:43] Brett: Yeah. Like, I mean the, his listenership is crazy.

[00:04:47] Christina: Yeah,

[00:04:48] Jeffrey: Well, Rosemary though, is, is someone who just brings things fresh every time. I feel like once Automators started going, it felt like with Rosemary, there’s just no end to what she can contribute, you know? Cuz she’s, I think she’s more actively like developing and playing and, you know, um, and so I think that’s a, that was a great call as a, as a cohos.

[00:05:12] Brett: would say that David bringing Rosemary on was equivalent to us bringing Jeff on

[00:05:19] Jeffrey: And it got you just as many new listeners, namely my friend Daniel

[00:05:26] Brett: Hi Dan

[00:05:28] Jeffrey: Um, well and another thing that’s interesting about that podcast to me is I think of it cuz I do still listen once in a while I kind of, I always check out to see what the topic is, although I have not looked to see that you were there. Um, listening to his podcast is almost like listening to the classic rock station where you’re like, I don’t really need this stuff anymore.

[00:05:46] But it’s kind of fun to hear this song once in a while.

[00:05:49] Christina: It, it, it, it, it’s nice.

[00:05:51] Brett: Play. Play Me the Hits.

[00:05:52] Christina: Yeah, exactly.

[00:05:53] Jeffrey: Play me the hits.

[00:05:54] Christina: it’s also, it’s like a, it’s like, it’s like comfort. It’s like comfort tv, you know what I

[00:05:58] Jeffrey: Yeah, totally.

[00:05:59] Christina: Like, just have it on the background. You’re like, even if I already know a lot of this stuff, and even if I’m not necessarily learning, um, maybe I am like, like a grant listens to old Car Talk episodes all the time.

[00:06:09] And like, that’s a show that has, you know, hasn’t been on the, uh, air, I don’t know how long, but they still, you know, re-release, um, episodes on, on npr, I think, uh, or maybe it’s just in their app, but, you know, um, one of the, one of the guys, one of the brothers passed away a few years ago and, and before that even they’d like retired.

[00:06:28] But like, that’s another example of a thing like that, you know, he can like listen to an old episode from like the nineties, you know, and still enjoy the banter and the trying to figure out what’s wrong with the car and, and all that stuff, you know? And I, I feel like that’s, that’s kind of similar with what you’re

[00:06:42] Brett: didn’t, didn’t cl click or clack. Didn’t one of them die?

[00:06:46] Christina: Yes, that’s what I said. Yeah. One of them died. Um, uh, and they’d stopped before that because I think he had, um, Alzheimer’s or

[00:06:53] Brett: Oh, that’s sad.

[00:06:54] Christina: It’s very sad. Yeah,

[00:06:55] Jeffrey: also, like, um, also like classic rock stations accidental tech podcast, which is one that I, I used to listen to Faith. Now when I put it on, it’s again like classic rock. I’m waiting for Van Halen to come on. And Van Halen in this case is John Syracuse. Like I just . I want to hear

[00:07:13] Brett: When are we gonna get Syracuse on

[00:07:15] Christina: we do. No, we do, we need to have him on, like, honestly, and, and this would be one where I would just be happy to just like sit back and let the man talk because,

[00:07:22] Jeffrey: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:23] Christina: know what I mean? Like,

[00:07:24] Jeffrey: the man critique

[00:07:25] Christina: yes.

[00:07:28] Brett: we’ll just, we’ll come up, we’ll come up with a prompt. We’ll just, we’ll, we’ll throw out a prompt and just let ’em go.

[00:07:34] Jeffrey: I’m a huge fan.

[00:07:35] Brett: I do that with Christina all the

[00:07:37] Jeffrey: a fantastic mind and, and delightful to listen to. Yeah.

[00:07:42] Brett: All right. So, uh,

Mental Health Corner

[00:07:44] Jeffrey: Oh, are we supposed to be playing our Mabas for Mental Health Corner?

[00:07:47] Brett: we’re just gonna have to imagine it for now, unless someone un, unless whoever’s editing this episode feels like in interjecting, we’re just gonna roll into imagine in your head. Fifties martini music, MABAS casts. Um, I’m not even gonna try to hum it. You, you know what I’m talking about.

[00:08:11] You know, you know, the genre, um, who, who, who wants to, who wants to do a mental health check-in?

[00:08:18] Jeffrey: Hmm.

[00:08:20] Brett: All right. Fine. I will.

[00:08:21] Christina: Okay.

[00:08:22] Brett: It has been over six weeks now since I had a manic episode, and I think that’s a good thing. Um, I, overall, I am, I haven’t been manic in a while, but I also, I feel like I’m finding that new stable that I’ve been talking about. Um, I’m not, I’m not suffering from most symptoms of depression.

[00:08:49] Um, I’m functioning at a higher level than, than I usually am in periods. Term stable. Um, and, and this feels like I might be finding a new normal. It’s still not the like, uh, energy level that I really would like to think normal could be for me. Um, I really am missing that like manic energy right now. I really, really want it, like to the point where I’m tempted to like go off my stimulants for a few days and

[00:09:26] Jeffrey: No way

[00:09:27] Brett: Start ’em back up just to like trigger. Yeah. But I’m, I’m being smart. I’m being smart. I’m not doing that. But, um, I’m, I, there’s still, there are still things I need to figure out before I can consider this sustainable because my, my personality will try to train, wreck this pretty quickly, um, and, and try to get back to a creative space that I feel like I’m lacking.

[00:09:54] So that’s kinda where I’m at. I’m, I’m doing all right. Uh, my, my, the leader of my group at work got, they call it rift reduction in force.

[00:10:08] Jeffrey: Rift.

[00:10:09] Brett: she got Rift, uh, taken away from us, um, and left us in kind of a lurch and, and because it was a rift, they can’t just replace her job position. So now we’re all reporting to one level higher, and it’s a new guy they brought in from Microsoft and none of us know him yet.

[00:10:32] And, uh, we have a whole bunch of, everything’s very uncertain. Like we don’t know what the situation’s gonna be. We don’t know if what we’re doing now is going to continue.

[00:10:44] Jeffrey: many management changes does that make for you in just a little over a year? I think.

[00:10:48] Brett: Uh, 3, 3, 3 major management shifts in the year I’ve been at Oracle. Um, and I guess this is just kind of par for the course. I haven’t been in corporate America for a long time, but.

[00:11:02] Christina: Uh, it’s a lot, but I’m trying to think. I mean, I think I had five one year, so. Five or six. But that was, that was a crazy, like, that was a ridiculous situation, um, in all those cases. And so, and I, I’m not like defending it in any way. So three is a lot, three major ones. And, and in those cases, I was at least still in the same team.

[00:11:25] Like, we didn’t have, like,

[00:11:26] Brett: Yeah.

[00:11:27] Christina: well, one time I did get reorged, but, but, but like, I was still, even then, I was still like in the same group. Whereas it seems like you’ve had a, a different reporting structure and some other different things happen.

[00:11:38] Brett: The interesting thing has been that I have stayed in the same group the whole time, but every, everyone else in the group has moved. So my, I’m, I’m in the same group, but with all new people,

[00:11:50] Christina: what I mean. Yeah. So, so, so, so it’s, it’s effectively the same thing. Whereas with

[00:11:55] Brett: Yeah. It’s.

[00:11:55] Christina: there were some changes, but for the most part it wasn’t like I had like a new, you know, like I had new colleagues, you know what I mean? So,

[00:12:04] Jeffrey: Wow, man. Corporate gigs.

[00:12:08] Brett: Right.

[00:12:09] Christina: Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s a whole other, uh, it’s a whole other universe. It’s, it’s hard to kind of explain, like, if you haven’t worked in it, then going into it for people who haven’t had that, especially, you know, someone like you, Jeff, who like you’ve worked in, in journalism, which even corporate journalism is still different than like, uh, corporate jobs, I think in most cases.

[00:12:28] Like, maybe it’s different if you worked at like a very, like, buttoned up organization,

[00:12:33] Jeffrey: for me it’s, I have some of that experience cause I’m kind of like a special teams guy, , you know, and those are the ones that get the managers swept out, you know, switched out

[00:12:41] Christina: Oh, totally. Totally. Yeah. But, but, but,

[00:12:43] Jeffrey: not barely at all. I’ve had that experience once.

[00:12:46] Christina: but you’ve also, because you’re special teams, you’re kind of like, you know, that you’re kind of like the get in, get out kind of guy, right? Like that’s kind of like part of the gig, right? Is that it’s, you know, you go in or, or you’re working on your thing and, and you know, it can change around you.

[00:12:59] Um, At least, at least that, that’s how I felt about it. It’s like the uncertainty or the chaos is kind of like a feature, not a bug in some

[00:13:08] Jeffrey: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:09] Christina: Whereas in theory, I think in, in corporate life, although the number of reorgs that big companies have, it’s crazy. You think that you’re doing it for the stability and then you kind of realize once you’re in it, oh no, there’s not, like there’s, people wonder sometimes, like how w with really large organizations, and, and I’m going to be generalizing here, but I think this is probably true, uh, largely, but, but it is still a generalization.

[00:13:36] Like people wonder, like, why does it take big companies so long to introduce new things or to do stuff? And this is why, because when you. You know, a hundred thousand people or whatever in an organization, you’re going to have a natural attrition of talent. You’re going to have new people coming in and out with different strategies who want to do their own way of doing things and have their brilliant idea of wanting to restructure stuff.

[00:13:57] And every time you have a reorganization, and then people have to like get back up to speed and figure out what they’re doing. And like, that takes time. And like that, that leads to delays and, and stuff getting released. Like that’s, that’s why historically, I mean not, not always, but historically why larger companies are slower to respond to things than smaller ones because they’re just, you know, so much like it when you’re trying to turn something like that.

[00:14:23] Especially if you do it multiple times, you have a lot of people who are just kind of getting paid to sit around and not really know what they’re doing.

[00:14:28] Jeffrey: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Right, right, right. uh, Brett, you brought that up as part of your mental health check-in, is that, I can’t remember how it, how we got into it.

[00:14:39] Brett: Yeah, well, so my mental health right now is very much wrapped in, wrapped up in this stress of being required, like we’re on two week sprints now, where we have to produce new content every two weeks and. Like that is hugely taxing on my mental health because I just, I, I, it’s, it’s very laborious to me.

[00:15:03] Jeffrey: how do those kinds of posts perform?

[00:15:05] Brett: I mean, we, we have a ton of like tutorial content that is useful and evergreen, but ultimately not high traffic properties.

[00:15:18] Uh, it’s a whole, a whole ecosystem of tutorial content. That’s great. If you’re searching for the exact term that it’s about, uh, you’ll find it, but it’s not exactly like announce it on the social channels and it’s people swarming to read it.

[00:15:35] Christina: right? No. And, and that’s not really the goal. I mean, I think usually the goal of that content is one, yes, if you can get your SEO good enough with some of your keywords, people can find it and you can cut down on support costs. But usually the bigger thing is like when you have, um, partners, uh, and meaning like sales teams and ecosystems trying to find solutions for people and, and, and they’re trying to integrate stuff, like, it’s useful to have those examples and that tutorial stuff there when people are trying to figure things out.

[00:16:01] Cuz the people who are, you know, really trying to implement stuff, or maybe they’re, again, consultants, it’s really common. They go in, they go out of something and they’re like, okay, I need to implement this. All right, what does your documentation say? And, and that’s, um, going to, in some ways maybe save the, the, the partner teams from having to create one off content that doesn’t live anywhere else or have any longer standing purpose.

[00:16:26] Brett: have I told you what Warp is doing? The terminal warp?

[00:16:30] Jeffrey: yeah, yeah. You are, you’re writing for them,

[00:16:32] Brett: Yeah.

[00:16:32] Jeffrey: I just watched a long tutorial

[00:16:34] Christina: I love

[00:16:34] Jeffrey: kind of fell in love.

[00:16:36] Brett: they’re, they’re creating content. They’re doing like the SEO research to figure out what people.

[00:16:44] Jeffrey: And just for the listeners out there, that search engine Occultism,

[00:16:47] Brett: exactly. Seo. Um, they’re, they’re figuring out exactly what, what terminal users are trying to figure out, and they’re building content around that. And it’s not even warp specific like the content they’re building. It, it, it very clearly answers the question. For example, how do I do recursive change mod, uh, and how do I use the change mod command recursively?

[00:17:14] And any search for that is gonna wind up on this Terminus page they’ve created, which then links to warp and it’s great content. They’re doing a really good job of creating good content. Like that’s what anyone, that’s the content is king philosophy,

[00:17:31] Christina: No, it works. That’s the digital lotion approach. Like, that’s what, uh, which I guess really was the slice host approach, um, which was, you know, creating really good tutorials that were genuinely great, whether you’re using digital lotion or not. And then that bolts an affinity, builds brand awareness.

[00:17:47] You see the site a number of times and you’re going, Hey, I need a V Ps. Who am I gonna try? I imagine that the similar thing will happen with Warp. Hey, I, I’m looking at a new terminal tool, you know, maybe, maybe this isn’t enough. What should I try? Oh, well, you know what? This, this, this warp stuff has been really useful.

[00:18:01] Let me give that a shot.

[00:18:03] Brett: Yeah. I think it’s really smart.

[00:18:05] Jeffrey: And like, I mean, a really, my like, small example is setup, started doing, you know, how do you clean install, you know, when there’s a new operating system then there you are. I, I was wondering if you two probably understand this better than me, but in terms of seo, so if a, if a, if a company that’s making a terminal, that’s the main thing they’re doing right?

[00:18:22] Um, is also posting on all this stuff that is Unix based or whatever else. Does the fact that they at the top level are a terminal site, give them extra SEO juice when then they have things about change modification and stuff like that? I don’t, how does that occultism work in that case?

[00:18:39] Christina: I have no idea.

[00:18:40] Brett: It’s fucking black magic to

[00:18:41] Jeffrey: I know, man, Danny Sullivan’s here with

[00:18:44] Christina: Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna say Danny Sullivan would know, uh, I think he’s, I think he went to Google, actually, but, uh, but yeah, no, he would know. I have no idea. Although I do know that that’s something like Microsoft struggled with a lot and um, GitHub I think does a better job. And Microsoft had a whole team where they have a whole team involved, but how good they were, I think depends on what product they’re working at.

[00:19:05] But we had things where then this was sort of embarrassing. Like I remember one time like, maybe I shouldn’t say this. Nah, fuck it, I’ll say it. Um, we were. You know, writing, you know, um, cause we helped a lot with documentation and Azure stuff and, and a guy on our team, Thomas, who he’s no longer a developer advocate, but he still works at Microsoft.

[00:19:21] He’s on one of the product teams. He was an mvp, uh, when we hired him. And MVPs are basically like, they’re kind of like community members who are maybe given early access to things. What they, they help out in the community and, and they, you know, um, uh, are kind of like our, our superfans uh, developers. Um, Google has, has a program to, GitHub has one, most, most companies have these sorts of programs.

[00:19:47] And his blog, because he continued blogging after he got the job, would often rank higher than the official documentation when you would be searching for how to do something in Azure. Like, it was crazy that his blog would rank naturally higher in, in SERP than the freaking docs would. And I was, and I, I, like, I was trying to, I, I like.

[00:20:08] We were, we were talking about the problems with that one time, and I wasn’t on the SEO team, but I kind of like went off on it. I was in a group meeting and I was like, you cannot say that the SEO team has it together. When Thomas’s blog ranks higher consistently, it’s like clearly,

[00:20:21] Jeffrey: Hm.

[00:20:21] Brett: the authority score for my personal blog is insane. Like if I write about a topic for a company I’m working for, my post will show up ahead in Google and in duck dot go. Um, there’s something like I have built a trust score. I don’t understand how all of these scores work, but like my, my blog, if it matches the right keywords, I can rank higher than major corporations and it’s kind of nuts.

[00:20:55] Christina: That’s cool.

[00:20:57] Jeffrey: We’ve seen it happen when, uh, we’ve been working together and trying to solve some problem, and you search something and you’re

[00:21:02] Christina: and then you find like Brett’s

[00:21:03] Jeffrey: I wrote about this

[00:21:05] Christina: oh yeah, I wrote about this. Here’s where it is. I

[00:21:07] Jeffrey: it’s also kind of what happened to you by going on automators, right? Like it, it, that’s a much more direct, kind of mechanical version of what happens with seo, but it’s just like that authority score.

[00:21:17] I forgot about that. I remember back in the day, uh, we were always like, I, when I worked at a magazine, Always shooting to get like a, a laughing squid, uh, link or like, you know,

[00:21:27] Christina: Oh yeah.

[00:21:28] Jeffrey: maybe obviously

[00:21:29] Christina: the Holy Grail. Yeah. The holy Grail was, is always, was always, um, if you could get a, um, a Drudge Report link.

[00:21:37] Brett: Sure.

[00:21:38] Jeffrey: Oh yeah, I got those. Hell

[00:21:40] Christina: yeah. Those, those,

[00:21:41] Jeffrey: a major source of traffic from my blog,

[00:21:43] Christina: yeah. Are you fucking kidding me? If you can get a Drudge, drudge link, like

[00:21:47] Brett: Do you remember

[00:21:48] Christina: wow. Yes. Uh, R

[00:21:51] Jeffrey: I had a falling out with Dig when I was a magazine editor. I realized that they were try, I realized, and this was just so naive of me, but I realized that in our conversations to talk about how we might use dig, and this was already in like third generation dig in like 2011 or something.

[00:22:07] Maybe it was second generation dig, but it took me a long time to realize that the, what they were suggesting was that I’d pay them to show up higher in their results. Which like, I was so naive about it that I was like, I refused to do this. I like got super punk rock. I’m like, fuck no man, I trust dig links,

[00:22:24] It was a very ugly argument.

[00:22:26] Christina: funny.

[00:22:26] Jeffrey: But, or like Buzzfeed was like that before they got super scammy, uh, you know, like ad wise. Um, that, that used to really matter, man.

[00:22:35] Brett: have either of you ever been fire balled?

[00:22:37] Jeffrey: When Gruber gets you.

[00:22:39] Christina: your site goes down.

[00:22:40] Jeffrey: Yeah, no, I was never writing on that stuff.

[00:22:42] Brett: had, I’ve had a couple of blogs crashed by Fireballs.

[00:22:47] Christina: personal blog, um, stuff that you’ve written about, You know, um, for, for two or Mashable or Gizmoto have been linked, but never my personal stuff, which thank God, although that would’ve, that would’ve always been a goal, right? Like, that would’ve been great, but Yeah. But being Fireball or like, uh, what was it slash out effect that I think that was the

[00:23:05] Jeffrey: Oh slash Jesus.

[00:23:06] Christina: effect.

[00:23:06] And now it’s like the Hacker News, you know, thing or, yeah,

[00:23:10] Brett: Yeah. But I, I have found in general, blogs are more resilient these days. Getting a Hacker News link will rarely

[00:23:18] Jeffrey: Although I will

[00:23:19] Brett: a blog.

[00:23:20] Jeffrey: that it is so mu, it is very much common that you go to one of the top hacker news things and you go to that blog and there’s a paragraph just like, sorry, wasn’t expecting that traffic things are a little crazy right now.

[00:23:32] Christina: Yeah. There’s like, I’m sorry, this is just a static page because I didn’t know. Stop yelling at me. Nerds.

[00:23:39] Jeffrey: I did the right her thing. I made a static page. Uh, yeah. That is good stuff. Anyone else wanna mental health?

[00:23:46] Christina: Um, I kind of wanna talk about this, but I kind of don’t. It’s sort of, um, my, my mother-in-law’s, uh, health is not, um, good right now at all. And, um, and so, um, grant is really struggling with that, and I’m really trying to be supportive, but, um, I’m sure I’ll have like more things to say about that, um, as things progress.

[00:24:09] But, uh, that’s, that’s kind of been like a, a topic. It is a hard thing. And, um, uh, you know, she’s been in declining health for a while, but, you know, she, I think everybody is now realizing, you know, that, that, that the end is, is coming and, and it, that’s difficult.

[00:24:25] Brett: Let’s talk about your mental health in this though. Do you find it, do you find it difficult to be supportive of someone else in a situation that doesn’t maybe directly affect you, like it’s not your mom? Uh, so you have empathy or, or sympathy, uh, for Grant. Do you find it difficult to be the, I I’m asking not because of any judgment on you, because I do personally myself find it difficult to be a really good partner in situations like

[00:24:59] Christina: Yeah, no, I, no, I struggle cuz I don’t know exactly what to do. Right? Like, there’s a feeling of of helplessness of of, of not knowing exactly what to do because my instinct always is to try to solve a solution and, and fix things. And there’s not much I can do here. Right? Like we are, you know, 2,500, we’re 3000 miles away.

[00:25:20] And, um, you know, he, he has a flight out that he’s going to go see her. I, I really pushed him to go see her. I’m, I’m glad that I did like, book him a flight for Thanksgiving. He wasn’t going to go. And I was just like, no, you’re going. And, and I went to Atlanta and he went to Jacksonville. Um, and, and he saw his mom and, and that was really good.

[00:25:39] And he’s, he’s flying. Next week. And I think his, his flight is, is for two weeks. And, um, I’ll probably join him for, for a day or, or, or or two. Um, but I won’t be there the whole time. Um, but, and, and obviously I’ve, and I’ve told him like, look, if, if something, you know, changes suddenly, you know, we’re on a plane as soon as that needs to happen.

[00:26:01] And, and I’ll be there like regardless. But yeah, I, I, I, I struggle because in this case, their relationship is, is better than the relationship that he had when he, when, when, when his dad died. That was really difficult. And, and, um, I wasn’t as good of a partner as, as I think he needed me to be. But I was as good of a partner as I, as I could be at that time.

[00:26:24] But I, I really didn’t know what to do in that time. Cause I, I’d met his dad twice and he and his dad had a really complicated relationship and I wanted to be supportive, but. I didn’t know how to be in, in the way that would be useful to him. I think I can be more helpful here because I know his mom, I love his mom.

[00:26:41] And, um, this is, um, it, it’s just, it’s a different situ. He and his mom have a different relationship. It’s just a little bit different scenario. But yeah, like you, I still struggle. I don’t know exactly what to do and like, you know, um, what, you know, like, yeah, it, it’s, it’s, it’s a challenge because like I, I know, um, how to be supportive, like with my mom.

[00:27:06] Like when, when her parents died and when her sister died, like I, I knew what to do. Um, even though, you know, I, I didn’t know what to do, but I knew how to be supportive. I knew me. Just being there was, was enough support. But in a situation like this, there is a lot of uncertainty and then confusion and then you don’t wanna make it about you because it’s not about you, but you wanna be supportive.

[00:27:30] But then, you know, there’s also. You know, the, the, the grief that even though she’s not my mom, you know, you go through as well. So it’s just, it’s, it’s a, it’s a struggle.

[00:27:39] Brett: Yeah, because it’s not a lack of empathy. Like you feel it, I can see it in your face right now. You’re feeling this and you’re, and you’re relating it to all of your own personal experiences. But I, yeah, I, I hear what you are saying. I would say in my experience, Jeff is way better than the two of us

[00:27:59] Christina: I agree.

[00:28:00] Brett: at, at this kind of

[00:28:02] Christina: I totally

[00:28:02] Jeffrey: am not. I am not,

[00:28:04] Brett: Jeff, Jeff. Jeff Will, when Jeff knows that something is up for either of us, he will check in just randomly.

[00:28:12] Christina: you do it so well. Like, like, okay. Like I’m in a situation right now, which is very different from grants, but I’m also kind of struggling with, and, and I’m, I’m, the way I’m handling that I think is the right way, but I don’t know, is, is, is a friend of mine’s father, um, Right before Thanksgiving, went into the hospital, um, completely unexpected and turned out that he had some sort of, um, autoimmune thing and, um, he’s not gonna make it.

[00:28:38] And, and, uh, is completely unexpected. And, um, and she’s, she’s younger than me, so like, this is a total shock. And I, I don’t even know what to, and, and she and I like, were friends with like, not super close, right? So like, I don’t even know what to say to this. It’s, it’s similar. Um, a a girl I worked with very closely for years, her husband died unexpectedly over the summer while she was, while the f whole family was on vacation, he had like a, it was awful, awful right before her, her, um, her youngest, uh, second birthday, like, just fucking terrible.

[00:29:11] Like, I, I cannot imagine a worse scenario in my life. Right? And, and I reached out to her a lot and, and donated money and have continued to check in and, and, and share things with her and talk. But like, I don’t even know what to, but what do you even say? What do you even do? Like, how do you even be like a person there and, and, and, and it’s, you know, you, you wanna be supportive, but for me, I’m just like, I, you know, I want people to know that I care that I’m there for them, but like, what do you even say?

[00:29:40] What do you even, or should you say anything? You know, like, I don’t

[00:29:44] Jeffrey: I, my, um, I, two years ago or so, I found my mom nearly dead on her bedroom floor. Uh, and she had been unconscious for like three days and was in a coma for like two weeks. And, um, and I’m an only child and she’s single, so it was just really me there. I mean, she has tons of siblings, Catholic family and everything, but like, this isn’t necessarily even super helpful, but I’ll say that, like with the two things that I realized being on the other side of things, I, I hadn’t been in something so dire before, you know?

[00:30:20] Um, it was not clear she was gonna live and all this stuff. And, uh, and she’s fine now. Um, But anyway, people that texted me or called me and left a message and said, there is no pressure to respond. I just wanna say, I’m thinking of you, da, da, da. Right? Like that line, no pressure to respond. You don’t need to respond, I just want you to know whatever.

[00:30:42] Like, there were two different kinds of people really, that, that, that message me or phone or called me One, were the people that said that. And the other were people that just got a little too involved, you know? Um, wanted to relate my story to their story, wanted to, you know, whatever. And I’m, I was just, my brain was just

[00:31:00] Christina: not there. Absolutely.

[00:31:01] Jeffrey: I don’t wanna talk right now, , and I’m not, this is not this, this trauma is not an invitation for yours.

[00:31:07] Christina: Exactly. Well, no. Well, well, no. Well, that, well, that, that’s always the thing. Right? And, and I actually, it’s funny you say that. I said that exactly to Samantha. I was like, you like when her husband died? I was like, you do not need to respond to me. I just want you to know I’m thinking of you. But, but, sorry, sorry.

[00:31:20] Go on. So,

[00:31:20] Jeffrey: No, I think that’s powerful. And then the other one is, is fucking GrubHub cards. Uh, Uber Eats cards, whatever, like I know do. So I, even just recently, we had a little medical thing in our family and there were a couple people that just sent us those cards and man eaten off of a card. Um, somehow, even though you don’t really give a shit that you’re spending money, right, in a certain sense, but it’s just such a nice, easy thing that feels like way more than you’d think it would.

[00:31:47] You know, I would’ve never guessed until I had that experience. And so now I try to like, you know, throw, throw a card their way, get some people to put money on it, whatever that, and just saying, you don’t need to respond, but I’m thinking of

[00:31:59] Brett: I do better with people going through grief. I have had enough people reach out to me and help me with grief that I actually have learned how to appropriately help someone with grief. And in exactly the way you’re talking about, like, not making it my own, but like offering like, Hey, I, I, I know what you’re going through.

[00:32:22] Here’s, uh, a book or a GrubHub guard or et cetera. And, and then I’m gonna leave you alone and, and if you wanna reach out, I’m here for you. It’s when people are going through, uh, end of life stuff, when people are going through major medical situations with loved ones that I’m not as good. . Like, I don’t, I don’t know how to be there for them without being in the way.

[00:32:52] And it, it’s, it’s, it’s tough for me. I don’t know why.

[00:32:56] Jeffrey: I feel like it’s the same, it’s the same advice. Like

[00:32:59] Christina: Yeah, that’s

[00:33:00] Jeffrey: I ha having been only on the side of my mom, like basically I didn’t know if she was gonna be a vegetable or whate, whatever. Like, I, I was realizing constantly like, wow, this doesn’t feel like I thought it would, this doesn’t feel like, I assume people feel when they’re going through this, you know, you, you still feel just enough like yourself that again, a thing, like a meal card or just a note like, Hey, I’m just thinking of you really pops through.

[00:33:25] Christina: Oh no, it is because, cause it is, well, I mean, if anything like, like for instance like with Grant’s mom Grant is a little bit different. Like I feel like I can, I can probably help. Or do do the right things, you know, to, to my friend who, you know is, is losing her father. Like, that’s awful. Um, but, but I feel like I can be supportive in the right way.

[00:33:45] Is there, it’s, it’s difficult when it’s like your partner because it, it, it, it just, it it is,

[00:33:51] Jeffrey: God, totally. Yeah. And I don’t mean to be addressing it

[00:33:53] Christina: Oh no. Oh, I know, I know you don’t. I know, I know you are. I’m just saying like, for me, I think I struggle with that. But to your point, like it is still grief, right? Like, because when you’re watching someone decline, you know what’s coming.

[00:34:05] And even if they get better, it’s still grieving for like, you’re still going through that process because you don’t know what’s going to happen next. Right? Like

[00:34:13] Brett: sense.

[00:34:14] Jeffrey: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

[00:34:15] Brett: can’t send them teardrop soup until someone has passed.

[00:34:19] Christina: it Exactly. Right. That’s the thin