Remote Work, Big Companies without Big Teams, and Finding Dax a Hat
You said the rest of us, so we're just we got the fake jobs, I guess.
Dax:I mean, it's a spectrum. I think I think my job's, like, 50% real, 50% fake.
Adam:Podcasters. Exactly.
Dax:The part of my job where I'm on Twitter and making a podcast, fake.
Adam:What are you what's in your ear?
Dax:Yeah. I was gonna say I'm I switched up the setup a little bit.
Adam:Oh. So
Dax:I got these cheap earbuds, I guess they're called. So for I mean, people listening, they can't see what's in my ear. Just they look like AirPods except they're black.
Adam:Looks like a black AirPod. Yeah.
Dax:Yeah. They're only Fitting. Sorry. They're only $50 and the thing with them is they come with a dongle for like RF mode. So they don't go over Bluetooth, they go over like just the other thing.
Dax:I don't really know what the difference is but
Adam:I was gonna say, say more words. What's what's the problem with Bluetooth? What's the advantage of RF?
Dax:Okay. So this might be all perception based but for me, I find Bluetooth to be kind of flaky because I feel like it's optimized for it's different things. I think it's I think I think Bluetooth is optimized for like low power because usually you're connecting a power device, a battery power device to another battery power device. So you want that to be as low power as possible. But like gaming headphones, like wireless gaming headphones don't use Bluetooth, they just use they just call RF.
Dax:It's like the same 2.4 frequency that like your WiFi or like cordless phones in your house would use. Uh-huh. And it's way less flaky. I can walk pretty far away from my computer. Yeah.
Dax:And so I specifically was looking for headphones that or earbuds that did that. I figured I'm gonna use these when I'm recording or when I'm on a video call because the auto audio quality for me doesn't really matter and it's kind of nicer than putting on like my big headphones.
Adam:Well, yeah. Well, have you considered a wired pair of headphones?
Dax:No, I do have a wired pair of headphones right here.
Adam:Oh, okay. Why don't you well, yeah, what's wrong with those? You just don't like wearing them on your head?
Dax:Yes, exactly. I don't like wearing them on my it's actually a combination of aesthetic and comfort. These headphones are actually incredibly comfortable, especially compared to my old wireless ones which were heavy and like they literally give me headaches because I wear them all day. But there's something that happens when you shave your head and you put headphones on where it just doesn't look right. It looks like you're wearing like a headband and like really just like accentuates the curve of your head.
Dax:I don't
Adam:know if it's just me but like
Dax:like look like when I put this on Yeah.
Adam:I wanna see. Because I've never thought this about you with headphones on.
Dax:To me, this just looks worse. Like
Adam:Oh, you're saying like it outlines your your head? Yeah. Like it shows
Dax:Your your the band gets lost in your hair and you just see it on the side. And I think that looks totally normal. But then for me, like
Adam:Interesting.
Dax:Band is super clear. And I don't know, I've I've always hated it. Especially because we're doing these little clips.
Adam:Oh, yeah. Yeah. The clips, which I haven't made more of.
Dax:I mean, it's tedious Yeah. So I'm like, I gotta I gotta find a look that works for me. So I'm okay with the hat and the headphones, but I'm currently in between hats.
Adam:Oh, between hat could you explain Between hats. I have so many questions. Like, you had a hat, but you're looking for a new hat?
Dax:I'm very particular about my hats, but I don't really understand what what it is that I like. So I'll just try on like various hats, like baseball caps, I guess Yeah. Where it technically are. And I won't like most of them but I like some of them and there was one that I really like.
Adam:It's amazing how differently they can fit. Sorry.
Dax:Go Yeah. Like it's like how they sit on top of your head, how long
Adam:Uh-huh.
Dax:The brim is, like the curve and all of that. So there's one Patagonia hat that I liked and it just got it just got like way too dirty.
Adam:Yeah. They do. They get like the build gets all greasy from your hand picking it up off your head. Yeah.
Dax:Yeah. And then with pets, they get like hair stuck on it and stuff. It just got to a state of I can't wear this anymore. So I'm I've been in between hats for a while now.
Adam:So you need a new hat. Okay. Well, there's a challenge for the listeners. Send Dax a good hat or I don't know.
Dax:Recommend some hats for you.
Adam:Mail him one. Not just like send him links. Mail him a good hat. Have you put your address out there, Dax? Do we know how to get ahold of you?
Adam:Maybe we need a fan mail box No.
Dax:For tomorrow. Oh, yeah. A PO box. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure lots of companies out there have hats with their logos on them.
Dax:That's another thing. I don't like I don't like stuff on the hat especially
Adam:Except for Patagonia.
Dax:I did wear a database hat a little bit because that one actually looked pretty good.
Adam:Exclusive. It was hard It to was limited edition. And I'm a sucker for those kind of things.
Dax:Yeah. I I thought it looked good. It gave me it actually like hurt my head a little. Like when I would take it off, I was getting these like burns kind of like around my head. What?
Dax:I feel like you can maybe even there was like a there was like a ring that was developing around the top of my head and it's gone now but Just
Adam:a little feedback for the PlanetScale folks. Guess, hat may cause burns.
Dax:I am getting one of the PlanetScale jackets now. You jacket? No. Okay. So I love what they do because I think all companies should do this.
Dax:Don't focus on your logo, just find really good quality thing. Find a really good quality jacket and maybe Yeah. Put like a little color that's like your color that's somewhere. And so Plantscale has this bomber jacket which looks really cool. Like, I've always loved bomber jackets.
Dax:And it just has like a little bit of an orange tint inside one of the pockets and like a little tiny logo somewhere else. But it's just mostly a really nice jacket.
Adam:And what how are you you just like, you send a message to Sam and you're like, hey, sorry about that butt text that one time. But could I I grab one of those jackets?
Dax:I think it's a reward for how much I I show plan and scale my threads on how I hate Postgres connection management.
Adam:Oh, okay.
Dax:So can't trust my opinions because I'm just out here So looking for a
Adam:they they pushed this jacket to you. They they reached out to you and they're like, hey, we'd like to send you a jacket for being so kind to PlanetScale.
Dax:Well, he posted, Sam posted the picture of Jacket and when they were he was like, if you do something really crazy, we'll send you one of these. And I replied being like, this is awesome. I said I said something like that and then he DM me being like, some of your dress.
Adam:Sorry. I know it's it's really awkward to like describe something that happened, like an online interaction. Could you start saying it out loud? Was just going, this is stupid.
Dax:That's like 60% of our podcast.
Adam:So It really is. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, everyone that listens. This is stupid.
Adam:I wanna talk about remote. I saw your tweet. That was a long tweet by the way.
Dax:Yeah. Was trying to mix it up. I was like, if I write something really long, will people still read it? And it seems like they did. Let's say broke it up into like little I still did that thing where like each section was broken up so they felt like bite size.
Adam:But I felt like I was reading a blog again. Remember blogs?
Dax:Those are fun. I'll start doing more of this because like it wasn't It felt good to be able to write without thinking too hard about the constraining it to a small thing and people still read it so that's a good sign. Yeah. It was a
Adam:little it was like a little brain dump. You just like told a story, you laid it all out there, all your frustrations. Could you talk about your frustrations with people being like, I can't believe people want me to come back to the office?
Dax:Yeah. So I I've been kinda I've been seeing this discussion around like it's called, they're calling it RTO. I always laugh because of these like corporate acronyms that just come out of nowhere and just becomes things that people are constantly saying. RTO, return to office. So everyone's complaining about RTO because they work at these big companies where, they went remote during COVID and then now the companies are like, time for RTO.
Dax:And that might look like two days a week or three days a week or full time. It just varies. Yeah. And I and I preface what I wrote with this. I was like, I'm just kinda like salty about this whole situation because
Adam:You hate remote workers. Stupid remote work. Sorry.
Dax:Just like the people complaining, it just feels extremely entitled to me. And the reason is, as someone that's worked remote most of my career
Adam:Same.
Dax:I remember how painful it was to try to work remote, like pre COVID and like this years before then. It was like a lifestyle that you had to really like commit yourself to because it meant 98% of companies were not gonna hire you. So now you have a much smaller pool. Yep. So it took like a little bit of dedication to say like, I really care about this way of working.
Dax:I believe in it. It makes sense for me. It's something I want for my life. And you have to like kinda really hustle like you so in the in the post I was talking about how and some a bunch of people replied saying they have to do the same thing where when I interviewed, and I was mostly a consultant so interview meant like kind of initial consulting type of calls.
Adam:Yep.
Dax:Yep. I would have to like really sell myself and get a really really great interaction and then kind of lay in that, hey, by the way, I want to work remote. So it was like it was like a hard mode. You have to like really have people excited to work with you to like accept this because most companies were not remote.
Adam:Mhmm.
Dax:They never really had a remote employee. Most of the people were in the office. It was definitely like a special exception and I had to like Yep. Not go after them. Sometimes I had to like the most lucrative offers, no requirement to come into the office so I had to sacrifice those vice versa, etcetera.
Dax:So it was like this commitment that I had to do and I was fine doing that, like that's what I committed to and I was fine to accept accept all that. The part that has me salty though is during that phase where I was trying to work remote, I honestly felt like a lot of people looked at what I was doing and they liked it but didn't want to put in the effort. Like, they didn't feel like it was worth it to put in the effort to to have that. Yeah. Which is fine, like, you know, everyone makes their own, like, trade offs on what they wanna focus their energy on.
Dax:But it really felt like people would just kinda get in the way for no reason. A lot of people would just write about how remote work could never work and, like, whenever I try to talk about it, like, would just talk about what I wanted to do. Like, I wanna work remote. People would react to me as though I was saying, you have to work remote. Everyone has to work remote.
Dax:And they would kinda make up all these arguments around how like, no good team could ever collaborate without being in the office. And it kinda swung to this extreme where to me, it really felt like it was just stemming from the fact that, no, I think you all want to work remote and you just don't want to accept what that takes, at least back so everyone's rationalizing it as like, oh, I don't want it anyway or it wouldn't be a good thing anyway. And I was like, whatever. Okay. But it annoyed me because it just made stuff harder.
Dax:Like, I just wanted to work remote. You can do whatever you want. I don't care. Just let me let me do what I wanna do and not stop stop making up situations where like, stop making up stories about how like, it's bad for me or like, it's bad for the world. Yep.
Dax:Then COVID happened and suddenly everyone could just work remote without all that pain. They could just kind of do whatever they want. Most companies, you know, were hire still hiring remote workers, at least in our field, and everyone got to work remote. And these same people that were, like, saying how all this stuff was impossible or bad or hard were now working remote. Loved it because, you know, guess what?
Dax:They always wanted to work remote. They were just kind of lying to themselves. And now they're, like, in this ex they're doing the exact same thing in the reverse direction. They're now super extreme. They're, like, anyone that says anything that's even remotely remotely anti remote.
Dax:They have this crazy reaction to, like, any step away from remote work. It's like, it just it just gone to another place where again, it's coming from the same thing. Yeah. They're insecure that they might have to work in person. That means they have to like do something painful, like quit their job, like try to find a new job that lets them work remote.
Dax:But again, instead of like being like, I'm committed to this, I'm gonna make that make that sacrifice and do that. It just shows up as a bunch of complaining of like, people are making us go into remote because the executives are invested in commercial real estate and they're just trying to prop up the commercial. It's just like all this, they're like thinking about all these like conspiracies and like, managers are useless and they're they just want us in the office so they can like, stroke their own ego. It's just like, it's going to this weird place of, I like remote work. I get why a lot of these companies are calling for RTO because most companies are not structured to work well remotely.
Dax:I've worked with a lot of remote companies. The minority of them worked well. Yeah. So I I totally get it. And it's just like, yet again, we're doing the same thing except in the opposite direction.
Adam:Yeah. Is it just is it just come down to, like, when the majority of people believe something, there's so many more people that are gonna be vocal. You have a much bigger pool of idiots and so or you have a much bigger pool of people to find the idiots that are gonna get really loud about the things that don't really matter. Like, when remote was niche, there weren't that many people Yeah. To be annoying.
Adam:And now that there's a lot more of it, there's just more annoying people. Is that basically what's happening here?
Dax:Yeah. And I think the the size of the groups also correlates with another thing which is what I think is actually happening. I think it's easy to have a belief when you don't have to pay any price for it. It's easy for me to say, I believe in this thing because it's just the default or it's like not very hard. Yeah.
Dax:When someone says I believe in something and it's contrarian at the time and it's difficult, you like really know they believe in it because they're paying some price with it. Yeah. Yeah. Back then, when the people that wanted to work remote, it was very hard because everybody in the world was telling me what was wrong. This is actually why I initially was a big fan of DHH because he was one of the people that was really like championing this and like kinda getting the message
Adam:that this can work. Was that book?
Dax:It's a book that I like sent to so many people to like get them to wrap their head around how it is possible and it can work and we have examples of it working really well. Yeah. So I can like believe people when it's a contrarian view because I know they're paying some prime price for it. Yeah. Now, it's kind of like that is the default and it is a mainstream when you're like so pro it, it like it's
Adam:Seems hollow.
Dax:Everybody wants to work remote. Yeah, it's hollow, exactly.
Adam:Yeah. I've always been a big proponent of being able to do remote work. I've I mean, I've lived in
Dax:the Ozarks and I just had to.
Adam:Like, there were no job opportunities for what I wanted to do. So I kinda forced it. There were probably periods of my career where I felt like everything should be remote. Why not? I think I've I've, like, matured in that stance at this stage.
Adam:Like, I don't think we'd have iPhones if Apple were a fully remote company and, like, everyone just worked from home. Like, there are certain things and and certain companies that it just doesn't make sense. But I I do appreciate that I've been able to find those opportunities. And I think I had to work for it over my ten fifteen years.
Dax:Yeah. No. Definitely. Like anyone that's not in like you you made the choice of you're not gonna move to one of these tech hubs, like you cared about other things more. You have to like pay the price of still finding a way to make all that work.
Dax:I think for me, I was actually always I worked remotely but mostly for companies in my city. So even though I was in, because I was in New York for most of my career, all the companies I worked remote for, for the most part were in New York. So I always had the option of just dropping by and I would like maybe like once a week or once every two weeks I would. Yeah. And there were some things I observed by doing that that were kind of shocking to me.
Dax:You know, there were companies where I would interact with people mostly digitally and there are people that I would find annoying. I find them annoying and I'd be like, ugh, this person, like, I just have like a mostly negative feeling around certain people. The moment I saw them in person, it like clicked into my head that oh, I was seeing this weird like two dimensional version of them. The moment I saw them in person, all of those feelings just melted away. Yeah.
Dax:And I think for certain people, like certain traits are exaggerated when they're digital and you kind of get the skewed version of them and like
Adam:I've had that experience for sure.
Dax:Yeah. It's really weird. So there definitely is something so I like, I see the point of it. And if I could, like I was saying in the thread, like, if I could like dream up any any scenario, I live in a very walkable part of Miami. I would love to have an office in the downtown which is like a ten minute walk for me.
Dax:I'd love if most of my coworkers lived in the same city and I a couple times a week, we could just go in there and hang out. Yeah. And Yeah. Whether we're doing focused work or just hanging out, whatever, that's like my absolute dream. Like, if I could make anything happen, that's what I would I would do.
Dax:So my dream isn't to just be a 100% remote. Yeah. It's like some balance of the two. So if anyone like everyone sits down and thinks about it, think that's actually what most people would like. Yeah.
Dax:We're at a point now where it's like, no, we wanna be a 100% remote no matter what. Like going to the office means like your company is is screwing you or something.
Adam:Yeah. The early in my career, one of my first, like, full time roles as a consultant, was with a company that had they had, like, three or four engineers in an office. It was in Salt Lake. And then there's probably three or four, maybe five or six of us that were remote. So it's kind of this split team from the beginning.
Adam:And they would have us come out, like, once a year and work for a week in the office, all of us. And I can remember I mean, I I started my careers remote. So, like, all of my software engineering experience was from home working with people and doing whatever I don't Zoom. It wasn't Zoom back then. LogMeIn or something.
Adam:I don't know. Skype? We did. I don't even remember. Yeah.
Adam:But doing, like, video calls and collaborating that way, that was all my experience. So then I can remember going into the office for the first time and then every year after, it was just this kind of like bizarre feeling of, hey, could just go ask them but then you just get really like chatty and you annoy people because you can.
Dax:Exactly. Exactly. It's funny because, when I when I would work remotely, it would be like because most people were in the office and I would be the one that was working from home. The days where I'd come to the office, they would send me home. They would be like, guys, like, you're distracting everyone.
Dax:It's true. Because for me, like, I do work at my desk and when I'm in person, I'm there to, like, hang out and and kinda connect with people. So
Adam:Like, why sit they'd have me in some little room and it's like, I could just sit in here the whole time but, like, why did I come out here?
Dax:Yeah.
Adam:I guess for like dinners afterward. But no, I was gonna like walk across the office and ask everybody a question. If I had a question, I'm not gonna type it out. Yeah. You're you're in the building.
Adam:Here here I come.
Dax:Yeah. Okay. And here's the other part that's maybe a little spicier that I didn't include in the tweet. Oh. I think for truly remote companies to work out, you need people that are extremely motivated.
Dax:And it's not just that like I'm drawing motivation from within, it's like you're in an environment where you're excited about the people you're around, you're excited about what you're doing and you feel pretty motivated to work day to day. Because the reality is when someone is not watching you and you're not very motivated, let's not kid ourselves like everyone milks it. I guess that just is a fact. Yeah. And most companies by definition aren't places that pull a lot of motivation out of people.
Dax:So a lot of these companies when they went remote, I'm really skeptical that a large portion of the employees were really more productive. I'm more productive when I'm remote for the most part because I just can't focus in an office. Yeah. But if you put me at a company where I don't really care about, I'm I'm a 100% less productive at home.
Adam:Yeah. Oh, sure.
Dax:So I understand why like this RTO thing is happening because yeah, like you do need to have certain things in place like that motivation and these companies didn't have to have that because they just had everyone in the office before.
Adam:Yeah. What what are the big measures like nationally or globally of productivity? Don't they do like, I've heard anecdotes like, oh, US productivity dips by 15% during March Madness or whatever. I've heard that kind of stuff. How do they measure it and I bet it's fake?
Dax:I have no idea. And yes, it seems like a stupid probably a stupid measurement that doesn't really mean anything.
Adam:Yeah. Yeah. I wonder how much actual yeah. Interesting. I have all kinds of thoughts now.
Adam:Like, I mean, maybe I'm getting into the the people you don't like when I say things like this. But, like, the is most work fake? Like like, are most people not really doing productive things? Or not, like, with their days, but just, like, roles. Are there a lot of fake roles, a lot of fake jobs?
Dax:Yeah. I I actually do really believe in this as well. Okay. There was an entire book about this, remember? It came out probably during COVID.
Dax:It it was like, fake jobs. I forgot what it was called.
Adam:And that would be a nice title.
Dax:Yeah. Because when you were saying like measure productivity, was like, how would I do that? I think I would just measure as revenue per employee.
Adam:Yeah. And is that GDP and maybe GDP is the way people measure
Dax:GDP per capita. Yeah. But Yeah. That's like way too averaged out around like
Adam:Yeah.
Dax:That's like your whole country, like everything your country is doing. Uh-huh. But on an individual level, like, yeah, some companies make the same amount as other companies with like a fraction of employees. Right. Though by definition, they're more productive.
Dax:They like found something higher leverage to to work on. Yeah. Yeah. So that that's I mean, that's how I've always thought about it.
Adam:Yeah. I mean, what does that mean? Like, does it is it just we're all pretending? Is it does like our whole economy depend on this charade that like everyone has real jobs and we're all helping move things forward?
Dax:Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's hard to admit but I think it's kinda how it's always worked. There's like a small fraction of people that push that forward and and the rest of us just get to kinda like hang on to it.
Adam:You said the rest of us. So we're just we got the fake jobs, I guess.
Dax:I mean, it's a spectrum. I think I think my job's like 50% real, 50%
Adam:fake. For podcasters.
Dax:Yeah. Exactly. The part of my job where I'm on Twitter and making a podcast is fake. Yeah. Yeah.
Dax:Yeah. But the rest of it maybe maybe a little real.
Adam:Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. This is what we do for fun. This is our hobby.
Adam:And then the other stuff we do is super productive.
Dax:Sometimes I think about it like, yeah, I'm just making I work on just a thing to help people write some JavaScript for some product that probably doesn't make sense. So it's just it's just like so many layers of
Adam:It's suppressing. Don't think about it too hard, I guess. But but that's like a million times more productive than like a lot of things I'm thinking of, which I don't
Dax:wanna say out loud because
Adam:I just don't wanna call out anybody's job or Yeah.
Dax:Giant companies, just there's so many in between overhead rules.
Adam:Yeah. And
Dax:I think someone put the put it well the other day. Forgot where I saw this, but they were like, you have to acknowledge that they're overhead roles. Calling it an overhead role doesn't mean that it's not necessary. Because if you remove it, something would probably break. But the reality is we'd all try to have we'd all like to have less of it, right?
Dax:And some companies figure out how to do that, other companies don't. So I think they yeah, there are just a lot of overhead type type jobs supporting direct jobs just because we haven't figured something out.
Adam:Yeah. Do you think that, like, over time is on a trajectory that it's lessens? Like, it trimming over time? Is it a generational thing?
Dax:I I I mean, we've talked about this before. I really hope that Have some some of the lessons we've taken from the past couple years is we just need a lot more companies that are a lot smaller. I think nobody's happy with this like
Adam:Oh, yeah.
Dax:These like A
Adam:few giant companies. Yeah.
Dax:Yeah. Like just it's just bad in so many different angles and some companies just have to be that, I get that. But I think I think at a time that was kind of like the desire the desire was to try to build more of these massive corporations. I'm hoping more people are excited about figuring out how to get really big without literally being really big. Yeah.
Dax:Yeah. I was just
Adam:we were talking about this the other day. Apple's now almost a $3,000,000,000,000 company. Like, all these companies that just cracked a trillion, like Apple that wasn't that long ago. Apple was the first trillion dollar company. They're 3,000,000,000,000 now.
Adam:What? How's that work? Like, this grows faster and faster. I don't know. That seems bad.
Dax:Yeah. Mean, there's just more and more people, more and more people with money to spend, more and more. So more and more things to capture.
Adam:I guess, like I say, that seem yeah. I guess that's good. But it's it sounds bad in terms of, like, moving towards the goal of more small companies. Seems like the big companies will just keep swallowing up all the smaller like the trick trajectory seems like it's moving more toward fewer bigger companies, I guess.
Dax:Yeah. I think it just comes down to what the workers desire. Do you desire to work at a giant company? Are you willing to sacrifice some of the benefits you get at a giant company for like this other thing that you might want to push for? Yeah.
Dax:I had that's it's kind of similar to the remote thing I was talking about earlier. Like, I also never really worked at a big company like that because I want this other reality to exist and I have to give up a lot of stuff for that but I'm hoping more people are excited by that that trade off. And I think they are.
Adam:Can can you remind me? What what are we giving up? I forgot. I've never worked at a big I made this decision so long ago, I don't remember.
Dax:I I mean, I don't really know. I guess, like
Adam:Benefits?
Dax:Yeah. Just all the Four zero one case. The certainty, like, the the clear road map in front of you to, like, this is what you need to do in next years and you end up here.
Adam:Yeah. The certainty though, I would push back.
Dax:Yeah, exactly. It's fake. It's a fake certainty. Yeah. It's a
Adam:fake certainty because you get laid off tomorrow.
Dax:Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's that like, you have like crazy stability for five years and then you have like a singular moment of insane instability at those big Yeah. Whereas the rest of us, I think we just have like constant minor instability Yeah. Relative to like being laid off overnight.
Adam:Yeah. I prefer this way, personally.
Dax:Yeah, me too. So and I think more people are kinda getting interested in that. I have a spicier tweet for later that I'm gonna save Oh. About
Adam:this. So you gave us some exclusive content on the podcast and then you teased some content you will not give us.
Dax:I'm so good at this fake job. This is a fake job, but good at it.
Adam:It's awesome. I feel like we've been really busy. Like, I feel like we have not had a lot of extracurricular activities. Has it just been a busy summer for everybody or have I just been so unplugged I haven't noticed that everybody's carrying on like normal?
Dax:I don't think it's been a busy summer for everyone. I think it's quiet because everyone has better things to do in the summer.
Adam:Is it quiet? Okay. Because I I haven't been on quite as much. But when I have been, it feels like things are quiet around our parts.
Dax:I think people are enjoying this summer and then me and you, unfortunately, are in a phase of having to ship a lot People are
Adam:like enjoying vacations and doing fun stuff and we're like head down for the last three months. Okay. That Yeah. Makes Sucks for us.
Dax:I know.
Adam:When's when's that gonna get better? Is that getting better soon?
Dax:I think for me, probably like another month or so.
Adam:Same. Yeah. But I've been saying that for, I don't know Yeah.
Dax:Know. Two months. I've been
Adam:saying that for the past ten years. Okay. Yeah. Just soon. It'll get a little better.
Adam:Maybe a month.
Dax:It feels like you never make progress on anything because here's how it feels. I wake up one day and I'll be like, okay, I'm working as a tea. Here's like our most burning problem. Like this sucks. Yeah.
Dax:We gotta fix it. I really want this thing to be fixed. Then we'll
Adam:Is it to Astro?
Dax:No. Oh, sorry. No. The Astro thing Craig is looking at this week. I forgot to respond
Adam:to Okay, cool.
Dax:Yeah. You can do that. So something's burnt like it's you know, like this has we have to fix this. You spend a bunch of focus out for the same month fixing it. Yeah.
Dax:And in that month, you like slowly make that thing better. But as that thing better, a new burning fear like shows up. So by the time you're finished with it, it's been replaced by this new thing. And then your thing sucks, we have to fix it. Dude.
Dax:And then you're in this constant state of being like, never remembering all the stuff you fixed and then just really just being obsessed with how could we let this be so bad? Yeah. Because because right now, I mean, went through this with SST where we're like, okay, like, we don't have a real funnel to a to an actual paid product that's like important for a business, you know? Yeah. So that was like a burning thing.
Adam:I hear.
Dax:And we're getting to a point where we kinda have that and now we're looking at like, oh man, like we have such a leaky bucket. Like we have a lot of people coming in but like our docs suck and like we're losing a lot of people and like people are not having a good onboarding. And now that's like the obsession and it feels like I've made no progress. So just how it goes.
Adam:You know, a wise person once told me, you gotta find a way to do both. Mhmm. You got you gotta do you gotta do all of it at once. You gotta improve your your funnel and your leaky bucket all at once.
Dax:You gotta RTO.
Adam:RTO. Yeah. Get back in that office. Let's get Frank and Jay down to Miami. What what's holding them back?
Dax:I I I I send them pictures, like really nice fun pictures every once in a while where I'm like, so when are you guys
Adam:Oh, it's funny. I'm I'm about to move down there just from all the Mango pictures. You keep sending Mango pictures and I'm gonna move my whole family across country.
Dax:Yeah. It's propaganda. I'm hoping that at some point everyone is like retiring and we all retire to the same place because that would be funny.
Adam:That would be cool. You think it's gonna be Miami, don't you?
Dax:I don't think it's gonna be Miami. I think everyone it's I think everyone's really particular about their life, understandably.
Adam:Yeah. The Ozarks are in the middle of the country. I'm just gonna throw that out there. It's kind of like same distance from everybody.
Dax:Is that your best pitch? That is literally the average?
Adam:That's that's all we got. Yeah. The average. It's the average geographic. It's the best average distance.
Adam:I think the geographic center, seriously, of The United States, like like geographically is like an hour away. Like I know the city, the town that it is.
Dax:Oh oh, away from you. How's that work though? Like, do they do they factor in Hawaii and Alaska?
Adam:I don't know. Yeah. Probably not now.
Dax:Because Hawaii
Adam:is not far further west. Yeah. No. I think continental. And I don't know how it works in terms of like The United States is in a rectangle.
Adam:So like, the distance from what point to East Adam?
Dax:Well, guess you just mark all the points in the perimeter and do the point that's the average from each point in the perimeter.
Adam:Maybe that made sense to you but did not make sense to me.
Dax:I'm just making set
Adam:up. Okay. Yeah. Same.
Dax:I've been in a math class in like, how old am I? Like 12 years or something like that.
Adam:Oh, yeah. It's been a lot we were just talking about this. My eight year old hates learning math. And my I heard my wife say to him, like, you know, your dad actually loves math. Some people love math.
Adam:And I thought, like, I do love math. I haven't taken a math class in forever. Yeah. Twelve years. But I loved it.
Adam:Like, I was excited for math class every day.
Dax:Me too.
Adam:So why don't I just like I should get on the Stanford or whatever the things, the online stuff that's free now and just take math courses for fun. It was a thing I enjoyed.
Dax:Would you really do that? Does that sound fun to you today?
Adam:Yeah. I mean, I loved I loved like lectures. I don't take notes. I don't like
Dax:Yeah, same. A lot
Adam:of the other trappings of school but I love listening to a good lecture. So yeah, it does sound fun. Maybe I'll do it right now.
Dax:I was the exact same way. I would always pay People thought I was a bad student because I never did my homework and I never took notes but I was always paying attention in class. Like, I love just sitting and listening. Yeah. I had some teachers that were like really good in that format.
Dax:We had a really great physics teacher that was like a great lecturer. But yeah, I don't like being distracted by by other things.
Adam:Yeah. The power of like a good a good teacher too. Like, one of my favorite classes in college was like a just a elective thing. It was like a climate science class. And that teacher was just he was so good that I was super into climate science for like three months because he was just like an awesome professor and that's that's the sad reality that they're not all the best, some aren't
Dax:the Yeah. It's what I say, with every profession, no matter how smart you have to be to do it, most people just are kind of whatever at it. Yeah. Which which sucks. We had a similar experience with it because we had a high school physics we we randomly had a high school physics teacher that had two PhDs.
Dax:And she was older and she retired from like her main career and then she switched over to just teaching us and yeah, it was like such a good class because she would just talk and she like didn't care about all like the BS of well, school is supposed to have Yeah. Notes and homework and all that. She didn't care about that. She was like talked about it, talked and it was it was cool and she was really great at teaching. But, you know, like one one in 50 people are probably as good as her.
Adam:Yeah. I had a a high school course. This teacher was eventually fired before tenure. They would literally every class was a sheet of terms, and you had to look them up and write out the definition for the terms. Okay.
Adam:It was like 20 on a on a piece of paper. And then that teacher would sit in the back and sleep. No joke. Would sleep.
Dax:Oh my god.
Adam:They were all yeah. I'm not gonna go into it any further. No more details shared in case anybody listens to this but
Dax:When you described that, I had this weird flashback to do you remember that like burn you would get on your finger from holding your pencil and like writing with it? You Yeah. Happen to you? Like A
Adam:little impression.
Dax:I can, like, feel it on my finger right now. It could, like, flash me back to that feeling of, like, writing with a number two pencil and it, just
Adam:kinda I guess kids still write with pencils in class or do they all just have iPads or something?
Dax:That's another thing that, like, I totally forgot. Everyone always talks about how like, my brother who's ten years younger was talking about having his computer in high school and just, like, playing video games on it, like, during class. I'm just like, wait, you all just had laptops out?
Adam:You just have laptops out in class? So my that's another thing my eight year old hates is writing. He might just hate school, but he hates, like, having to write out words. He can do it and he's developed some of it, but he just really would much prefer just like say the answers. And then I started thinking like, does he need to learn to write?
Adam:It's like how we learned cursive. Like, we never needed to learn cursive. Do kids even need to learn to write anything? I never write. I never have to use my hand to write something.
Dax:Yeah.
Adam:So it's like signing my name fakely on the, like, checkout thing.
Dax:Do you have a real signature? I don't have a real signature. I just do like I do have
Adam:a real signature. Oh, nice. I stressed about it a lot. And, yeah, it's kinda cool. I don't know.
Dax:That's not surprising. I actually I didn't know why I asked that. Of course, you have a real signature.
Adam:Of course, it's very perky here. Intentional. Yeah. Yeah.
Dax:I guess yeah. I mean, when I have to write in the rare occasions have to write, because you always have to fill out like some form somewhere Yeah. Guess. In doctor's office. Like my hands shake and like, it's just so hard.
Dax:I'd like it's so hard for me to write every single letter.
Adam:We just never hardly have to do it. And I feel like if they just learned to type and spent that time learning typing, that's probably better. I don't know, practically speaking.
Dax:Yeah. I guess if you don't If you literally don't know how to write, I don't think it's gonna harm your life that much.
Adam:But somewhat, I guess you're right. Like, you go to a doctor. Why do we have to fill out the same forms at every doctor we go to? What? I don't understand this.
Adam:Can they not, like, all share something somehow? Is there not some digital movement to, like, you fill out the thing one time and then everybody just can share that around?
Dax:I can like talk about this for like two hours. Okay. Should we'll
Adam:save that for the
Dax:next It's like a weird area of expertise.
Adam:Yeah. A little teaser for next time.
Dax:But the the tldr is you legally have the right to ship your records between one doctor and another and there should be a standardized protocol for that. But it's another one of those things where people are just so short term focused. The doctor's offices are not incentivized to make this any easier because the only time people ask them for this is when they're switching to a different customer.
Adam:Oh. So Interesting. It's just
Dax:stupid and short term because the flip side is whenever someone comes to you, now it's a whole hassle for you to get their records into your it's like like people get obsessed with these little things. Like, they're gonna we're gonna optimize for like Yeah. Making it like 5% hard for someone. Someone is not gonna leave a bad doctor because, oh no, my Right. Paperwork like I'm I'm just gonna have this bad doctor treat me to avoid refilling up.
Dax:It's just it's just it's just really dumb. We had, when I worked for that company that made the software for hair salons, a weird obsession of theirs was, oh, someone is gonna quit and steal their their clients. Like take all the clients they have if they're like a barber. They're gonna quit and take them all. So there was all these features on like only seeing people's first names or, like, not being able to, like, control exactly who could see what.
Dax:And I get that this literally happens but at the end of the day, it's just like, okay, it happened, just let it happen. If someone's motivated to, they're just gonna make, they're just gonna ask their clients like, hey, what's your number? I'm leaving. Yeah. Yeah.
Dax:And they're gonna do that over a couple of
Adam:a month. Just be better. Just like be better and make a good place that people don't
Dax:wanna leave. There's a good option. Exactly. Like, just focus on that and then this thing should be a minor problem.
Adam:So Yeah.
Dax:But yeah. It's just it's just it's there's so many things in life where I feel like that is what drives it. Just some like weird fear over some like weird like competitive thing.
Adam:Yep. Yeah. Alright. I think we're out of stuff to talk about because the it's been thirty seven minutes, and that's about an episode length. Right?
Adam:That's not a reason. That's not a cause, but I think this has been kind of a low one. I think we're both just so busy, and I I feel like we need to have caffeine or something before we record just to try and make it sound like we care. We care. We just we got stuff going on.
Dax:I sat down and I suddenly felt super low energy. I don't know I don't know what happened.
Adam:Yeah. Same. We're feeding off each other's low energy.
Dax:It's weird. It's interesting. We should we should take pre workout before we do the podcast. There you go.
Adam:Well, next one is episode 50. So I'm gonna feel pretty motivated to
Dax:Yeah. Do something
Adam:a arbitrary cut off in the round number.
Dax:Okay. Well, sorry one day you're so sleepy.
Adam:Yeah. Next time we won't be so sleepy. Next Thursday. This Thursday. Whatever.
Adam:If we still do it Thursday. I don't know. We'll do
Dax:it. We'll do it. Do it. Nate's asking you to your morning. Had your morning beat juice which according to you is a pre workout.
Adam:No. I actually I skipped the jiu jitsu this morning.
Dax:It's the
Adam:first time I've, like, skipped where I didn't have to like, I wasn't traveling or, like, I just skipped because I feel like I've not recovered. I'm I've had, like, a cold. Mhmm.
Dax:I don't
Adam:if you can tell. I've been blowing my nose a lot. Yeah. So I've had, like, a cold, which it's funny. Casey gaslit me into thinking it was just allergies.
Adam:I've been walking around for a week thinking I just had allergies. And then she admitted that, like, yeah, we all have colds. Like, this is what's happening right here. Like, oh, wow. It actually helped.
Adam:It actually set me in a better frame of mind. It's like, I feel better, no anxious allergies, and I'm actually sick. But the effect was the same. Yeah. So I skipped I skipped my beet juice and my jujitsu this morning.
Adam:Maybe that's why I'm low energy. I just slept in.
Dax:Yeah. I mean, I'm yeah. I've also just been off the gym for a week because of my knee. My knee feels starting to feel better.
Adam:Oh, is
Dax:it better? But I don't wanna do that thing where I'm like, it's better and then I go and
Adam:just reinjury again. Jump straight into
Dax:it. Just trying to take like one extra week and we'll see.
Adam:You're playing with fire. That's a slippery slope. Because eventually, it's like, I could just not. That's what I
Dax:do. Yeah.
Adam:I should let my knee recover some more and then a month later,
Dax:I'm busy. Yeah. I mean, I gotta get back into it at some point.
Adam:You will and I will get back to to caring and being enthusiastic on this podcast. But not this time. That'll be next time. Alright. Thanks, Dex.
Dax:Alright. See you everyone.
Adam:See you.
Dax:See you everyone.
Adam:Bye.
