401: Faster Than Hypertapping With Jay Miller

401

[00:00:00] Christina:

[00:00:01] Christina: You’re listening to Overtired. I’m Christina Warren, joined as always by Brett Terpstra and Jeff Severins Gunzel. And this week, our special guest is one of our favorite return guests, Mr. Jay Miller. Welcome, everybody.

[00:00:18] Jeff: Timber!

[00:00:18] Brett: Hey.

[00:00:19] Jay: up!

[00:00:20] Jeff: Hi, Jay.

[00:00:21] Jay: Always a pleasure, always a pleasure to be here, uh, and then I’ll go back and listen to it later and go, why the hell did I say the things that I said?

[00:00:29] Christina: this is one of the reasons I do not listen to podcasts that I’ve been on. Like, it’s weird. I will re watch videos that I, that I do a million times to go over in my head every little thing that I did wrong and to assess my My performance and go, okay, you could have done this better, this better, or oh, that was actually a really good performance.

[00:00:47] Christina: Um, podcasts, I don’t because it’s too cringe. And I also don’t want to be reminded of the things that I said that off the cuff of my, my tongue that I was like, oh yeah, that was probably pissing people off. Sorry about that. [00:01:00] Whoops.

[00:01:01] Jay: See, I’m like the exact opposite. I will go back and listen to a podcast because I’m just like, eh, no one cares. Like, no one listens to this. The, I think, um, another podcaster I listened to like said, your audience isn’t real. Until they prove it, they’re not real. So, but like, videos, I refuse to watch myself do anything on video, because I will nitpick the hell out of myself.

[00:01:23] Jay: And then Jeff will be like, Oh, Jade did this video one time. And I’ll go back and I’ll look at it and be

[00:01:27] Jeff: yeah, that happened.

[00:01:28] Jay: like, God, my hair. What was I doing?

[00:01:31] Christina: like, you’re like, what was going on? See, it’s weird. I think that we do them for the same reasons. Like I, I, it, The reason I don’t go back and list a podcast is because they’re not real, whereas it’s my perfectionism nature, uh, that I’m like, oh no, but the video is real, and that will have consequences, so I need to be aware of that.

[00:01:50] Jeff: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true.

[00:01:53] Ranting about Apple’s Vido Reactions

[00:01:53] Brett: Um, um, um, um, um. Oh, I forgot. I had a, I had like a topic. I had a [00:02:00] topic and then Jay’s has reactions on, on his camera. And it was like, it was popping up random bubbles. And I got distracted, like checking my reaction settings. And I totally lost this topic that was brewing in my mind.

[00:02:14] Christina: Can I can I okay, I gotta rant on that then, because They know that this is a problem. Apple, uh, meaning they. Apple knows that this reaction bullshit is a problem and that it has been a problem since the beta. People have reported it. People internally, uh, according to sources closest to the information, have reported it to very high up people.

[00:02:32] Christina: This is supposed to be fixed. Um,

[00:02:34] Jeff: They’ve gone to Steve Jobs grave.

[00:02:37] Christina: I mean, Steve Jobs would not put up with this. I’m not one of those people who ever

[00:02:41] Jeff: put up with Steve Jobs.

[00:02:42] Christina: Well, I mean, I, but, but I’m one of those people who never wants to invoke the, this wouldn’t have happened under Steve. Cause it’s

[00:02:48] Jeff: Yeah, yeah,

[00:02:48] Christina: False fallacy thing. It’s a bullshit thing to do, but I will say this.

[00:02:51] Christina: This is some sort of like slap sloppy ass like bad program managed bad like product development like bullshit When you have a [00:03:00] feature like this that you highlight and tout Somebody wanted it in the fucking keynote so that they could get promoted. That’s really what it was about they didn’t bother to actually think about the implications about what it would mean test it or do anything with any of the you know feedback and it’s Bad.

[00:03:18] Christina: And, you know, makes people like, like Brett have to check their reaction settings to make sure that his settings are correct so that you’re not, with your fucking therapist, having balloons coming out when you’re talking about the death of someone. Like, genuinely. Like, what the fuck? This is such a bad feature.

[00:03:33] Christina: All right, my rant’s over.

[00:03:34] Jeff: Well,

[00:03:35] Brett: meanwhile, Jeff is cycling through

[00:03:38] Jay: found the button,

[00:03:39] Jeff: Jeff is cycling through all of them. What about death? Uh, hold on. I can do balloons. Um,

[00:03:45] Brett: Well, because the, the, the visual cue that turns on balloons is, uh, like a peace sign. And when I’m talking to my therapist and I am most frustrated, I, I do, like, listeners can’t see this, but I, [00:04:00] like, put my hand on my head in a way that looks like I’m holding up a peace sign. Um, and it’s more of like a look of frustration or like,

[00:04:10] Jeff: a cry for help just a little bit now that I’m watching you do it.

[00:04:12] Brett: and then I’ll be doing that and then all of a sudden balloons will come up and it’s always during like the hardest part of therapy for me, but I figured out how to turn it off.

[00:04:22] Brett: It doesn’t just turn itself back on. So it’s, it’s cool. It should be opt in. Um, it should not be on by default,

[00:04:31] Jay: The stupid thing is it’s based on the application, which is like, okay, cool, so Zoom, gotta turn it off. Okay, Teams, gotta turn it off. Slack, gotta turn it off.

[00:04:40] Christina: see, that’s the bullshit. That, that right there to me is, that’s, that’s terrible design. And like, that’s the sort of thing where like, oh great, yeah, you’re making this available. Great, Apple finally listening, making their Query APIs available to other apps for once. Awesome. But if it’s going to be that way, maybe have a, I don’t know, if it’s part of a video app, have it as a toggle if you’re, if it [00:05:00] doesn’t work well, which, like, I don’t know, is Apple really the best company in AI?

[00:05:04] Christina: Um, hmm, no,

[00:05:07] Brett: It really should only be enabled by default for FaceTime. Like, I can’t imagine any other video circumstance where I would want balloons or fireworks or hearts popping up.

[00:05:21] Christina: Right, right. I mean, especially it’s like, yeah, because basically what they’re saying is, yeah, we want to take our fun little whimsical things we’re doing for your personal conversations and insert them in apps that, other than Discord, are almost universally not going to be used for personal conversations.

[00:05:36] Christina: And even in Discord you’re like, actually, motherfuckers, I, I, I want to control what my video looks like. Because I might be streaming this.

[00:05:44] Jeff: This makes me want, like, a supercut of, like, this thing getting triggered on OnlyFans videos or something. Um, I’m gonna just search Mac OS Reactions Supercut.

[00:05:55] Brett: heh.

[00:05:56] Christina: Yeah,

[00:05:57] Brett: Uh,

[00:05:58] Jeff: Anyway.

[00:05:59] Mental Health Corner Part 1

[00:05:59] Brett: so that [00:06:00] was, that was therapeutic, I think, for everybody. Speaking of therapy Um, hey, what Jay, would you like to kick off the mental health corner?

[00:06:09] Jay: Yeah, so, this is, I guess, uh, a public announcement. Mental Health Corner for me, which is great. Um, so, Jeff gave me the calendar invite for every single Overtired that’s scheduled.

[00:06:25] Christina: amazing.

[00:06:26] Jay: I guess, I don’t know, am I joining the

[00:06:29] Brett: I guess. I

[00:06:30] Jeff: By the end of this year, like, every, it’s just gonna build, we’re gonna have five people, now we have six people, now we have seven people.

[00:06:37] Jay: But, uh, yeah. We could talk about it, but I, uh, yeah, I, I don’t know what’s been going on. I mean, everyone around me has COVID, but I’ve been dodging that bullet. Like, uh, it’s been, it’s been wild. And then, uh, I’ve just been fighting these like really bad headaches and I’ve been depressed as hell. And a lot of that [00:07:00] was.

[00:07:00] Jay: Over the holidays, I took, I took almost all of December off. Um, and then after, you know, talking to some people, there was almost like a question of like, do I take more time off? But I was off for three weeks. We had family coming through. Um, then they left and then they got COVID and I was like, yes, miss that one.

[00:07:17] Jay: Um, unless I’m the problem. And then I got back to work and It was this pure, just like, I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to do this. Um, my retail therapy is out of this world. I didn’t get. A lot of things that I wanted for Christmas, which is fine because we were like on a budget. So, you know, New Year begins, I buy a 3D printer, I buy a whole bunch of, um, I got the Ender, is it Ender 3 V3 KE?

[00:07:51] Jay: It’s like, basically like the, their Ender 3 like slightly better series that can Print [00:08:00] faster than the bed will actually allow it to. Um, so yeah, I feel like I overpaid but not by much. It was like 300. Um,

[00:08:09] Jeff: I have the same printer.

[00:08:11] Jay: oh cool. Yeah, I mean it’s solid. It’s just like

[00:08:14] Jeff: Yeah, I

[00:08:14] Jay: You can you can print up to 500, you know Millimeters per second or something like that and then literally it just throws your print like off the thing and i’m like, okay Maybe I can’t.

[00:08:25] Jay: Um I’ve done that I bought um And, well, I should say my, my employer bought because I have a office allowance and it resets at the beginning of the year. Um, I bought a, a nice ortho linear split keyboard to help fight my arthritis stuff that I’m going through. Um, I don’t necessarily look at the keys while I’m typing, but I have zero confidence in my typing skills.

[00:08:52] Jay: So, like, that’s been fun. Um, and we were, we were kind of waxing poetic about Having to [00:09:00] use your thumbs for multiple buttons that are in a different location now and like Nitpicking it to death of like, should, should the three rows of thumb buttons be space tab return? Should it be return space tab?

[00:09:14] Jay: Should it be command option? And I’m just like, okay, I’m just going to type until I’m comfortable and then go back and fix the discomfort that’s still there.

[00:09:24] Brett: Can we, can we come back to the keyboard conversation? I have like so many, so many things to say, but I don’t want to interrupt the mental health corner. Um. But yeah,

[00:09:34] Christina: have things I want to say about keyboards and I want to hear

[00:09:36] Brett: this

[00:09:36] Jeff: But have you, but have you,

[00:09:37] Brett: keyboard episode. I’m

[00:09:39] Jeff: Jay, have you, have you finished your inventory of retail therapy?

[00:09:43] Jay: Um, bought, I mean, everything else has been kind of like small purchases, uh, you know, you buy a new 3D printer, that means you gotta buy like 100 worth of filament and, you know, you, you use your sister’s college email address to get a [00:10:00] discount on like all the CAD software,

[00:10:02] Christina: Yeah.

[00:10:04] Jay: so

[00:10:04] Christina: good, good, good for you for having a sister who still has like a working, uh, like college email

[00:10:10] Jay: Oh, she’s still in college.

[00:10:11] Christina: Well, I mean, well, good for you for that, too. Like, my, well, my sister never graduated from college, um, uh, and so, uh, that, I, I can’t, I can’t use that. Um, my, my college email lasted a really long time, and then it stopped working, and I’ve, I’ve, low key, I’ve done, I’ve tried to do the math.

[00:10:27] Christina: I’m sorry to be interrupting, um, your mental health slash therapy, um, uh, corner, uh, retail therapy corner. Sorry. Um, but, um, I’ve done the math a few times and it doesn’t quite work out where I’m like, should I just enroll in a community college class to get the discount on stuff? And then I’m like,

[00:10:43] Brett: So here, here’s good for you for actually paying for software, even if it’s with an EDU discount.

[00:10:50] Christina: agreed.

[00:10:51] Brett: Cause you could probably steal that stuff.

[00:10:53] Jay: Yeah. I mean, a lot of

[00:10:55] Christina: make it harder.

[00:10:57] Jay: I’m just lazy. Like, it’s like, I don’t want to, [00:11:00] and, and the free versions, like they have free versions, but it’s like, okay, if you use like Fusion 360, you can have 10 save files. Like what? Like, that’s stupid. Um,

[00:11:12] Brett: Are there cracks out there for subscription apps?

[00:11:15] Christina: There are, but they’re hard. So this has been like, and Autodesk is notorious about like, and this goes back to the 80s, like this goes back their entire time, like they used to make people use fucking dongles, like special dongles, like through

[00:11:29] Jeff: Pro Tools. Like Pro

[00:11:30] Jay: yeah.

[00:11:31] Christina: yeah.

[00:11:31] Brett: my dad was an engineer and he always had AutoCAD. And yeah, I remember

[00:11:35] Christina: So, so they are like the worst about that stuff. Now, are there ways? Yes. Um, no, I don’t know if you’re using, cause I haven’t used any AutoCAD stuff in, in forever. Um, I’m assuming that Fusion 360 or whatever works on a Mac and on Windows. Usually these cracks only work on Windows, but, um, and, and you have to do things.

[00:11:54] Christina: If you do use it on a Mac, you’ve got to use things like, Oh, what’s the, um, what’s your favorite app that like is, is basically like [00:12:00] the, the network blocker. Um.

[00:12:02] Jay: like,

[00:12:03] Brett: Little Snitch.

[00:12:04] Christina: Yes, yes, yeah, like a little snitch, like if you have like certain, you know, like block lists or whatever for it to go out to the servers, you know, you can get certain things working, but, um, I mean, I haven’t looked into the Autodesk stuff, I assume people have things that if you run it just right will crack, but A, I think that now I’m looking at this, I think like Fusion 360 is largely a web thing, so that would be hard,

[00:12:25] Jay: and it sucks.

[00:12:26] Christina: and it sucks.

[00:12:26] Jay: not even good software.

[00:12:28] Christina: Which does not surprise me in the slightest. But I know with things like Adobe, like, you’re stuck with like one version, and you can’t really get updates until people will release, like, an Atomic update. And the problem is, is that Adobe updates Photoshop, like, Every five seconds and now with the AI stuff, like you, you do kind of want to use the latest version.

[00:12:47] Christina: So good for, again, good for you for just like paying for it. Like I, I, um, I get Creative Cloud through work now, but I have at various times over the years also had my own personal subscription. And even when like work [00:13:00] may or may not have offered it because there were, there were, there were politics with, uh, with Microsoft over like who could get a, a subscription and I

[00:13:08] Brett: back to this conversation

[00:13:09] Christina: Yeah, I was going to say, I’m sure you have thoughts on this too. And so they run like 50 percent discounts from time to time. And I’d be like, yeah, I’ll pay the 30 a month or whatever for creative cloud. Because to your point, Jay, I’m lazy. I’m like, yeah, I could probably find a cracked copy. Um, but, uh, it’s, it’s too much effort.

[00:13:26] Christina: And at this point, like I’m not the poor college student or high school student that I was a million years ago. Although in college I could have used education discounts. So anyway.

[00:13:37] Brett: I have a friend who bought a 3D printer, like, uh, maybe five years ago, back when they cost ten grand, um, and he, like, he, money is not an issue, the dude makes almost seven figures as an independent software developer, and it blows me away, um, and so he, he tried all of the CAD software and [00:14:00] everything, and ended up just, I don’t know what the site is, but he used a web based, yeah.

[00:14:05] Brett: Modeling, System.

[00:14:07] Jay: Sounds like Onshape or something like that.

[00:14:10] Brett: maybe. Yeah, I don’t remember, but yeah, he just found that. And I needed, I needed, uh, an inset. I bought, uh, I’m, I’m gonna shut up. It’s your, it’s your mental health corner. I’m gonna shut up.

[00:14:23] Jay: 3D print health corner. Um, well, the, the one that I wound up settling on is like Shapr3D. And the only reason I, yeah, because the fact that it has an iPad app, I was like, you know, Apple Pencil, you’re doing stuff. I’m not doing anything incredibly complicated. Um, And I mean, I think Fusion 360 was like 1, 500 a year, Shaper, like if, if you have to pay for Shaper, it’s like 300.

[00:14:50] Jay: So it’s like, I mean, it’s the, it’s the better bargain. It is, I mean, they’ll be the first to tell you we’re not 3D printing software, we’re like modeling software. So, you know, you’re going to deal with [00:15:00] some things that suck, but at the end of the day, you just learn to work around it. Um, but anyway, all of that, all of that to say, spending money on stuff, um, it didn’t solve the problem.

[00:15:10] Jay: The, the solution to the problem was, uh, as of this episode coming out, I have given notice that I will be leaving my job. So um, I, I have a new thing lined up already, which is good because I’m not the type that’s just like, obviously I just bought a bunch of a printer and a bunch of software and stuff.

[00:15:30] Jay: So I’m like, I don’t, I don’t have like money that’s saved up or anything. Um, but I want to talk about how mentally Destructive, large corporations are with like exit, like early leaving. So I got a bonus when I joined. There was so much confusion. I mean, there was so much confusion around me moving across the country and whether or not I would take a pay cut.

[00:15:54] Jay: Spoiler alert, I took a pay cut, but like I was [00:16:00] told, okay, you get all your bonus upfront. If you stay for a year, you don’t have to pay it back. And then I was like, okay, cool. It sounds fine. So, I get hired on and they’re like, oh, actually we lied, you’re gonna get half your bonus up front and the rest of it after you’ve been there for a year.

[00:16:18] Jay: Okay, cool. So, now that I’m like, wait a minute, I’ve been here for almost two years, if I leave before the two year mark, do I have to give my entire bonus back? Do I have to give a portion of my bonus back? And like, no one can give me a straight answer. Everyone’s like, oh, we don’t know. Some people are like, maybe you won’t have to do anything.

[00:16:40] Jay: And other people are like, you have to pay your whole bonus. And, and I would put it this way. Like, if they came back to me and said, you’re going to have to pay back your entire bonus, I would have to tell them, can I just not quit? Because you literally would bankrupt me. And that, like, there was a part of me that I, I [00:17:00] negotiated the hell out of my new gig because I, I was like, I am terrified of leaving and having this extremely large company send their goons out to be like, Hey, you owe us this money.

[00:17:15] Jay: It’d be a shame if we had to garnish your wages for a year or

[00:17:18] Brett: You could go on the run. It takes corporations so long to do anything. You could keep, you could stay ahead of them. Just, just hop from

[00:17:26] Jay: Tell them I sent an email and that’ll give me six months.

[00:17:30] Brett: So

[00:17:30] Christina: a message.

[00:17:32] Brett: sidetrack for a second. Um, my benefits for my job include, uh, healthcare as almost all do. And, um, there was this option to set up a separate flex spending account for a dependent. And they refer to my partner as a dependent on when I order like cards. It says. L. Newman, Dependent. So I went ahead and put extra money [00:18:00] aside for L.

[00:18:01] Brett: Newman, my dependent. She tries to use it. I assume all year that it’s coming out of this separate dependent account when she uses her card. And then I noticed at the end of the year that nope, that money hasn’t been touched. I go to HR and they’re like, Oh yeah, dependent FSAs are only for children, which I don’t have.

[00:18:24] Jay: me set it up?

[00:18:25] Brett: So on early December, I said. I’m sorry, I didn’t know, like, this was an honest mistake, can I get this money rolled back over into, like, my HSA or my FSA, whatever, um, and it took them three weeks to tell me. Um, that it was my error and they couldn’t do anything about it, but they were changing my benefits for next year, which I had also already signed up for the, the, when I, when I updated my benefits.

[00:18:57] Brett: Yeah. So they’re like, we canceled that for next year, but [00:19:00] that thousand dollars you set aside, I’m afraid that’s gone. So I, I went through like an appeals process and they said, We’re granting you a one time exception. I’m like, no problem. I’ll never make that mistake again.

[00:19:11] Christina: What assholes. Well, I mean, good for you for going through the appeal process because I, I

[00:19:18] Brett: not nothing.

[00:19:19] Christina: no, you’re not wrong, but I’m like the sort of person who, and, and it’s, it’s awful because I spent my mother, I watched my mother spend like my entire life, like fighting with insurance companies over every last cent.

[00:19:30] Christina: And so I know how to advocate for myself and I know how to do those things. But then I just get so lazy, or, or I just get like so frustrated with the thought of even going through it that I would just probably let it go dumbly, and then I’d be mad at myself for like another year. So, good for you for actually going through it, but also fuck them, and like fuck HR genuinely for not making that very clear because they know that.

[00:19:55] Brett: is so slow and they, I hate, I hate working with HR. [00:20:00] Like I’ll ask every manager, every question I have, and I won’t contact HR until I get down to like, well, you’re going to have to go to HR with this. Cause most of the questions, like people who have been there for 10 years can answer. Um.

[00:20:14] Jay: I ask employees at GitHub questions instead of going to HR. Like, I would much rather just ask, like, a different company. Like, hey, how, how do we do this?

[00:20:24] Brett: I have 2, 400 in bills from, they’re paid, uh, but bills from a therapist that isn’t covered, that doesn’t submit to insurance. Um, and I pay them out of my HSA and that’s fine, but we went to submit all of these bills to, Uh, the insurance company to try to get refunded into my HSA.

[00:20:49] Brett: And they responded with like, basically they said, Oh, these are already paid. They’re not our problem. Um, your plan allows this, but we’re paying 0. So, [00:21:00] so if it weren’t for Elle, um, that would be a dead end. I’d be like, fuck it. But Elle is willing to. If we team up like making, this is actually a good mental health corner right here, but making calls to an insurance company is stressful for both of us.

[00:21:19] Brett: Um, sitting on hold, dealing with, uh, customer service over the phone, um, and dealing with things that we don’t understand and we honestly need help on and they are not, their goal is not to give us money. Their goal is to convince us that we don’t need the money. Um, so it’s a stressful call for both of us, but if we team up, even if I’m just sitting next to them on the couch and, and they make the call, um, it like, it’s a teamwork, it’s like, it’s like a, a group process.

[00:21:54] Brett: And then I’m there to answer questions and stuff, but we both need that. Together, [00:22:00] Elle and I make one functioning adult.

[00:22:04] Jay: Yeah, that’s, uh, shout out, shout out to my latest episode of Conduit, where literally it was called, I Wish I Had a Britney, because I was, like, waxing poetic about, like, oh, all of the stuff that I just struggle to do. Like, my partner just Picks it up and runs with it, and we, we kind of share that same load.

[00:22:23] Jay: And Kathy was just like, I wish I had your partner too. And I was like, well, you know,

[00:22:28] Christina: You’re like, sorry, she’s mine.

[00:22:30] Jay: Yeah, exactly.

[00:22:31] Christina: great. She’s really great. Um,

[00:22:33] Brett: thought, I thought this was a, you were going to go into like work, bitch.

[00:22:38] Christina: Ah, yeah. Haha. Wrong Britney. No, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, uh, uh, you know, um, a stable Britney.

[00:22:47] Jay: But

[00:22:47] Christina: I’m, I’m saying that without judgment, by the way. I’m just being honest.

[00:22:51] Jay: But yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s my corner. I’m, I’m hoping that this, uh. This new thing is going to work out. I, you know, the last time I [00:23:00] was here, we did the DevRel episode and, you know, I am sticking true to like the, the modern meme of DevRel, which is like, you never stay at a job more than two years. Um, I am like, yeah, I, I would love to have some stability.

[00:23:15] Jay: And this next role is a big promotion. Like I want to get into management. I want to be a DevRel manager. I want to like, Make cooler advocates out there and get people to stop doing the stupid shit that they do for no reason other than like, oh, but it’s an OKR. Um, but like, I’m hoping that this, this opportunity kind of laid itself out in front of me and they told me all the things that I wanted to hear without me asking them.

[00:23:43] Jay: Um. So yeah, hopefully I’ll be leading a team in the next couple of years and that’ll actually give me a reason to stick around, you know, a single company for a while. Or, you know, I’ll

[00:23:55] Brett: as long as it’s good. Yeah.

[00:23:57] Jay: you know, or I’ll bounce and do something different, I guess.[00:24:00]

[00:24:00] Jeff: you said in the interview? I

[00:24:02] Jay: Ah, you know,

[00:24:03] Brett: I, uh, I, so I’ve talked before about the manager turnover at my job and, um, I’m

[00:24:12] Jeff: the last update was that there are no managers plus

[00:24:14] Christina: And yeah, and then nobody knew you were

[00:24:15] Jay: yeah.

[00:24:16] Brett: So, so yeah. So what they did was instead of. Filling the manager position because it’s untenable for the VP to have a hundred reports and actually, you know, keep everyone working. Um, but they don’t have headcount, they say, um, even though stock prices are real good. Um, they, they made one team of, one member of my team, a team lead with no pay raise.

[00:24:47] Brett: Just made him kind of like a pro temp manager and it is not like I feel bad for the guy He’s into it, but he’s just [00:25:00] taking on a bunch of responsibility And he’s the one who will have to answer for any failures of the team With no pay raise like that that just does not make sense to me

[00:25:11] Jay: absolutely not. That’s, that’s been, that’s where I like draw the line. And luckily everywhere I’ve worked has realized that, that like, hey, we’re going to ask you to take on all of this extra responsibility. And I’m like, okay, well, how is my compensation going to be adjusted for this, this change in role?

[00:25:27] Jay: Or how is my title and my compensation going to be adjusted? Like I, I refuse to. And I mean, you know, we can wax poetic about, you know, when I started at Microsoft, we weren’t an AI company. Like, we did AI things, but, um, we didn’t have a co pilot button on our keyboards. Um, like, the definition and the, the scope of my job, if I read, like, why they hired me, we don’t do that.

[00:25:56] Jay: So I’m like, oh, well, I mean, you’ve put me in a new job [00:26:00] in any way without changing my role or my pay, well, you changed my pay just for the worse, um, so like, why would I want to stay, other than that my team is super dope, like I love my, my little small team, but like, They get it. They’re like, I wouldn’t blame you.

[00:26:17] Jay: Like, so it sucks, but hopefully brighter things or at least, you know, that ADHD, like, oh, hey, here’s a bunch of new knobs to turn and new processes to learn. And, um, it’ll give me something to like super like hyper focus into for a little bit and we’ll see what happens from there.

[00:26:37] Brett: So you’ve got the depression. You’ve had the depression. Is that, is that related to A DHD and are you doing anything about it other than buying a bunch of shit?

[00:26:48] Jay: Um, is it related to ADHD? I don’t think so because it’s, it’s one of those, well, maybe it’s one of those weird situations where like everything in my life [00:27:00] is getting better, but yet mentally I’m challenged, you know, and, you know, see the last time I was on the episode, we talked about, you know, some of those things of just being Being in a different tax bracket, um, has done a number on me, but I’m, I’m making peace with that.

[00:27:17] Jay: And now it’s like, okay, wait, the way things are lined up, I should be able to pay off my house in five years. And if I can do that, like, Before I’m 40, I’ll be debt free, uh, like, cars paid off, houses paid off, all we’ll have is our monthly bills. I can literally do whatever the fuck I want at that point.

[00:27:36] Jay: Like, I can go, you know, teach seals in Alaska Python if I wanted to. Like, it would be fine because the bills are paid. But like, it’s, it’s weird that I’m being challenged at work, I’m learning new things, I’m, I’m in a very healthy [00:28:00] spot. The things that I’m asking for, I’m getting. And it’s not enough, it’s, it’s not doing

[00:28:05] Brett: Yeah. I don’t think, I don’t think that this is related to your career or your paycheck or anything. I think there’s probably like an actual. Like depression, which is, you know, a, uh, a diagnosable thing. So are, do you go to therapy? Do you take medication? Do you do anything?

[00:28:27] Jay: I lost my therapist when I moved, cause he’s not licensed, so, in the state, so now, I haven’t looked for a new one, um, and I definitely haven’t looked for, a new psychiatrist because the last one just I’m still reeling from getting burned for my last psychiatrist. Um, but I, I should, I don’t want to say I should grow up on that, but I probably should make better decisions

[00:28:53] Brett: You should get a Brittany.

[00:28:55] Jay: I should get a Brittany. Yeah.

[00:28:57] Brett: Yeah. That will get you, get you an appointment with a [00:29:00] psychiatrist and take your existing diagnoses. And because I mean, retail therapy, you can afford it. It’s not going to kill you. Um. And it’s not, as you said, effective. Like it didn’t, it didn’t change anything. And the new job and the new, the excitement of like, uh, uh, pay raise and everything didn’t do anything.

[00:29:22] Brett: So I think there’s something else going on.

[00:29:24] Jay: I, I, and I think the, the problem with that is that it’s like, It’s one thing like bleeding into another. Like yeah, you’re right, I could afford the retail therapy, but to, to be transparent, you know, to make six figures and live check to check

[00:29:39] Christina: Mhm.

[00:29:40] Jay: in a, in a state that it is relatively inexpensive to live in.

[00:29:43] Jay: Like it takes 20 to fill up my car. Like, like gas is dirt. Like I don’t, I don’t, I kind of don’t want an electric vehicle just because I don’t want to spend the extra money. Like it would be more expensive. Um, and I know that that’s. Maybe ruthless, but [00:30:00] also, hey, it’s, it’s the reality of it. So it’s like all of these things are happening in a, in a position where like, I, we should be better.

[00:30:08] Jay: I should be better. And I feel like part of it is my fault and I’m like going in, Hey, I’m going to make more money now. And it’s like, okay, but yeah, that’s great. But if the problem isn’t solved, you’re still going to be making more money and still living. Living like you do. So it’s, I don’t know. You’re right.

[00:30:23] Jay: I should definitely talk to someone about it. That’s why, again, I’m glad that uh, Jeff gave me the link to show up every Saturday.

[00:30:32] Brett: Yeah, man, you’re doing, you’re doing so well. Like your career is blossoming. You’re, you’re doing exactly what you want to do. And it sucks that you would have to deal with depression in addition to all that success. So yeah, do something about

[00:30:50] Christina: about it. But I think the encouraging thing there I would say is like, at least for me it’s encouraging, uh, for some people it might not be, but for me it’s encouraging when I can realize that the depression [00:31:00] is not situational, that it’s not based on the things going on in my life, that, hey, this is something that, that I, that I don’t have any control over.

[00:31:06] Christina: This is not like a, you know, everything in my life is going great, so why do I feel like shit? Well, you know, Because something is wrong with my brain and that’s not on me. And so this is a real medical problem and I can talk to somebody and get it fixed. It’s, it’s a lot more difficult in some cases when it’s like, oh, well, all these terrible things are happening.

[00:31:24] Christina: And that’s also making me feel like shit because I can’t control, I can’t control any of that, right? And even though I can’t control my, my, you know, biochemistry and, and make my, you know, like, uh, neurotransmitters, you know, produce endorphins and, and Things like that the right way, serotonin levels, all that shit.

[00:31:40] Christina: Like, I can’t, I can’t physically, you know, make my, my brain work right. I can at least have control of saying, okay, well, I’m going to find a psychiatrist who will listen. I am going to find a therapist. I am going to find someplace to get a solution because I know that there’s a solution to this problem.

[00:31:56] Christina: Whereas if it’s, you know, um, I, I don’t, uh, [00:32:00] make enough money or I’m unemployed or someone has died or, you know, other terrible things are happening. That, you could be at a complete loss for, for how to deal with, so, I don’t know. Plus one with what Brett said, anyway.

[00:32:15] Brett: All right. Uh, do either of you want to go next?

[00:32:20] Jay: Go Jeff. I want to hear from Jeff. I never get to talk to Jeff.

[00:32:26] Jeff: Um, man, let’s see. I had a thought, a couple thoughts coming into this and they’re like, they’ve kind of left me, I mean, to stay on the theme of this episode, which is like the water cooler, like talking about, uh, work and professional stuff. Um, I’m definitely trying to figure out, I, you know, I’m, uh, I work for this, I’m part owner of this research and evaluation collaborative in Minneapolis.

[00:32:53] Jeff: Um, which sounds really dull, but we do really awesome and

[00:32:59] Brett: not sound

[00:32:59] Jay: [00:33:00] I’ll say, pause that.

[00:33:01] Brett: Yeah,

[00:33:01] Jay: Jeff, do you let people work remotely? Because again, house paid off. I, I want to go do

[00:33:09] Jeff: we only work remotely. We had an office, um, before the, uh, pandemic that we really barely used and, uh, ditched it and never went back. Um, and, uh, But anyway, like I, so for, so I’ve been there for 10 years, um, came straight out of journalism into this work and, and have really loved it and have loved, uh, being like a member owner of a cooperative.

[00:33:34] Jeff: Um, there’s nine of us and it’s, uh, we’ve been able to, we’ve, we’ve gone from We literally borrowed our bylaws from grocery co ops in the beginning because there were like three of us and we had two contracts and it was just like, let’s just get it going. Um, and, and now we have, you know, we have professional development budgets and PTO and health insurance and all of the stuff we’ve been able to kind of start creating for ourselves and [00:34:00] for other members who, you know, may eventually come on and employees and stuff.

[00:34:03] Jeff: And that’s been amazing. And I can’t imagine ever. Leaving, I also can’t, I knew this when I left public radio, which was my last journalism job, like I can’t go back to an office. I just can’t stand it. I can’t stand how much time is, is just lost and wasted, uh, on things that would otherwise not even come into your life.

[00:34:23] Jeff: Um, if you were working from home, which most of us do now. Um, but, uh, until last year, I’ve only worked large contracts that are multi year projects and, um, It’s, it’s close to having salary. It’s like a very guaranteed amount of m