Latest / North Meets South Web Podcast / Better API docs, customer support lessons, and cannoli

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Better API docs, customer support lessons, and cannoli · North Meets South Web Podcast

• 0:00
  -Hey, I'm Michael Dyrynda. -And I'm Jake Bennett.
• 0:03
  And welcome to episode 196 of the North Meet South podcast.
• 0:08
  All right, folks, we are on another blitz. Um,
• 0:11
  my son is at a movie, and I have to go pick him up at some point. I don't know
• 0:16
  when that text is gonna come in, but when it does, I'm gonna have to, like... We're
• 0:19
  just gonna stop right where we're at, in the middle of talking, whatever we're
• 0:21
  talking about. So,
• 0:23
  let's get it in. In the meantime, Michael, how's the, uh, how's the World Cup
• 0:27
  watching? You're, you're watching a lot of the World Cup stuff-
• 0:29
  -Yeah -... I think. Yeah?
• 0:29
  -Yeah. Well, look- -How's it going?
• 0:30
  Yeah. Yeah, it's going really good. It's, um...
• 0:33
  I, I'm 39 now, so I have spent the majority of my life not following, not
• 0:38
  watching, not enjoying, thinking I would not enjoy soccer, you know, the world game
• 0:42
  -and all of that. -Right, right, right.
• 0:43
  -But it wasn't until Eli started playing- -Mm
• 0:45
  ... that I started to get into it. And, uh, especially now that we're into the
• 0:49
  round of 32, it's, it's been exceptional. You know, the, the Canada game the other
• 0:54
  day was really good against South Afri- South Africa. Um, yeah.
• 0:57
  South Africa.
• 0:59
  South Africa. We've, uh... We had the two, you know, the back-to-back penalty
• 1:03
  -shootouts yesterday, where both- -Man, I-
• 1:05
  ... uh, the, uh, favorites went bye-bye. Like, no European teams. The
• 1:10
  EU wants to have more European teams in the World Cup that, you know, clearly they
• 1:13
  -weren't good enough to qualify. -Yep, yep.
• 1:15
  And now the first, first two European teams that played both got eliminated, so.
• 1:19
  Oh, man.
• 1:21
  Sorry to the Netherlands. Sorry to, uh, Germany. Too bad-
• 1:25
  -Good day, mate. We'll see ya -... next time come out in four years.
• 1:28
  -Yeah, yeah. I don't- -We'll be following, we'll be following
• 1:30
  -them on, uh, on- ... Saturday morning at- -You'll be-
• 1:33
  -By 5 AM- -... on the next flight
• 1:34
  -... it'll be all over. -Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, I, um, I have not been
• 1:38
  watching as much as I would like to.
• 1:40
  Um,
• 1:41
  but I've been... It's been enjoyable following you following it, and the other
• 1:46
  dudes that are in some of our chats, like, watching it and stuff. I don't know.
• 1:49
  Like, I feel like I'm regretting the fact that I haven't watched as much, so I
• 1:53
  should probably just start tuning in. That's the, that's the story here.
• 1:56
  Yeah. I mean, the final 32 is where it's at. Even the 16 is, uh-
• 2:00
  -Okay -... is good gear. I didn't realize David
• 2:02
  -Hampel was such a, a soccer- -I know
• 2:04
  -... you know, a soccer- -Same
• 2:05
  ... he's, like, running... He was real, real aggressive about it, too. You know,
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  -he's just- -Oh, yeah, he was. Like, he knew what he
• 2:09
  -was talking about -... making hot shots about the US. I'm
• 2:11
  -like- -Yes
• 2:11
  ... "Come on, you guys. You... What's it like to lose to Turkey?" Like, uh,
• 2:15
  never lost to Turkey, couldn't tell you.
• 2:18
  -Uh, well, I- -Then he starts throwing out the excuses,
• 2:20
  "Oh, you played our B team. Well, boo hoo."
• 2:22
  -Well, that is true, though. That is true. -Excuses, excuses.
• 2:24
  I don't know a whole lot, but that is true.
• 2:27
  -Excuses. -And I mean, like, okay, so think about it
• 2:28
  this way, like, if you know you're advancing, you're not gonna play your best
• 2:32
  players. You don't wanna get injuries. You don't wanna get yellow cards.
• 2:34
  -No. -You don't wanna get... Right?
• 2:35
  -No. -Come on.
• 2:36
  -That's, that's right. Yeah. -Who cares?
• 2:38
  -It's all the excuses you want. -It's, it's, it wasn't-
• 2:39
  -I get it. I get it -... it was... it didn't even matter. Like,
• 2:40
  so Turkey was going home, US was advancing. It didn't matter. So-
• 2:44
  -Mm-hmm -... let the guys who made it to the World
• 2:46
  Cup, who, who typically don't get to play-
• 2:48
  -Yeah -... let them play. You know what I mean?
• 2:49
  -That's right. -We're trying to build-
• 2:50
  -Com- -... a program-
• 2:51
  -Do you know what? -... not just a team.
• 2:52
  Do you know what? Do you know what? Complacency is just nothing to worry
• 2:56
  about. Germany wasn't complacent. Uh, you know,
• 3:00
  the Netherlands weren't complacent. Don't even worry about it. Just-
• 3:03
  -No -... just cruise it. You just walk into a
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  -win. You'll be fine, I'm sure. -That's right. That's right. So anyway, all
• 3:09
  right. Well, I need to start watching. Um, I have... You know what? I'll... The
• 3:12
  other thing that I've, uh, didn't realize is that I didn't realize that UFC has
• 3:17
  fights every Saturday night. I didn't know this.
• 3:20
  -Oh. -Um, and so I need to start watching those
• 3:21
  -more often. -Players who gotta beat the crap out of
• 3:22
  each other.
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  -I know. I know. -All the time.
• 3:24
  It's been, it's been fun, fun to watch that stuff. So,
• 3:27
  -um, anyway, yeah. -Another thing before we get out of sports.
• 3:29
  Okay, let's hear it.
• 3:31
  Le- LeBron, he's out. He's gone. He's leaving the Lakers.
• 3:33
  -LeBron Jahamas. Is he? Is he done? -LeBron, LeBron, he's done. They, the
• 3:36
  -Lakers- -Did, have I told you this, have I told you
• 3:38
  this inside joke that me and my son have?
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  -Mm-hmm. -So, like, there's so many-
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  -Mm-hmm -... foreign-sounding players now, you
• 3:43
  -know? Like, we have- -Right
• 3:43
  ... so many players from overseas and stuff. And so, um,
• 3:48
  to make, uh, LeBron James sound more like one of the foreign players, we call him
• 3:52
  LeBron Jahamas.
• 3:53
  So, you know.
• 3:55
  -LeBron Jahamas. Yeah, he's, uh- -LeBron Jahamas
• 3:58
  -... gone, goneski. -Okay, so is he done, done, retired? Like,
• 4:02
  -he's done? -No, no, no, no, he's just leaving the
• 4:04
  -Lakers. -Oh, where's he going?
• 4:06
  Don't know where he's going. Don't know. Could be the Heat, could be the Cavs,
• 4:08
  could be the Warriors. It'd be funny if he ends up at the Warriors, but, uh, yeah.
• 4:13
  Well, you know what? So, uh, Dusty May, who led Michigan,
• 4:18
  the University of Michigan, to a national title in basketball last year, which I was
• 4:22
  privileged to be able to go watch. It was super cool. So it was in Indianapolis,
• 4:26
  which is, like, a three-hour drive from us,
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  and all the Arizona, uh, fans were offloading their tickets 'cause they were
• 4:32
  like, their team lost, and they were supposed to win, and Michigan just
• 4:36
  destroyed them. So people were offloading the tickets, so we got cheap tickets and
• 4:39
  got to go watch Michigan win the national championship, but he is leaving Michigan
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  -and going to coach the Mavs. -Yeah, I saw that. He got picked up by the
• 4:46
  -Mavs. -That's pretty cool.
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  -So good on him. -Yeah.
• 4:48
  -Yeah. -I mean, good on him. It sucks for us.
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  Like, I really would've loved to have him for a few more years, but,
• 4:52
  -um- -Hey, if you can get a-
• 4:53
  -... they won the... Totally -... get a NBA team, like, not-
• 4:56
  -I, I get it -... not everyone can be the head coach of
• 4:59
  UConn and turn down the Los Angeles Lakers, you know? But, um-
• 5:02
  -Sure. Right, right, right. So- -Someone had to-
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  -I mean, it's- -... go on and coach the Mavs. Sure.
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  -Yes, yes. So- -They only made, only made a generational
• 5:09
  whiff trading Luka for Anthony Davis, who's, who's now injured in Washington.
• 5:16
  -Sure. Go and, go and coach the Mavs- -Yeah
• 5:17
  -... I guess. -That was a, that was a rough one, Luka
• 5:20
  leaving. That was a rough one. But, uh... And now LeBron Jahamas is leaving the
• 5:23
  Lakers, where, you know? So I don't know. I didn't, I don't follow-
• 5:26
  -Yeah -... the basketball stuff too closely
• 5:27
  -either. My family- -Austin Reaves resigned with the Lakers
• 5:30
  -... is a big football team. -There was like, "Oh, we're gonna-"
• 5:31
  -We're a big football family, so- -"He's gonna go on the Super Max"
• 5:33
  -... that's why -... you know?
• 5:34
  -Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. -Austin's gonna leave the Lakers. He's
• 5:36
  gonna get a $250 million four-year Super Max deal somewhere. No, he took a cut. 185
• 5:42
  million to stay in the La- stay with the Lakers. So LeBron's gone. We got that
• 5:46
  mammoth frigging
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  disaster of a contract off the books finally, 'cause he's not gonna take a pay
• 5:51
  -cut. So- -Yep
• 5:52
  ... maybe we'll build some pieces around Luka now.
• 5:54
  -There you go. That'd be great. -It's clear-
• 5:56
  -I'd love to see the Lakers- -You know, the ownership-
• 5:57
  ... have another, like, sort of a big, a big, uh, rally. You know, it was really
• 6:00
  -fun when- -Yeah
• 6:01
  ... Kobe was there, and, and, uh, that was, that was a fun time to be watching
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  -the Lakers, so. -Yeah. It's good to see that they're
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  finally building around the, you know, the future. LeBron-
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  -Mm-hmm -... you know, LeBron, 41, greatest
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  41-year-old to ever play the game. Only 41-year-old to ever play the game,
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  whatever, whatever the stupid stats are.
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  He was getting paid like a guy that had been a, you know, 20-year superstar, which
• 6:24
  is, which is great for him, terrible for the organization. So,
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  -we'll see what happens now. -Yep. Peace out, LeBron.
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  -Got some pizzas. -LeBron James.
• 6:32
  -Yeah. -Peace out.
• 6:32
  What do we got? What are we gonna talk about?
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  Um, you know what? Let me think about this for a second. We have been...
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  Trying to think what we've been talk- what we've been doing recently.
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  Um,
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  I will say that, you know, we talked about our whole thing with permissions a while
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  back, like, and how we were switching everything over to, like, a different
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  structure,
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  and I will say it has been unreal, like, how nice and flexible it has become.
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  So the big mistake that we made, and is a mistake that I would encourage you not to
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  repeat, is
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  we used roles for everything.
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  -Mm-hmm. -Which is fine
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  to an extent,
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  um,
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  but it's just, it, long term, it's not super manageable. Um, and so especially if
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  you're dealing with a lot of users and things like that. So
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  my encouragement would be to
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  move, um, your,
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  move your management of roles and users that belong to those roles outside of the
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  application
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  layer.
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  So what we did is we put all the permissions in the application, but then
• 7:41
  we said the roles that get those a- those permissions and the users that get those
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  roles are managed outside of the application,
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  which is a bit of a trick, but we figured out a way for ourselves to do it. Um, or,
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  I mean, I guess if...
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  The trick is just you need to have a good way to be able to manage that, where you
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  can associate roles with users and multiple permissions with roles very
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  easily without having to do code changes. That's probably the better, the better
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  -sort of- -Yeah
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  ... piece of advice there. Um, make it super easy to associate any permissions
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  you want with any role you want. Make it easy to create roles com- like, completely
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  free, and then make it super easy to associate users with roles. That's it.
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  That's, that's, like, the tagline here. Um, and it has just been so much better
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  that we don't have to invoke code changes in order to do anything. Any permission
• 8:33
  that anybody wants, anything you can do in our application, super easy to give it to
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  anyone. It's wonderful.
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  The other thing that we did that was freaking amazing
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  is we did permission leases, which is somebody gets a permission temporarily. So
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  -they get a temper- -Mm-hmm
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  ... a permission for a period of time,
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  and then it auto-expires. So you don't have to remember to go expire it after the
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  fact, you just, it auto-expires. And then the last thing we did is we did delegated
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  management of users. So if there's a person who manages 10 users,
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  and they're gonna be stepping out for the month,
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  somebody needs to be able to manage those users. And so somebody can delegate their
• 9:12
  permissions to another user, delegate their direct reports to another person.
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  -And so that person basically- -Mm-hmm
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  ... is not imitating them, 'cause that's the problem. If you imitate a person,
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  every action you do looks like that other person did it, and that's not what we were
• 9:24
  after. We were after saying, "No, you can do the things that they could do," but it
• 9:28
  still tags it as you that did it. And so that's a delegated permission or delegated
• 9:33
  management of users. And so those three things together,
• 9:36
  that was the magic, and it's been awesome. It's been working across all of our
• 9:39
  applications. And, uh, I would say that if anybody has any questions on any of that,
• 9:44
  please reach out to me. I'd love to share with you how we did it. But that has been
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  a big, huge thing. And every time I run into these permission things, which I've
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  had a lot of them recently, lots of restructuring, it's just no problem. You
• 9:55
  just manage it super simply, and it's been really, really good. So that's been
• 9:59
  wonderful. And then, um,
• 10:02
  the other things that we're working on is integration of Apple Pay and Google Pay
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  -into some of our- -Yeah
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  ... stuff. And so I'm excited about that. I think it's gonna help a lot,
• 10:13
  um, with people getting onboarded, uh, and, and getting their payments up really
• 10:17
  quickly. And then the last, last thing that we've been working on is automated
• 10:22
  texting conversations. And so
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  what I'll say about this, the things that I've learned about this, is that if you
• 10:28
  are texting back and forth with a user and you want to give them options to do
• 10:32
  something, don't make them type in words, right? So if you have multiple actions
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  they can take, don't make them type in words. Give them numbers
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  as options.
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  So, for example,
• 10:43
  they text the word "pay." We look up their account, and we say,
• 10:48
  "Hey, looks like your most per- recent payment was for $200, ending in this, you
• 10:53
  know, for this Visa ending in 4242.
• 10:56
  Do you want to, one, repeat that payment, two, change the amount, three, change the
• 11:01
  payment method, or four, cancel?"
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  -Mm-hmm. -'Cause otherwise, it's literally
• 11:06
  impossible for them. You had to type in confirm, or if you didn't-
• 11:09
  -Yeah -... type confirm, then you need to type in
• 11:10
  a number value that is the new amount that you want, but you have to explain all
• 11:15
  this in that text, and it's just, it's terrible. And so giving them number
• 11:20
  options, number one, makes it way easier to parse their responses, what they're
• 11:24
  trying to accomplish.
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  But then, two, it gives you the ability to be able to provide more options much more
• 11:30
  clearly than you could if you were just using, you know, reply with this special
• 11:35
  -keyword, uh- -Yeah
• 11:36
  ... which gets really tricky. And so, um, that's been a huge benefit for us as well.
• 11:41
  And I know we're only at, like, 12 minutes. I've gotta go in, like, three
• 11:45
  minutes. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you tell me what we're working on, so what
• 11:48
  you're working on. So hit me. What do you got?
• 11:50
  Uh, well, we are going through this, uh, uplift project at the moment for our
• 11:55
  lender submission
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  stuff, which has been an interesting experience. We've actually got a
• 12:01
  contractor in.
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  The funny part about that is that
• 12:04
  the contractor that we've got in was my boss when I was working in an agency,
• 12:08
  like, 10 years ago. So now he works for me, which is wonderful, um, which, which
• 12:12
  we've joked about a few times. But, um, we've been just doing this uplift, you
• 12:16
  know, um, onboarding new lenders or lenders that have been on our panel for a
• 12:22
  long time that we've now actually started to build our integrations.
• 12:25
  The, um, the documentation is varied amongst them. Sometimes they provide
• 12:29
  really good
• 12:31
  JSON API docs or Swagger docs or whatever. The trickier bit is around whether or not
• 12:35
  there's contextual documentation, like actual prose that says, you know, "You
• 12:40
  need to send this in these circumstances," or, "When we ask for this," or, "When
• 12:43
  this error happens." You know,
• 12:45
  to have
• 12:46
  that kind of documentation, which I've seen from a couple of lenders, is really,
• 12:50
  really helpful. Um, and, and I suppose that
• 12:53
  more broadly, like if you're writing API docs, if you're doing scramble
• 12:56
  -documentation, for example- -Mm-hmm. Yep
• 12:59
  ... put in the extra effort,
• 13:00
  I think wherever possible, especially if the docs are gonna be consumed publicly,
• 13:05
  to put in as much context and information around that,
• 13:10
  those scramble docs as you can. Whatever that document-- Whatever shape that
• 13:13
  documentation takes, provide context. Don't just provide a list of keys and
• 13:17
  values.
• 13:18
  I think that's very unhelpful, both from a consumer perspective and also for, like
• 13:23
  anyone that has to support that.
• 13:25
  So, um,
• 13:26
  that's been really good. It's been really interesting, as I said, looking at the
• 13:29
  varying degrees of, of quality. You know, one, one lender that I'm working with at
• 13:34
  the moment, we get the full documentation, we get the Swagger docs, we get the
• 13:37
  contextual docs.
• 13:39
  Very simple to go,
• 13:40
  "Hey,
• 13:42
  AI," you know, "Claude, here's the docs. Go and, like, build out the DTOs and the
• 13:46
  enums for me."
• 13:47
  And then we have to go through and, like, map our internal data structures onto the
• 13:51
  external docs, but that's,
• 13:53
  that's an easier process when you've got everything already in place. So,
• 13:57
  uh, very helpful having that because Claude very good at reading JSON spec and
• 14:02
  figuring out how to convert that into a, into a PHP DTO. So,
• 14:07
  that has been the main thing. We're-- We've, um,
• 14:09
  we departed our offshore team,
• 14:11
  uh, probably about a month ago now, six weeks ago. And so-
• 14:14
  Okay
• 14:16
  ... um, you know, we finally got to the point where we could bring on another
• 14:18
  developer locally who's picked up, you know, some, some of that work. So they're
• 14:22
  an intermediate developer, but they've, they've done an ex... Like, they've had an
• 14:25
  exceptional start. They ask really thoughtful questions. They've, like,
• 14:29
  they've been developing for 17 years or something like that, but they've come on,
• 14:32
  uh, from an agency background, so they ask really good questions. They, they, you
• 14:36
  know, do the research. They go and look at things before they come and ask you for
• 14:39
  help, which has been, uh, very pleasing
• 14:42
  as a new starter, and they've, like, hit the ground running, doing all kinds of, of
• 14:46
  wonderful things. But in light of the offshore team being
• 14:50
  -departed from, from our world- -Yeah
• 14:52
  ... it means that
• 14:53
  the rest of the team is now picking up the IT helpdesk. And when I say IT helpdesk,
• 14:58
  it's like support of, of our main application. It's not like, "My printer's
• 15:02
  not working" helpdesk. It's specifically the application stuff. And so that's been,
• 15:06
  um,
• 15:07
  an interesting,
• 15:09
  uh,
• 15:10
  eye-opener,
• 15:11
  um, to, to look at that process and kind of figure out, you know, where people-
• 15:13
  So your software dev team is now picking up IT tickets, basically? Okay.
• 15:17
  Yeah. Yep. So, you know, this-- I, I went here, I got a, I got a 500 error or-
• 15:23
  -Yeah, yeah -... you know, this process doesn't work
• 15:24
  with that kind of stuff. So, um, I--
• 15:28
  W- it was kind of picked up ad hoc by a couple of the other guys for the first few
• 15:32
  weeks, and then we, we spun the wheel to see, you know, who's-
• 15:37
  -Mm-hmm. Yeah. Who's next -... who's gonna do it to, like, figure
• 15:38
  -out- -Yeah
• 15:38
  ... what the, the schedule would be. And of course, I drew the short straw, so I
• 15:41
  got the first, first two weeks.
• 15:43
  And, uh, it's been good. I've had to do some front end-
• 15:44
  So you're doing it, like, two weeks at a time? The two weeks at a time.
• 15:47
  -Two weeks at a time, yeah. -And now are you-- Is that your only
• 15:49
  responsibility during that two weeks, is to answer tickets, or do you have other
• 15:52
  small features and stuff you're working on?
• 15:52
  Yeah, primarily, yeah, primarily it's that. There's also, like, any BAU tasks,
• 15:56
  so business as usual tasks that come up, you know, fixing things, miscellaneous bug
• 16:01
  fixes, et cetera, et cetera, that get raised by the, the product team and, and
• 16:04
  things like that. So there's no new feature work, and then I've... I'm, like,
• 16:07
  working on these lender integrations in the background as well between tickets.
• 16:11
  Um,
• 16:12
  but it's, it's the kind of thing that, like, I'll check it in the morning, I'll
• 16:15
  check it after lunch, I'll check it at the end of the day. It's not, like, a
• 16:19
  -full-time thing. There's- -Okay
• 16:21
  ... w- there's, there's, like... There's been a recurring issue that is, like, we
• 16:24
  know that it's an issue, but we can't really do anything about it 'cause we're
• 16:26
  -waiting on some other thing to- -Sure
• 16:28
  ... happen, like, at, at a business, like, at a board level for them to decide what,
• 16:31
  -what we're going to do. -Yeah.
• 16:33
  Um, so the, you know, so we get, like, 15 tickets a day that's like, "Couldn't do
• 16:39
  this because this related record was missing." So I went through and sent, sent
• 16:44
  the PR this morning to, quote-unquote, "fix that," which is basically, "If this
• 16:48
  is the exception, report it. Uh, don't report it. Log a warning and, like, don't
• 16:53
  report it in the, in the queue failing handler that we've got."
• 16:56
  -Yeah. -So that goes into the ticket systems.
• 16:57
  Like, we, we know it's a thing.
• 16:59
  There's not actually anything that we can do about it. There is a manual business
• 17:02
  process in place to circumvent this particular issue anyway, and has always
• 17:07
  been there. Um, so, like, just, just make this useless ticket go away. So that was
• 17:12
  -good fun. -Now, does your-- Does every time there's
• 17:14
  an error in your application, does it automatically create a ticket?
• 17:20
  No. So the tickets that are created are only from failing queue jobs.
• 17:24
  Okay.
• 17:25
  So we've got, like, in our app service provider, there's a queue dot op failing
• 17:29
  with a job failed event, like closure, and we go through there and it's like, if
• 17:33
  we're in, in, uh, in production,
• 17:35
  then go and, like, pull the information together and then log a helpdesk ticket.
• 17:41
  -Because the, uh- -Okay. Nice
• 17:41
  ... the queue failing ones can be a little bit more obscure,
• 17:46
  uh, in terms of, like, they're hidden
• 17:48
  if you're not looking for those things. Um-
• 17:50
  -Hmm -... and it's the kind of things that are
• 17:52
  like,
• 17:53
  we create folders in Box, like a folder hierarchy when we create a, a new, um,
• 17:58
  person in our CRM,
• 18:00
  and sometimes that fails. Like, sometimes Box goes down, and we don't-
• 18:03
  -Yeah -... have any visibility over that because
• 18:05
  this is, like, creating this happens in the background, and sometimes Box just
• 18:08
  goes down and we've got to go figure out, like, is it our issue? Is it their issue?
• 18:12
  -Have they logged a report? -Right. It's nothing anybody can report.
• 18:14
  -Do we need to communicate? -Yeah.
• 18:15
  -Yeah. -Yeah.
• 18:17
  Um, so tho- those kinds of things go in there. Um, and then there's also-- So
• 18:21
  there's the automated tickets, then there's also, um, we've got, like, level
• 18:26
  two support for the business side of things, which is, like, our, our users,
• 18:30
  our internal users, our external users reporting bugs. Um, you know, this doesn't
• 18:35
  work, et cetera, et cetera. Our level two person will go through and they'll, like,
• 18:38
  figure out is this a training thing? Is this an actual bug? Et cetera, et cetera.
• 18:42
  And then they log tickets. So that acts as, like, the funnel between the business
• 18:46
  and the engineering team to, to resolve those kinds of things. So-
• 18:51
  It's, it's funny the kinds of things that, that crop up.
• 18:54
  -Mm-hmm. -Like there was an issue with our Google
• 18:55
  address
• 18:57
  autocomplete
• 18:58
  -stuff. -Hmm. Okay.
• 18:59
  -Like if- -Yeah
• 19:00
  ... the way that we're doing it is that we've got like the Google address lookup
• 19:03
  is wrapped in a Mui component. So we're using Mui-
• 19:07
  -Okay -... which is the material UI framework for
• 19:09
  our front end.
• 19:10
  -Okay, gotcha. -Um, so 'cause they've got some good React
• 19:12
  support and all the front end's built in React. So we're using that,
• 19:15
  and the way that we had set it up was that if there was only a single-- Like if you
• 19:19
  type your full address before, you know, the debounce and you get the, the result
• 19:24
  set back, and there was only one result that came back,
• 19:28
  it just wouldn't show any results. Um, which was, which was an interesting bug to
• 19:32
  find because
• 19:34
  by all accounts, it has been there since this address autocomplete functionality
• 19:38
  was put into the platform.
• 19:41
  And like no one's reported it, or it's been like an anecdotal-
• 19:44
  -Yeah -... report. Like, "Oh, such and such said
• 19:46
  this didn't work," but then someone went to try it and it was there.
• 19:49
  It's so hard. It's so hard to find those things, man. It's like,
• 19:52
  it's like you have to rely on a user to report it enough times that it actually
• 19:55
  becomes like a, "Oh, oh, that actually is a real thing."
• 19:57
  -Yeah. -Or like, you know, we had something that
• 19:59
  had worked perfectly forever, like since it was... Like it was the saved payment
• 20:03
  methods, like they would sync down from the payment provider and sync down the
• 20:07
  saved payment methods. Worked perfectly for years, years and years and years.
• 20:10
  -Yeah. -And so when people were like these, like
• 20:12
  this person called in and asked if they could remove, we could remove the saved
• 20:15
  payment methods. Can we do that? Like, yeah, sure. So we removed it. They're
• 20:18
  like, they logged in, they said it's still there. I'm like, "I'm looking at the rep-
• 20:21
  response from the payment provider. It's not ha- it's not there. Like there's
• 20:24
  -nothing there." -Yeah.
• 20:25
  And they're like, "Well, I'm saying there is." And I'm like, "Okay." So like I went
• 20:29
  to the banking team, I'm like, "Hey, I need you to go remove this." So they're
• 20:33
  like, "I'm showing you, like it's removed." I'm like, "Great." So I go back
• 20:36
  and I'm like, "Okay, sync the saved payment methods," and it's still there.
• 20:39
  And I'm like, "What the heck?" And so what ended up happening is like we missed, in
• 20:45
  one pull request, I'm sure it was Claude,
• 20:48
  decided that there was a plural that should have been singular, 'cause there
• 20:51
  -was only a single- -Right
• 20:52
  ... filter being applied. So why would you make that a plural like thing?
• 20:55
  -Mm-hmm. -And so it removed an S.
• 20:57
  -Ah. -Account filters. And it would... They, it
• 21:00
  changed it to account filter because we were only-
• 21:03
  -Right -... do- returning active, but account
• 21:05
  filters was the correct word you needed to use.
• 21:08
  -Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. -And so it just stopped working. It was
• 21:10
  -returning- -But it's still working
• 21:11
  -... all payment methods regard- -Right
• 21:12
  ... regardless of if you had re- removed them, deleted them, retired them. But
• 21:14
  yeah, it's like so hard for those sorts of things. Like the point you were making,
• 21:18
  like
• 21:19
  ap- apparently this has been happening since we released it. Like, you know what
• 21:22
  -I mean? -Yeah.
• 21:22
  -Since it was ever even in place. -Yeah.
• 21:25
  -So, yeah. -And it's like those address lookup things
• 21:27
  are very interesting because most people, I would say, are very slow to type.
• 21:33
  So they would type like number, street name, street type, and then they would
• 21:37
  stop at that point, and you would get a list of multiple results, and then you
• 21:40
  would often, 'cause, you know, Google, Google's, uh, address lookup is pretty
• 21:43
  good, you would get the one you wanted and you'd click on it-
• 21:45
  -Yeah, it's pretty quick -... and it'd be no problem. But if you
• 21:47
  type quickly or it's like-
• 21:49
  -Autofill -... uh, yeah, autofill.
• 21:50
  If it's like a saved profile with one password or something, yeah.
• 21:53
  Right. If you, yeah, if you autofill it, um, or you copy paste it, you know, you've
• 21:57
  -got an email from a, a client- -Yeah
• 21:59
  -... with their address in it- -Yeah
• 21:59
  ... and you copy paste it, and then you paste it in there, and you get an exact
• 22:02
  match. Well, it just didn't show.
• 22:05
  And I'm like, "Well, I don't know. I can't reproduce it. Like it's working," and
• 22:08
  then it's going, hang on. There is definitely a result coming back from the
• 22:11
  -API. I can see it- -Yeah
• 22:13
  ... in the inspector, like there is one record there. So it gives you something to
• 22:16
  kind of pull on that thread. You go, "Hey, Claude, if there's only one result,
• 22:22
  I can see it coming back from the API, but it is not being set." And what it ended
• 22:25
  up being was like
• 22:27
  the m- the material components like default filter
• 22:32
  would look for an exact match or something, and because it was not there,
• 22:35
  it would just like scrub it from the list, and so you'd end up with no results, so.
• 22:39
  It's just, it's just funny the, the kind of things that turn up that's like, as I
• 22:43
  said, if it's anecdotally reported like,
• 22:45
  uh, a,
• 22:46
  um, what do they call them? BSM, a business sales manager, whatever they are
• 22:51
  -that like- -Hmm, okay
• 22:51
  ... con- you know, that they're responsible for a number of brokers in
• 22:54
  their portfolio, for example. They hear about it anecdotally, like this one person
• 22:58
  was reporting it, but they, they can't do anything or they don't chase it up or
• 23:01
  -they don't- -Right
• 23:01
  -... follow it up or whatever. -Yeah.
• 23:02
  And then, you know, eventually,
• 23:05
  um, you know, it was announced, "Hey,"
• 23:08
  Michael was on, on helpdesk this week, so this BSM was then straight to me and, you
• 23:12
  know, and it's like, "Hey, can I just escalate this?" I'm like, "Can't escalate
• 23:15
  a ticket that doesn't exist." Like if there is no ticket log for this- ...
• 23:18
  -there's, there's no- -Yeah
• 23:20
  ... like don't just come to me with a problem. I'm like, "Where did they enter
• 23:23
  it? What did they type? What was the address that didn't work? Like please, any
• 23:26
  information would be helpful so I can open a ticket."
• 23:27
  You're the favorite IT guy. Everybody loves when the IT guy says that, when
• 23:30
  -you're like- -Yeah, yeah
• 23:31
  ... "Nope, sorry, I can't do anything about it."
• 23:32
  -And like, and like- -"You gotta write all this stuff up."
• 23:34
  I've, uh, I've been here four and a half years and I've never had to do any of the
• 23:37
  helpdesk stuff, so I'm like, "I don't know what the actual process is here."
• 23:39
  -Yeah. -"I want to help you."
• 23:40
  -Yeah. -"But also I don't wanna do something that
• 23:42
  like the next person-"
• 23:44
  -Right -... "that does this is now going, 'Well,
• 23:46
  hang on. We're not, that's not the process. I shouldn't,'" you know?
• 23:48
  -Yeah, yeah. -So I was like, "Just if there's a ticket-"
• 23:51
  Put a ticket in. Yeah. Yeah, put a ticket
• 23:53
  -in. -There, there, there is a whole process for
• 23:54
  this that has never changed. It's like create the ticket. If it's like urgent,
• 23:57
  urgent, the sky is falling,
• 23:59
  then there's a process for escalation and there's a channel in Slack that you
• 24:02
  escalate, et cetera. So anyway, I was like, none of this had happened, and it's
• 24:05
  like it's only work, it's only broken sometimes and no one can tell me when. I'm
• 24:08
  like, it's not, the platform is not working. It's this one aspect of this one
• 24:12
  part of the thing is not working in some situations-
• 24:15
  -Yeah -... that you can't explain to me. So I'm
• 24:16
  like, I'm not,
• 24:18
  I'm not gonna spend a day trying to figure out what's going on. Provide me with some
• 24:20
  -details. -Yeah. The thing is,
• 24:22
  the thing is with that too is like whenever you make an exception,
• 24:25
  inevitably that person will now only ever talk to you-
• 24:28
  -Mm-hmm -... and they'll never put in the ticket. I
• 24:30
  -have a lady who does that. -Yeah.
• 24:31
  It's like, I think it's, I think it doesn't matter what her name is, but it's
• 24:34
  the same person, and every time she has a question or problem, she doesn't ever put
• 24:37
  -in the ticket. She just asks me directly. -Yeah.
• 24:40
  -And it's like- -Yeah
• 24:41
  ... I should just start being like, "No, you have to put a ticket in. Whoever's
• 24:44
  handling those will handle it." But like I'm not gonna sit here answering these
• 24:46
  -random questions. -Yeah. And it gets to the point that it's
• 24:48
  been like two years, five years, six years.
• 24:50
  -Yeah, yeah. -It's like it's too late now. You can't,
• 24:51
  you can't say anymore, "Well, this is not the process."
• 24:52
  And honestly, I don't--
• 24:54
  Yeah, it has gotten to the point too where I do not feel bad not answering her for
• 24:56
  like three days. It's like, well- You're gonna have to wait.
• 24:59
  -Yeah. -Like, I got other stuff I'm working on.
• 25:00
  -Like, you texted the- -Yeah, it was urgent. They had to bang on
• 25:01
  -some doors -... you texted, yeah, you messaged...
• 25:03
  Right. You messaged one of the most busy people in this department, and so you're
• 25:07
  -just gonna have to wait. -Mm-hmm.
• 25:07
  Like, or, or I'm gonna... If it's really important, you'll have to report it to
• 25:10
  your manager, and then they can put the ticket in or whatever. So anyway, doesn't
• 25:13
  -matter. -Yeah.
• 25:13
  -But- -So, you know, that's a, that's-
• 25:15
  -But, uh, yeah -... an interesting thing. I do-- My, my
• 25:17
  previous employer, when I started there, the first, I think, two weeks,
• 25:22
  I was on the phones. Like, I was talking to customers of the platform,
• 25:27
  s- which
• 25:28
  I think is, um, an underrated
• 25:33
  thing to do
• 25:35
  in businesses where you've got, like, external customers-
• 25:37
  -That's an insanely important- -... where they can actually contact you.
• 25:39
  -Yeah. -Whether it's, like, whether it's on the
• 25:41
  phones or if it's through, you know, a
• 25:45
  chat, if you've got support chat or a ticketing system, whatever. I think
• 25:49
  it's, it's a really
• 25:51
  valuable way
• 25:52
  to interact with real users of your platform and seeing the kinds of issues
• 25:57
  that they're coming up against, because it makes you much more considerate
• 26:01
  of what
• 26:03
  the people, the consumers of your application, and also the people that are
• 26:07
  supporting those users internal to your organization, like, the kinds of things
• 26:11
  that they face day to day.
• 26:13
  'Cause they might just consider it to be, like, a business as usual thing. "Oh,
• 26:16
  yeah, this person has caught up with this problem again," and it's like, "This is,
• 26:20
  this is the process we go through to fix it." It's like, well, how do we stop that
• 26:23
  kind of call from coming through in the first place?
• 26:24
  Yeah. Is that kind of-- 'Cause that's the question, like, when you say BAU, business
• 26:27
  as usual, is that just like, "Hey, these are errors that happen occasionally that
• 26:30
  need to have manual intervention, but there's a solution, like, guide for how we
• 26:34
  -solve this problem." -Yeah.
• 26:35
  It's just not something that's worth solving automatically or-
• 26:37
  -Yeah -... unable to solve automatically? Okay,
• 26:38
  -gotcha. -But, but, like, sometimes those things,
• 26:41
  like, come up from the frontline people who then speak to the-
• 26:44
  -Yeah -... level two person, and they figure out,
• 26:45
  "Oh, yeah, this is the, the process to, to do that." And so it stops at that level
• 26:50
  two support person. It's like, well, we could fix this properly so that this
• 26:53
  doesn't happen at all, rather than you having-
• 26:55
  -Yeah -... to go through these three manual steps
• 26:56
  -every time. -We just eliminate the problem, yeah, all
• 26:58
  -together. -Yeah.
• 26:59
  Which is, yeah, I, I think
• 27:02
  sometimes we can get a bit ahead of ourselves,
• 27:06
  um,
• 27:07
  as engineers and be like, "I don't have to talk to the customers." I'm like, no, I
• 27:09
  think, I think it's valuable, and I think it's been a very long time coming that,
• 27:14
  that this rotation has come in, and I think we will be better as a team for it.
• 27:18
  -Because sometimes- -Absolutely
• 27:19
  ... some of us, like myself included, we'd be like, "Oh, no, I don't."
• 27:23
  I mean, I don't typically touch any of the, the customer facing stuff. A lot of
• 27:27
  mine is, is integration work and back end and things like that. So I don't, I don't
• 27:32
  have lots of hands-on. And, like, within the first two days of doing this, I've
• 27:36
  already been submitting PRs and, and changing the front end, which is
• 27:41
  wildly inappropriate, I think, 'cause there's a good chance I break it 'cause I
• 27:45
  don't understand it enough to, to make changes to it. But Claude said it was
• 27:48
  fine, and someone signed off on the PR, so I'm sure it's, it's fine.
• 27:53
  That's funny. We, um... It's like what you said was about it being, like,
• 27:57
  underrated. I do agree, and, like, we're right now working on sort of,
• 28:01
  um,
• 28:02
  your ability to be able to tier in your job title, in your job role, being able
• 28:07
  to, like, get like tier one, tier two, tier three, whatever.
• 28:09
  -Mm-hmm. -And, um,
• 28:11
  one of the requirements I'm looking at adding back in that we've previously had
• 28:14
  in there is to, like, certify for a role in another department. So basically, each
• 28:20
  department has a list of, like, you have to know how to do these things in order to
• 28:24
  be able to certify that you know how to do this job function.
• 28:27
  -Mm-hmm. -And so basically, it's for my team
• 28:30
  members, it would say you need to spend enough time in that department that you
• 28:35
  can actually go through and certify for that role.
• 28:38
  -Yeah. -And so you're gonna know literally
• 28:39
  everything that that team does. You're gonna sit in, like, almost like you're a
• 28:42
  new hire in that group for probably a week, and you're gonna go through, and
• 28:45
  you're gonna at least...
• 28:47
  I'm trying to figure out,
• 28:48
  do I actually care that they can do it? Do I need to prove that the person can do
• 28:52
  -it? -Mm-hmm.
• 28:53
  Or do I just care more that they kind of know what they're doing and can speak
• 28:56
  -intelligently- -Yeah
• 28:57
  ... about each of the processes? I think probably that's more important.
• 29:00
  -Yeah. -I don't actually want them to sit down and
• 29:01
  do the work and be proficient and, and be able to say, like, "Well, I can get X
• 29:06
  number of tasks done in, in this amount of time." I don't care about that.
• 29:09
  -Mm-hmm. -I just want them to know that when
• 29:10
  something breaks, they have a clue what that team is talking about. Or if a
• 29:14
  process is broken, they know which leader to go talk to, to figure out who-
• 29:17
  -Yeah -... who, you know, what's wrong. And so,
• 29:20
  um, yeah, I'm, I'm working on that because I do think you're right. Like, we...
• 29:25
  Sometimes we just kinda hole up in our little,
• 29:28
  uh, offices and, uh, don't really have to interact with those outside, uh, you know,
• 29:33
  -the people- -Yeah
• 29:33
  ... who are actually using the problems or the applications. And so there's a lot of
• 29:36
  things that are, like, efficiencies that could be built in, that if a developer-
• 29:40
  -Mm-hmm -... sat down for 10 minutes, they'd be
• 29:41
  like, "Oh, we could fix that real quick." Like, "No problem."
• 29:44
  -Yeah. -And so-
• 29:44
  -Yeah -... uh, I think a lot of efficiency
• 29:46
  -improvements and, uh, a lot of- -And a lot of the time we don't know that
• 29:48
  ... better understanding too. Right. Exactly. That's the thing.
• 29:50
  -'Cause, like, we don't see it ourselves. -Yeah. 'Cause they don't hand it up.
• 29:53
  They've, like, found a way to work around it. They're like, "Well, this is just what
• 29:56
  we do when that happens," and, and, you know.
• 29:59
  And that, that last job where I started, like, my first two week was answering
• 30:02
  phones.
• 30:03
  -Yeah. -I was still in the support queue. Like, if
• 30:05
  there was a, an influx of calls or someone was off sick, my phone would still
• 30:09
  ring
• 30:10
  in those situations to, to help out, you know, 'cause it was a, it was an all hands
• 30:14
  on deck situation at that point. So
• 30:17
  yeah, it's, um, it's definitely interesting,
• 30:19
  -um- -Yeah
• 30:20
  ... and it's, and it's valuable. And, and
• 30:22
  as you said, getting into a department and understanding what they're doing, you may
• 30:26
  become the, the point of contact for, like, that area-
• 30:29
  -That's right -... of the, the software
• 30:31
  that, that, you know, you're the bridge between the engineering team and that,
• 30:35
  that business unit if something c- happens. And then, you know, sometimes you
• 30:39
  could speak more intelligently to the problem that they're facing from an
• 30:42
  -engineering perspective. -Yeah.
• 30:43
  But you understand what they're facing because you've seen it from the other side
• 30:46
  -of the, of the coin as well, so. -Yeah. And I actually have-- We've seen
• 30:50
  -that play out as well. -Um, yeah, our, our current organization is
• 30:52
  very good at, um, we do this thing, like, every three months called Leading Teams,
• 30:56
  which is like a,
• 30:57
  it's, it's an all-in where we sit down and we would, we would do, um,
• 31:02
  kind of like
• 31:05
  I don't wanna say, um,
• 31:07
  team building exercises, but it's like about, about building rapport and, and
• 31:11
  getting to know people that you don't really know
• 31:14
  day to day, like that I don't have much engagement with. But it-
• 31:17
  -Mm-hmm -... but you sit down and you get grouped
• 31:18
  up with people that you wouldn't normally talk with, and you would talk about, you
• 31:21
  know, what's going on in your life, what are you excited about, what, you know,
• 31:25
  what's challenging you at work, so that everyone kind of gets to know each other a
• 31:28
  bit more than just a name in Slack. And it's, it's... the idea being that, like,
• 31:33
  you build,
• 31:34
  um, high-performing teams around trust and communication and things like that. If,
• 31:40
  if I can see that, you know, Jake's tired, well, I can understand why, because, you
• 31:44
  -know, he's just had a baby- -Yeah
• 31:45
  ... or whatever else, you know, that kind of thing, that you kind of put yourself in
• 31:47
  their shoes, and you get
• 31:49
  a much more cohesive and, and, you know, high-performing team out of it across the
• 31:53
  board when you know that people are,
• 31:56
  um, speaking with each other beyond just, you know, punching cards and, and doing
• 32:00
  the job, so.
• 32:02
  Okay. One, one other thing that we've actually just been working on that goes,
• 32:04
  goes right along with what you're talking about, which is that people are more than
• 32:08
  the sum of their productivity at work, right? They, they... obviously, there's a
• 32:11
  lot of stuff going on outside of the walls of the building that they work in or if
• 32:14
  they work remote, right? So something we've been doing for, like, the last five
• 32:18
  years, which has been very interesting, is we do these weekly reports.
• 32:21
  -Mm-hmm. -And so on Friday, a bunch of people do
• 32:23
  these, right, check-ins, but it's not just like, "Hey, what was your productivity?"
• 32:26
  It is like, "What is your stress?" And there's like... you ever seen those little
• 32:29
  pain charts that they use for kids where it's, like, the sad face, and then... You
• 32:34
  know what I mean? Or it's like, it starts out with, like-
• 32:35
  -Mm -... a pain level of zero. It has a green
• 32:37
  -face- -Mm
• 32:37
  -... with a little hi- -Mm-hmm
• 32:38
  -... happy kid. -Yeah.
• 32:39
  And then it's, like, the li- yellow, and then it goes all the way to the red.
• 32:43
  -Right, yeah. -And so you have the kid that point at,
• 32:44
  like, which face are you feeling right now, right? So they have a hard time
• 32:48
  associating, like, a word with it, but they know just looking at the picture,
• 32:51
  -that's how I'm feeling right now. -Yeah.
• 32:52
  -Right? -Yeah.
• 32:52
  And so instead of it being like a, "How was your stress this week?" and it being
• 32:56
  like low, uh, a little bit, like, it just uses the faces.
• 33:00
  -Mm-hmm. -It says like green.
• 33:01
  -Mm-hmm. -You know, I'm, like, low stress. I'm doing
• 33:03
  -good. -Yeah.
• 33:04
  Or a little bit less green, yellow, orange, red. And so they can report like,
• 33:08
  "Here's what my stress was," and then they can say what it, what it is. They can
• 33:11
  say, "How much my workload and how that was." And I'm trying to remember what the
• 33:14
  other one is.
• 33:16
  -Um, I think it's personal. Personal- -Yeah
• 33:18
  ... stress, workload. And then they talk about-- They, they have an opportunity to
• 33:21
  talk about each of those. And then there's what was the high for the week, what was
• 33:24
  the low for the week. Those are the questions.
• 33:27
  And so the only fill in the blank sort of things that they ha- that are required are
• 33:30
  the high and the low, and then they, they submit that. And then what we do is, as a
• 33:34
  leadership team, like the entire, like all the chiefs, all the directors meet
• 33:38
  every Monday, and anybody who is orange or below on any of those measures, we look
• 33:42
  at their, their high-low report and see like-
• 33:45
  -Mm -... how are things going for that person?
• 33:46
  Is there anything we can do to help that person? Whatever. Um, but those aggregate
• 33:50
  reports is what we're building right now, which has been pretty cool. So being able
• 33:53
  to see like, "Hey, what's the trend line for this department? How are they feeling?
• 33:56
  Is stress, like overall for that entire team?"
• 33:59
  -Mm. -Like, is the entire team sort of feeling a
• 34:01
  certain thing? And then we can do sentiment analysis on like, let's look at
• 34:04
  all the, an aggregate of their reports. Hey, Claude, like... Or not Claude, we
• 34:07
  don't use Claude for this, but our internal AI tool. Uh, hey-
• 34:11
  -Yeah -... tell me, summarize the, the sentiment
• 34:14
  of these people here, right? What are we feeling about this?
• 34:16
  -Mm-hmm. -And so, um, that's been pretty cool. But,
• 34:18
  um, yeah, to, to speak to the point that you're making, which is, you know, it's...
• 34:23
  Most of the time, the people who they're filling those reports out, it's, it's
• 34:26
  hardly ever work stuff. I mean, I would say probably half the time it's work, and
• 34:29
  other times it's like, "My dog is having surgery because whatever, whatever," or,
• 34:33
  you know, "My kid got sick this week, and like, I had to take a day off work. I'm
• 34:37
  -feeling behind." -Mm.
• 34:38
  And we can be like, "Hey, manager, can you, like, jump in and help them with
• 34:40
  their work because they, you know, they had a sick kid this week?"
• 34:42
  -Yeah. -And stuff that-
• 34:43
  -Yeah -... you just would never know about
• 34:44
  -otherwise. And so, yeah, it's- -Yeah
• 34:46
  -... it's been pretty cool to do that. -Yeah, it's the kind of thing that, you
• 34:49
  know, you work with these people all the time, but they're like work personality,
• 34:52
  -and that's all you see. But- -Yeah
• 34:54
  ... knowing, you know,
• 34:55
  knowing that someone's unwell, you just pick up the phone and you can text them.
• 34:58
  You know, if something, if they're not at work or if, like, someone's sick or
• 35:01
  someone, you know, something's happened, you can just pick up a phone and say,
• 35:03
  "Hey,
• 35:05
  don't need to tell me what's going on, but I heard that, you know, you're not gonna
• 35:08
  be there or stuff's tough. Hope everything's okay."
• 35:11
  -Yeah, yeah. -Like, just, just the human connection
• 35:12
  beyond just, um,
• 35:14
  the work thing
• 35:16
  -is really cool. -You got it. You got it. All right, man,
• 35:18
  what else do we got here? Am I... I was gonna say that, uh, I, you know, my, that
• 35:22
  three minutes lasted about 25 minutes, but my, uh-
• 35:26
  -You got extra time -... my son was,
• 35:28
  he was... Yeah, I got extra time. He was at the theater and was like... I asked him
• 35:32
  before we started our podcast, I was like, "Hey, what time are you gonna need
• 35:34
  to be picked up?" He's like, "I don't know." I'm like, "How far are you along in
• 35:37
  the movie?" He's like, "I don't know." I'm like, "Okay. Well, the runtime for
• 35:40
  this movie is like an hour and 45," and he's, was supposed to be there at 8:00,
• 35:43
  but the previews take a half hour, so like, I should be good until like 10:20,
• 35:47
  you know?
• 35:48
  Well, then he texted at like, you know, 5:00 till 10:00, was like, "Hey, I need to
• 35:51
  be picked up." Like, oh, of course you do.
• 35:54
  And so anyway, I was like, "I'll come get you in a couple minutes." My wife was
• 35:57
  like, "I'll go get him." So anyway, thank you to my wonderful wife who went and got
• 36:00
  him
• 36:01
  -late at night so that I didn't have to- -Things for me to look forward to, I guess
• 36:05
  ... and I could stay. Yeah, exactly. Dude, it's, it's crazy. Like, we're trying to
• 36:07
  figure out, like, curfew times and stuff. Like, you're thankful that they have
• 36:09
  friends to go hang out with. They're good kids. I know the kids that he's hanging
• 36:12
  -out with. But it is- -Yeah
• 36:13
  ... like trying to balance like, okay, what is a reasonable time to be home, you
• 36:17
  -know? -Yeah.
• 36:17
  -Um, you know, and he's like, he's 15. -And balancing against like what time the
• 36:20
  other kids are going to be home and things like that as well.
• 36:23
  -Totally. Yeah. -Like we don't want to be the one that's
• 36:24
  -always too early, but also... Yeah. -Right. But he does tend to hang out with
• 36:28
  kids who are a little bit older, so like the other kids have their licenses, so
• 36:31
  like they can get home whenever they want, and he doesn't.
• 36:32
  -Mm-hmm. Yeah. -And so we have to run to pick him up and
• 36:34
  stuff. So it's like,
• 36:35
  it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's, um,
• 36:38
  it is good. I mean, like, you want him to go be with friends. You don't want him to
• 36:41
  just be sitting at home bored by themselves.
• 36:44
  -Mm-hmm. -But it's just-
• 36:45
  -Mm-hmm -... you know, we're in this weird spot
• 36:46
  right now where he's doing that and he's out with friends, but like he doesn't have
• 36:49
  -his license yet. So- -Yeah
• 36:51
  ... four months he'll have his license, and it'll be a little bit easier for him
• 36:53
  to be able to get around. But then you have to worry about is he being safe? Is
• 36:56
  -it whatever? All those things and stuff. -Yeah, he's driving. He's gonna get pulled
• 36:58
  -over, all this kind of stuff. -You got it.
• 36:59
  -Crazy. -You got it.
• 37:00
  -Crazy times. Um- -And he likes fast cars, so you know.
• 37:04
  He can get, he can have a fast car when he can buy his own. Um-
• 37:07
  That is correct
• 37:10
  -One last thing. I am leaving for Boston- -Okay, let's hear it
• 37:12
  -... for Laracon US- -Yes
• 37:13
  ... in 24 days.
• 37:16
  I have sussed out what I, as an Australian, believe will be good coffee.
• 37:22
  I've got a number... I sent a few of these recommendations to Gen Z Abby,
• 37:26
  uh, or Gen Zed Abby, 'cause we don't say Z in Australia. Um-
• 37:29
  -Okay, Gen Zed. -But Gen Zed. Uh, so I've sussed out a
• 37:33
  couple of places that I think will be good coffee. Uh, donuts are apparently a very
• 37:37
  -big thing in Boston- -Oh, boy
• 37:39
  ... so I've sussed out a few donut places.
• 37:41
  -Boston Cream. Boston Cream donuts, yeah. -Yep. And, uh, a friend of mine who is a
• 37:45
  big Boston man, loves the, uh, Celtics, the New England Patriots, the Boston Red
• 37:50
  -Sox. -Red Sox, yeah.
• 37:50
  He's all in on Boston sports. Um, he's suggested to me a place to go and get some
• 37:55
  -cannoli. So I suggested that to- -Oh, right. Let's go
• 37:57
  -... to you guys last night- -I saw that, yeah
• 38:00
  ... in the group chat. So we're doing that the day after. We're gonna go and check
• 38:03
  -out these cannoli. -Big fan.
• 38:04
  -I'm going with Abby. -Yes.
• 38:05
  -So- -No, I'm going, dude. I'll be there.
• 38:07
  -Good. All right. Fantastic. -I just hope they have, I hope they have,
• 38:09
  uh...
• 38:10
  Oh, that's not gonna be funny anymore. I lost it. What's the name of that crap that
• 38:13
  you guys eat?
• 38:15
  -The spread. -Vegemite?
• 38:16
  The spread.
• 38:17
  -Vegemite. -A Vegemite cannoli.
• 38:19
  On the cannoli. Yeah, Vegemite cannolis. No, put some Vegemite on that bad boy.
• 38:21
  I found this, I found this one place that does a, um, a rosemary sea salt
• 38:27
  -bagel- -Oh, gosh
• 38:28
  -... with a bacon- -I'm literally, like, drooling right now
• 38:30
  -just hearing the words -... bacon and scallion schmear. So I
• 38:34
  -can't get my nose up. -Oh, my gosh. That sounds amazing. Now,
• 38:37
  I've heard traffic is absolutely terrible,
• 38:39
  so I considered, I, uh, here's the deal.
• 38:42
  Not seriously, but I did consider, like, bringing my Onewheel.
• 38:45
  -I- -But,
• 38:46
  but the whole point is to be walking with the people you're with-
• 38:49
  -Yeah, just gonna walk everywhere -... not to, like, be speeding around, you
• 38:51
  -know? -Mm-hmm.
• 38:51
  So it's, like, I don't know. Yeah, I'm not gonna do it.
• 38:52
  There's one place that's got these maple bacon donuts, and I was like-
• 38:56
  -Yes -... that's a 30-minute walk away.
• 38:57
  -Those are- -And thank God-
• 38:58
  -Oh, yeah -... it's a 30-minute walk.
• 38:59
  -Yeah. Dude, I'd go with that. -Also, also apparently apple cider donuts
• 39:03
  -are available here- -Okay
• 39:04
  ... which, you know, as a Michigan man, this is a thing.
• 39:06
  Yes, absolutely. Apple cider donuts, for sure.
• 39:09
  -I was doing my best California- -We used to have a, uh,
• 39:10
  yeah, we used to have a orchard that we would stop, it was on our way to church
• 39:14
  and on our way to school, and every year when they'd be making cider, we would go
• 39:17
  -get apple cider donuts and cider. -Mm-hmm.
• 39:18
  It was amazing.
• 39:20
  -So good. -Yeah. All of these things. But if you, if
• 39:22
  you are more local to Boston than what I am, 'cause pretty much everyone would be
• 39:26
  more local to Boston than what I am, but, uh, if you have recommendations for coffee
• 39:30
  or donuts or cannoli,
• 39:33
  uh, I'm happy to walk to the North End from, from SoWa, where we, where I'm
• 39:37
  staying, so-
• 39:39
  Or a Sam Adams lager.
• 39:41
  Lager.
• 39:43
  -Lager. -Jeez.
• 39:44
  Anyway, looking forward to it. Um,
• 39:48
  24 days away. It's sneaking up quickly. The kids are last week of school.
• 39:51
  -It is. -Then they've got two weeks of holidays,
• 39:53
  uh, for end of term two, and then they'll be back for a week, and then I'm off. So
• 39:58
  -it's coming up quickly. -We need to talk about the Australian
• 40:00
  schedule for school sometime. We need to put that on the list for the next time. I
• 40:03
  don't understand how it works for you guys. I'm curious.
• 40:05
  We have the summer holidays when it's summer, the same way that you have summer
• 40:08
  -holidays when it's summer. -But for how long?
• 40:11
  Summer holidays are six weeks.
• 40:13
  Six weeks. So yeah, so we're way off, we're off for longer than that. That's
• 40:15
  -what I'm saying. -Mm-hmm.
• 40:16
  Like, I feel like you guys take more frequent, shorter breaks.
• 40:19
  -Yeah. -We take less frequent, but longer breaks.
• 40:22
  -We have- -So, like, in the summertime, my kids are
• 40:24
  off from May-
• 40:25
  -... four terms in the school year -... they're off May, June, July. They
• 40:27
  don't go back till August.
• 40:29
  -Geez. -Yeah, so they're off for like-
• 40:30
  -That's a long time -... three months, basically.
• 40:31
  -Chilling. -Not really, but, like, two and a half
• 40:33
  months.
• 40:34
  What are they doing for three months? What are you doing for three months?
• 40:34
  Hanging out. It's summertime, dude. Just chilling. Like, it's great. Like, it's,
• 40:38
  -it's wonderful. -Yes, it's-
• 40:39
  You get a whole break for the whole summer
• 40:40
  ...
• 40:41
  I get it. It's great, but, like, this is the thing that I don't understand. The
• 40:45
  kids have 12 weeks
• 40:47
  of holidays a year.
• 40:48
  -Hmm. Okay. -Most jobs give you four weeks of annual
• 40:51
  leave a year.
• 40:53
  -Yeah, right. -So, like, what are you doing for the other
• 40:53
  -eight weeks? -So you're... Yeah, I get you. I get you.
• 40:55
  You're saying, like, how do parents be parents for 12 weeks at a... Or, you know,
• 40:59
  -for, like, in a row. -Mm-hmm.
• 41:01
  Just like, yeah, I get that. That makes sense. Um, well, so-
• 41:04
  So we, like, we've got out of school programs and things like that to go to
• 41:07
  -during the day- -Yeah, yeah
• 41:07
  ... so we're not just sitting at home all... And our kids are too young.
• 41:09
  -And they have those here. -Like, they can't, they can't just go
• 41:10
  -places. -There's summer camp programs and...
• 41:12
  Yeah.
• 41:13
  -Yeah. -Um, but it's like, you know, parents need
• 41:16
  to... Like, my mom was a stay-at-home mom, so the-
• 41:19
  -Yeah, same. Our- -... we were just home with mom during the
• 41:20
  -holidays. -Yeah. Mm-hmm.
• 41:21
  But, like, we both work,
• 41:23
  so it's like, you know, what do you do? Fortunately, I work from home-
• 41:26
  -That's definitely- -... so it's okay for the kids to be here.
• 41:27
  But, um, yeah. So we've got four term... Let's do this quickly, and then we can
• 41:30
  -wrap up. -Okay, let's hear it.
• 41:30
  -We've got four terms a year. -Okay.
• 41:31
  Terms are typically between 10 and 11 weeks.
• 41:34
  Okay.
• 41:35
  So every 10, 10 to 11 weeks, they then have a two-week-
• 41:37
  So two and a half months. You have a two and a half month term-
• 41:40
  -Yep -... basically.
• 41:40
  -Yep. -Yep, okay.
• 41:41
  Yep.
• 41:42
  Um, as you get older, then we do, you know, semesters. So you've got semester
• 41:45
  one is term one, term two, and then semester two is term three and term four.
• 41:48
  -Okay. -Which is relevant more for high school,
• 41:50
  'cause you, you will change subjects midyear and things like that, you know-
• 41:53
  -Yeah -... to kind of prepare you for post-high
• 41:55
  -school- -Yep
• 41:55
  ... and things like that.
• 41:57
  Um,
• 41:58
  yeah, that's, that's pretty much what it is.
• 41:59
  -And so, and so you do- -And then six weeks... So it's usually,
• 42:01
  -like, the week before- -Six weeks in between each term?
• 42:04
  Uh, two weeks be- between terms.
• 42:06
  Two weeks between terms. Okay. Okay. Gotcha.
• 42:07
  Yeah, and six weeks at the end of the year. So it's usually the week before
• 42:09
  Christmas until the end of January.
• 42:12
  Okay. The week before Christmas to end of January. Okay, that makes sense. So it's
• 42:15
  like you have a Christmas break, and then through January you're off, and that's
• 42:19
  like your summer break.
• 42:20
  -Yeah, that's the summer break. -Yeah. Yeah.
• 42:22
  -And then- -That makes sense
• 42:22
  -... back to it. -Yep.
• 42:23
  -Get out of the house, kids. -Yep, yep. And it is funny that, like, you
• 42:26
  know, your breaks line up with your Christmas for summer.
• 42:29
  You know, for us, it's the middle of winter, and so it's like-
• 42:32
  -Mm-hmm -... it doesn't make... You know, the,
• 42:33
  people, kids don't wanna, like, take a six-week break in the middle of winter.
• 42:36
  -Like- -No, that's right. Yeah, so you get a
• 42:38
  -summer break. -So we do, we take a little bit shorter
• 42:39
  break. Yeah, we take, like, a two-week break at Christmas time.
• 42:42
  -Mm-hmm. -Uh, Christmas and New Year, and then
• 42:44
  you're back at it, you know. You get, like, a couple days for Thanksgiving or I
• 42:47
  guess maybe a week, I don't know.
• 42:49
  I don't know. I can't remember all of it, but, uh, yeah-
• 42:51
  I don't know. You're always away on vacation anyway
• 42:51
  ... my wife stays at home too. My wife stays at home. Just get out of here. Andy,
• 42:55
  Andy Hinkle said, he was like, "Oh, Michael was like-"
• 42:58
  -He was taking the piss, yeah. -"... Michael was giving you crap about
• 43:00
  never working the other day." It's so funny.
• 43:03
  -It's true. -Oh, my word. He's just... It's not true.
• 43:05
  -It's not true. I- -I feel like you're going away all the
• 43:07
  time.
• 43:08
  When? Like, what did I do? I, I'm sc- Like, okay, so, like, give me the most
• 43:12
  -recent- -These holidays, all of these vacations. I,
• 43:14
  -I was like- -Well, I mean, like, like the one, the one
• 43:16
  -recent one- -... I can't, I've gone to visit family in
• 43:17
  -Michigan, like- -No.
• 43:18
  -You were just away. -Okay, well, that was, that was over a
• 43:20
  weekend. That was over a weekend. That wasn't, like, anything, like, I wasn't off
• 43:24
  -of work for that. I left for a weekend. -Don't go away. Don't go away for weekends.
• 43:27
  Just stay at home. It's too much hassle to go away for two days.
• 43:29
  Well, dude, it's like I haven't been, I haven't been to Michigan for,
• 43:33
  like, years, years. And so I needed to get up there and see some family. So I went
• 43:38
  over a weekend. So that was that. The golf thing was for work. So that was that. So
• 43:43
  there's none, no off work time for either of those. Just...
• 43:48
  So I don't wanna hear about it, okay? And I do have, I do have actual vacations
• 43:52
  coming up. Like, we're going to Cedar Point in a couple weeks.
• 43:55
  Mm-hmm.
• 43:56
  -So that'll be fun. -I don't know.
• 43:57
  That's great fun.
• 43:59
  -All right. -All right. All right.
• 43:59
  -Let's wrap this up before we- -This sounds good. All right, let's wrap
• 44:01
  -it. Go ahead -... damage our friendship.
• 44:02
  Uh, what, what is our...
• 44:04
  Damage our friendship based on my PTO schedule? How is this gonna work?
• 44:09
  -You can shake my friendship. -Are you jealous of my PTO? Is that what...
• 44:11
  What is this?
• 44:12
  -I am. I am. -Okay. All right.
• 44:13
  I'm not willing to find out. Let's, let's-
• 44:14
  -Okay -... let's cut it off.
• 44:16
  -196. -All right. All right. Let's, uh, 196.
• 44:18
  Thanks for sh- hanging out with us, folks.
• 44:20
  Uh,
• 44:21
  northmeets south.audio/196 for show notes.
• 44:25
  Hit us up on X, @michaeldorinda, @jacobbennett, and, uh, rate us up on your
• 44:29
  podcatcher of choice. Five stars would be incredible. Thanks, everybody. We'll see
• 44:31
  you next time. Peace.
• 44:33
  Donuts, coffee, cannoli. Let's go.
• 44:54
  See you there. Bye.