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Jake shares lessons from rebuilding a permissions system around flexible roles, temporary permission leases, and delegated user management. He also discusses adding Apple Pay and Google Pay, plus designing automated text-message payment flows that use numbered choices instead of complicated keywords.
Michael talks about building lender integrations, the importance of adding real context to API documentation, and using Claude to turn JSON specifications into PHP DTOs and enums. He also reflects on his team’s new helpdesk rotation, where direct exposure to users has uncovered long-standing bugs, inefficient manual processes, and opportunities for developers to better understand the people using their software.
They finish with the challenges of parenting teenagers, preparations for Laracon US in Boston, including a search for coffee, donuts, bagels, and cannoli.
- (00:00) - Club World Cup surprises and sports talk
- (03:12) - UFC, LeBron and basketball moves
- (06:33) - Rebuilding roles and permissions
- (08:39) - Permission leases and delegated management
- (10:02) - Apple Pay, Google Pay and text-based payments
- (11:50) - Lender integrations and better API documentation
- (14:08) - A new developer and the helpdesk rotation
- (17:13) - Automated tickets and failed queue jobs
- (18:54) - The address autocomplete bug
- (19:58) - When tiny code changes create hidden failures
- (23:02) - Why support requests need a real ticket
- (25:17) - Developers learning directly from customers
- (27:53) - Cross-department training and business context
- (30:51) - Building trust beyond Slack
- (32:02) - Weekly stress, workload and personal check-ins
- (35:18) - Parenting teenagers and setting curfews
- (37:10) - Planning for Laracon US in Boston
- (40:00) - Australian and American school calendars
- (42:51) - Vacations, PTO and wrapping up
Creators and Guests
What is North Meets South Web Podcast?
Jake Bennett and Michael Dyrynda conquer a 14.5 hour time difference to talk about life as web developers
-Hey, I'm Michael Dyrynda.
-And I'm Jake Bennett.
And welcome to episode 196 of the North
Meet South podcast.
All right, folks, we are on another blitz.
Um,
my son is at a movie, and I have to go
pick him up at some point. I don't know
when that text is gonna come in, but when
it does, I'm gonna have to, like... We're
just gonna stop right where we're at, in
the middle of talking, whatever we're
talking about. So,
let's get it in. In the meantime, Michael,
how's the, uh, how's the World Cup
watching? You're, you're watching a lot of
the World Cup stuff-
-Yeah
-... I think. Yeah?
-Yeah. Well, look-
-How's it going?
Yeah. Yeah, it's going really good. It's,
um...
I, I'm 39 now, so I have spent the
majority of my life not following, not
watching, not enjoying, thinking I would
not enjoy soccer, you know, the world game
-and all of that.
-Right, right, right.
-But it wasn't until Eli started playing-
-Mm
... that I started to get into it. And,
uh, especially now that we're into the
round of 32, it's, it's been exceptional.
You know, the, the Canada game the other
day was really good against South Afri-
South Africa. Um, yeah.
South Africa.
South Africa. We've, uh... We had the two,
you know, the back-to-back penalty
-shootouts yesterday, where both-
-Man, I-
... uh, the, uh, favorites went bye-bye.
Like, no European teams. The
EU wants to have more European teams in
the World Cup that, you know, clearly they
-weren't good enough to qualify.
-Yep, yep.
And now the first, first two European
teams that played both got eliminated, so.
Oh, man.
Sorry to the Netherlands. Sorry to, uh,
Germany. Too bad-
-Good day, mate. We'll see ya
-... next time come out in four years.
-Yeah, yeah. I don't-
-We'll be following, we'll be following
-them on, uh, on- ... Saturday morning at-
-You'll be-
-By 5 AM-
-... on the next flight
-... it'll be all over.
-Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, I, um, I have not been
watching as much as I would like to.
Um,
but I've been... It's been enjoyable
following you following it, and the other
dudes that are in some of our chats, like,
watching it and stuff. I don't know.
Like, I feel like I'm regretting the fact
that I haven't watched as much, so I
should probably just start tuning in.
That's the, that's the story here.
Yeah. I mean, the final 32 is where it's
at. Even the 16 is, uh-
-Okay
-... is good gear. I didn't realize David
-Hampel was such a, a soccer-
-I know
-... you know, a soccer-
-Same
... he's, like, running... He was real,
real aggressive about it, too. You know,
-he's just-
-Oh, yeah, he was. Like, he knew what he
-was talking about
-... making hot shots about the US. I'm
-like-
-Yes
... "Come on, you guys. You... What's it
like to lose to Turkey?" Like, uh,
never lost to Turkey, couldn't tell you.
-Uh, well, I-
-Then he starts throwing out the excuses,
"Oh, you played our B team. Well, boo
hoo."
-Well, that is true, though. That is true.
-Excuses, excuses.
I don't know a whole lot, but that is
true.
-Excuses.
-And I mean, like, okay, so think about it
this way, like, if you know you're
advancing, you're not gonna play your best
players. You don't wanna get injuries.
You don't wanna get yellow cards.
-No.
-You don't wanna get... Right?
-No.
-Come on.
-That's, that's right. Yeah.
-Who cares?
-It's all the excuses you want.
-It's, it's, it wasn't-
-I get it. I get it
-... it was... it didn't even matter. Like,
so Turkey was going home, US was
advancing. It didn't matter. So-
-Mm-hmm
-... let the guys who made it to the World
Cup, who, who typically don't get to play-
-Yeah
-... let them play. You know what I mean?
-That's right.
-We're trying to build-
-Com-
-... a program-
-Do you know what?
-... not just a team.
Do you know what? Do you know what?
Complacency is just nothing to worry
about. Germany wasn't complacent. Uh, you
know,
the Netherlands weren't complacent. Don't
even worry about it. Just-
-No
-... just cruise it. You just walk into a
-win. You'll be fine, I'm sure.
-That's right. That's right. So anyway, all
right. Well, I need to start watching.
Um, I have... You know what? I'll... The
other thing that I've, uh, didn't realize
is that I didn't realize that UFC has
fights every Saturday night. I didn't know
this.
-Oh.
-Um, and so I need to start watching those
-more often.
-Players who gotta beat the crap out of
each other.
-I know. I know.
-All the time.
It's been, it's been fun, fun to watch
that stuff. So,
-um, anyway, yeah.
-Another thing before we get out of sports.
Okay, let's hear it.
Le- LeBron, he's out. He's gone. He's
leaving the Lakers.
-LeBron Jahamas. Is he? Is he done?
-LeBron, LeBron, he's done. They, the
-Lakers-
-Did, have I told you this, have I told you
this inside joke that me and my son have?
-Mm-hmm.
-So, like, there's so many-
-Mm-hmm
-... foreign-sounding players now, you
-know? Like, we have-
-Right
... so many players from overseas and
stuff. And so, um,
to make, uh, LeBron James sound more like
one of the foreign players, we call him
LeBron Jahamas.
So, you know.
-LeBron Jahamas. Yeah, he's, uh-
-LeBron Jahamas
-... gone, goneski.
-Okay, so is he done, done, retired? Like,
-he's done?
-No, no, no, no, he's just leaving the
-Lakers.
-Oh, where's he going?
Don't know where he's going. Don't know.
Could be the Heat, could be the Cavs,
could be the Warriors. It'd be funny if he
ends up at the Warriors, but, uh, yeah.
Well, you know what? So, uh, Dusty May,
who led Michigan,
the University of Michigan, to a national
title in basketball last year, which I was
privileged to be able to go watch. It was
super cool. So it was in Indianapolis,
which is, like, a three-hour drive from
us,
and all the Arizona, uh, fans were
offloading their tickets 'cause they were
like, their team lost, and they were
supposed to win, and Michigan just
destroyed them. So people were offloading
the tickets, so we got cheap tickets and
got to go watch Michigan win the national
championship, but he is leaving Michigan
-and going to coach the Mavs.
-Yeah, I saw that. He got picked up by the
-Mavs.
-That's pretty cool.
-So good on him.
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
-I mean, good on him. It sucks for us.
Like, I really would've loved to have him
for a few more years, but,
-um-
-Hey, if you can get a-
-... they won the... Totally
-... get a NBA team, like, not-
-I, I get it
-... not everyone can be the head coach of
UConn and turn down the Los Angeles
Lakers, you know? But, um-
-Sure. Right, right, right. So-
-Someone had to-
-I mean, it's-
-... go on and coach the Mavs. Sure.
-Yes, yes. So-
-They only made, only made a generational
whiff trading Luka for Anthony Davis,
who's, who's now injured in Washington.
-Sure. Go and, go and coach the Mavs-
-Yeah
-... I guess.
-That was a, that was a rough one, Luka
leaving. That was a rough one. But, uh...
And now LeBron Jahamas is leaving the
Lakers, where, you know? So I don't know.
I didn't, I don't follow-
-Yeah
-... the basketball stuff too closely
-either. My family-
-Austin Reaves resigned with the Lakers
-... is a big football team.
-There was like, "Oh, we're gonna-"
-We're a big football family, so-
-"He's gonna go on the Super Max"
-... that's why
-... you know?
-Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
-Austin's gonna leave the Lakers. He's
gonna get a $250 million four-year Super
Max deal somewhere. No, he took a cut. 185
million to stay in the La- stay with the
Lakers. So LeBron's gone. We got that
mammoth frigging
disaster of a contract off the books
finally, 'cause he's not gonna take a pay
-cut. So-
-Yep
... maybe we'll build some pieces around
Luka now.
-There you go. That'd be great.
-It's clear-
-I'd love to see the Lakers-
-You know, the ownership-
... have another, like, sort of a big, a
big, uh, rally. You know, it was really
-fun when-
-Yeah
... Kobe was there, and, and, uh, that
was, that was a fun time to be watching
-the Lakers, so.
-Yeah. It's good to see that they're
finally building around the, you know, the
future. LeBron-
-Mm-hmm
-... you know, LeBron, 41, greatest
41-year-old to ever play the game. Only
41-year-old to ever play the game,
whatever, whatever the stupid stats are.
He was getting paid like a guy that had
been a, you know, 20-year superstar, which
is, which is great for him, terrible for
the organization. So,
-we'll see what happens now.
-Yep. Peace out, LeBron.
-Got some pizzas.
-LeBron James.
-Yeah.
-Peace out.
What do we got? What are we gonna talk
about?
Um, you know what? Let me think about this
for a second. We have been...
Trying to think what we've been talk- what
we've been doing recently.
Um,
I will say that, you know, we talked about
our whole thing with permissions a while
back, like, and how we were switching
everything over to, like, a different
structure,
and I will say it has been unreal, like,
how nice and flexible it has become.
So the big mistake that we made, and is a
mistake that I would encourage you not to
repeat, is
we used roles for everything.
-Mm-hmm.
-Which is fine
to an extent,
um,
but it's just, it, long term, it's not
super manageable. Um, and so especially if
you're dealing with a lot of users and
things like that. So
my encouragement would be to
move, um, your,
move your management of roles and users
that belong to those roles outside of the
application
layer.
So what we did is we put all the
permissions in the application, but then
we said the roles that get those a- those
permissions and the users that get those
roles are managed outside of the
application,
which is a bit of a trick, but we figured
out a way for ourselves to do it. Um, or,
I mean, I guess if...
The trick is just you need to have a good
way to be able to manage that, where you
can associate roles with users and
multiple permissions with roles very
easily without having to do code changes.
That's probably the better, the better
-sort of-
-Yeah
... piece of advice there. Um, make it
super easy to associate any permissions
you want with any role you want. Make it
easy to create roles com- like, completely
free, and then make it super easy to
associate users with roles. That's it.
That's, that's, like, the tagline here.
Um, and it has just been so much better
that we don't have to invoke code changes
in order to do anything. Any permission
that anybody wants, anything you can do in
our application, super easy to give it to
anyone. It's wonderful.
The other thing that we did that was
freaking amazing
is we did permission leases, which is
somebody gets a permission temporarily. So
-they get a temper-
-Mm-hmm
... a permission for a period of time,
and then it auto-expires. So you don't
have to remember to go expire it after the
fact, you just, it auto-expires. And then
the last thing we did is we did delegated
management of users. So if there's a
person who manages 10 users,
and they're gonna be stepping out for the
month,
somebody needs to be able to manage those
users. And so somebody can delegate their
permissions to another user, delegate
their direct reports to another person.
-And so that person basically-
-Mm-hmm
... is not imitating them, 'cause that's
the problem. If you imitate a person,
every action you do looks like that other
person did it, and that's not what we were
after. We were after saying, "No, you can
do the things that they could do," but it
still tags it as you that did it. And so
that's a delegated permission or delegated
management of users. And so those three
things together,
that was the magic, and it's been awesome.
It's been working across all of our
applications. And, uh, I would say that if
anybody has any questions on any of that,
please reach out to me. I'd love to share
with you how we did it. But that has been
a big, huge thing. And every time I run
into these permission things, which I've
had a lot of them recently, lots of
restructuring, it's just no problem. You
just manage it super simply, and it's been
really, really good. So that's been
wonderful. And then, um,
the other things that we're working on is
integration of Apple Pay and Google Pay
-into some of our-
-Yeah
... stuff. And so I'm excited about that.
I think it's gonna help a lot,
um, with people getting onboarded, uh,
and, and getting their payments up really
quickly. And then the last, last thing
that we've been working on is automated
texting conversations. And so
what I'll say about this, the things that
I've learned about this, is that if you
are texting back and forth with a user and
you want to give them options to do
something, don't make them type in words,
right? So if you have multiple actions
they can take, don't make them type in
words. Give them numbers
as options.
So, for example,
they text the word "pay." We look up their
account, and we say,
"Hey, looks like your most per- recent
payment was for $200, ending in this, you
know, for this Visa ending in 4242.
Do you want to, one, repeat that payment,
two, change the amount, three, change the
payment method, or four, cancel?"
-Mm-hmm.
-'Cause otherwise, it's literally
impossible for them. You had to type in
confirm, or if you didn't-
-Yeah
-... type confirm, then you need to type in
a number value that is the new amount
that you want, but you have to explain all
this in that text, and it's just, it's
terrible. And so giving them number
options, number one, makes it way easier
to parse their responses, what they're
trying to accomplish.
But then, two, it gives you the ability to
be able to provide more options much more
clearly than you could if you were just
using, you know, reply with this special
-keyword, uh-
-Yeah
... which gets really tricky. And so, um,
that's been a huge benefit for us as well.
And I know we're only at, like, 12
minutes. I've gotta go in, like, three
minutes. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you
tell me what we're working on, so what
you're working on. So hit me. What do you
got?
Uh, well, we are going through this, uh,
uplift project at the moment for our
lender submission
stuff, which has been an interesting
experience. We've actually got a
contractor in.
The funny part about that is that
the contractor that we've got in was my
boss when I was working in an agency,
like, 10 years ago. So now he works for
me, which is wonderful, um, which, which
we've joked about a few times. But, um,
we've been just doing this uplift, you
know, um, onboarding new lenders or
lenders that have been on our panel for a
long time that we've now actually started
to build our integrations.
The, um, the documentation is varied
amongst them. Sometimes they provide
really good
JSON API docs or Swagger docs or whatever.
The trickier bit is around whether or not
there's contextual documentation, like
actual prose that says, you know, "You
need to send this in these circumstances,"
or, "When we ask for this," or, "When
this error happens." You know,
to have
that kind of documentation, which I've
seen from a couple of lenders, is really,
really helpful. Um, and, and I suppose
that
more broadly, like if you're writing API
docs, if you're doing scramble
-documentation, for example-
-Mm-hmm. Yep
... put in the extra effort,
I think wherever possible, especially if
the docs are gonna be consumed publicly,
to put in as much context and information
around that,
those scramble docs as you can. Whatever
that document-- Whatever shape that
documentation takes, provide context.
Don't just provide a list of keys and
values.
I think that's very unhelpful, both from a
consumer perspective and also for, like
anyone that has to support that.
So, um,
that's been really good. It's been really
interesting, as I said, looking at the
varying degrees of, of quality. You know,
one, one lender that I'm working with at
the moment, we get the full documentation,
we get the Swagger docs, we get the
contextual docs.
Very simple to go,
"Hey,
AI," you know, "Claude, here's the docs.
Go and, like, build out the DTOs and the
enums for me."
And then we have to go through and, like,
map our internal data structures onto the
external docs, but that's,
that's an easier process when you've got
everything already in place. So,
uh, very helpful having that because
Claude very good at reading JSON spec and
figuring out how to convert that into a,
into a PHP DTO. So,
that has been the main thing. We're--
We've, um,
we departed our offshore team,
uh, probably about a month ago now, six
weeks ago. And so-
Okay
... um, you know, we finally got to the
point where we could bring on another
developer locally who's picked up, you
know, some, some of that work. So they're
an intermediate developer, but they've,
they've done an ex... Like, they've had an
exceptional start. They ask really
thoughtful questions. They've, like,
they've been developing for 17 years or
something like that, but they've come on,
uh, from an agency background, so they ask
really good questions. They, they, you
know, do the research. They go and look at
things before they come and ask you for
help, which has been, uh, very pleasing
as a new starter, and they've, like, hit
the ground running, doing all kinds of, of
wonderful things. But in light of the
offshore team being
-departed from, from our world-
-Yeah
... it means that
the rest of the team is now picking up the
IT helpdesk. And when I say IT helpdesk,
it's like support of, of our main
application. It's not like, "My printer's
not working" helpdesk. It's specifically
the application stuff. And so that's been,
um,
an interesting,
uh,
eye-opener,
um, to, to look at that process and kind
of figure out, you know, where people-
So your software dev team is now picking
up IT tickets, basically? Okay.
Yeah. Yep. So, you know, this-- I, I went
here, I got a, I got a 500 error or-
-Yeah, yeah
-... you know, this process doesn't work
with that kind of stuff. So, um, I--
W- it was kind of picked up ad hoc by a
couple of the other guys for the first few
weeks, and then we, we spun the wheel to
see, you know, who's-
-Mm-hmm. Yeah. Who's next
-... who's gonna do it to, like, figure
-out-
-Yeah
... what the, the schedule would be. And
of course, I drew the short straw, so I
got the first, first two weeks.
And, uh, it's been good. I've had to do
some front end-
So you're doing it, like, two weeks at a
time? The two weeks at a time.
-Two weeks at a time, yeah.
-And now are you-- Is that your only
responsibility during that two weeks, is
to answer tickets, or do you have other
small features and stuff you're working
on?
Yeah, primarily, yeah, primarily it's
that. There's also, like, any BAU tasks,
so business as usual tasks that come up,
you know, fixing things, miscellaneous bug
fixes, et cetera, et cetera, that get
raised by the, the product team and, and
things like that. So there's no new
feature work, and then I've... I'm, like,
working on these lender integrations in
the background as well between tickets.
Um,
but it's, it's the kind of thing that,
like, I'll check it in the morning, I'll
check it after lunch, I'll check it at the
end of the day. It's not, like, a
-full-time thing. There's-
-Okay
... w- there's, there's, like... There's
been a recurring issue that is, like, we
know that it's an issue, but we can't
really do anything about it 'cause we're
-waiting on some other thing to-
-Sure
... happen, like, at, at a business, like,
at a board level for them to decide what,
-what we're going to do.
-Yeah.
Um, so the, you know, so we get, like, 15
tickets a day that's like, "Couldn't do
this because this related record was
missing." So I went through and sent, sent
the PR this morning to, quote-unquote,
"fix that," which is basically, "If this
is the exception, report it. Uh, don't
report it. Log a warning and, like, don't
report it in the, in the queue failing
handler that we've got."
-Yeah.
-So that goes into the ticket systems.
Like, we, we know it's a thing.
There's not actually anything that we can
do about it. There is a manual business
process in place to circumvent this
particular issue anyway, and has always
been there. Um, so, like, just, just make
this useless ticket go away. So that was
-good fun.
-Now, does your-- Does every time there's
an error in your application, does it
automatically create a ticket?
No. So the tickets that are created are
only from failing queue jobs.
Okay.
So we've got, like, in our app service
provider, there's a queue dot op failing
with a job failed event, like closure, and
we go through there and it's like, if
we're in, in, uh, in production,
then go and, like, pull the information
together and then log a helpdesk ticket.
-Because the, uh-
-Okay. Nice
... the queue failing ones can be a little
bit more obscure,
uh, in terms of, like, they're hidden
if you're not looking for those things.
Um-
-Hmm
-... and it's the kind of things that are
like,
we create folders in Box, like a folder
hierarchy when we create a, a new, um,
person in our CRM,
and sometimes that fails. Like, sometimes
Box goes down, and we don't-
-Yeah
-... have any visibility over that because
this is, like, creating this happens in
the background, and sometimes Box just
goes down and we've got to go figure out,
like, is it our issue? Is it their issue?
-Have they logged a report?
-Right. It's nothing anybody can report.
-Do we need to communicate?
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
Um, so tho- those kinds of things go in
there. Um, and then there's also-- So
there's the automated tickets, then
there's also, um, we've got, like, level
two support for the business side of
things, which is, like, our, our users,
our internal users, our external users
reporting bugs. Um, you know, this doesn't
work, et cetera, et cetera. Our level two
person will go through and they'll, like,
figure out is this a training thing? Is
this an actual bug? Et cetera, et cetera.
And then they log tickets. So that acts
as, like, the funnel between the business
and the engineering team to, to resolve
those kinds of things. So-
It's, it's funny the kinds of things that,
that crop up.
-Mm-hmm.
-Like there was an issue with our Google
address
autocomplete
-stuff.
-Hmm. Okay.
-Like if-
-Yeah
... the way that we're doing it is that
we've got like the Google address lookup
is wrapped in a Mui component. So we're
using Mui-
-Okay
-... which is the material UI framework for
our front end.
-Okay, gotcha.
-Um, so 'cause they've got some good React
support and all the front end's built in
React. So we're using that,
and the way that we had set it up was that
if there was only a single-- Like if you
type your full address before, you know,
the debounce and you get the, the result
set back, and there was only one result
that came back,
it just wouldn't show any results. Um,
which was, which was an interesting bug to
find because
by all accounts, it has been there since
this address autocomplete functionality
was put into the platform.
And like no one's reported it, or it's
been like an anecdotal-
-Yeah
-... report. Like, "Oh, such and such said
this didn't work," but then someone went
to try it and it was there.
It's so hard. It's so hard to find those
things, man. It's like,
it's like you have to rely on a user to
report it enough times that it actually
becomes like a, "Oh, oh, that actually is
a real thing."
-Yeah.
-Or like, you know, we had something that
had worked perfectly forever, like since
it was... Like it was the saved payment
methods, like they would sync down from
the payment provider and sync down the
saved payment methods. Worked perfectly
for years, years and years and years.
-Yeah.
-And so when people were like these, like
this person called in and asked if they
could remove, we could remove the saved
payment methods. Can we do that? Like,
yeah, sure. So we removed it. They're
like, they logged in, they said it's still
there. I'm like, "I'm looking at the rep-
response from the payment provider. It's
not ha- it's not there. Like there's
-nothing there."
-Yeah.
And they're like, "Well, I'm saying there
is." And I'm like, "Okay." So like I went
to the banking team, I'm like, "Hey, I
need you to go remove this." So they're
like, "I'm showing you, like it's
removed." I'm like, "Great." So I go back
and I'm like, "Okay, sync the saved
payment methods," and it's still there.
And I'm like, "What the heck?" And so what
ended up happening is like we missed, in
one pull request, I'm sure it was Claude,
decided that there was a plural that
should have been singular, 'cause there
-was only a single-
-Right
... filter being applied. So why would you
make that a plural like thing?
-Mm-hmm.
-And so it removed an S.
-Ah.
-Account filters. And it would... They, it
changed it to account filter because we
were only-
-Right
-... do- returning active, but account
filters was the correct word you needed to
use.
-Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
-And so it just stopped working. It was
-returning-
-But it's still working
-... all payment methods regard-
-Right
... regardless of if you had re- removed
them, deleted them, retired them. But
yeah, it's like so hard for those sorts of
things. Like the point you were making,
like
ap- apparently this has been happening
since we released it. Like, you know what
-I mean?
-Yeah.
-Since it was ever even in place.
-Yeah.
-So, yeah.
-And it's like those address lookup things
are very interesting because most people,
I would say, are very slow to type.
So they would type like number, street
name, street type, and then they would
stop at that point, and you would get a
list of multiple results, and then you
would often, 'cause, you know, Google,
Google's, uh, address lookup is pretty
good, you would get the one you wanted and
you'd click on it-
-Yeah, it's pretty quick
-... and it'd be no problem. But if you
type quickly or it's like-
-Autofill
-... uh, yeah, autofill.
If it's like a saved profile with one
password or something, yeah.
Right. If you, yeah, if you autofill it,
um, or you copy paste it, you know, you've
-got an email from a, a client-
-Yeah
-... with their address in it-
-Yeah
... and you copy paste it, and then you
paste it in there, and you get an exact
match. Well, it just didn't show.
And I'm like, "Well, I don't know. I can't
reproduce it. Like it's working," and
then it's going, hang on. There is
definitely a result coming back from the
-API. I can see it-
-Yeah
... in the inspector, like there is one
record there. So it gives you something to
kind of pull on that thread. You go,
"Hey, Claude, if there's only one result,
I can see it coming back from the API, but
it is not being set." And what it ended
up being was like
the m- the material components like
default filter
would look for an exact match or
something, and because it was not there,
it would just like scrub it from the list,
and so you'd end up with no results, so.
It's just, it's just funny the, the kind
of things that turn up that's like, as I
said, if it's anecdotally reported like,
uh, a,
um, what do they call them? BSM, a
business sales manager, whatever they are
-that like-
-Hmm, okay
... con- you know, that they're
responsible for a number of brokers in
their portfolio, for example. They hear
about it anecdotally, like this one person
was reporting it, but they, they can't do
anything or they don't chase it up or
-they don't-
-Right
-... follow it up or whatever.
-Yeah.
And then, you know, eventually,
um, you know, it was announced, "Hey,"
Michael was on, on helpdesk this week, so
this BSM was then straight to me and, you
know, and it's like, "Hey, can I just
escalate this?" I'm like, "Can't escalate
a ticket that doesn't exist." Like if
there is no ticket log for this- ...
-there's, there's no-
-Yeah
... like don't just come to me with a
problem. I'm like, "Where did they enter
it? What did they type? What was the
address that didn't work? Like please, any
information would be helpful so I can
open a ticket."
You're the favorite IT guy. Everybody
loves when the IT guy says that, when
-you're like-
-Yeah, yeah
... "Nope, sorry, I can't do anything
about it."
-And like, and like-
-"You gotta write all this stuff up."
I've, uh, I've been here four and a half
years and I've never had to do any of the
helpdesk stuff, so I'm like, "I don't know
what the actual process is here."
-Yeah.
-"I want to help you."
-Yeah.
-"But also I don't wanna do something that
like the next person-"
-Right
-... "that does this is now going, 'Well,
hang on. We're not, that's not the
process. I shouldn't,'" you know?
-Yeah, yeah.
-So I was like, "Just if there's a ticket-"
Put a ticket in. Yeah. Yeah, put a ticket
-in.
-There, there, there is a whole process for
this that has never changed. It's like
create the ticket. If it's like urgent,
urgent, the sky is falling,
then there's a process for escalation and
there's a channel in Slack that you
escalate, et cetera. So anyway, I was
like, none of this had happened, and it's
like it's only work, it's only broken
sometimes and no one can tell me when. I'm
like, it's not, the platform is not
working. It's this one aspect of this one
part of the thing is not working in some
situations-
-Yeah
-... that you can't explain to me. So I'm
like, I'm not,
I'm not gonna spend a day trying to figure
out what's going on. Provide me with some
-details.
-Yeah. The thing is,
the thing is with that too is like
whenever you make an exception,
inevitably that person will now only ever
talk to you-
-Mm-hmm
-... and they'll never put in the ticket. I
-have a lady who does that.
-Yeah.
It's like, I think it's, I think it
doesn't matter what her name is, but it's
the same person, and every time she has a
question or problem, she doesn't ever put
-in the ticket. She just asks me directly.
-Yeah.
-And it's like-
-Yeah
... I should just start being like, "No,
you have to put a ticket in. Whoever's
handling those will handle it." But like
I'm not gonna sit here answering these
-random questions.
-Yeah. And it gets to the point that it's
been like two years, five years, six
years.
-Yeah, yeah.
-It's like it's too late now. You can't,
you can't say anymore, "Well, this is not
the process."
And honestly, I don't--
Yeah, it has gotten to the point too where
I do not feel bad not answering her for
like three days. It's like, well- You're
gonna have to wait.
-Yeah.
-Like, I got other stuff I'm working on.
-Like, you texted the-
-Yeah, it was urgent. They had to bang on
-some doors
-... you texted, yeah, you messaged...
Right. You messaged one of the most busy
people in this department, and so you're
-just gonna have to wait.
-Mm-hmm.
Like, or, or I'm gonna... If it's really
important, you'll have to report it to
your manager, and then they can put the
ticket in or whatever. So anyway, doesn't
-matter.
-Yeah.
-But-
-So, you know, that's a, that's-
-But, uh, yeah
-... an interesting thing. I do-- My, my
previous employer, when I started there,
the first, I think, two weeks,
I was on the phones. Like, I was talking
to customers of the platform,
s- which
I think is, um, an underrated
thing to do
in businesses where you've got, like,
external customers-
-That's an insanely important-
-... where they can actually contact you.
-Yeah.
-Whether it's, like, whether it's on the
phones or if it's through, you know, a
chat, if you've got support chat or a
ticketing system, whatever. I think
it's, it's a really
valuable way
to interact with real users of your
platform and seeing the kinds of issues
that they're coming up against, because it
makes you much more considerate
of what
the people, the consumers of your
application, and also the people that are
supporting those users internal to your
organization, like, the kinds of things
that they face day to day.
'Cause they might just consider it to be,
like, a business as usual thing. "Oh,
yeah, this person has caught up with this
problem again," and it's like, "This is,
this is the process we go through to fix
it." It's like, well, how do we stop that
kind of call from coming through in the
first place?
Yeah. Is that kind of-- 'Cause that's the
question, like, when you say BAU, business
as usual, is that just like, "Hey, these
are errors that happen occasionally that
need to have manual intervention, but
there's a solution, like, guide for how we
-solve this problem."
-Yeah.
It's just not something that's worth
solving automatically or-
-Yeah
-... unable to solve automatically? Okay,
-gotcha.
-But, but, like, sometimes those things,
like, come up from the frontline people
who then speak to the-
-Yeah
-... level two person, and they figure out,
"Oh, yeah, this is the, the process to,
to do that." And so it stops at that level
two support person. It's like, well, we
could fix this properly so that this
doesn't happen at all, rather than you
having-
-Yeah
-... to go through these three manual steps
-every time.
-We just eliminate the problem, yeah, all
-together.
-Yeah.
Which is, yeah, I, I think
sometimes we can get a bit ahead of
ourselves,
um,
as engineers and be like, "I don't have to
talk to the customers." I'm like, no, I
think, I think it's valuable, and I think
it's been a very long time coming that,
that this rotation has come in, and I
think we will be better as a team for it.
-Because sometimes-
-Absolutely
... some of us, like myself included, we'd
be like, "Oh, no, I don't."
I mean, I don't typically touch any of
the, the customer facing stuff. A lot of
mine is, is integration work and back end
and things like that. So I don't, I don't
have lots of hands-on. And, like, within
the first two days of doing this, I've
already been submitting PRs and, and
changing the front end, which is
wildly inappropriate, I think, 'cause
there's a good chance I break it 'cause I
don't understand it enough to, to make
changes to it. But Claude said it was
fine, and someone signed off on the PR, so
I'm sure it's, it's fine.
That's funny. We, um... It's like what you
said was about it being, like,
underrated. I do agree, and, like, we're
right now working on sort of,
um,
your ability to be able to tier in your
job title, in your job role, being able
to, like, get like tier one, tier two,
tier three, whatever.
-Mm-hmm.
-And, um,
one of the requirements I'm looking at
adding back in that we've previously had
in there is to, like, certify for a role
in another department. So basically, each
department has a list of, like, you have
to know how to do these things in order to
be able to certify that you know how to
do this job function.
-Mm-hmm.
-And so basically, it's for my team
members, it would say you need to spend
enough time in that department that you
can actually go through and certify for
that role.
-Yeah.
-And so you're gonna know literally
everything that that team does. You're
gonna sit in, like, almost like you're a
new hire in that group for probably a
week, and you're gonna go through, and
you're gonna at least...
I'm trying to figure out,
do I actually care that they can do it? Do
I need to prove that the person can do
-it?
-Mm-hmm.
Or do I just care more that they kind of
know what they're doing and can speak
-intelligently-
-Yeah
... about each of the processes? I think
probably that's more important.
-Yeah.
-I don't actually want them to sit down and
do the work and be proficient and, and be
able to say, like, "Well, I can get X
number of tasks done in, in this amount of
time." I don't care about that.
-Mm-hmm.
-I just want them to know that when
something breaks, they have a clue what
that team is talking about. Or if a
process is broken, they know which leader
to go talk to, to figure out who-
-Yeah
-... who, you know, what's wrong. And so,
um, yeah, I'm, I'm working on that because
I do think you're right. Like, we...
Sometimes we just kinda hole up in our
little,
uh, offices and, uh, don't really have to
interact with those outside, uh, you know,
-the people-
-Yeah
... who are actually using the problems or
the applications. And so there's a lot of
things that are, like, efficiencies that
could be built in, that if a developer-
-Mm-hmm
-... sat down for 10 minutes, they'd be
like, "Oh, we could fix that real quick."
Like, "No problem."
-Yeah.
-And so-
-Yeah
-... uh, I think a lot of efficiency
-improvements and, uh, a lot of-
-And a lot of the time we don't know that
... better understanding too. Right.
Exactly. That's the thing.
-'Cause, like, we don't see it ourselves.
-Yeah. 'Cause they don't hand it up.
They've, like, found a way to work around
it. They're like, "Well, this is just what
we do when that happens," and, and, you
know.
And that, that last job where I started,
like, my first two week was answering
phones.
-Yeah.
-I was still in the support queue. Like, if
there was a, an influx of calls or
someone was off sick, my phone would still
ring
in those situations to, to help out, you
know, 'cause it was a, it was an all hands
on deck situation at that point. So
yeah, it's, um, it's definitely
interesting,
-um-
-Yeah
... and it's, and it's valuable. And, and
as you said, getting into a department and
understanding what they're doing, you may
become the, the point of contact for,
like, that area-
-That's right
-... of the, the software
that, that, you know, you're the bridge
between the engineering team and that,
that business unit if something c-
happens. And then, you know, sometimes you
could speak more intelligently to the
problem that they're facing from an
-engineering perspective.
-Yeah.
But you understand what they're facing
because you've seen it from the other side
-of the, of the coin as well, so.
-Yeah. And I actually have-- We've seen
-that play out as well.
-Um, yeah, our, our current organization is
very good at, um, we do this thing, like,
every three months called Leading Teams,
which is like a,
it's, it's an all-in where we sit down and
we would, we would do, um,
kind of like
I don't wanna say, um,
team building exercises, but it's like
about, about building rapport and, and
getting to know people that you don't
really know
day to day, like that I don't have much
engagement with. But it-
-Mm-hmm
-... but you sit down and you get grouped
up with people that you wouldn't normally
talk with, and you would talk about, you
know, what's going on in your life, what
are you excited about, what, you know,
what's challenging you at work, so that
everyone kind of gets to know each other a
bit more than just a name in Slack. And
it's, it's... the idea being that, like,
you build,
um, high-performing teams around trust and
communication and things like that. If,
if I can see that, you know, Jake's tired,
well, I can understand why, because, you
-know, he's just had a baby-
-Yeah
... or whatever else, you know, that kind
of thing, that you kind of put yourself in
their shoes, and you get
a much more cohesive and, and, you know,
high-performing team out of it across the
board when you know that people are,
um, speaking with each other beyond just,
you know, punching cards and, and doing
the job, so.
Okay. One, one other thing that we've
actually just been working on that goes,
goes right along with what you're talking
about, which is that people are more than
the sum of their productivity at work,
right? They, they... obviously, there's a
lot of stuff going on outside of the walls
of the building that they work in or if
they work remote, right? So something
we've been doing for, like, the last five
years, which has been very interesting, is
we do these weekly reports.
-Mm-hmm.
-And so on Friday, a bunch of people do
these, right, check-ins, but it's not just
like, "Hey, what was your productivity?"
It is like, "What is your stress?" And
there's like... you ever seen those little
pain charts that they use for kids where
it's, like, the sad face, and then... You
know what I mean? Or it's like, it starts
out with, like-
-Mm
-... a pain level of zero. It has a green
-face-
-Mm
-... with a little hi-
-Mm-hmm
-... happy kid.
-Yeah.
And then it's, like, the li- yellow, and
then it goes all the way to the red.
-Right, yeah.
-And so you have the kid that point at,
like, which face are you feeling right
now, right? So they have a hard time
associating, like, a word with it, but
they know just looking at the picture,
-that's how I'm feeling right now.
-Yeah.
-Right?
-Yeah.
And so instead of it being like a, "How
was your stress this week?" and it being
like low, uh, a little bit, like, it just
uses the faces.
-Mm-hmm.
-It says like green.
-Mm-hmm.
-You know, I'm, like, low stress. I'm doing
-good.
-Yeah.
Or a little bit less green, yellow,
orange, red. And so they can report like,
"Here's what my stress was," and then they
can say what it, what it is. They can
say, "How much my workload and how that
was." And I'm trying to remember what the
other one is.
-Um, I think it's personal. Personal-
-Yeah
... stress, workload. And then they talk
about-- They, they have an opportunity to
talk about each of those. And then there's
what was the high for the week, what was
the low for the week. Those are the
questions.
And so the only fill in the blank sort of
things that they ha- that are required are
the high and the low, and then they, they
submit that. And then what we do is, as a
leadership team, like the entire, like
all the chiefs, all the directors meet
every Monday, and anybody who is orange or
below on any of those measures, we look
at their, their high-low report and see
like-
-Mm
-... how are things going for that person?
Is there anything we can do to help that
person? Whatever. Um, but those aggregate
reports is what we're building right now,
which has been pretty cool. So being able
to see like, "Hey, what's the trend line
for this department? How are they feeling?
Is stress, like overall for that entire
team?"
-Mm.
-Like, is the entire team sort of feeling a
certain thing? And then we can do
sentiment analysis on like, let's look at
all the, an aggregate of their reports.
Hey, Claude, like... Or not Claude, we
don't use Claude for this, but our
internal AI tool. Uh, hey-
-Yeah
-... tell me, summarize the, the sentiment
of these people here, right? What are we
feeling about this?
-Mm-hmm.
-And so, um, that's been pretty cool. But,
um, yeah, to, to speak to the point that
you're making, which is, you know, it's...
Most of the time, the people who they're
filling those reports out, it's, it's
hardly ever work stuff. I mean, I would
say probably half the time it's work, and
other times it's like, "My dog is having
surgery because whatever, whatever," or,
you know, "My kid got sick this week, and
like, I had to take a day off work. I'm
-feeling behind."
-Mm.
And we can be like, "Hey, manager, can
you, like, jump in and help them with
their work because they, you know, they
had a sick kid this week?"
-Yeah.
-And stuff that-
-Yeah
-... you just would never know about
-otherwise. And so, yeah, it's-
-Yeah
-... it's been pretty cool to do that.
-Yeah, it's the kind of thing that, you
know, you work with these people all the
time, but they're like work personality,
-and that's all you see. But-
-Yeah
... knowing, you know,
knowing that someone's unwell, you just
pick up the phone and you can text them.
You know, if something, if they're not at
work or if, like, someone's sick or
someone, you know, something's happened,
you can just pick up a phone and say,
"Hey,
don't need to tell me what's going on, but
I heard that, you know, you're not gonna
be there or stuff's tough. Hope
everything's okay."
-Yeah, yeah.
-Like, just, just the human connection
beyond just, um,
the work thing
-is really cool.
-You got it. You got it. All right, man,
what else do we got here? Am I... I was
gonna say that, uh, I, you know, my, that
three minutes lasted about 25 minutes, but
my, uh-
-You got extra time
-... my son was,
he was... Yeah, I got extra time. He was
at the theater and was like... I asked him
before we started our podcast, I was
like, "Hey, what time are you gonna need
to be picked up?" He's like, "I don't
know." I'm like, "How far are you along in
the movie?" He's like, "I don't know."
I'm like, "Okay. Well, the runtime for
this movie is like an hour and 45," and
he's, was supposed to be there at 8:00,
but the previews take a half hour, so
like, I should be good until like 10:20,
you know?
Well, then he texted at like, you know,
5:00 till 10:00, was like, "Hey, I need to
be picked up." Like, oh, of course you
do.
And so anyway, I was like, "I'll come get
you in a couple minutes." My wife was
like, "I'll go get him." So anyway, thank
you to my wonderful wife who went and got
him
-late at night so that I didn't have to-
-Things for me to look forward to, I guess
... and I could stay. Yeah, exactly. Dude,
it's, it's crazy. Like, we're trying to
figure out, like, curfew times and stuff.
Like, you're thankful that they have
friends to go hang out with. They're good
kids. I know the kids that he's hanging
-out with. But it is-
-Yeah
... like trying to balance like, okay,
what is a reasonable time to be home, you
-know?
-Yeah.
-Um, you know, and he's like, he's 15.
-And balancing against like what time the
other kids are going to be home and things
like that as well.
-Totally. Yeah.
-Like we don't want to be the one that's
-always too early, but also... Yeah.
-Right. But he does tend to hang out with
kids who are a little bit older, so like
the other kids have their licenses, so
like they can get home whenever they want,
and he doesn't.
-Mm-hmm. Yeah.
-And so we have to run to pick him up and
stuff. So it's like,
it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's, um,
it is good. I mean, like, you want him to
go be with friends. You don't want him to
just be sitting at home bored by
themselves.
-Mm-hmm.
-But it's just-
-Mm-hmm
-... you know, we're in this weird spot
right now where he's doing that and he's
out with friends, but like he doesn't have
-his license yet. So-
-Yeah
... four months he'll have his license,
and it'll be a little bit easier for him
to be able to get around. But then you
have to worry about is he being safe? Is
-it whatever? All those things and stuff.
-Yeah, he's driving. He's gonna get pulled
-over, all this kind of stuff.
-You got it.
-Crazy.
-You got it.
-Crazy times. Um-
-And he likes fast cars, so you know.
He can get, he can have a fast car when he
can buy his own. Um-
That is correct
-One last thing. I am leaving for Boston-
-Okay, let's hear it
-... for Laracon US-
-Yes
... in 24 days.
I have sussed out what I, as an
Australian, believe will be good coffee.
I've got a number... I sent a few of these
recommendations to Gen Z Abby,
uh, or Gen Zed Abby, 'cause we don't say Z
in Australia. Um-
-Okay, Gen Zed.
-But Gen Zed. Uh, so I've sussed out a
couple of places that I think will be good
coffee. Uh, donuts are apparently a very
-big thing in Boston-
-Oh, boy
... so I've sussed out a few donut places.
-Boston Cream. Boston Cream donuts, yeah.
-Yep. And, uh, a friend of mine who is a
big Boston man, loves the, uh, Celtics,
the New England Patriots, the Boston Red
-Sox.
-Red Sox, yeah.
He's all in on Boston sports. Um, he's
suggested to me a place to go and get some
-cannoli. So I suggested that to-
-Oh, right. Let's go
-... to you guys last night-
-I saw that, yeah
... in the group chat. So we're doing that
the day after. We're gonna go and check
-out these cannoli.
-Big fan.
-I'm going with Abby.
-Yes.
-So-
-No, I'm going, dude. I'll be there.
-Good. All right. Fantastic.
-I just hope they have, I hope they have,
uh...
Oh, that's not gonna be funny anymore. I
lost it. What's the name of that crap that
you guys eat?
-The spread.
-Vegemite?
The spread.
-Vegemite.
-A Vegemite cannoli.
On the cannoli. Yeah, Vegemite cannolis.
No, put some Vegemite on that bad boy.
I found this, I found this one place that
does a, um, a rosemary sea salt
-bagel-
-Oh, gosh
-... with a bacon-
-I'm literally, like, drooling right now
-just hearing the words
-... bacon and scallion schmear. So I
-can't get my nose up.
-Oh, my gosh. That sounds amazing. Now,
I've heard traffic is absolutely terrible,
so I considered, I, uh, here's the deal.
Not seriously, but I did consider, like,
bringing my Onewheel.
-I-
-But,
but the whole point is to be walking with
the people you're with-
-Yeah, just gonna walk everywhere
-... not to, like, be speeding around, you
-know?
-Mm-hmm.
So it's, like, I don't know. Yeah, I'm not
gonna do it.
There's one place that's got these maple
bacon donuts, and I was like-
-Yes
-... that's a 30-minute walk away.
-Those are-
-And thank God-
-Oh, yeah
-... it's a 30-minute walk.
-Yeah. Dude, I'd go with that.
-Also, also apparently apple cider donuts
-are available here-
-Okay
... which, you know, as a Michigan man,
this is a thing.
Yes, absolutely. Apple cider donuts, for
sure.
-I was doing my best California-
-We used to have a, uh,
yeah, we used to have a orchard that we
would stop, it was on our way to church
and on our way to school, and every year
when they'd be making cider, we would go
-get apple cider donuts and cider.
-Mm-hmm.
It was amazing.
-So good.
-Yeah. All of these things. But if you, if
you are more local to Boston than what I
am, 'cause pretty much everyone would be
more local to Boston than what I am, but,
uh, if you have recommendations for coffee
or donuts or cannoli,
uh, I'm happy to walk to the North End
from, from SoWa, where we, where I'm
staying, so-
Or a Sam Adams lager.
Lager.
-Lager.
-Jeez.
Anyway, looking forward to it. Um,
24 days away. It's sneaking up quickly.
The kids are last week of school.
-It is.
-Then they've got two weeks of holidays,
uh, for end of term two, and then they'll
be back for a week, and then I'm off. So
-it's coming up quickly.
-We need to talk about the Australian
schedule for school sometime. We need to
put that on the list for the next time. I
don't understand how it works for you
guys. I'm curious.
We have the summer holidays when it's
summer, the same way that you have summer
-holidays when it's summer.
-But for how long?
Summer holidays are six weeks.
Six weeks. So yeah, so we're way off,
we're off for longer than that. That's
-what I'm saying.
-Mm-hmm.
Like, I feel like you guys take more
frequent, shorter breaks.
-Yeah.
-We take less frequent, but longer breaks.
-We have-
-So, like, in the summertime, my kids are
off from May-
-... four terms in the school year
-... they're off May, June, July. They
don't go back till August.
-Geez.
-Yeah, so they're off for like-
-That's a long time
-... three months, basically.
-Chilling.
-Not really, but, like, two and a half
months.
What are they doing for three months? What
are you doing for three months?
Hanging out. It's summertime, dude. Just
chilling. Like, it's great. Like, it's,
-it's wonderful.
-Yes, it's-
You get a whole break for the whole summer
...
I get it. It's great, but, like, this is
the thing that I don't understand. The
kids have 12 weeks
of holidays a year.
-Hmm. Okay.
-Most jobs give you four weeks of annual
leave a year.
-Yeah, right.
-So, like, what are you doing for the other
-eight weeks?
-So you're... Yeah, I get you. I get you.
You're saying, like, how do parents be
parents for 12 weeks at a... Or, you know,
-for, like, in a row.
-Mm-hmm.
Just like, yeah, I get that. That makes
sense. Um, well, so-
So we, like, we've got out of school
programs and things like that to go to
-during the day-
-Yeah, yeah
... so we're not just sitting at home
all... And our kids are too young.
-And they have those here.
-Like, they can't, they can't just go
-places.
-There's summer camp programs and...
Yeah.
-Yeah.
-Um, but it's like, you know, parents need
to... Like, my mom was a stay-at-home mom,
so the-
-Yeah, same. Our-
-... we were just home with mom during the
-holidays.
-Yeah. Mm-hmm.
But, like, we both work,
so it's like, you know, what do you do?
Fortunately, I work from home-
-That's definitely-
-... so it's okay for the kids to be here.
But, um, yeah. So we've got four term...
Let's do this quickly, and then we can
-wrap up.
-Okay, let's hear it.
-We've got four terms a year.
-Okay.
Terms are typically between 10 and 11
weeks.
Okay.
So every 10, 10 to 11 weeks, they then
have a two-week-
So two and a half months. You have a two
and a half month term-
-Yep
-... basically.
-Yep.
-Yep, okay.
Yep.
Um, as you get older, then we do, you
know, semesters. So you've got semester
one is term one, term two, and then
semester two is term three and term four.
-Okay.
-Which is relevant more for high school,
'cause you, you will change subjects
midyear and things like that, you know-
-Yeah
-... to kind of prepare you for post-high
-school-
-Yep
... and things like that.
Um,
yeah, that's, that's pretty much what it
is.
-And so, and so you do-
-And then six weeks... So it's usually,
-like, the week before-
-Six weeks in between each term?
Uh, two weeks be- between terms.
Two weeks between terms. Okay. Okay.
Gotcha.
Yeah, and six weeks at the end of the
year. So it's usually the week before
Christmas until the end of January.
Okay. The week before Christmas to end of
January. Okay, that makes sense. So it's
like you have a Christmas break, and then
through January you're off, and that's
like your summer break.
-Yeah, that's the summer break.
-Yeah. Yeah.
-And then-
-That makes sense
-... back to it.
-Yep.
-Get out of the house, kids.
-Yep, yep. And it is funny that, like, you
know, your breaks line up with your
Christmas for summer.
You know, for us, it's the middle of
winter, and so it's like-
-Mm-hmm
-... it doesn't make... You know, the,
people, kids don't wanna, like, take a
six-week break in the middle of winter.
-Like-
-No, that's right. Yeah, so you get a
-summer break.
-So we do, we take a little bit shorter
break. Yeah, we take, like, a two-week
break at Christmas time.
-Mm-hmm.
-Uh, Christmas and New Year, and then
you're back at it, you know. You get,
like, a couple days for Thanksgiving or I
guess maybe a week, I don't know.
I don't know. I can't remember all of it,
but, uh, yeah-
I don't know. You're always away on
vacation anyway
... my wife stays at home too. My wife
stays at home. Just get out of here. Andy,
Andy Hinkle said, he was like, "Oh,
Michael was like-"
-He was taking the piss, yeah.
-"... Michael was giving you crap about
never working the other day." It's so
funny.
-It's true.
-Oh, my word. He's just... It's not true.
-It's not true. I-
-I feel like you're going away all the
time.
When? Like, what did I do? I, I'm sc-
Like, okay, so, like, give me the most
-recent-
-These holidays, all of these vacations. I,
-I was like-
-Well, I mean, like, like the one, the one
-recent one-
-... I can't, I've gone to visit family in
-Michigan, like-
-No.
-You were just away.
-Okay, well, that was, that was over a
weekend. That was over a weekend. That
wasn't, like, anything, like, I wasn't off
-of work for that. I left for a weekend.
-Don't go away. Don't go away for weekends.
Just stay at home. It's too much hassle
to go away for two days.
Well, dude, it's like I haven't been, I
haven't been to Michigan for,
like, years, years. And so I needed to get
up there and see some family. So I went
over a weekend. So that was that. The golf
thing was for work. So that was that. So
there's none, no off work time for either
of those. Just...
So I don't wanna hear about it, okay? And
I do have, I do have actual vacations
coming up. Like, we're going to Cedar
Point in a couple weeks.
Mm-hmm.
-So that'll be fun.
-I don't know.
That's great fun.
-All right.
-All right. All right.
-Let's wrap this up before we-
-This sounds good. All right, let's wrap
-it. Go ahead
-... damage our friendship.
Uh, what, what is our...
Damage our friendship based on my PTO
schedule? How is this gonna work?
-You can shake my friendship.
-Are you jealous of my PTO? Is that what...
What is this?
-I am. I am.
-Okay. All right.
I'm not willing to find out. Let's, let's-
-Okay
-... let's cut it off.
-196.
-All right. All right. Let's, uh, 196.
Thanks for sh- hanging out with us, folks.
Uh,
northmeets south.audio/196 for show notes.
Hit us up on X, @michaeldorinda,
@jacobbennett, and, uh, rate us up on your
podcatcher of choice. Five stars would be
incredible. Thanks, everybody. We'll see
you next time. Peace.
Donuts, coffee, cannoli. Let's go.
See you there. Bye.