337: The DevRel Episode

The DevRel Episode

[00:00:00] Christina: Hello, you’re listening to Overtired. That’s right. There was not an error in your podcast feed. Uh, we are actually back with another episode. I’m Christina Warren, joined as always by Brett Terpstra. Jeff Severins Gunzel could not be with us this week, but that means that we are with, back with one of our very favorite guests, um, uh, your friend and mine, Mr.

[00:00:25] Christina: Jay Miller. Jay, welcome back!

[00:00:28] Jay: It, uh, getting on here the first time felt like a fluke, and now, now I just feel like I’ve, I’ve, I’m on to something.

[00:00:37] Brett: Do we have a new co host? If, if, if, if Jeff ever, if Jeff ever bows out, we’ll give you a call.

[00:00:44] Jay: as, as long as we don’t have to go through voting like 57 times to elect me as the, the new Overtired speaker,

[00:00:54] Brett: Yeah. Christina, Christina is part of the Freedom Caucus. She’s gonna, she’s gonna block [00:01:00] your, uh, your, uh, nomination every time.

[00:01:02] Christina: That’s exactly what it’s going to be. I’m going to be like, no, look, there, there are too many Atlanta people now. And so

[00:01:08] Jay: I love it.

[00:01:10] Brett: So, uh. We, just fair warning, we may be off again next week, but then we’re going to get back into a weekly, uh, uh, session again and try to stick with weekly episodes moving forward. We had a, we had a very extended summer break.

[00:01:31] Christina: we did and we needed it. It was, it was, it was okay. Like, honestly, since the pandemic, uh, Brett, we’ve been insanely consistent. Like, like, like we’ve had a couple of like dips and dots that were big in there. But given the fact that we once went, I think, 14 months between episodes, I think that having like a few weeks away for our longtime loyal listeners, and thank you very much to those of you who’ve listened to us for a long time, um, Um, we were good actually at the top of that, [00:02:00] when I was at, um, all Things Open a few weeks ago, uh, I ran into Cullen, um, who told me that, um, Brett and, and I had gotten him through some really tough times and that was like the nicest thing that anybody has ever just like walked up and told me.

[00:02:15] Christina: And so Cullen, I, I don’t know if you’re listening or not, uh, I don’t know if you still listen, but the fact that I had an overtired listener come up to me at all, things open and I had overtired hadn’t even been on in a while. And I hadn’t even announced that like I was gonna be there. Like that was the nicest and coolest and, uh, like most affirming thing.

[00:02:31] Christina: So

[00:02:32] Brett: Yeah, that always, that always feels good. Um, as someone who over shares constantly, um, I get, I get a fair number of emails. Um, at least weekly, sometimes multiple days in a row of people just saying, Hey, you, you made my life easier. You made it easier for me to talk about my mental health at my job. You made it easier for me to talk to my family about my mental health.

[00:02:59] Brett: And [00:03:00] yeah, there’s a, there’s a place for us. We have, we have a purpose in the world.

[00:03:07] Christina: There’s a place for nerdy geeks who really like to talk about automation and, um, nerd tools, uh, pop culture and, uh, and mental health. So yay.

[00:03:16] Mental Health Corner

[00:03:16] Brett: Speaking of mental health, should we kick off a mental health corner?

[00:03:21] Christina: We should do it. We should do it.

[00:03:23] Brett: Um, I, I can go, but I want to open the floor to Jay. Jay, do you want to kick off the mental health corner?

[00:03:32] Jay: yeah, let’s, let’s talk about this. So, um, all of us have this fun role that we call DevRel. Um, no one really knows what it is. I love how every interview starts off with, how do you define

[00:03:49] Christina: Yes. Thank you. So funny.

[00:03:52] Jay: a large part of that for me was being out in the community and just hanging out with people. And, um, for those [00:04:00] that don’t know me, hi, I’m Jay, I’m black, and my voice sometimes does not show that.

[00:04:05] Jay: Um, but, the other side of that is, I go to these conferences and I play this game of, like, how many fingers do I need to count the number of black people at conferences with me? Um, Usually it’s the single digit ones where I don’t go back, but, uh, I’m, I’m happy because I’ve been on the conference scene again lately.

[00:04:28] Jay: Um, two weeks ago I was in Durham, North Carolina for DjangoCon US. Uh, that’s a Python web framework conference and like got to hang out with. I think we had like 30, not 30, sorry, wrong conference, about like 12, 15 like black folks there, which for a 200 person conference, that’s actually a higher number than you’d expect, um, but then, but the other side of that was [00:05:00] I started this community because I was tired of being the only person there called Black Python Devs.

[00:05:06] Jay: We got to have our first in person meetup at that event. And it was so cool to be like, at an ice cream parlor with folks from, you know, different parts of Africa, different parts of the US, Latin America, and just be like, Yo, we came here for ice cream, but also to like just hug each other and be like we exist There are a lot of spider man meme photos Being taken and no we don’t all look alike, but that’s okay But then I got to go to like the reverse polar of that which is refactor tech, which is like a conference in Atlanta Designed for like, this is a space where no shits are given.

[00:05:50] Jay: Like everyone is like, we’re here. We’re here to address these things that happen. Kim Creighton was one of the keynotes, like, um, and I got to give a talk that I’ve [00:06:00] been thinking about for almost a year now, which was called Python versus hip hop, how we can remix code, community, and culture, and. Just the compliments that I got were like so fantastic.

[00:06:15] Jay: So I feel like I’m on cloud nine right now just because I’ve had two of the best conference experiences I’ve had in my career. Um, and they just happened to happen like back to back. And then next week I get to go to GitHub universe and hang out with super awesome, cool people. So like. This has been a good conference season for me mentally.

[00:06:37] Christina: That’s so great. That’s, that’s really, really, I’m, I’m glad to hear that. And I hope, I, I, I don’t know, I’m afraid that GitHub Universe is not going to have the sort of, like, I, I, it’ll be more than one hand. But I, I don’t know, like, what our diversity stats will be for, for the attendees there. I hope on the community track we’ll have more people there.

[00:06:56] Christina: But, um, yeah.

[00:06:59] Jay: I’ll [00:07:00] get to hang out with some of my co workers that I’ve worked with for two years and never gotten to meet in person, so I’ll probably just be focusing a lot on that.

[00:07:08] Christina: Yeah, yeah, but definitely, like, give us, legit, like, give us your feedback, not, and I, and I know you will, like, in terms of what you see and what not on that, because we talk a big game about that stuff, and, and I don’t know If we always do as good of a job as we can, um, although like on my immediate team, um, you know, we’ve done better than, um, a lot of other places that I’ve worked in terms of actually looking at like hiring diverse people.

[00:07:31] Christina: And by that, I don’t just mean black people. Um, and, uh, but you know, we can always do better. So, um, I am glad to know that there were that many people, uh, at the, uh, the, the DjangoCon, like that’s, that’s really. Like, good to hear.

[00:07:48] Jay: Yeah, I interviewed that organization team and they were just like, we’ve been working on this for ten years. Um, But I think the challenging part with that is, I then ask them a very [00:08:00] easy question. Hey, North Carolina A& T is 20 minutes away, did you reach out to them? And North Carolina A& T, for those that don’t know, historically black college and university.

[00:08:08] Jay: One of the largest, like, collectives of black education, like, pursuers and leaders. And they’re just like, awww. Missed an opportunity there. And it’s, it’s, it’s one of those things that like Brett knows I am absolutely not shy about getting up somewhere and being like, where the hell are the black people at?

[00:08:28] Jay: And they like sitting there in, in their confusion. And in the end, it’s just like, Oh, if you actually try, you get results. But also don’t be happy with your results. There’s always ways that you can improve.

[00:08:44] Christina: Right. Right. No, I mean, and that’s the thing, right? And, and I think actually you bring up a good point on the education front. Cause I run into this, um, with, or I ran into this at Microsoft. I don’t know if this is the case at GitHub and I, I’m not going to pretend it’s, I don’t know if it’s still the same case at Microsoft now, [00:09:00] but when I would talk to our, like our, uh, our student team and like kind of like people who are trying to do recruit, recruitment and trying to, you know, bring in like more people from more diverse backgrounds.

[00:09:09] Christina: I would often be like, okay, so why are all the colleges that we’re focusing on, like you say you want to do this, but you’re not going to a lot of historically black colleges and universities, you’re not going to a lot of, like, uh, you know, public universities that might have, like, good schools but, like, diverse backgrounds, like, you’re still focused on your very, like, Elite number of schools and, and then the University of Washington, because it’s local.

[00:09:33] Christina: Um, like, do you, do you not understand why that’s a problem for your pipeline? Because you’re only looking at places that if you look at, you know, A, the number of students they have, which is usually small, and B, the percentages of, you know, people who are like, not white or Asian, who are like, Students there do not understand, and male for the most part in the engineering schools, do not understand why, like, this is why this is [00:10:00] the only people that you say you can hire.

[00:10:03] Christina: Like, because you’re literally only looking at, you’re still focusing on, on these specific institutions, even though every single study shows that that doesn’t really determine the outcome of success for people, uh, by any means.

[00:10:18] Jay: Can I shamelessly promote something that I made like two years ago? So I created this list pulled from the department of education’s like data set. And it’s just called HBCU list. It’s a GitHub repo. And all it is is sorted out by state, every single historically black college and university, or primarily black institution, which just means that they have a, like more than.

[00:10:40] Jay: Large percentage of black students. Like I’m, I’m sharing this with, uh, the Python software foundation for this year. We’re going to be in Pittsburgh for PyCon US and like the goal is literally. Pittsburgh, surrounding states, finding every single school on this list and at least just inviting them and saying here are some free [00:11:00] tickets.

[00:11:00] Jay: Like, it’s driving distance, you can come. Like, if you need to get a hotel, we have grants available. Like, it’s… It always amazes me how like, these little actions, you get like two or three people to show up and then the next year like 20 show up. So just, just doing something and yeah, feel free to use this list.

[00:11:20] Jay: It’s, I mean, I stole it from the Department of Education. And I only say stole because this, the link that I got this from is no longer available. So I wonder if they want this out there.

[00:11:31] Christina: Well, I mean,

[00:11:33] Brett: Minnesota has zero historically black institutions.

[00:11:38] Jay: That makes sense though. I mean, most of them are in the southeast. They kind of move north. I feel like the further west you go, the harder it is to find them, but if they don’t have any PBI’s, then that, I mean, yeah, that, that also kind of makes sense, but

[00:11:56] Brett: Yeah,

[00:11:57] Jay: think Minneapolis would have

[00:11:58] Brett: I would think [00:12:00] so,

[00:12:00] Jay: Yeah.

[00:12:01] Brett: but we do like compared to Atlanta, like we have no black people compared to Atlanta. Um, it’s, you know, there is a, there is a population. There’s a, there’s a whole George Floyd incident. I don’t know if you heard about that.

[00:12:19] Jay: Oh yeah. I heard about that.

[00:12:21] Christina: yeah, I

[00:12:21] Brett: a historically racist police department in Minneapolis.

[00:12:26] Brett: I don’t know if you’re familiar with this at all, but

[00:12:29] Jay: Yeah. Uh, no, it’s, it’s not ringing a bell. Um, I,

[00:12:34] Brett: I’ll send you some links. It’ll be fine.

[00:12:37] Christina: Washington also, not surprisingly, does not have any historically Black colleges or universities. We’re not as racist as Oregon, but, I mean, that’s a small bar, but we are very close to Oregon. So, you know.

[00:12:52] Jay: I feel like that should be on the state flag somewhere.

[00:12:55] Christina: Yeah, not as racist as Oregon. Like, we weren’t literally created [00:13:00] as a state to, like, have no black people, so, you know, slightly better there, but, yeah.

[00:13:07] Brett: Alright. Is that what you got, Jay?

[00:13:09] Jay: That’s what I got.

[00:13:10] Brett: Alright. Christina, do you want to go or should I?

[00:13:13] Christina: Uh, you go ahead and go. I’ll finish up.

[00:13:16] Brett: So, I’m currently looking for a new therapist. Um, I don’t dislike my current therapist, but what I really want to do is internal family systems therapy, and she has decided she is not qualified. to do that. She, like, she started researching, she started reading books, and ultimately realized it would take 80 hours of online training to get certified as an IFS therapist, and that just wasn’t feasible for her.

[00:13:47] Brett: So we’ve been looking around at options. In the meantime, I can, I’m continuing doing CBD with her, um, but, uh, I’ve been contacting I have [00:14:00] contacted 12 therapists, uh, in the state, uh, for telehealth sessions. And I have one that has a two month waiting list, which is fine. That’s, that’s not a big deal. Um, but everyone else is like, we’re not taking new clients and we.

[00:14:21] Brett: Don’t foresee ever taking new clients or like, we can’t tell you when we’ll actually be able to take new clients again. Um, so I have, I have one, I have one hope for IFS. Uh, in the meantime, I’m working with my current therapist. We’re kind of using IFS language, which is like for anyone unfamiliar, like, IFS is this idea that you have all of these parts within you that are often frozen at various points in time and, and they can take, uh, like, um, uh, [00:15:00] guard roles.

[00:15:01] Brett: in your forefront personality and, and can bring forward beliefs maybe that you don’t have, uh, like as your actual self and can make noise and, and react to things in a way that isn’t true to who you actually are. Um, and you deal with them by showing compassion, talking to these individual parts and Integrating them into your true self, uh, so that with the ultimate goal of acting from true self, which is like a compassionate, uh, uh, reasonable human being, which is what I want to be, um, And I, it’s, there’s parts of it that sound like a lot of woo to me.

[00:15:51] Brett: Um, but also when I read about like what the goals of it are, it’s something I do really want. So I [00:16:00] am exploring finding an IFS therapist to go through this with me. Um, that said, I have found. My loudest voice is this little Christian boy that seems to be frozen around the age of 10. And he has a checklist of all of the things I do that are going to condemn me to hell.

[00:16:25] Brett: And he is constantly fighting to make me feel terrible about things that I consider part of my identity. Uh, so working with my current therapist, I, I’ve been writing a letter to the little Christian boy. Um, I haven’t given him a name. I think it might be helpful to name him. Um, but, uh, writing a letter expressing.

[00:16:54] Brett: Uh, Who I actually am and where, well, so the first, the first [00:17:00] draft of this letter I wrote about who I actually am and all the ways he was wrong. And, and I went into like all this detail about like, you believe this and here’s why this is wrong. And that was… That was the incorrect approach. What I actually need to do is say, you’ve done a good job, uh, with what, you know, and, and you’ve, you’ve really looked out for me doing the best you can in, in this state you were frozen in and just show some compassion to this part of me.

[00:17:32] Brett: Uh, but like everything from my identity as like pansexual or my history with drug addiction and all of these things that. He considers, like, you know, reasons I should go to hell. Um, and I don’t need to spend time convincing him that I don’t believe in hell anymore. Um, I need to say, hey, good show, buddy.

[00:17:57] Brett: You tried. Um, [00:18:00] and just kind of accept, uh, Or get him to accept that he did, he did his work and he’s done and he can fuck off now. Um, so that’s, that’s my, that’s my like current, uh, therapy status. I also have been in a lot of discussions with my partner about, um, our kind of, the way we behave in social situations.

[00:18:27] Brett: Um, it started with a conversation about how I love to pick up other people’s check at dinner and she sees this as like a way of me showing off, a way of me like lording over them that I make more than they do and that’s not In any way, what it is for me, like for me, it’s like, Hey, how can I be generous and show these people that I love them and thank them for hanging out with us?

[00:18:55] Brett: And like, this is like, we want to do it again. So I’m going to make it as easy as [00:19:00] possible. And I just, like, I’ll intercept the check when I see the, the, the wait staff coming up, I’ll just like, hold my card out and be like, just one check, take it all. Um, and then. And then the people at the table will be like, Hey, so where’s the check?

[00:19:18] Brett: I’ll be like, don’t worry about it. I got this. And like, L sees that as like, um, haughty, I guess. But like, so, so I’m reworking like how I do this. And I want to make it more, um, I want to give them some agency in the matter. I want to, I want to stop and say, Hey, do you mind if I pick this up? And I don’t want to say you can get the next one, which was suggested to me when I brought this up on, on social media, they’re like, just say, I’ll get this, you can get the next one.

[00:19:53] Brett: But I don’t want people to not hang out with us because they feel like it’s their responsibility to not pick up [00:20:00] just their check, but also mine. Like, I don’t want to put that out there. So I just want to, I’m going to, I’m going to start asking. Can I get this? Um, we’ll see how that goes. Uh, the other topic that has come up is When I don’t know how to fit into a conversation, I tell a dad joke.

[00:20:21] Brett: Um, I will, I will interrupt a train of thought to tell a stupid fucking joke. And that’s my way of like, breaking in. Um, 4L, that entirely disrupts. Like the, the, the deeper conversation she was fostering for me in a party setting, like everything’s fair game. Like, let’s, let’s switch topics. Let’s keep this conversation like surface level and just skimming around.

[00:20:52] Brett: But she likes to dig deeper. She likes a deep dive in her conversations. And, and I always screw that [00:21:00] up. Um, so what we figured out is We don’t, we need to not have conversations with the same people at a party. We, we attract different types of people. The people that will enjoy a conversation with me are different people than the ones that will enjoy a conversation with her.

[00:21:20] Brett: And she spends time trying to rescue people I’m talking to from me. And I spend time trying to rescue people she’s talking to from her, whereas. What really should happen is we should get to the party, we should separate. We should talk to the people that each of us attracts or are attracted to and then, you know, check in with each other on occasion.

[00:21:45] Brett: Do you need another drink? How’s it going? Um, you good? You ready to go? Etc. Um, but like, have separate conversations, which makes perfect sense to me. It doesn’t offend me at all, and I think [00:22:00] she’s down with the idea. Like, I’m not a person who’s like, I can’t believe you spent all night talking to someone and didn’t include me.

[00:22:06] Brett: Like, I don’t care. I’m

[00:22:08] Christina: Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that’s probably the right thing, and then maybe what you could find is that, okay, if you, you know, wind up, uh, being in a place where, um, you both, like, you meet someone who you think that L might like, or, or you kind of gravitate towards the same person, then you can have, like, kind of a, a shared conversation, right?

[00:22:27] Christina: Like, where, but,

[00:22:28] Brett: or at least an introduction and then bow out.

[00:22:31] Christina: totally,

[00:22:32] Brett: not the person for me, but you might be the person for Elle.

[00:22:35] Picking up the check

[00:22:35] Christina: Or, you know, if you think you might both like them, like, maybe you would have that comfort where you won’t do the interrupting while she’s talking thing to insert a, you know, unnecessary dad joke, um, uh, you know, which, uh, I, I totally get your impulse there. That’s also something maybe recognize that, like, if people are talking, like, you don’t always have to find your in that way, but, um, [00:23:00] I, I, I have a similar thing with you on picking up the check.

[00:23:02] Christina: I. And I’ve never even thought about it as people thinking like, Oh, you know, she thinks she’s better than anybody else. Cause it’s… Never been about that for me. It’s like, I appreciate being with you and I would like to show that. I think the thing is, I think people like, I think like, uh, you said, asking people if that’s okay, I think that’s a good thing.

[00:23:18] Christina: Um, the only thing there is you just have to be okay with, with people saying no. Um,

[00:23:23] Brett: Well, and I am. Like, it’s not like a moral obligation I have to pay the check. I just think it’s a nice, generous thing to do. And if I can afford it, why wouldn’t I do it? If they’re like, Oh no, we got this, or we got ours, let’s split the check. Fine. Totally fine. I’m not offended in any way.

[00:23:43] Christina: Yeah.

[00:23:44] Jay: Kind of two interesting things on that, like the, the splitting the check thing, uh, Brent, you and I have talked about this before, like I clearly make more money than everyone in my family. So, yeah. And, and in some ways they remind me of that, not in a [00:24:00] aggressive way, but like, uh, Hey, we should go somewhere.

[00:24:04] Jay: Uh, it’s not really in our budget to go somewhere right now. Um, okay, cool. Either I can choose to say, well, I want to go, so I will cover it. Or that’s cool. We’ll think of something that isn’t, you know, or that is more in your budget. We’ll do a, a game night at home. Like we’ve made investments, we got a pizza oven just to like.

[00:24:25] Jay: Have my sister come over from college and be like, yo, let’s make pizzas and hang out. Like, you don’t have to spend money now. But I, I definitely feel that whenever I am with people of equal or greater, like, financial position that it gets, it gets weird. Cause then it’s like, uh, and usually the to cover it.

[00:24:51] Brett: Yeah.

[00:24:52] Jay: Like, I’m not going to say, Hey, Brett, Christina, let’s go to like, you know, Ruth’s Chris on me, or let’s go to Ruth’s quiz [00:25:00] period. Like if I’m balling on like McDonald’s budget,

[00:25:03] Brett: Well, I think it’s, I think it’s a thing that you can, you can specify in the invitation. If you say, let us take you out to this restaurant. Instead of like, let’s go to this restaurant, let us take you out, and like, just set up that expectation from the beginning, and then if you say, let’s go, let’s meet at this place, then understand that the, the understanding is that you’ll be splitting the check.

[00:25:33] Christina: Yes. Yeah, that’s how I feel. Like, I, I, I mean, yeah, that’s what I do. I mean, like, if I, if I want to invite someone someplace, and, and I’m in a similar situation with, with you, um, Jay, where I would say at this point about half my friends make the same as, or in some cases more than me, but a lot of my friends, like, especially my journalist friends, like, I now make way more than them.

[00:25:54] Christina: So when we go out, thank you, Jay. Especially if it’s someplace that is pricier or whatever, like I usually [00:26:00] will buy like the first round of drinks or something else just because I understand sometimes that we’re in a, you know, situation where I’m like, okay, I know that I’m in a much better situation than you are just from a Paychecks point of view, um, although some of them might do better with savings and whatnot than me, um, but, you know, uh, and maybe if I’m there, you know, if I’m in New York or whatever, like I’m there on, on for work and, you know, um, I’m just like, okay, I’m, I’m.

[00:26:28] Christina: In a place where I can totally just get the check or, or, or get our drinks or whatever. Um, but I, I also feel like it’s sometimes one of those situations where, like you were saying, Brett, you just have to know the expectations. Where if, if the whole reason that somebody doesn’t want to go out is because they can’t afford it, if I know that, then I’ll be like, Oh no, I got this.

[00:26:45] Christina: You know, we, we can go out and do this. But if it’s one of those things where it’s like, you say to somebody, Let’s meet here, or have you wanted to go to this place, then I, I guess maybe wrongly, I, I kind of trust them to tell me if they can’t [00:27:00] afford it, or if it’s not something that’s within their budget right then, um, and then we can either find another place, or, you know, if it’s a place I really want to try, I can be like, hey, my treat, but, you know, generally, um, I don’t know, it’s weird, I think I have a good budget.

[00:27:14] Christina: Like read at this point on what types of friends I can invite to really expensive places and what types I can’t and it is not always based on income. There are some friends who will just budget and use their money for those things. Then I have some friends who are really freaking rich but are cheap as hell and I would like never invite to like, uh, you

[00:27:33] Brett: common,

[00:27:33] Christina: you know what I mean?

[00:27:34] Christina: Where I’m like, I would never invite them to an expensive restaurant because I know that they would like. Be weird about it.

[00:27:41] Brett: I have been invited to restaurants that I know that I can’t afford. Like I can’t afford my check, let alone picking up someone else’s. Um, and in those situations, I’ve, I’ve accepted the invite because I have assumed this person makes enough money. They’re going to buy both of [00:28:00] our meals. Uh, even though it wasn’t explicitly stated, I know that if someone’s going to bring me a 200 steak, I’m not going to be the one paying for it.

[00:28:10] Brett: Cause I would never do that to myself. And it’s always worked out. Like, uh,

[00:28:15] Christina: Oh, that’s cool.

[00:28:16] Brett: people that have taken me out, like in San Francisco, they’ve always, like, it’s never been a question. I got this.

[00:28:23] Christina: that’s interesting. I think like there’s like this weird like wasp part of me that would like never ever assume that someone else was paying the check and would feel like compelled to pay my part even if I was completely broke and didn’t have it because otherwise like unless it was like very clear like with the invite, oh we want to take you out.

[00:28:41] Christina: Or if you’re going out with, you know, a certain boss or something like my, my old boss, Prashant, Prashant pays for everything always. And that’s just how it is. And you go to really expensive

[00:28:49] Brett: well, bosses, bosses should pay. Parents, parents should pay when they take their kids out.

[00:28:56] Christina: It depends.

[00:28:58] Brett: So, okay, the way I was [00:29:00] raised, I have never, ever paid for my meal when eating with my parents, or, you know, whatever partner I have at the time, like, they have never paid. And that is, like, that’s the way I learned.

[00:29:14] Brett: If you take someone out, you pay for the meal, like,

[00:29:16] Christina: Yeah, no, and I, I, I only do if I want to, right? Like my parents, it’s one of those things where I’m like, no, I’ll, I’ll take care of this. I mean, the assumption, yeah, I’ll be honest. The assumption always is for me that my parents are going to pay, but I, I, there have been times when I’ve been like, no, actually I would like to, you know, pick up the

[00:29:33] Brett: Yeah. Well, and that’s your, that’s your option. That’s always an option. Um, but it’s never an assumption. And I think that’s for my parents. I think that’s a familial thing. I imagine when they go out with their peers, they’re not just assuming they’re picking up the check. Like they pick up the check for family, but I translated it in my brain to like whoever makes the invitation [00:30:00] And I don’t think that’s true, uh, for anybody.

[00:30:05] Brett: I don’t think that’s even true for my parents who taught me this. Like, we invited you out for dinner, so we’re buying you dinner. Um, I, I’m working, I’m working through some stuff.

[00:30:16] Jay: I, I can’t imagine, like, I think the last three times I’ve gone to dinner with my parents, I’ve picked up the check. But again, I know a lot of that is like, They are very content with eating the exact same meal every single day. Like, they’re like, we’ve budgeted for this. It’s pork chops and rice today.

[00:30:35] Jay: It’ll probably be pork chops and rice tomorrow. Like, so for me, it’s like, if I don’t want to eat the same thing, I’ve got to be like, hey, let’s go here, my treat. Like, I’m more than happy to

[00:30:46] Brett: to, to be fair, my parents idea of eating out is like Perkins or the Green

[00:30:51] Jay: Yeah.

[00:30:52] Brett: and like the check is never more than 80 for like a party of four, so

[00:30:58] Jay: Yeah.[00:31:00]

[00:31:00] Brett: It’s a different story than going out to an actually good restaurant

[00:31:04] Christina: Yeah, yeah, um, yeah, but my parents are Bunch is a little bit more than that, but it is a similar thing. Like, it’ll be like, you know, like a chain thing unless it’s like a birthday or, you know, like a special occasion. And then even if it’s like their birthday. They always pay, which, you know, weird, but like,

[00:31:22] Brett: It’s my birthday I get to pay for everyone’s dinner.

[00:31:25] Christina: Okay, but you know what?

[00:31:26] Christina: This year I took my mom to Las Vegas for a week to see Adele, and I paid out the ass for Taylor Swift era’s tour ticket. So honestly, at this point,

[00:31:35] Brett: you can pick up your own meal if you want to.

[00:31:39] Christina: for this year, absolutely. For this year, I’m like, I’m like, you know what? I’m good.

[00:31:43] Jay: that’s a good rule of thumb too. Like, if, if you’ve been paid for. Substantially, like, make the effort to cover it once or twice, like.

[00:31:55] Brett: yeah.

[00:31:56] Jay: Even if it’s like, yo, let’s go to Burger King, my treat, like [00:32:00] just, just the act of being like, Hey, you, you really hooked me up

[00:32:04] Brett: You, you spent ten grand on me, I can spend fifty bucks on you,

[00:32:08] Christina: Totally. But I think that actually goes back to like the first thing you were talking about, Brett, which is just I think just showing like the whole reason I think a lot of us do these things is because we want to show that we care and we want to show gratitude. Like I’m sure for some people it is a flex.

[00:32:19] Christina: But I don’t get that’s not the sense with you. Like that’s not the sense

[00:32:22] Brett: And that’s not the sense I’ve ever gotten when someone picks up my check. It has

[00:32:27] Jay: don’t hang out with

[00:32:27] Brett: it has never felt like a flex to me.

[00:32:30] Christina: No, I mean, I’ve only had that in a couple of instances, and it’s been when, like, it’s been like a really rich guy. I remember one time I went to, uh, one of Wiley Dufresne’s, uh, restaurants, uh, WD 50, which I don’t even think exists anymore, but, um, in, in New York City, and, um, it was like a 400 prefix thing per person before Uh, Wine.

[00:32:49] Christina: And we had the wine tasting too. And, um, and Grant’s boss at the time, like, picked up the whole thing. And that was an understood thing, because again, like, if you’re going someplace where you’re talking about [00:33:00] probably, it was probably 6. 50 per person before, um, tip, you know, that’s a different sort of thing.

[00:33:06] Christina: Like, I, although I have, I have been invited to go to French Laundry with people before, and they said, normally, you know, we would pay, but, you know, this is a, a special, more expensive menu, so. If you would like to come, you know, like with the, and I’m like, well, yeah, it’s French Laundry. I would not assume that you would pay for me in this context, but it, but in the, the WD 50 situation, it was a flex for sure.

[00:33:28] Christina: And I absolutely accepted it. I was like, you can flex all you want. Thank you very much for the very expensive, you know, meal. Um, and, and in presentation, like that is, that is fine. Like you can absolutely. Be, uh, you know, showing off that you are a rich asshole. Like that is completely fine with me.

[00:33:45] Brett: What does WD 50 mean? Is that 10 better than WD 40?

[00:33:50] Christina: So the guy’s name, the chef’s name is Wiley Dufresne. And so I think that it was just kind of like a play on like,

[00:33:56] Brett: Dufresne, sure.

[00:33:57] Christina: so it is a, uh, molecular [00:34:00] gastronomy is the sort of

[00:34:00] Brett: yeah, okay, yep.

[00:34:03] Christina: So, so the whole, and then I think, naming after a chemical thing, actually it was a pretty great restaurant name. It was a good restaurant too.

[00:34:08] Christina: I don’t, like I said, I don’t know if it still exists, but, um, it was a, it was a really good restaurant. But that was one of the more expensive meals, um, I’ve, uh, I’ve ever been to. No, it does not exist anymore. It closed, um, in, uh, uh, 2014. So shit. Yeah. Well, it, it, no, it was open for 11 years.

[00:34:26] Brett: Alright, alright, that’s a good run. That’s a good run.

[00:34:30] Jay: Brett, I have a question about the second thing you were, you were talking about with just kind of different. Not friend groups, but I would say maybe like friend types. Like, do you hang out with a lot of neurodivergent

[00:34:41] Brett: Oh, 100%. Like, I don’t hang out with neurotypicals at all.

[00:34:46] Jay: I, I wonder how much of a problem this actually is for the other, like the person in the conversation, because I’ve hung out with both you and Elle at the same time, and I am completely able to track [00:35:00] both the, both of the conversations, including the inserted dad jokes and just keep going without a step being missed.

[00:35:07] Brett: So, The, yeah, um, the difference is when we hang out with you, it’s been in a situation where we were, where we will, we were all kind of already comfortable with each other. Um, and we had certain understandings in place about each other’s personalities. Um, the situations I’m talking about are party situations where you’re meeting people you’ve never talked to before.

[00:35:34] Brett: You’re creating those first impressions, um, which. For me, first impression is like, I’m going to lay everything on the table. And if you can’t deal with it, we’re going to move on. And for Elle, it’s like, let’s feel this out. Let’s let’s discover each other’s like special interests. Let’s dive deep on things we share.

[00:35:55] Brett: And for me, it’s just like, I’m going to spill my guts. And if you don’t [00:36:00] like it, you can leave and I’ll move on to the next person. Uh, it’s a different situation than one where there’s already a mutual respect and kind of a, like an acceptance.

[00:36:14] Jay: Yeah,

[00:36:14] Christina: Well, it also seems like this is a thing that might not bother the people that you are with, but this is just a thing that, that really bothers Elle. And so that, that, which, which is fair. Right.

[00:36:24] Jay: I get that. Yeah. Like Brit.

[00:36:26] Christina: that’s the case where it’s just like, it’s like people you’re with might not even be bothered by it.

[00:36:29] Christina: Maybe they, they will be kind of like, you know,

[00:36:32] Brett: Honestly, okay, to be fair, if I thought people I was talking to were bothered by a random dad joke, I wouldn’t tell it. Like, I have some, I have some inhibitions where if I don’t feel like something is appropriate, if I feel like people will react badly to it, I’m not gonna do it. Like, these are situations where I think it’s appropriate.

[00:36:57] Brett: Um, but they, it offends. L. [00:37:00] It like breaks L’s concentration more than anything.

[00:37:03] Christina: I was going to say, that’s, that’s honestly, that’s the real thing, right? Like it’s, it’s not so much about like what the, what, what it’s doing for the other people, cause yeah, you, you can have a read on whether it’s an appropriate time to insert something like that or not. But it’s the fact that, yeah, with her, it’s taking her out of it.

[00:37:17] Christina: It’s making her, you know, like it’s changing, you know, whatever her, you know, concentration level or, or her feel on the conversation was, and it’s, it’s disrupting that, which totally fair. That’s, I think that you’ve come up with a good solution, which is just at a party when you’re meeting people, don’t meet them at the same time.

[00:37:33] Brett: