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Outta Site
11 Plays3 months ago
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Transcript
Personal and Professional Juggling
00:00:24
David Isaacs
Welcome everyone. It's February 1st at time of recording, ah here with Brian. Brian, how are we doing?
00:00:34
The Big Dog
Good, man. Great to be back. You know, busy couple of weeks for myself. I had my son's birthday a couple of weeks ago and just looking get back into it. How about yourself?
00:00:47
David Isaacs
Yeah, good. Just been, uh, just been tired.
00:00:52
The Big Dog
Yeah, that's you sound like a dad or you sound like me right now. What's up What?
00:00:58
David Isaacs
Um, not entirely sure. i mean, I have been putting in lot of time at work,
00:01:05
The Big Dog
Yeah, I think last time we had we had talked, you were kind of clocking some extra time.
00:01:06
David Isaacs
but, uh,
00:01:13
The Big Dog
i think you said you were still working your way maybe into a little bit of a groove, but you know, you're you're making a, sounds like you're making a big impact, you know.
00:01:25
David Isaacs
Yeah, it's um hard to tell, you know, because a lot of it is not only with what you learn, but deciding on what to learn, like what has more impact.
00:01:39
David Isaacs
There's a ton of stuff to learn, right? So it comes down to priorities and that. But if you're going along, I'm not only learning these things, but having to assign value and if knowing it is worth it you know or i have no idea how long it will take me to learn so there's a lot of like extra steps outside of it instead of somebody being like oh you go learn about this like okay but it's you know the
00:02:13
David Isaacs
bunch of hills with a bunch of rabbit holes that you go down not really knowing how deep they go where they go if what you're looking for is down there so you know it's tough and it um it it's kind of mentally draining on that aspect but uh been able to to stay ahead of it and been trying to
00:02:25
The Big Dog
Yeah, for sure.
Struggling with Work-Life Balance
00:02:38
David Isaacs
hydrate my mind and body as much as I can to kind of deal with it. But, uh, yeah, I don't know how sustainable it is. Um, it's kind of a good thing to learn that there's always more to learn, I guess, and like all the systems and everything and how they interact with each other.
00:02:57
David Isaacs
So that's been a, um, that's been good. It's been stimulating at least. Um, but yeah, I got, I got a lot done this week. And I guess that's the other thing too, is, you know, trying to learn these things and not always more to learn, but room for improvement.
00:03:18
David Isaacs
And I'm starting to rack up, you know, things that i want to work on that I don't have time to. And then, you priority shifts with, other things that are going on. So then I have to, you know, kind of shift that time into, know, working on something that's expected to be done sooner.
00:03:34
David Isaacs
So, yeah, it's just kind of like a lot of, lot of thought, a lot of management of time, what I'm doing, you know, not only being productive, but being productive. And there's a lot of, you know,
00:03:48
David Isaacs
it's hard to explain and my mind's still jumbled, like just trying to catch back up over the weekend to get some, some my mental state back. But, um, yeah, it's, it's a lot, you know, and, uh, it's kind what I wanted and I've definitely gotten it.
00:04:05
David Isaacs
So like I said, I mean, I've been able to stay ahead of it for now. Um, but who knows, you know, I've been, uh, trying to focus more on,
00:04:17
David Isaacs
enlightenment in terms of introspection and understanding, you know, how much more do I have to give to- today? Can i put in something that might not be as, you know, mentally taxing?
00:04:30
David Isaacs
Can I, um, so like throughout the day, know, it's really like these pockets of work and like trying to manage that and trying to think and understand of, okay, well, I'm on a groove with this. i don't want to break off of it.
00:04:44
David Isaacs
Um, But maybe there's more to this than I originally thought, or maybe it's better to come back to it later with a fresh mind versus of I'm hitting a wall.
00:04:55
David Isaacs
And a lot of times when I'm finding like things that logic that I create to look at data can be repeated somewhere else. So, you know, do I put in more time of looking at different ways to structure the data to kind of build off that? Should I learn more about this specific topic? Should I work on the things that I'm tasked with and that I know we're going to take, you know, a certain amount of time for me to do or do something else, you know? So it's a.
00:05:26
David Isaacs
There's a lot of work outside the work, I guess. And there's a lot of data outside of the data. So it's, yeah, it's just tough, man.
00:05:36
The Big Dog
yeah
00:05:37
David Isaacs
Rewarding, but tiring in the same regard.
00:05:41
The Big Dog
yeah mean um i know you know i know the journey that you've been on since before our podcast um and i know how hard of a worker you are and how critical of yourself you can be at times but um you know as we talk about a lot give yourself the grace because you know if you're overworking yourself or um or maybe you just spending time outside. Because this is what happened to me at my last job. like I was just like, had to know C Sharp, which is, you know to our non-coder audience, a coding language. Do you spell anything from video games to API endpoints, connecting to databases, you know a whole bunch of stuff. But that was the primary language that my um previous job demanded, next to like Python or just JavaScript. um And like I could just...
00:06:31
The Big Dog
I just never felt that I had time to myself um because I was just falling so far behind just on the knowledge aspect. And like, you know, story for a different day, but it was just a job I shouldn't have really taken because was outside of my my wheelhouse. But had...
00:06:50
The Big Dog
ah to make this a short story long. Um, I, you know, we're just afraid that you'd be heading towards a path of of burnout and I don't want that for you or anything
Avoiding Burnout and Managing Expectations
00:07:00
The Big Dog
like that. So I know you saw, sorry, I'm putting it your personal life out here. I saw that you saw Lord of the Rings last week and I thought that was great to, you know, I don't know what your day to day is, you know, currently, but I, you know, I thought that was great just to get out and not worry about the data or anything like that. So, um,
00:07:20
The Big Dog
you know, i empathize a lot because it's sounds like my current position as well, where it's like, i have to do these kind of long manual Excel projects out.
00:07:31
The Big Dog
um just building categories and, you know, similar to you where it's data, but then I also have to build, you know, landing pages, brand pages, HTML and ht on CSS. So, you know, there's a lot of priority shifts that happen in my day-to-day. And now my boss, who's actually on vacation, as well-deserved, she's been doing a lot this year, transitioning from BigCommerce, which is an e-commerce platform, to Shopify, which, you know, I think...
00:08:01
The Big Dog
you know anything about the internet um you know what shopify is so i don't need to really go down that rabbit hole but um you know she she asked me to learn like google tag manager um and at a high level it's not very hard to understand you know especially it with its connection to uh google analytics but um We just have so many different tags that are installed on our site that we don't know who has ownership of it, you know, where they, where they all go to. So, you know, I had to learn how to, the basic part of just installing one on our site.
00:08:40
The Big Dog
But even more like learning how to do like events, triggers and variables within Google Tag Manager. if we need, case we ever need to fix anything or want to create anything for ourselves. You know, that's, that's getting down to the rabbit hole, but,
00:08:54
The Big Dog
I told my boss I might have to take a couple of weeks just to learn how to do this. And she's like, are you sure? It doesn't seem that difficult. But I was like, well, on top of my priorities that I'm already currently working on, I'm the only one working on a major e-commerce platform by myself. You know, it's like I have to take time either during work or after work to learn this.
00:09:18
The Big Dog
And so I just like, I don't want experience burnout. She's like, no, I totally get it. You know, take some time with it and but you know just make sure you fully understand what's going on here so i i i have experienced it you know i'm not saying that this is 100 where you're headed but you know um i guess that would be my advice to you and anyone if you're like kind of overclocking it on something you know it might just feel you know, yourself maybe be getting frustrated or so it's just time, you know, there's, there's times where you just have to like take a break and and come back to it and, you know, look at me with fresh your eyes or whatever the case may be. But, um, I just know that I took maybe I longer than I maybe should have on this project, but I know that I had to, in order for me not to get like complete burnout.
00:10:06
David Isaacs
Yeah, I think it's, so you know, and having good bosses and good managers and that communication and the understanding of, you know, well, I can, but it's going to push off X, Y, and z This is the amount of time that I expect to be able to, you know,
00:10:27
David Isaacs
learn it from a high level, learn it for deep enough understanding of like, you know, MVP, minimum viable product to get something together. But, um, it's not a realistic amount of time for anyone to really learn it, understand it, to be able to, you know, kind of spread it across the entire domain.
00:10:46
The Big Dog
Correct, yep
00:10:47
David Isaacs
Right. And that's the other part of the conversation too, the whole 360 aspect of, okay what what do we what problem are we trying to solve and what's the priority what are we trying to solve right now that's something on the home page it's something on you know 10 products pages or something then yeah that might take less time to do in a two week time frame or whatever time frame you're given But it's also like novel concepts.
00:11:19
David Isaacs
Like no one here knows how to do it. I currently don't know how to do it. So I don't want to have the expectation that I'm just going to set something up and it's going to be good to go. You know, there's going to be somebody's going to have to have time to go and look and see, you know, is it working the way that we expected it to?
00:11:30
The Big Dog
Yep.
00:11:38
David Isaacs
And that's the, you know, kind of the other part of expectations and the communications and things that happen of, you know, sometimes that feedback or guidance or, you know, other things in those communications.
00:11:52
David Isaacs
It's like, it's not.
00:11:56
David Isaacs
necessarily like protecting your time but it's just like making sure that people understand right like i don't know this no one else knows it i don't know how long it's going to take me to actually know it if we you know set up step one currently and then you know you can kind of try to fold it into your day-to-day but uh yeah it's always just time Right.
00:12:22
The Big Dog
Yeah.
00:12:22
David Isaacs
And it's not it's not always the best to kind of have know those higher expectations or somebody who's just like, oh, yeah, Brian can do this right away. No.
00:12:34
David Isaacs
er There are, yeah, like i I don't know if I said it before, but yeah, things that processes I wanted to prove, things that I wanted to look into and get better at doing. And that's, you know, the split off on what I care about, what I want to do versus what.
00:12:52
David Isaacs
the company requires of me versus what my boss and other upper leadership are expecting of me and a lot of these other things. So it's really hard to kind of get down to, you know, that good level of communication and like that feeling like you're not really pushing back, but the way that they, you know, can kind of understand it in terms they can understand because I'm starting to get like that.
00:13:18
David Isaacs
part of it too of like you know there's things that I do things that I think are high impact but are not exactly very visible versus some of the things that I'm being asked to do that are you know of high visibility and I tie off and try to do all these things that I can and you know still getting things sent back my way.
00:13:41
David Isaacs
And I think that's the, what I hope people and wish people understand is that, you know, I appreciate opportunities. I'm always happy to help where I can, when I can, but in other regards and other things, it's like, yeah, I do have things that I'm working on that are going to get pushed back because of this.
Communication Challenges in Projects
00:14:04
David Isaacs
It's a novel concept. I don't know how long it's going to take me,
00:14:07
David Isaacs
I don't know exactly what you're looking for. And, you know, at the end of the day, everyone's just mad. So it's like, yeah, I mean, we can avoid this. And that's, you know, kind of what I want to get to and kind of where i want to come across. But yeah, I mean, there's just,
00:14:29
David Isaacs
At any job, anything that you do, there's a lot of thought that I have that goes into things. and I feel like it's a good thing, but other times it can kind of fail me in that regard. I'm
00:14:47
David Isaacs
only seven months in and I've done you know pretty pretty well in the past of just finding new ways to do things just based on not wanting to have to wait on other people to do them or if I felt like there was a better way to do something kind of, you know, talking to people and learning and understanding like their frustrations, certain things.
00:15:18
David Isaacs
And then, you know, if it's easy enough for me to, to change something or look out for something or what have you, then yeah, I will look into doing it. Like, you know, if it, uh, there's always going to be more work. Right. I think that's the paradigm,
00:15:37
David Isaacs
productivity paradox that they talk about. It's like, as soon as you find quicker ways to do something or some, some things get easier than it's automatically filled in with something else.
00:15:49
David Isaacs
There's always more work to do. And, um,
00:15:54
David Isaacs
It's good in that regard, but also there's drawbacks to it, right? So not really feeling like you have a break and there's always different priorities to be had, always more work to be done.
00:16:00
The Big Dog
Yeah.
00:16:08
David Isaacs
and seemingly never having enough time to do one thing, let alone five or six. So, um, yeah, just trying to, the end of the day, right.
00:16:17
The Big Dog
Yeah.
00:16:20
David Isaacs
And just trying to like, keep your head above water is the most important thing. And, um, visibility and communication is kind of what I'm learning to be some of the more important aspects.
00:16:26
The Big Dog
Right.
00:16:36
The Big Dog
Yeah, a lot of lot other projects that I have to work on, um you know, are high visibility sometimes. You know, it's if I, you know, I have to map over our part numbers to match the our e-commerce platforms part numbers so they he can actually be listed on the site. You know, that's visibility because people want certain brands up and it's like, I got to prioritize those, you know, over others perhaps. And and then kind of on the product productivity paradox, if I think if I'm understanding this correctly, like, you know, especially,
00:17:16
The Big Dog
like when I'm coding, i have pretty much a template for each section of a page that I build. Cause have also, that's another thing that I also kind of had to learn to do was a UI UX design. So user interface, user experience, um still very much a newbie at that, but you know, i had to design landing pages for advertising and branding pages, but I kind of have those down how I want them formatted and you know, i can get the image sizes from our marketing team and just upload them and then, you know, set the appropriate links. But there's sometimes certain layouts if I'm doing a new concept of like, oh, I should do this. And then, you know, I'll ask AI, like, you know, I need to change the color on this or, you know, the sizing on this needs to be a little bit better. What's ah a different way to do that? So, um,
00:18:12
The Big Dog
you know, but then I, so I don't, you know, I find like a newer, better way to do the things that I've already been doing and set in template. So then I go back and you know, kind of get OCD and just go and correct or change what I had done previously in my code and fix it or make it better.
00:18:27
The Big Dog
um And so it's just like, I'm creating more work for myself when I already have, as you say, trying to keep my head above water, you know, and, but then, you know, it's like, I got to communicate, like, why is this taking so long? Like I, you know,
00:18:42
The Big Dog
we kind of wanted this up like a couple of weeks ago i'm like hey you know like i'm just trying to
00:18:49
The Big Dog
work out longer term projects um you know trying to be better about mapping those out maybe as you say like novel concepts um this isn't stuff like i've i've necessarily done before i you know ran a couple of quotes when i was working as a consultant but you know i was never like i still don't have a feel for Same with confidence, like how long a project might take, you know, ah so I'll kind of go on the like the higher end or like the longer end of of it and, you know, just explain to my stakeholders like, hey, like, I don't know fully what I'm doing. You know, if I I'm going to expect to have it done by this time, if I get it done way before then great. And they're like, okay, sounds great to me.
00:19:34
The Big Dog
it's kind of like the good thing about working in the plumbing industry is because largely plumbing hasn't changed in 200 years or, or, or more. i mean, obviously technology changes a bit, but the overall concept of indoor plumbing has not changed. So kind of as an industry as well, like it's a slow moving industry. So we don't have much, uh, much in terms of KPIs, but, um,
00:19:58
The Big Dog
Luckily it's in an environment where I can succeed and, you know, get, get set proper
Collaboration and Knowledge Gaps
00:20:05
The Big Dog
expectations. And, um, you know, i' i also am lucky that I have a connection with both my bosses that I can kind of just like have an open line. So, um,
00:20:16
The Big Dog
You know, not everyone has that and they kind of have to work out their own system with their their peers and communication. Everybody's going to have their different opinions and different quirks, right? So, you know, different aspect, but those are all things we kind of have to take into consideration, you know, during this this workflow that we got going. So...
00:20:38
The Big Dog
I mean, it's got to be honest with them about, you know, setting those right expectations. So um communicate, communicate, communicate is, I guess, where I am getting at with that.
00:20:52
The Big Dog
And again, I'm looking at, I work at a place that, you know, is very, very good about being open and honest with ah all their employees. So yeah.
00:21:05
The Big Dog
Yeah.
00:21:08
David Isaacs
Yeah, that's good. It's a yeah luxury not a lot of people have with the trust of ownership or learning and those things that come with a a job.
00:21:23
David Isaacs
So to be able to have somebody's idea, like hey, can you learn this? Like, yeah, yeah, happy to. But You know, it's going to take this amount of time I need, you know, to find a scope for the project. I need, you know, what problem are we trying to solve?
00:21:42
David Isaacs
You know, these other things. So it's not always just like that conversation. Right. And I think that's what you're alluding to. Yeah. Let me, let me check this out and get back to you.
00:21:52
The Big Dog
Yeah, yeah, pretty much, yeah.
00:21:54
David Isaacs
Yeah.
00:21:57
The Big Dog
I do have one, so, we're, i think I've talked about the specific project that I'm still working on. It's been going on since October. We're trying to map a hard-coded value, numeric value from CMS that has a salesperson's ID on the um So then when they ah customer places an order, it automatically maps their that numerical value into our ERP.
00:22:28
The Big Dog
so it's a recognized value.
00:22:32
The Big Dog
um So they get, automatically it logs their commission, essentially. um I've been going back and forth with the team who's building it, which is on our e-commerce platform. and I've been going back with our ERP vendor who does most of our like automation and things like that.
00:22:53
The Big Dog
um And they tell them to do, the yeah ERP team tells them to this developer to do this, like, look at this API endpoint, look at this, you know, blah, blah.
00:23:03
The Big Dog
I feel like this development team just goes, okay, we tried that and it didn't work. Let's get on a call. Get on a call, make a little bit more headway, and it's just like this until the cycle repeats. And, like, I don't know enough about APIs, like, at a professional standpoint to, you know, kind of just be like, okay, we tried this, tried this, tried that.
00:23:26
The Big Dog
I'm just not there yet, and I have no... I've been working on this platform for almost a year, and I still feel like... I know next to nothing about all the the the finer things, the finer endpoints for customization and integration.
00:23:42
The Big Dog
um so it's it's just frustrating because it's like the development team developer we're using is just putting so much on us and we have no idea about almost any of this. And I've talked with our data team, our IT manager, we've all exhausted our limits and it's like,
00:24:02
The Big Dog
just trying to get this project to close is like we're going on month four of this and it's just uh i think we're finally getting down to the a a funnel but it's been just a frustrating back back and forth
00:24:20
The Big Dog
um so i guess i'm just trying to say it's like sometimes you don't have doesn't matter how much you communicate it's like trying to rely on others at times as it can be for those type of projects can be frustrating because you have no no control and you don't know what to say at times or how to fix the problem
00:24:41
David Isaacs
Yeah. And that kind of comes back to those novel concepts, right? So the four months isn't exactly wasted.
00:24:51
David Isaacs
You know, hopefully the next time project like this comes up, it takes a whole lot less time. But I think the building the collaboration and those relationships with the team and kind of learning more about them and how they, you know, learn and what's more effective to be able to communicate with them is, uh, know, good experience at least, uh,
00:25:16
The Big Dog
Yeah.
00:25:17
David Isaacs
you know what i find is i'll work on something send it into the abyss and then a month later and it's like oh or someone's like oh can you redo this like i'm not sure i remember how to you know um so maybe it changes you know the next time something like that comes up for you but um again the uh data outside the data
00:25:17
The Big Dog
Yeah. huh
00:25:33
The Big Dog
Yeah. yeah
00:25:46
David Isaacs
that I've learned is being a business analyst. That's what I, you know, domain structure experiences. And that's kind of what I've, um, eluded a lot of my time into doing of understanding, you know, cause and effect, like what changes, what, what are some things that, you know, people don't typically look out for that might be causing problems or, you know, is this a question for our,
00:26:17
David Isaacs
outside customer that provides the solution. Is it something with our data? Is it something, you know, that's happening within the team or somewhere else in the company that's coming downstream? So yeah, I mean, it's, it's a lot, but, uh,
00:26:34
David Isaacs
investing that time and knowing and communicating understanding but it doesn't seem like you are expected to do like the the technical solution right you're just kind of giving them like we want this to happen and then this happens and then this happens type deal so kind of like process like flow wire mapping if if yes then this if no then that
00:26:50
The Big Dog
Yeah. and
00:26:59
The Big Dog
Yeah, pretty much. It's just like project manager, you know, for the more technical integration side of things. We're like, you know, like we had like Amazon, they have ah what they call a persistent token where it It kind of gives you the appearance that you are just logged in all the time, but really what it is yeah under the hood is, you know, you you have a, like a, what they call Jason web token that essentially just sits in your local storage on your computer. and
00:27:34
The Big Dog
it only lasts for 30 days, but if you log in with that 30 days, it resets the whole clock. um
00:27:40
David Isaacs
As long as you don't clear your cache and browsing history, right?
00:27:43
The Big Dog
Well, Yeah, correct. Um, so, oops, stra my mo um, yeah, we implemented that on our site and that took less time than this project. So, you know, that was the first major project that I had kind of commissioned as a, as a, um, you know, like a project manager side of my position and you know, really what just really took the longest was them getting to it. You know, once they got the concept down, i think the turnaround was like a month, but it's like just like two months of, yeah, it works. We can do this. And then, you know, I don't know if it's holidays or just other prior priorities on their end. They wouldn't really explain that, but um that took less time than this. And this is really just passing one value and through our database and into our ERP and that's it.
00:28:36
The Big Dog
You know, that's what I thought at least, but there's, they're running into like, whole bunch of header you know header issues and all sorts of technical things i only understand maybe every third word you know i kind of want to throw up the quote of i know what all of those words mean individually i don't know what they mean together type of thing but it's like that's not going to work great especially when we're pretty in the thick heat of a call so um But yeah, it's it like you said, it's it's just one of those things that I kind of have to go through, especially early on and we really before we really get rolling with this site. I mean, we only have you know five or six regular customers who use this site, but once we won' launch it to the regular public or the open general public here in probably May, then you know these are one of things that we I want to get down as a process.
00:29:28
The Big Dog
um and, you know, understand it from a basis level and be better in the future. So it's good, good learning point, good starting point. But it's one of those moments of having to fail, quote unquote, even though I didn't really fail at anything, but just so to learn, you know.
00:29:47
David Isaacs
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of variables, a lot of basis to cover and scope definement and those things. So the, you know, kind of other aspect of business analysts, project management, or, you know,
00:29:56
The Big Dog
Right.
00:30:02
David Isaacs
cross-functional teams or, you know, what do I care about versus what they care about? Where can I bridge that gap to meet in the middle somewhere? And if they're working on something that they hadn't done before you're giving communications on something that you expect to happen, but you really have no know kind of expertise in what they're currently working on and where they're finding problems at in certain instances.
00:30:27
David Isaacs
then yeah, it's tough. But yeah, I mean, they're, I get what they're saying, because I'm not going to go work through entire problem without trying to come back and get alignment on, okay, well, this isn't working now, what do we do?
00:30:44
David Isaacs
Because
00:30:47
David Isaacs
yeah, no one wants to work all that time and then come back and be like, oh, well, that's not actually what we wanted.
00:30:54
The Big Dog
Yeah. And they're, I mean, they're, they're budgeted for, you know, X amount of hours working on this project. So they can only really, you know, i I'm not going to sit here and track their hours. Cause I really, if they were to tell me, I don't even know if they would tell me the truth anyway, but you know, if they're quoted as working on this for 40 hours while taking a call and, you know, doing more efficient testing, you know, we're going to get close to the budget on this, um, of what we pre-approved, um, they can always come back obviously later and say, Hey, this took more time. We're going to have get paid for that. So, you know, here's a change order request, but, um, yeah. and
00:31:40
The Big Dog
Sometimes you have this expectation, especially when you have a, you know, their, their salespeople say, Oh, we have a great,
00:31:47
The Big Dog
you know, the, the salesperson upfront does a great job of maybe filtering what the requirements are and how, you know, how hard this ah project can be. So, um, you know, and on me for maybe having expectations, it's just going to be done sooner. Cause I thought it's going to simple project and I should know in software that nothing's ever really an easy project unless it's writing hello world on a page. Right. So,
00:32:15
David Isaacs
Yeah, lot of considerations, cause and effect. You know, once everything's up and running and working the way it's expected to, I mean, there's going to be nuances that weren't within the original scope of the project.
00:32:31
David Isaacs
So then you have to make decisions on, well, do we wait?
00:32:32
The Big Dog
Yeah.
00:32:35
David Isaacs
Do we manually adjust things until we can you know, find other issues to be able to, you know, kind of grab those and then drill down into what specific block of code is causing this issue or do we fix this now and then something else is going to pop up and we're just, you know, trying to cover holes blown in a ship.
00:32:56
David Isaacs
constantly. So yeah, I mean, there's always, know, like those communication considerations to any project that you work on. And again, it's always prioritizing of, you know, what actually is the main business problem versus Um, someone's been stuck having to manually update this stuff for six months and i don't really want them to have to do that anymore, but there's no one to really fix the problem.
00:33:28
David Isaacs
And, um, you know, depending on if the business really sees it as an issue or not, as, you know, a whole other thing.
00:33:28
The Big Dog
Yep.
00:33:34
David Isaacs
So I get it. You know, there's a, it's a lot. So I'm with you. I'm, I empathize with you.
00:33:43
The Big Dog
Yeah. Yeah. It's we're both just trying to keep our head above
Balancing Work, Leisure, and Mental Health
00:33:48
The Big Dog
water. It seems like these last couple of weeks. So, um but real quick, what it I mean, besides,
00:33:56
The Big Dog
Lord of the Rings, have you been doing anything to kind of, in like your downtime, just to like, ah you know, kind of break in from your, you know, kind of your downtime, if you will, to take your mind off of work?
00:34:12
David Isaacs
Yeah, I mean, kind of. I'm always thinking, right? So not thinking about work. I'm thinking about Lord of the Rings and certain aspects of it I don't understand.
00:34:23
David Isaacs
With Gandalf fighting the Balrog and somehow managed to fight it while climbing up the secret steps of Moria to the top of the highest tower on the mountain. And like that whole process and what things had happened that were shown in the movies.
00:34:39
David Isaacs
Hopefully we're past the statue of limitations on spoilers here. um But like kind of, kind of other things like that.
00:34:45
The Big Dog
think you're fine.
00:34:49
David Isaacs
So I've been doing, you know, kind of a deep dive on of the Rings, deep dive on Fallout lore. which has given me, you know, kind of more insight into some of the other things that they've introduced in the TV show, which has been nice. Um, I just kind of like, you know, it's really changed my mind and started asking these questions or when I really don't like understand something, but I know there's somewhere to go and look to find, you know, what I'm missing in the knowledge and that. So,
00:35:22
David Isaacs
it's been It's been kind of good in that regard. But as far as downtime, i mean i after we get off this call, i was planning on trying to do some reading just to get my head into kind of something else. Because I think we've spoken at length before about splitting off into some, what I like to do with fantasy books or sci-fi fantasy TV shows or D&D.
00:35:49
David Isaacs
It's kind of like the, there's a lot of things we deal with in life and work in that, that kind of align itself to, know, different ideas, different tests and trying things out and whatnot.
00:36:04
David Isaacs
So outside of that, like trying to get your mind away from something, for a little while to come back to it with like a fresh head is advantageous.
00:36:14
David Isaacs
In some instances, it's kind of the same thing with, you know, AI is good in certain instances when you know what the output is supposed to look like, you can test it, you can manage it.
00:36:26
David Isaacs
You're not vibe coding an entire website and you've never done it before. sort of thing. So yeah, just trying to from a high level, just kind of trying to separate my mind out from doing that, but kind of still say, keeping the same mindset, you know, just being curious and wanting to learn more about things that I don't specifically understand so I can speak to them.
00:36:51
David Isaacs
And yeah, so what about you?
00:36:56
The Big Dog
yeah Yeah, pretty much.
00:36:56
David Isaacs
Working on working on trying not to work so much.
00:37:02
The Big Dog
mean i I built this desk for my at-home work office for part of the weekend. it It's just a simple L-shaped standing desk, but it's just like I'm not the most flexible person, so I did like flip it upside down. I don't have like sawhorses or equal-sized pickle buckets to yeah put it up on Like it was like a, you know, Carl I'm looking under the hood or something like that. Getting up on the mechanic Jack.
00:37:35
The Big Dog
um Not really necessarily off my mind, but kind of just challenging of, you know, going from point A to point B of a problem solving a simple item. So.
00:37:48
The Big Dog
trying to get these uh tension rods they use to lift up and down the desk was always fun but um yeah i've been playing a lot of battlefield 6 still um kind of like you're looting or what you were relating to with like ai and and people have just like vibe coding i feel like if you put like in the hands of like ai in the hands of a great engineer is like putting a meta gun in the hands of like a professional or, or you know, high end level FPS player, like,
00:38:24
The Big Dog
if it's a person if that gun can help make somebody who's an average player maybe like a little bit better just imagine what would do with that right so um i'm just trying to like level myself up as or get back to where i was as a fps player like before i got married before i had kids before you know i was just like spending 12 hours a day playing video games um not necessarily back to that level but you know trying to get uh at least some of that skill back because i haven't really played at fps's and for on a regular basis in probably over six or seven years at least so um and while i think it's helped like you know my outside the box thinking problem solving skills i think like my short-term memory has just gotten worse since i started playing video games on the regular again so i'm still
00:39:19
The Big Dog
trying to like get my brain health right is like the primary focus for me so i'm like trying to find the right balance of everything or i'm not like you know full addd or if you tell your full goldfish i should say where you said something i forget a minute about it like seven seconds later um yeah just trying to find the right balance of pleasure versus uh you know um
00:39:47
David Isaacs
productivity.
00:39:47
The Big Dog
Well, yeah, exactly. i' my downtime, really.
00:39:52
David Isaacs
Yeah. And kind of one of the things that I spoke to my therapist about that I haven't gotten into yet, but, um, you know, defining time, right? So if you define time, say, sit here and time out what I want to do tomorrow at work.
00:40:09
David Isaacs
And, you know, if I don't get everything done, then it's fine. As long as it wasn't, do tomorrow um but then i plan out okay well after that's done go get a haircut go grocery shopping do my laundry go to the gym and then whatever time i'm left with is like me time and that time doesn't feel like wasteful right because we need a certain amount of rest and a certain amount of
00:40:18
The Big Dog
Right.
00:40:41
David Isaacs
time doing things that we like to do and one of the reasons why i stopped playing first person shooters is that i was spending a lot of time doing it not really having that much fun because it seemed like i was mad most of the time um right but again man i sometimes it's good like short-term memory is well short-term memory yeah that's that's bad but in other cases like
00:40:54
The Big Dog
Yep, same.
00:41:09
David Isaacs
not having too much of a bias to get to get laid in on, you know, there's a ah problem with something on the website at your work and this problem has existed and it's happened a few times over. So you automatically think, oh, this is what's causing it.
00:41:27
David Isaacs
And sometimes it's not always what's causing that. So I think sometimes it's good to not always have that feeling of, okay, well, going to get to work fixing this because I know exactly what the problem is versus you knowm trying to make that connection into, right, is this what's causing it? How did we you know figure it out the last time, et cetera?
00:41:53
David Isaacs
I don't know if it really conveys my point or if it was really, really connected to what you were saying, but it's kind of one of the things that I had thought about for a long time, you know, the and what I've been trying to work on, but in some, it doesn't always come up, you know, if it's the same issue and deal with, you know, stuff at work, you know, if there's a,
00:42:17
David Isaacs
A problem that was had and, you know, people automatically assume it's something that's causing it. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait. Like, let's verify before we jump any conclusions and figure out, you know, a pathway forward after that.
00:42:37
The Big Dog
Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, luckily I don't have, you know, I guess in my direct life, I don't have very many, very much, uh, impulsive people like, you know, that they're, we're all kind of just follow through this exercise and, know, we'll figure it out on the, on the fly. So, um, right support group, I guess sometimes you just need her to, to develop that. So I get it.
00:43:08
David Isaacs
Yeah. I think that's kind of all I had on the docket for this week, at least. And, you know, just catching up.
00:43:18
The Big Dog
Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:20
David Isaacs
Not really anything topical. So...
00:43:25
The Big Dog
Yeah. um I did see the I guess the only thing is I did see the new 28 years later, the bone temple. And I thought that was very good. If you haven't seen it, go and see it.
00:43:36
The Big Dog
um You have see it again. i don't know, but I thought it was a very good, ah very good addition.
00:43:43
David Isaacs
Nice. Yeah,
00:43:44
The Big Dog
it just kind of picked up right where left off. So,
00:43:47
David Isaacs
yeah that's good. I haven't seen it yet. I'm going to see send help on Tuesday, so I will report back.
00:43:56
The Big Dog
Okay, yeah. i The other one I wanted to see was Charlie Supreme. i've heard good things about that, but it's the only other movie I can think of that.
00:44:06
David Isaacs
Is it Marty Supreme you mean?
00:44:07
The Big Dog
Or Marty Supreme, sorry. Yeah, I've seen of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because he's playing Willy Wonka.
00:44:13
David Isaacs
Yeah. Alrighty. Thanks, Brian. Thanks all for listening. If you've gotten this far.
00:44:20
The Big Dog
Yeah. All right, thanks, everybody.