432: Rotten Soffits

Rotten Soffits

Welcome to Overtired

[00:00:00]

Brett: Hey, you’re listening to Overtired. I am, uh, Brett Terpstra, and I am here with Christina Warren and Jeff Severance. Guntzel. You guys have been carrying on without me.

Catching Up with the Hosts

Brett: How’s it going?

Jeff: Good.

Christina: It’s good. It’s good to, I’ll be back again. It’s been a few weeks. How?

Brett: your, I enjoyed your last episode without me. It was fun to edit.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, uh, yeah, that was where we’re talking to over one another. We’re out of practice. No, that was great. It, it was great. Great, great.

Nerding Out on Acapella

Christina: With our friend Brian. They, they are a delight. And, uh, uh, once again, thank you, Jeff for letting us nerd out for an inordinately

Jeff: a delight.

Christina: about acapella.

Jeff: It was a delight. I think the podcast tag should be, what is it now? It’s like tech pop culture and acapella. Uh, but what is it? What is it now? I forget. Our tag.

Brett: I think it should be Tech. Taylor Swift and Jeff is a really good sport about whatever topic comes up.

Jeff: No, I’m not a good sport. I, as I

Brett: are a

Pathological Curiosity

Jeff: [00:01:00] as I said to my son, when he was annoyed with something, I was pointing out, I said, you have to understand fucking everything is interesting to

Brett: Yeah, that’s what I, that’s what I’m

Christina: was, I was gonna say,

Brett: Like Jeff, Jeff has a curiosity about literally anything that other people are interested in.

Christina: pathologic. Oh, that’s good. Pathological curiosity. I love that. No, ’cause you do. I, I, I, I, I I love that about you. I mean, I, I’m also like very curious, but you’re even more so than me. Like I will go down a rabbit hole on almost anything with anyone, even if it’s something that I’m not that into.

But you are like beyond me. Like, ’cause there are some topics where I’m just like, I will just, my eyes will just glaze over.

Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah.

Christina: you do that.

Jeff: Well.

Brett: know, you know, my eyes glaze over

Christina: Oh, I know. Yeah. No, look, I, I, I, I was, I, I was not even, I was not even bringing you into this. No. Trust me, I, we, so we, we record this with, with video and, um, or we can see one another. We don’t record the video. I, I can see Brett’s face and it’s, it’s those moments where I’m like, do I

Jeff: you can see [00:02:00] Brett Glaze.

Christina: You can. And then there are moments I’m like, do I care or do I wanna finish my rant?

And a lot of the times I’m just like, no, I’m gonna finish what I say ’cause he’s not listening. And it’s fine.

Mushroom Talk and Edibles

Brett: Um, so Jeff has a hard out in a little over an hour, which I think we could do. I just took a ceremonial amount of mushrooms, so we’ll see. How interesting. I’m just kidding. I didn’t, I

Christina: fuck. Bummer.

Brett: I was gonna, no, I only, I have literally like a 16th of mushrooms left and I’m saving it for a rainy day,

Christina: Got it. Got it. Yeah. Fair enough. I mean, I, I just thought it was gonna be fun. I was like, damn, I’ll go take an edible. Like, we can just have like, we, we, we can

Brett: and we’ll just see who kicks in first.

Christina: whose kicks in first. Absolutely.

Jeff: What topic are we on when it kicks in?

Christina: Right, right. It’s, it’s like, it’s like it for me. You’ll know. I’ll just like, I’ll just either get Yeah. I get, I get quieter, honestly. I’ll just be like, cool.

Jeff: yeah, [00:03:00] yeah. Right, right, right.

Brett: All right,

Jeff: like a SMR.

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Mental Health Corner

Brett: so let’s catch up on mental health. I would love to hear about you guys first.

Jeff: Oh, I can go

Christina: Okay.

Jeff: but it’s gonna be improvisational.

Brett: Yeah. This isn’t youth group. You can share

Christina: Sh.

Brett: you

Jeff: Wait, what does that mean? It’s not youth group,

Brett: it. We used to have to like go around and Yeah. Testimonials and stuff and like you’d go around the room and everyone would have to share like who they witnessed to this week and all that shit. And, and I realized I really, yeah, a hundred percent.

And I really can’t

Jeff: wait, wait, wait, wait. At this moment Brett is maybe accidentally raising his hand

Brett: Hallelujah. Hallelujah. But, uh, I can’t believe I missed the opportunity in high school to name my band, youth group

Jeff: Oh, that’s a good

Brett: so that everyone could tell their parents, oh, I’m going to youth group tonight, and they could come see [00:04:00] our

Christina: And instead it goes to your show. That would’ve been so, yeah.

Brett: about me real fast.

Jeff: I like that a lot. Um, me, uh, I, you know, it’s, it’s funny, if it were a few days ago, I would’ve had a, a, a lot to say, but then I had therapy, um, and so, and that, that helped calm a lot of things down. Um,

Christina: mental health corner.

Jeff: yeah, actual mental health corner. I also just went through a phase where, so I have like, um, I mean, I think I’ve talked about this before, but I have nightmares pretty bad and, and, and I’ve managed to like.

Make them quite infrequent through therapy, initially through medication, but then stopped that and through therapy, which has been amazing. Um, but I just had, I had one of those weeks where like. If I watch something, um, it becomes, uh, in my dream something like 40 times more terrible. Like if I watch something kind of terrible, uh, or just stressful.

So like I accidentally on TikTok, uh, got a, a really [00:05:00] terrible nine 11 TikTok, just like a little VHS scene that someone had had recorded and that became this crazy ass dream. And then we we’re watching Bad Sisters again. I dunno if you watched that show, but it’s so stressful and awesome. And so every time I used to watch Bad Sisters in Season One, I had nightmares, but I was like, I don’t care.

I love the show. Anyway. Um, no, but I’m, I’m doing good today. Um, I’ve had the place myself for the weekend and my kids are here, but my, um, my wife is outta town, so I’ve just been kind of like roaming around the house and I’m now like doing actual, uh, like garage repair work. I’m like, uh, I will not go into this, but I’m replacing rotten soffits and, and fascia and it’s really exciting because it’s the kind of thing I’ve never done and anytime I’m doing something I’ve never done, I find it kind of thrilling.

And then when it actually works, I find that I don’t hate myself. And that’s, that’s awesome. That’s like a good way to come to not hating yourself.

Christina: Yeah.

Jeff: So, yeah, [00:06:00] I’m, I’m good. Rotten wood. I had to clear out a squirrel nest today that I was pretty sure had dead babies in it. ’cause I had a squirrel war and I had to close off the, the soffit from this squirrel I was fighting with that would yell at me in my workshop.

And I was extra sure that I made extra sure that there weren’t babies in there before I shut it off. But man, a couple weeks later, it sure didn’t smell good in that corner. And so I, today, I like finally had the courage when I was ripping off the soffit and, and everything else to like, clear it out. But I found a way to do it so that I didn’t have to see, I didn’t have to see there was a massacre.

I can’t handle it. One animal dies in my garage every winter and, and they all, they all are like framed, uh, in the, in the palace of my mind.

Christina: Yeah. Uh, okay. So Rotted Wood should also be a band name. I’m just

Jeff: rotted wood.

Brett: I actually, I actually already decided to title this episode, rotten Soffits. We’ll see what else happens,

Jeff: That’s good. That’s good. I like it. That’s what I got.

Christina: [00:07:00] okay. Uh, I’ll go next. Um, okay, so the first, the, the,

Jeff: My name’s Christina

Christina’s Taylor Swift Update

Christina: Yeah, I’m, I’m c I’m Christina, and I’m a Scorpio and No, um, so, uh, most important thing, uh, for, for my mental health and, and I think also going back to the roots of this podcast is that, uh, Taylor Swift got her master’s back, and, uh, so this is very important

Brett: her, the recording’s not her degree. Okay.

Christina: no, she hast not already doctorate, so she’s already, she’s already that, but like, yeah, but she got her master’s back.

And so, um, that means that like all of her, her first six original recordings, all the music videos, all the photo photographs, the concert films, the demos, everything belonged to her. And the reports are that she paid in the $350 million range. So basically what the, what the original, what they were sold to for the second time, they sold them back to her.

Um, and which, which is, which is great ’cause essentially by doing the Rerecording project, she devalued them enough that they didn’t, you know, get a, a massive premium, which, which they would’ve had [00:08:00] otherwise.

Jeff: was that an unintended consequence or was that part

Christina: Oh no, that was the whole point. No, no. The whole point was absolutely. ’cause she’s the song. Well yeah, ’cause she’s the songwriter, so they can’t do sync rights without her permission.

So even though they owned the master recordings, they wouldn’t be able to like, license them to film or television without her permission. And she was like, no. And then she got half the royalties from the streaming stuff anyway, so they were making like 30 million a year. But So was she off of just the other stuff?

I still think they did her a kindness because they could have been juicing that for all they, while it was worth, they could have been putting out DVDs, they could have been putting out books, they could have been licensing the photos for merch. Like her fans would’ve revolted, she would’ve made a big deal about it.

But like, let’s be honest, your aunt in hot topic is not gonna know or care if the Taylor Swift shirt is licensed by Taylor Swift herself, or if it’s licensed by like, Apollo Global, like, you know what I mean? Like, like they’re, they’re not gonna care. So, or Shamrock Holdings or whatever it was called. So.[00:09:00]

The fact that

Jeff: just your aunt. That’s me in hot topic.

Christina: right. But what I mean is like Swifties would, would know the difference between like the official merch and like the, the the, you know, um, uh, like licensed photos that she no longer had any ownership of stuff. Like I’m, I’m just saying. So, but like they, they, they could have made a lot more money off of this is, is what my point is.

And so the fact that they basically like made a hundred million dollars and, you know, ba basically sold it for even money, I think is a kindness. Um, so, so did she from her letter. But the only reason I’m mentioning this for mental health purposes is that like, finally, like I’m happy for Taylor and all, but like my national nightmare of, of having to pretend like the Taylors versions, like we’re anywhere near as good as the originals is over.

And I never

Jeff: the music you love and came to love of hers back in your life.

Christina: well, okay, look,

Jeff: I mean, you had it. I know you had it in

Christina: Yeah. Well, no, no, but here, here’s the thing. I’m a huge Taylor fan and like I, I’m like a Taylor shooter as they would say, obviously. Um, there’s no way in hell [00:10:00] that you could pay me enough money to listen to like Style Taylor’s version over the original ’cause it was ruined.

It, the, the, the, the new guitar bit, like, the whole thing was, it was just fucking ruined. And I paid for those albums. They were in my iTunes library. I also had physical copies. Fuck you. If you think I’m gonna stream like the, the non misogynistic version of better Than Revenge. No, I’m gonna be like listening to the slut shaming version.

That’s it. But the thing is, is that I had to pretend in like plight company, like. You know, like I, I, I, it, it was one of those things like when I would tell people, oh yeah, I still listen to the old versions when I want to. And people were like, oh my God, you monster. And I’m like, okay, now I don’t have to pretend anymore.

And, and, and, but more importantly, ’cause I never really pretended that much. Like I think on this podcast I was even pretty off open. I was like, oh, I think the rerecording are interesting and some of the vocals sound better, but it’s obviously, it’s a different vibe and, and whatever. But some of them, I was just flat out why I was like, this is worse.

But the big thing is, is that like, they would only play like the Taylor’s versions, like on like radio and on like playlists and stuff. And that’s annoying [00:11:00] because they’re, they’re just, to your point, they’re not the ones you grew up with. Like, it’s, it’s not the the thing. And so,

Jeff: fan and, ’cause I know that some of those differences are obviously so subtle and some are so glaring, but like if you’re a fan, the subtle is not subtle.

Christina: No, and the thing is, I think for like, people who came in and became like fans of hers, like during the ERAS tour, and there were a lot of people that got into her that way. Fair enough. You are not gonna really notice or care, but like, if you’ve been spinning like more than half your life, listening to someone like, come on.

Um, or, or close to half your life, whatever the, the, the math breakdown is like, you, you know, those songs and like, you know, every intonation. So I’m just glad that, like, for my mental health, that like my personal nightmare of having to ever worry about hearing style Taylor’s version on like a Spotify playlist or in a store somewhere is hopefully gone because there’s, there’s no reason that we, that anyone should ever subject themselves to that the vault tracks different, right?

Like, that was like a gift and that was great. And like, I’m glad we got all two L [00:12:00] 10 and like she said, she’s not gonna re-record reputation, which think fuck, she would’ve ruined it. Um, and, uh, but, but we will get the vault tracks, which will be great. And, and she did apparently rerecord the debut album. I would be interested in hearing how that sounds, you know, versus 16 versus like, you know, almost 36, but.

When, whenever that happens, that that’ll be a fun thing to listen to. It’ll be a fun deluxe edition to, for me to give her more money for. But like, I don’t, I I, I don’t need to have it like in like on the Delta playlist, which they still have. Like if this was a movie Taylor’s version on their playlist, and like, honestly that was a pretty good re re-record, but it’s still just a jarring thing where I’m like, this voice is, this voice is more mature

Jeff: Yeah,

Christina: you know, 2009 or 2010.

So anyway.

Brett: So Trump’s Trump said that

Jeff: Wait. Whoa, whoa.

Christina: Yeah, he said that she was no longer hot.

Brett: no, no. Since, since he said he hated Taylor, that she was no [00:13:00] longer hot. And if we ignore that, the heirs tour also ended in that period. He was right a hundred percent right.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, yeah. Well, what’s funny about this is that like she didn’t go to the American Music Awards and, and the fans, this is, okay, this is genuinely the funniest thing. You guys might appreciate this. So there’s been all this criminology and, and there’s a joke that says that by Taylor buying back her masters, she prevented, you know, millions of white women from join joining Q Anon.

And it is true because these, these people were insane, including like people that I know, some of my friends got really into this too, where they were looking for all these Easter eggs that clearly never existed about when she was going to drop reputation that rerecord, because that album has become AOC cult classic.

People really like it. And they were like, oh, she’s gonna go all out on this. And like, they would look into the, how many emojis is she putting in? And oh, she’s wearing this snake necklace and so that must mean this is coming out. Like it was getting like genuinely Q anon shit, right? And so she doesn’t go to the American Music [00:14:00] Awards because she didn’t win anything.

But also she’s doesn’t have anything to promote and you only go to that award

Brett: Or to prove for that

Christina: Well, no, she has nothing to prove. She’s got like the most of them that you can possibly get and it’s a fan, ostensibly, fan voted award. But then they make it very clear we can change the results to be whatever the fuck we want them to be.

It’s one of those things. So, you know, it’s like a third tier like music award show that you go to. If you’re trying to promote something, your label forces you or your like a, a d or E list, like influencer. That’s why you go, Taylor Swift’s not going to that. But people were like convinced that last week they were like, oh, she’s gonna go on, on, on, you know, Monday or whatever and she’s gonna do this.

And I was like, no, she’s not. Like I told people in the the Google Swifties chat, I was like, no, she’s not going. Of course she’s not. And oh, we look like clown. She’s not doing this. So the funniest possible thing is the fact that she admitted she hadn’t even recco rerecorded a quarter of reputation and that like she didn’t want to, and that she had really been like hit a hit, hit a wall with it, and she was like.

Yeah, [00:15:00] sorry, that’s not happening. I will give you like the bonus tracks if you want them, but like, I’m not re-recording this. So like, that’s genuinely the funniest thing is that for like years, literal years people have been like trying to figure out when is she gonna drop reputation and like it was all in everyone’s head.

Like, it’s just, it’s, it’s incredibly funny. So, yeah.

Sports Fandom and Mental Health

Jeff: I like this, um, bringing in fandom into mental health. Like, uh, this is a, a far more, uh, kind of a stupid version, but I, I, every once in a while I get invested in a sports team and I did this year for almost an entire NBA season. And I am always struck by how, when, when your team wins, you personally feel like you’ve done something right.

Yeah, yeah. When your team wins, you personally feel like you did something right. When they lose, you personally feel like, and here’s what pisses me off, is that like when they, when they, when they lost the conference playoffs last week, um, I, you know, I felt for them. I felt for me, I was say I felt like I did something where I could hardly look at them, but here’s what I realized of saying [00:16:00] this to my wife.

I was like, they’re gonna go home tonight to their fucking $30 million homes, and I am just gonna stay in this bed I’m in now where I watch the game and feel shitty about myself and wake up and still be like, I. Not quite as, as able to buy three meals a day as I want to.

Brett: Do you,

Christina: right. Exactly.

Jeff: Sorry, I mean, eating out, that was a weird, but

Christina: No, I get what you’re

Jeff: that was a weird,

Brett: l has a small group of queer friends that adopted the wolf emoji and the blue heart emoji as they’re kind of like, they’re also mostly neurodivergent. And it was kind of their way of saying, I love you. I feel you. I’m not gonna respond right now. They would reply with just like a wolf and a blue heart.

Jeff: but it’s not, that’s not a timber’s reference.

Brett: I, no,

Jeff: Okay. Okay. Okay.

Brett: when the Timberwolves won last weekend, her their, uh, whole feed, like [00:17:00] all their text messages, their Facebook wall, everything was flooded with wolves and blue hearts. And,

Christina: It’s very confusing.

Brett: and El thought that thought of that as some weird synchronicity with the universe not realizing that, that el didn’t even know that the timber wolves was a team.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

Brett: so it, they had to come to me who knows just slightly more about sports than L does. Um, to

Jeff: spend many years when they’re not a team.

Brett: to figure out what was going on. I was around when they became a

Jeff: Acapella and sports and Taylor Swift and awesome.

Brett: we a sports podcast now?

Jeff: that is the deepest I’m

Christina: I, I

Jeff: gonna go.

Christina: I was gonna say, now we are actually, and, and we need to get to Brett, but like, on a future episode, Jeff, I do actually wanna like di dig into like, sports fandom with you because I don’t, I, I don’t go to sports Twitter, but, um, my friend Justin, um, is, is like a, a, a diehard for so many sports and [00:18:00] he keeps me up to date on it.

Like he and I, like, we share obsessions with like, the various TV shows that lesbian Twitter is really into because that’s the best Twitter. And unfortunately Twitter is just the best network for anything. Pop culture or blue sky. It doesn’t have any fucking juice. And like, we’re not even gonna talk, pretend that threads and, and, and Mastodon exist in this conversation.

’cause I’m sorry, but they don’t, um. But like, but he will keep me up. Like, like he was sending me all kinds of memes from Paris last night when, um, when, when, when Paris won, like the, the, the, the soccer championships or whatever, like the premier league or whatever it was. And, uh, and, and, and like, you know, he sends me all kinds of other stuff.

So I, I know some things, but not a lot. But I would love to like hear more about how you got really into the, in, in, into the timber wolves this,

Jeff: I have to scrub my algorithm on YouTube now because it’s only when the season’s on that I wanna watch highlights and press conferences. So I had to do a, you know, the full cleaning you do where you’re just like not interested, not interested, not interested. For some reason I have to say not interested to like corn videos about every two months.

I don’t like corn. I don’t listen to [00:19:00] corn, Brett. Sorry.

Christina: Well,

Brett: I don’t listen to corn. What are you talking about?

Jeff: No, I’m saying, sorry. You have a, you have a mental health update.

Christina: yeah, you do. And we’re, and we’re talking about Maynard or whatever, but like, uh, yeah.

Brett: Yeah.

Jeff: Brett, Bartholomew Terpstra

Brett: How I have never told you my middle name. How did you,

Jeff: names. Yeah. I’m a great guesser. I can also guess your weight

Brett: you want, do you want, do you know what my middle name actually

Jeff: No.

Christina: Paul.

Brett: It’s Marine.

Jeff: Marine. What

Christina: would’ve gotten

Jeff: Really?

Brett: Marine with two R’s, which was my, I think, my great-grandfather’s first name.

Christina: Okay,

Brett: And it means man from around the water. My first name means man from the Isles of Britain.

And my last name, name means man from the Manmade Hills in

Jeff: a man.

Christina: so you’re just

Jeff: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Man. From the man. That’s how, that’s very specific.

Brett: family from the Manmade Hills. So like a [00:20:00] TURP is the obs opposite of a dyke. Um. Well, not

Jeff: That’s not, we don’t say that.

Brett: I get that a lot, but, um, like they were like manmade hills that cities were built on in areas that were prone to flooding.

I think so. Turp a turp and Terpstra means from the TURPs if you’re Dutch. And so yeah, I’m, I just have a well-traveled name, but Aloia, I

Jeff: is there some name that could be like, um, man from the text editor in his basement?

Brett: Hmm.

Jeff: You could like, you could add that

Brett: Tex Mara.

Christina: text,

Brett: Text extra. Text extra. There you. Yeah, it’s right there.

Jeff: All right, Maureen, you go.

Brett: All right.

Job Hunting Struggles

Brett: Um, so I can’t remember where I was last time I was on, but I have been let go from Oracle. I have spent the last month sending out job applications. Um, I got. [00:21:00] A bite from Shopify and they put me through three hours of interviews and had me spend two hours on a writing assignment.

So we’re looking at five hours invested before they said we’ve decided to move forward with other candidates. And that was so tiring emotionally that I have taken a couple days off before I start sending resumes out again. Um, but it took me 30 resumes to get one hit. And for some of those resumes I had like referrals within the organization.

And even then I couldn’t get an interview. Um, so despite the fact that LinkedIn is chockfull of jobs, I’m qualified for getting an interview is. Difficult. Um, so I am [00:22:00] heavily weighing my options as an independent developer. Um, I have, uh,

Jeff: Which should have made you rich. Not literally, but you shouldn’t have to. You should want for nothing given the quality of your work.

Brett: Thank you. Thank you. But I, I also am a horrible business person,

Jeff: Yeah. Well that goes along

Brett: and I give so much away for free, and, but

Jeff: punk rock damaged. I think that’s Ted Leo’s term. Your punk rock damaged. You give everything away from free or you feel guilty.

Brett: yeah, right. I, uh, but I’m looking at like how I can like kinda revamp my, my stable of apps to actually pay out, um, getting like Envy Ultra out the door. I have a version three of marked that is. Um, well, it was 90% finished and then I, I’ll tell you about it in a second. But, um, and I’m gonna put that out as like a subscription, uh, pricing [00:23:00] and uh, and I think even if I were to get another job, I could turn all of this passive income into like a second income.

Um, but if I decide I’m don’t like interviewing and working for corporations, which feels like super possible right now, um, that I figured out ways that figured I can, I can have a 401k, I can have health insurance. I can have like, group rates on health insurance and get, like ACT did. Okay, so side note, in the Affordable Care Act, there’s a carve out for religious institutions.

Do you know about this?

Christina: Um, I, I’ve heard about this, but I don’t want know what the details

Jeff: Are you back in the church?

Christina: I was gonna say, are you gonna start a

Brett: no, you don’t. You don’t have to be religious. It’s kind of a, it’s a backdoor if you know about it. [00:24:00] Religious organizations are allowed to negotiate these group rates for better insurance. And the problem with a lot of them is for anything major, it’s full coverage for anything minor. You often pay out of pocket and then they negotiate directly with the provider and then pay you back.

Um, so it’s not like it’s not as convenient as regular health insurance, but in many cases

Christina: you pay up front, but

Brett: it’s better than what you can get on the. Yeah. On

Christina: the marketplace.

Brett: Yep. Um, so like, there, there are options out there. And right now, uh, I’m on Minnesota’s Medicare basically, uh, medical aid, um, which is

Jeff: A great program. Minnesota’s the best.

Brett: for people with zero, with zero reportable income, which is where I’m at at the moment.

Um, and then if I start getting income, [00:25:00] I can switch to sre. Um, yeah, Minnesota’s, Minnesota’s a decent place to be broke. Um, we have, we have our homeless problems. We have, you know, we have homeless policy problems, but like if you are broke and you need health insurance, I feel pretty safe being in Minnesota.

So, um, no complaints there. But anyway, can I. What do you wanna know? I feel like that’s my mental health in a nutshell.

Jeff: Is, what do you wanna know about Marked or about you?

Brett: Oh, I don’t care. I’ll talk about anything

Jeff: have a

Brett: these shrooms kick in.

Jeff: I um, I have a question about applying for jobs. ’cause I have a colleague who does in the neighborhood of the work I do, I mean, he is a, he is a co-owner of the business, but he does far more like traditional evaluation. And I’m as always just kind of a weirdo of the backpack in the corner [00:26:00] making shit up.

Um, but he’s. Been applying for jobs and he has applied for so many jobs and has not heard back from a single one of them. This is an extremely competent, um, person with a long history of, you know, demonstrable history of work, of good work. Um, he’s struggled with the fact that it, there’s a clear sort of AI filtering.

Um, and so then he is trying to figure out like, do I use AI to match that? What I assume is the AI filtering and there’s all this, all this shit. And Brett, then I hear you talking again. Another, I mean obviously demonstrably capable person in the area that you’re, um, applying in all areas. Brett, let’s be honest, um, I realize this started to sound like that’s, I was saying you’re just, you’re just competent there, but let’s, let’s just be clear.

Um, so do you get the sense, are you even hearing anything back when you’re not getting an interview? I.

Brett: Um, I’m, I twi two out of 30. I heard immediately, like, [00:27:00] clearly AI generated, your resume doesn’t fit. What we’re looking for. Um, but 28 of those, not a peep, nothing. I didn’t even get a confirmation that they had received my resume.

Jeff: wow.

Christina: Yeah.

Brett: I got a confirmation from Apple that they had received my resume and that if I were a fit, a recruiter would be in Dutch, but then nothing.

Christina: nothing. Yeah.

Brett: um, yeah, I think, I think AI is detrimental and if you don’t use it properly, I don’t think you get a job anymore.

Jeff: is part of this, and Christina, I bet you would know some of this too, is part of this, that AI has also made it easy for many, many, many more people to apply for a job than they would have.

Christina: Yes and no. Um, the, the, this whole like recruiting thing started long before the AI stuff, um, in terms of the automatically filtering and stuff out, because on the hiring side I dealt with things where if [00:28:00] somebody didn’t fill out and didn’t like show like all the requirements that were on a certain job, like they didn’t check every box, like I fit all these requirements or whatever, then they would automatically be given, you know, from greenhouse or whatever the system would be.

Um, a rejection notice. Even people that we were actively like wanting to get their, like resume into the system because we were purposely recruiting them. There could be things that could break down in the system that would, would come down. And then at big companies, referrals can work and not work in certain ways.

Like in, in some cases it will actually. Guarantee that a, a recruiter will give you a call and, and do a, a, a, a preliminary call and, and see if you’re a fit. But that’s not a guarantee because some places will claim, oh, well, because we fire, we, we, we have federal contracts, then we can’t technically take anything that will be, um, preferential from anyone.

Even if it’s literally us asking our employees to refer people internally, we can’t take that as a signal. So you have to really, in a lot of cases, if you issue a referral, you really need to know the hiring manager and then be able to advocate for the [00:29:00] person directly. But the thing is, is that that doesn’t scale and we don’t all know the hiring managers for jobs that we see at companies that have hundreds of thousands of employees.

So it’s shitty. AI has made it worse for sure, because the systems can now go through much faster than the older algorithms were, which we’re already doing the same things. Um, in terms of if more people are submitting that way, there have been a number of, I guess, kind of local projects where people will kind of spam, um.

You know, uh, like job applications using AI to basically write the cover letters and maybe, you know, rework the resumes and, and whatnot based on the skills that you insert. Um, there have been some takedown notices for some of ’em. I think some are trying to maybe, you know, pivot into more paid services and whatnot.

I don’t know how much that is actively being used in terms of sending in bulk, but I do feel like at this point, if it were me, if I were like actively looking for a job, I would absolutely be trying to use the AI against itself. Right. I would absolutely be trying to optimize my cover letter or my resume everything, um,

Brett: so I [00:30:00] did that. I, I optimized and I, and I would do it per application too. I would copy in the job requirements and the whole nice to have section and then copy in my current resume and tell it to tailor it. And, and I would use that. And I sent out a bunch of tailored cover

Christina: That, and that can work or it can’t work. Yeah. What I, what I will say, um, and I don’t know if this’ll help like either of you, um, but, but might be something to put out to your friend. The years of experience thing is, unfortunately, even though it’s illegal, like one of the few labor protections that we have in this country is supposed to be around like ageism.

It doesn’t matter. Um, limit the, uh, limit how far back you, uh, go in terms of your resume. Yeah. Like I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m being freaking real. Like I, and I would do this myself. Like I wouldn’t, there’s, I, I would like, uh, at a certain point this where it kind kind of becomes a problem if you’ve worked at places for really long periods of time.

Like a friend of mine, um, Microsoft laid off a bunch of people and, and [00:31:00] he’s been there for 19 years and that is gonna be hard for him to be able to like. Fudge on a resume, right? But, but, but, but in general, like drop things from before a certain period of time because it, ageism should, it’s not supposed to be legal, but companies, recruiters, whatnot, they will look at that.

And so dropping the amount of years of experience, uh, is one of the, one of the things that I hear from, from people, from recruiters and, and from, um, like that, that just advice that I, I would give to others. Like, it, it doesn’t actually work in your favor the way that it should because the way that recruiters potentially see it or employers is like, oh, this person’s going to cost me more money.

Not, this person’s going to be more valuable. And, and so that can like, fuck you from even getting into the conversation. The, the, the job market is so shitty right now. I have a lot of friends who are going through this and I, so I really, you know, feel for you Brett, and like it has nothing to do with you.

Like that’s the thing. Like, and, and then the interview process itself. You’re not wrong. Like many times you’d have the take homes and you have like the [00:32:00] systems design interviews and you have like. A lot of work that goes into it, and some places will pay you for that, but, um, most won’t. And you know, four or five years ago things were different and people were actively trying to recruit talent for, for tech jobs.

Now they’re not. And so like the amount of money that they will, you know, uh, put out for recruitment in terms of like, if they, in the past, like sometimes some places would pay people like a, a, a small, like hourly wage to go through the, you know, uh, testing process. Like that’s all out the window because they know that, you know, people want the jobs.

It’s, it’s really shitty.

Brett: I, so the Shopify one I got pretty excited about because not only was I a hundred percent qualified for the position, like there were some things I’ve applied for that I’m like, I could pick it up, I could learn this. But the Shopify one, I mean Shopify’s written in Ruby

Christina: I was gonna say,

Jeff: Oh man.[00:33:00]

Brett: it’s written in Ruby.

And like I would, I was applying for the docs team writing API docs for developers working with Ruby interfaces, using static blog generating systems based on liquid, which Shopify invented. And like all of this stuff I have. Decades of experience with, um, and, and when I got the letter that said we’ve decided to go with other more qualified candidates, I was like, what?

Jeff: That was the letter.

Brett: I, yeah, I don’t, I don’t, I would, I would love to meet the person more qualified than me for this job. So I have to assume there were other factors that they can’t legally say were the reason.

Christina: Totally, totally. I mean, ’cause and that’s such bullshit, like, ’cause the thing is, is that, like, to me that also seems like a, I don’t know, either they had another candidate in mind or, or what, which, fair enough. But like, you know, [00:34:00] this, this is like a, a, a clear problem to me with like their recruiting systems.

If you’re going to take one of the foremost experts on all the things that, that they’re looking for and be like, no.

Jeff: Hmm. Yeah.

Brett: yeah.

Jeff: I am, uh, one of the things that gives me pause. I mean, I, so the way I’ve always gotten work is usually based on something I had been working on in the previous year, and someone sees that and goes, Hey, we want you over here. Um, that’s how I kind of like moved forward through journalism.

It’s how I ended up in what I’m doing now, which I’ve now been doing for more than 10 years. Um, and, but I can see a, a world in which it’s no longer possible for me to make a full living doing this work. I mean, we’ve had, you know, I’m, I’m noticing we have fewer small contracts. I don’t know that we’ll have more of the really large contracts.

We’ve kind of, that’s been our bread and butter. Um. And, and one of the things that really is like, oh man, I’m fucked. I’m, I’m strictly gonna have to get whatever my next job is based on a relationship somehow. [00:35:00] Because if it’s AI filtered and I don’t have a high school diploma, I’m out before you get to anything else.

Like, that’s it. I’m gone. I’m not making it through. Um, and that is, that is, um, humbling. It also pisses me off ’cause I finally am at a point in my life, I mean, I’ve been there for maybe 12, 13 years, but where I didn’t feel like that was gonna be a liability ever. And in fact I felt like just because of the trajectory it set me on, it was a strength.

Um, but I will say that when I got a job in public radio, no one there knew I didn’t have a high school diploma, didn’t go to college. And when my boss found out, she had a little bit of a, I hope my boss doesn’t find out response to that. Um, and, and so like, you know, I was, but I was able to just kind of skate through without anybody asking.

’ca