K-Wal Cast
Interview podcast with the people in my life. We'll have some fun, dig deeper, and have some good conversations.
K-Wal Cast
Lars Soderlund: An Old Friend
In this episode, we reconnect with my old friend from grade school, Lars Soderlund.
We reflect on skipping a grade (or two) into high school and delve into Lars's journey from a grade school friend to a college English professor, touching on the nuances of academia, the pressures of publishing, and the importance of mentorship in education. We discuss how these formative experiences have intertwined with our professional lives and shaped our perspectives on teaching and learning today.
We explore the nature of work, productivity, what companies know about us, and how to become a therapist.
Please welcome, Lars Soderlund!
Thanks for listening! Please visit the pod's website at https://kwalcast.buzzsprout.com for more information.
Welcome to the KWOLCast. My name is Nick Kowalski and this is a podcast where we get to have some fun conversations with fun people. This week we have Lars Soderlund. Lars is another friend that goes way back to grade school. We talk about grade school and then our unique high school experience. After that our paths diverged and he went on to become a college English professor. We talk about teaching, publishing and how to fit into the world of academia. We also talk about writing, ux and the nature of work and productivity. Please meet Lars Söderlund. Lars Söderlund, welcome to the pod.
Speaker 2:Thanks, man. Immediately, I have to say, I'm going to be trying very hard not to make this? An Ann Wolking fan cast because I listened to that episode last night and really loved it. And Ann, it was incredible Learned about PJ photojournalism. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Learned about. You know, I sort of wonder how many people in St Agnes from St Agnes are on meds like I am like Anne is. And then the ending where she gives her kidney. And then you're like, oh, you know, give a liver. And she's like I'm going to do that. She, offhandedly, is like, oh, uc is letting people do that now it's like unbelievable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you could conceivably donate any organ and still live, I bet she would probably do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's incredible. I don't, I don't, yeah, I don't know. Would you do it?
Speaker 1:I want to say yes, but I see a lot. There's a lot more kidney like wanted signs around these days and I've never been truly tempted to, you know, call that number and be like let's just see if we're a match.
Speaker 2:You're not hearing the siren song of the kidney or the kidney thieves.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know I mean the story when she says she was like manifesting giving the kidney to someone. That was wild. It was like she was ready Like she had the kidney like a holster in her pocket and then when she got it taken out and she sits up in bed and her organs are shifting around. That was wild.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that totally blew my mind when she first told me that I was like what. That has to be the weirdest feeling of all time.
Speaker 2:Yes, I got to tell you, though so I did. I was surprised that, and we can go any direction, so cut me off. But like you were starting to talk about how you felt like St Agnes was real homogenous, which I couldn't agree more with, and then Anne was kind of sort of optimistic about the whole thing. But when I think about St Agnes, I think about that wild day when our then principal called us into the lunchroom and berated us for the insane insults that boys were throwing at girls. Do you remember this?
Speaker 1:Not vaguely. Are you talking about hornblower? I remember him talking like bringing us into the cafeteria and ringing us, but I don't remember what it was for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, so like. So we were boys. I mean, how old could we have been? Like it would have been before seventh grade yeah. Yeah, so maybe 12, which is pretty young, like now I feel like. Anyway, so we get in there, like most lights are off, as I recall, and our principal starts to do you cross on the podcast? I can't remember.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you can.
Speaker 2:So we're 12 or younger and he's like. He's like. I have been hearing that boys have been calling girls fucking bitches. We're trying we're trying not to laugh.
Speaker 2:But it's also terrifying because he's a big guy and he has that insane Boston accent and then, as I recall, he's like obviously upset with us and then he starts going after people for like boys, for their specific ailments, like our buddy who was a little pudgy. The principal goes what if somebody called you fat? Yeah, hey, you a kind of points like a kind of effeminate guy. What if somebody called you gay? It was like what is happening? Like where are the adults? I mean it was just us and him. I feel like that would never happen now.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, the adults. I mean it was just us and him. I feel like that would never happen now. Oh yeah, no, totally. I remember also, apparently after we left too so we're going to get to this in a second because you and I left that school after sixth grade together. I heard that like they started busting the kids for being in gangs and like and the thing is too, and the thing was is like they weren't really, they're just like messing around.
Speaker 2:No, no, this is a bunch of like middle you know, you know, uh, middle class white kids like just like flipping gang signs to be funny, yeah, and like I want to say, like parents got called over that one well, I heard I heard that like to be in the gang, they would like point at a kid and you had to beat him up, which I think is basically how you get in the latin kings like I think, random stabbing, so I mean. But I remember the nazi stuff, hardcore like there were. There were jokes about nazism which was always distressing. There were a few sort of like uh, mentally disabled kids mainstreamed into our classes and then seemed to quickly leave after. They were like the butt of jokes. And then one day I don't know if I told anybody st agnes this I was walking by the um, uh, the like field.
Speaker 2:You know it. I was walking by the um, uh, the like field, you know it was like walking on the sort of pickup lane. Look to your left, there's like down the field there's a giant swastika on the baseball field. Really, that somebody had like, yeah, like made with, like their shoe. It was like wild. And then I like went down and you know sort of like picturing myself in a movie or something, and I like made it into an American flag, like a super awkward, unconvincing American flag. Yeah, it was wild. Yeah, I mean super. But of course then your class at Latin school also had its drama, I mean.
Speaker 1:Which one are you thinking of?
Speaker 2:Didn't our math teacher ask if your class was smoking pot for breakfast? Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't remember that it's possible. There's a lot of stuff I don't remember from like that. It's funny how our memories are from like back then, because I can vividly. That is what I think of when I think of childhood. Like it was like 8, 9, 10.
Speaker 1:Well, no, probably like 10, 12, 13 is like when I think of childhood, riding the bike around the neighborhood and all that, but there's so much like I don't remember, you know. So I wouldn't be surprised if like yeah, if our class would have got reamed for something like that as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, it was just a weird time. I was always worried I was going to get kidnapped in a van.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that was a big thing. Here's something I'd love to.
Speaker 2:It feels so validating for you to say that. So okay, so like, listen to this. I go on a date with my wife and I'm like oh man, 90s, crazy time, right, weren't you worried she'd be kidnapped? And my wife's like no, and I was like what? Oh, okay, she was in kid like the son of the president and ends up being kidnapped saved by Sinbad, of course. What a guy.
Speaker 2:And so like uh. So I was like, yeah, if you, if I, if you enter a chat room, next thing, you know, kidnapped at a mall. I was like I used to love chat rooms. I'd go in pretend I was Australian. I was like what? She just seems like this wild person to me. Yeah, but for me, yeah, gangs and mall kidnappings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember we had, like I had a safe word in my family. Like if someone were to ever come up to me and say come with them. We had like a safe word and. I never used it, never had to use it. I it, yeah, never had to use it. I won't ask you it now. Yeah, it was like elephant, it was something, something like that. It was something very, very basic that, of course, no one's ever going to ask you um, but yeah, that was like the big kind of like moral panic back then.
Speaker 1:You see that a lot um it's. It's interesting now that we've grown up and like we can look back on things and see them for kind of like what they were like. I think the dnd panic was before our time definitely, Definitely yeah. But that was a thing. Televisions were the end of the world. Nowadays it's social media, which there's a whole other tangent, and you had a great discussion of it with Anne.
Speaker 2:that was really very smart and it was interesting because are you still religious?
Speaker 1:No, I'm not Okay, me neither.
Speaker 2:But Anne, I think, still has a foot in that world and her kid goes to the school and stuff. And so to hear there's almost a hundred percent overlap on our perspectives and hers, that was really interesting but, it's still cause it's. I mean, I'm sure there are aspects of conservatism in her, but I think that's like all of us have a dimension of that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the and her idea of no phone till 11. Parents review the apps, no social media till like. Later I thought that was brilliant. I'm going to like literally steal that, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's the way to go, because I know a couple of people have given their kids cell phones at this time. I don't think their kids are even interested in social media, so like that's not an issue for them, but like part of I think their kids were 14 when they got them and part of the reason they did that timing is they're like, well, my kid is on the computer right, or like they had like a tablet at home.
Speaker 1:They're on that thing all the time. Anyway, this is just making it easier on them and the family right, yeah and they're like. And now they're in high school, so if they are out and about, the big one I always hear the big argument I always hear from parents is like being able to get in touch with their kids right it's like I want to be able to do that. Oh, here's a question. By the way, this has gone in a totally different direction than I intended.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry, no, it's okay. I wanted to get your reaction to the Ann Walking fan cast yeah. And send a message out to Ann like Ann, great podcast. I don't know how we'll talk eventually, maybe about how you and I somehow didn't maintain a friendship, despite being friends. But then Ann lived like a half a mile from me my whole life. I can count on one hand, but I don't know if I saw her a single time Just around the neighborhood.
Speaker 2:Oh really, yeah. Being in the same place for at least seven years, Wow it just you know, yeah, I know, it's funny how that works right. But anyway different direction.
Speaker 1:What I was going to ask you is a question before I get back to our high school was have you heard about like life 360? Are you familiar with that program?
Speaker 2:yeah, the name sounds familiar. Will you remind me though?
Speaker 1:so basically what it is it's it's a an app or like some kind of program that you, that parents, can put on their kids phone. That makes it so basic. I'll try not to like bias this description too much, but it allows um a lot. Their parents are really kind of staying in touch with their kids, like where are they?
Speaker 1:you know it can it can monitor, like not only geolocation, but like, maybe even like how fast are they going if they're driving a car, like things like that. It also provides like different shortcuts for the kids that were, if they ever are in an emergency okay, yeah, where they need medical stuff they need to get in touch like it makes it so the kids have like easy access to that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, what's funny about it? Like you know, when I've talked about with parents who are, who have teenagers, they're like oh yeah, I would definitely do that. But like for people who don't have teenagers, or like kids that are almost a teen like include myself included I'm like, no, that's, that's like two, that's like two big brother for me yeah, yeah, I don't know when that clamp down is coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my son is two now, uh, and he's just, yes, all of the you know, all of the two-year-old things. So I, I and I think my son is smart. I don't think he's dumb, but I used to think he was much smarter and then we started potty training and I feel like I'm really finding the limit of what he understands and he's just. I no longer think he's definitely a genius you know, like yeah, I mean, maybe this is when that emerges.
Speaker 2:I don't, he is crafty, you know, but uh, yeah, I've cell phone use, I think is far off although he does he does use our cell phones when he can, when he can steal them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, I mean he's not entering the password or anything, but he's curious.
Speaker 1:Oh, the kids pick up on it so quickly too Like before you know it. They're going to know it better than you do I mean like I'm in the same boat Our daughter Juliet.
Speaker 1:She's 10, going on 11. She uses a program called CapCut which can make movies and things like that. She does incredible stuff. And I remember talking to someone not too long ago who was talking about you know how? How does he grow his presence on like youtube and things like that? And he's like, oh yeah, you use cap cut and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:I'm like you're kidding like my, that's what my 10 year old is using and like apparently that is the tool to use even for professionals. Wow, so, yeah. So we were at st Ion's Catholic School and then we left after sixth grade to go to high school. Can you please describe for the audience Covington Latin School in Covington, kentucky?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Covington Latin School is a magnet school for ostensibly academically gifted students and yeah, I don't know. I'd be curious how you feel like it came into your life. What happened to me was, I feel like in grade school I was the class, I was wanted to be the class clown, and then at some point that bothered me for some reason, so then I wanted to be considered more smart and so then I become friends with you and john and some other you know other people who were sort of more that way.
Speaker 2:And then, uh, and then we had a visitor to the school from Latin school and I was like that's for nerds, I'm never going to do that. And then somehow, I guess because you were taking the test, a few of us were I ended up taking the test and then it made sense to go. I kind of got sold on it, for whatever reason, but anyway, but so yeah, so Latin school is a magnet school, so it draws from the region still Catholic, maybe increasingly so. It was formerly a cathedral school, so the schools that are next to cathedrals and were traditionally used for recruiting priests, so it was all male for a long time. And then in the 90s I think right, 90s co-ed and so, yeah, a lot of the kids still skipped grades. So it's, you know, I guess. I mean, what do you think's the youngest kid like 10, 9?
Speaker 1:oh, there was at least one kid that was out of fourth grade okay yeah, he was like yeah, so he probably would have been 10, but that was that was. He was an outlier, though I think most kids are 12, 13, going, going in.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right and then they graduate a bit early and then either go to college or do something else. And yeah, I was. I've always wanted to ask you about that because we both left and then I went into freshman year and you went into prep year and I always, like that ended up working for me, not because I'm an academic high flyer, but because I think I can get a B plus in any circumstance. But that's only impressive if it looks like what you're doing is challenging, like I was a B plus student at St Agnes, so like if you. But I also got a B plus in Mr Morrison's health class. You know I just there's no A for me. It's just that you know what I mean. But every time I checked in on you it seemed like you were flourishing. But I don't know.
Speaker 1:I did pretty well for the first, so yeah, so my program was a five-year program. Basically the prep year was like an eighth grade, whereas you went straight to a freshman year and I was kind of like you. I was like, I was very much a B-plus kind of student. No matter how much effort I put in, I felt like for a while, but initially I got. I was able to get by with relatively minimal effort. It caught up to me though.
Speaker 1:It caught up to me by the time I got to like junior year like my, the way they did um grades back then is like they they really valued academics. So at the after each quarter they would have a special assembly where everyone who got straight a's right we get a first honor, which they would get a special yellow envelope in front of the whole school. Everyone who got a's and b's would get second honors, which is a big green envelope and they call you up in front a lot of accolades for that, whereas like everything else, like kind of, was secondary other than the grades. So a lot of emphasis on that. And I remember I I was able to get a lot of second honors. I got a first honor here and there through sophomore year and then they just tanked. It's just like it's all of a sudden like the subjects that got like out of my ken too much you know, chemistry was difficult, latin was difficult.
Speaker 1:I mean by then with like. By that point, you know, after three, that's going into the third year of latin you're no longer just like learning you know your conjugations and whatever, and like your very basic vocabulary, you're like actually translating Catullus and. Cicero and stuff like that, and all of a sudden I'm just getting like blown away.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I don't know how anybody does well in that it's impossible. I mean, and the other thing is like after your sophomore year, you have to choose Latin or German possible, I mean. And the other thing is like after your sophomore year, you have to choose Latin or German. And so you might think that those of us who choose Latin, who don't have to and German is, in all by all metrics, an easier language you would think, oh Latin teacher, she must go easy on us for making that choice right. It's like. No, like that's when she like pulls the net out from under the trapeze and you could just fall as hard as you.
Speaker 1:Uh, it was bananas, yeah it was interesting that, like I, developed a love for like latin in ancient history in particular. I thought that was like fascinating even to this day. Like I have a very much an affinity for roman culture, greek culture, stuff like that, I I took italian in in college and I think that was in part because of having, like a latin background.
Speaker 1:The other big factor is my dad went on business to italy at some point in the late 90s and I can remember him studying italian in the car with like the little italian books on tape or whatever so it was kind of like a natural kind of segue for me.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, like it was not a language that like we ever we even really spoke. We didn't really even practice speaking it in class. It was. It was almost like this understanding of like yeah, this is super clunky to speak. It's really hard to like hear it, process it and be able to speak back and clear man, yeah it was I guess, just probably because it's too removed from modern.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean I and I think, um, like, if you study spanish versus like doing spanish immersion, the stuff you learn, as far as I understand, is very different. Right, it's like, though, you know you're like, oh yeah, on paper you'd say this, but in the street you actually say this you know, yeah, and I feel like we got a taste of that when we were at Virgil, because we were reading the Aeneid right A senior year, and it was, like you know, it was very tough.
Speaker 2:And then, I swear to God, there were occasional moments where you know we'd be like, Ut, Hobbit, cut whatever. And you'd be like, okay, Ut is when. That's not true.
Speaker 1:Whatever it was.
Speaker 2:And then she's like, oh, this is actually the Ut of probable cause. And you're like, okay, when is that from? She's like around this era. It's like, well, who was the first person to use it? Was the first person to use it? She's like Virgil. I was like, wait a minute, is this the only time this was ever used? Did you just kind of make up things? You know, it was like we're supposed to be scanning the syllables and how they worked and then sometimes they just wouldn't work out. She'd be like, oh yeah, virgil would occasionally use the on-off blah-iambic, blah-blah. Yeah, it was very tough for kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's like Shakespeare would do that too, where he'd just make up a lot of words, words, that we don't realize, were made up today. I think elbow is one of them or something.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But he made up, I want to say dozens, if not hundreds of words, or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's totally right, yeah, and I used to know a bunch, you know it's like, yeah, really classic ones, but you sort of of that ilk, I mean elbow and eyeball, both have that kind of like it makes sense you sort of but it is, I guess, a metaphor in a way. You know, ball of the eye, the bow of the, you know but I don't know what L would be, but anyway, the bow part kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so did you like Latin school?
Speaker 2:Uh, yes, yes, I didn't like St Agnes in my mind. As I get older maybe I'll come to like it more. I thought you were great. I thought our friends were pretty great, but, yeah, I couldn't figure it out. Everybody was, so I was.
Speaker 2:If you asked me at the time, how was I at sports? I'd be like, well, I'm pretty great at basketball, but, uh, you know, I'm only so. So a baseball and I, I don't really like soccer. Meanwhile I sucked at every sport, like your dad took coach, coach, the basketball team, and I was like I've told you I need to thank him in person. It was the best coaching experience.
Speaker 2:Mr Lorenz, when we were very young taught baseball, that was okay, but every other thing I mean like baseball, like you know, I'd get tossed out because I'd steal the base wrong or the one hit I got in six years. I mean, that's a burden on the coach too. But it was like people. They were serious, you know, and you'd like bust your leg open and they'd be like, oh, rub some dirt on it like dude, I am nine years old, like it's, I get it, but this is, you know. And then soccer was like just as bad, and I was, yeah, I just wasn't cut out for that. I feel like the culture. I wasn't really ready for that enculturation. So for me the new start of latin school was a total godsend, because it was like, oh okay, I can be something else here, you know, and then by the end I feel like I really fit in, which was, yeah, such a relief yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think part of what made us move to latin school was like, socially, things were not working on our favor by that point. It's like, yeah, you kind of mentioned like we had a group of like four of us who, like we would be the ones that would hang out together and like we're four out of like 30 boys you know and 20 of those boys formed another like mega group and that was the in group and we were not in the in group no, were you like, was in your, my imagination.
Speaker 2:So my dad, you know, was like, ended up being in the closet, and also not from the greater kentucky area, which I don't like. I don't know which one of those things were more like outcasting sort of you know in a subtle way, but like it did seem like everybody else's dad knew each other and I think that that was tough.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, In that end group they were, the parents knew each other, they lined up and that's what, how certain kids got to certain sports teams and they were yeah, they were more competitive. They, they wanted their kids to excel. Eventually they took them all select and like we never did that, like we were definitely much more in it for like the fun of it, and I actually do have like very fond memories of that. Nice Like it's not of not.
Speaker 1:I think the team that I disliked the most was the one that won state Cause I was like one of like three young guys on it and the rest of them were older and I didn't get along with all of them. And so like, even though we won, like, it was not a great great time. Was that soccer. That was soccer time was that soccer, hell, soccer, yeah, that was.
Speaker 1:That was by the end of like great school, though, at that point so, yeah, I think I think part of it was just like, socially we were school wise, we could handle it and socially we're like, yeah, we don't really need to be here anymore yeah, so like so we had four guys in our group and three of us went to went to latin school that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then, yeah, the. And then our buddy john, who would have been the best of us yeah, yeah, he was the smartest of us by far yeah, it just didn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the, but I mean again, parents sort of make that choice right, and then I don't know. I mean, latin school is a unique thing, right, like finishing a year or two early does put you in a specific social space, and by the time I graduated college I was 20 or 19, I guess. So it was like I wasn't to say I had a full college experience. It's probably incorrect.
Speaker 2:Right, it was like couldn't drink, you know till well, into my master's. So I feel like, uh, you know, when other people would remember college, they'd be like, oh yeah, I remember drinking whatever, going to Dana's and and you know all this stuff. And it was like, oh yeah, I mean, unless I had committed to sneaking into bars every night from my freshman year, I was gonna have an inherently different experience. And then once I once 2001 happened, the crash, and then I started commuting I mean it was like, yeah, it was a fully different experience.
Speaker 1:It was okay but yeah super different yeah, I think so for you and I like we hung out the most in our lives like sixth grade year I would say, that's when like I feel like our group really kind of like formed like we yeah, we were.
Speaker 1:We had found our identity as a group and we hung out a lot more like I remember during the year, during the summer, and then, like you and I carpooled when we got to high school, yeah and I. The funny part is like I can vividly remember a lot of mornings like of us riding to school together like, um, your dad's volvo right playing the epitaph, um, you know violations punkarama, that's like yeah which that's?
Speaker 1:something we should talk about is like how much you, how much punk is still in your life? Right, like it's still there, is it not? I actually named my online moniker for video games hepataf after like the record label, because I like, because I was so into punk at the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think like as far as like where we started to kind of drift apart. I think it's like once we got to to latin school, yeah, we were around each other a lot, but at that point we're like we're in two separate grades. I think we're doing two separate things too because you, you did like debate team, right? Yeah, like I did, I did soccer and basketball for a while. Then I dropped the basketball. I'm trying to think if I did any other extracurriculars.
Speaker 3:No, I did. I did student council. That was the other one I'm like.
Speaker 2:I'm like I know I was like, I know I did something else.
Speaker 1:What else did you do other than debate?
Speaker 2:I would drama.
Speaker 2:That's actually kind of interesting.
Speaker 2:So, um, one of the things we might eventually talk about is that I did a bunch of stand-up comedy when I moved out to oregon, for when I was a professor, between 2015 and 2024 well, just recently, yeah, um, but so uh, but I was one, but I'd always wanted to do comedy or drama and I didn't know why I hadn't.
Speaker 2:And and then later it came out that my dad also has an interest in drama, but he was so bullied because he was sort of like in the closet and maybe, you know, to a certain bullying eye, obviously effeminate that he wanted to do drama, but it was such a gateway to bullying that he justified his non-involvement in it by demeaning it as an endeavor. And so I was like, oh yeah, which I kind of still have, which is weird, you know like it's still the value of like even a community theater or something else. I, I get it, I believe in my heart, but when I think about doing it myself, I'm like I don't know, that's kind of silly, which I've inherited right from like as an indirect thing of bullying. So anyway, so, um, yeah, like I wish I'd done drama, which I guess kind of existed throughout our all four years, but kind of get more serious junior senior year once a junior and senior had like the actual plays.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think that's right.
Speaker 2:And then I mean you could like sneak into the cast, you know if you were like super into it.
Speaker 2:But then, um, and then, you know, I mean being into punk rock, like it was such a like this is all bullshit, like attitude, um, so you know the teacher organizing the drama, I was like, oh man, this is you know. And then his niece ended up being the lead. You know, it was just you know it's like. And then and then. But then meanwhile they sweet talked me into being the backstage manager, which was like harder than harder than being in the play. So it was like, oh, I should have just been in the play.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what did you do as backstage manager?
Speaker 2:it was mostly just kind of recognizing when people were on their cues I'll be like, hey, you're getting're up next, and then getting them. Yeah, exactly which I was almost flawless. Excellent, but not flawless. I mean, the teacher himself, I think, was actually the real manager. You know, it was more. I don't know. I deserve a smaller title than that. Yeah, I only did the.
Speaker 1:I did the senior play for us and it was a comedy.
Speaker 2:We did a Woody Allen play oh, Don't Drink the Water or something. Don't Drink the Water, oh nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I remember, like I have fond memories of that too, but like I am not an actor. Like I had a like I had kind of like to Jerry Seinfeld, where I like I always had, and not something serious, because I would not have been able to keep that poker face on during the play.
Speaker 2:What was your role? Were you the lead?
Speaker 1:I was Father Drobny. Okay, I was like one of the side clown characters, so no, I mean I had a little bit. I had like an opening monologue, kind of like the introduction to the audience, and then like a couple of small things but nothing major. Okay who played the lead, jason Nogar.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Whoa.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I don't think he went on to drama.
Speaker 2:I think he went on to computers. Yeah, he was more of a computer guy, jason.
Speaker 1:Anyway, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, a lot of characters in school, fascinating. All right, so end of high school. What did you want to be? Where do you picture yourself?
Speaker 2:I don't, yeah, man, I don't think I had anything. Let's see, I mean, I feel like during high school I had a few relationships like romantic relationships.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think that that I knew that that was important to me, but I don't know if I knew what I was going to do. The only hint I had was one of our teachers, mr Goldfuss, said that I was good at English. In a way that was like you should already know you're good at English, and so it's like, okay, I guess I'm good at English. And then our generation was like a pretty big computer science generation, so I thought I was going to do that at Xavier, I guess, where I ended up going Xavier University in Cincinnati, but but yeah, I wasn't sure. And then pretty quickly, just culturally, like the people at the people who did computer science, I just feel like I didn't fit in, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have actually a very similar story. I went to undergrad as a computer science major. I dropped it after two days, yeah, so we didn't have so. One of the things that I didn't think was unique about our high school until I got much further out was that we were a very basic high school it was a history, science, language, english, you know, kind of school, whereas like other kids came in they already had, like they had done, a lot of other specialization kind of thing and I can remember I went to my first class.
Speaker 1:they're like all right, yeah, like just go home and like write something in c plus tonight, and I was like I've never programmed in my entire life. I take that back. I had done a tiny bit of HTML like just enough to like put like a header on a website and like something very super basic and I was like nope isn't going to work and the other thing was I in the like intro class where, like everyone who's in the same majors in the same room, we had like 45, 50 people.
Speaker 1:There were like three women in the entire class and I was like that's weird I wasn't out there to like necessarily.
Speaker 2:You know I wasn't on the prowl right, I was like I do not like this, this ratio, this is, this is troubling, yeah, and so I dropped it like right away yeah, and I'm sure looking around and seeing that no one else is noticing, that feels like a bit of a tell for the kind of people who are going to be involved. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm with you. It's funny too. Like, looking back as somebody who became a teacher, like it does feel like we were one of the last generations, in a way, where the standard for teaching excellence was quite low. Oh really, like it feels like we went to a good school but there wasn't really that much of an interest in the teachers with like quote-unquote, harder subjects, in bringing other people who weren't built for that into the fold. Like we had a very great math teacher named Miss Brennan and I took calculus. I don't know if I would have done that, you know, if, like it hadn't been for her. But you know physics, I don't know advanced history, chem, bio. It was like these are about as alien and intimidating as they could be unless you're into them, right, and I think now probably depends where you go. But it does feel like there's at least an attempt to like bring in different learning styles and stuff oh, yeah, absolutely as a professor, I don't know like.
Speaker 2:I do feel like the justification for that is you. It is good for our culture to identify who really is good at that. You know not who can pass bio and then make that an, a whatever, like it's nice, it's like oh yeah, this guy's biologist, he would pass this even if he just had the book. Um, but anyway, like when I think about computer science, it's like well, I think we could get a degree now, but yeah, back then the teachers weren't, really weren't meeting you halfway, which is tough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure it's interesting, for it's a field that has tried to, it's tried to get more data centric. You know they have all the standardized testing and stuff like that, right, but I'm curious, like maybe you can speak more of that, speak more of this from your experience, like how do they measure if a teacher's doing well?
Speaker 1:Because I think your point is great about like people have different learning styles and I think that was actually one of like one of the traps about like our upbringing. It was like they had you had one. There was not they. They treated everyone as if they had the same learning style and it like wasn't the case. You know, I think by the time we got to our high school, our high school had already was had already self-selected students who are equipped to do well in school in general.
Speaker 1:I mean like we did lose a lot between freshman year and senior year but like, yeah, the ones that by the time they made it to senior year they were probably already cut from the same cloth to begin with, whereas especially now, like as I've gotten older and I've seen more and more neurodivergent individuals like that has really kind of changed my perspective on like you, just like, I think people who in the past we would have considered either slow, or like you know, somehow like less capable like that is like totally not the case and instead, like I mean, I can think of someone particular from like our baseball team, like rob schmidt, like he didn't go to our school, right, the kid probably had, like he was probably either neurodivergent himself or he had some other way of like kind of operating in the world and, like you know,
Speaker 2:but like we didn't understand that I don't even think the adults did it. No, I think you're right. No, I think like you could have a sympathetic parent or a teacher who kind of takes an interest. But yeah, there was kind of a like you know, snapping my fingers, like get on with it, you know, come on the today junior, you know that kind of thing like absolutely, and I feel like that um, yeah, it's funny, I mean so it's a big.
Speaker 2:It's a big debate like, um, how kids should be separated. Do you let the talented kids know that they're talented? Quote unquote you know how do you validate different styles. You know that kind of stuff yeah I don't know.
Speaker 2:I do think that like it feels like things are better now in a way. You know, there are sort of like regional schools for you know, learning, different careers and trades, you know, and I feel like that there's a certain amount of value to that. But, yeah, it does seem like our generation, I think, or the society was becoming in a way. I think it's drifted now, but it was becoming a real kind of like be as smart as you can, that is valuable, and then if you're lost along the way, you should kind of be embarrassed.
Speaker 2:We definitely don't need to get into political stuff, but I do feel like a lot of people who are voting are aware of the outlook that some people have, which is that, um, when I was a professor, my interest was in supportive colleges and stuff which is kind of declining per capita, and so, um, I was like, why not more funding for college? Everybody should go to college. Why didn't people want to go to whatever? But I think a lot of people and that's a lot of people's mindset it's like oh yeah, we need to want to go to whatever. But I think a lot of people and that's a lot of people's mindset it's like oh yeah, we need to do continuing ed, colleges are fun, blah, blah blah. But a lot of people are like I just I want to be who I am and I want that to be enough.
Speaker 2:You know, like, and, and maybe they have other skills, but they kind of just want to be like I'm fine, I'm here, I'm in America, I'm doing great, and so, yeah, I feel like the and I wonder if part of that is a reaction to the education of our youth, which was really like, if you're not striving and moving forward, you're kind of left behind, and that could be a painful place to be, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, like it worked out for like us who, like you know, in the grand scheme of things. But they would have went back and said, hey, lars, nick, would you choose to go to college after high school? We probably still would have said yes, but I remember at the time, not even thinking it was a choice, it was like no, this is how you go through life. You go to grade school, you go to high school, you go to college and like even then I don't remember if even post-grad was like optional at that point, I don't remember clearly. But yeah, but like nowadays it's like it is much more accepted and understood. Like, yeah, college isn't for everyone and that's okay it was I think there was.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of talk and there is still kind of this chatter now of like, well, you know, studies show that you know the more education you have, like the greater your lifetime income is going to be, and like all like there's some other like core positive correlations to life and like wellbeing and stuff like that. Like I don't dispute that, but that does not necessarily mean that, like that's, it's the right choice for everyone. And then you have a whole host of like people that come out. Like I had an international studies degree, haven't done anything with that.
Speaker 3:You know, like there's a lot, there's a lot of degrees out there Like congratulations.
Speaker 1:you got a four-year degree. Now what are you going to do? With your poli sci, you know like what are you going? To do with communications, like sometimes it works, a lot of times it doesn't.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's true. Well, and it's funny too, like. So I mean we were talking about me sort of tracing my roots. I can kind of do's fine, like it's like minor scholarship. It's not like anybody's like dying for me to go there. I'm fine in classes. I have a relationship romantic relationship that takes like a lot of my time. I'm in English, just kind of puttering around, decide like kind of don't decide what I want to do. So then, like by the time graduation rolls around, like oh, I'll become an English professor, and so kind of like then that became a separate endeavor.
Speaker 2:You know, like a lot of things, sort of that took a lot of my time, turns out, being a professor is not what you think. It is necessarily Right. I mean, now, maybe a lot of us are familiar, but it's not like I thought. I thought I was going to get up in front of students, read the Great Gatsby aloud and then close the book to uproarious applause and be, like, you know, carried out like fucking, you know, dead poet society. It's not how it is right, like that's not how teaching is. But it's also not what the job is. The job is about, you know, finding a minute area of study that you're so obsessed with, you then can't help but write pages and pages and books and books. And if that's a topic that's accepted by the general sort of you know field, and if you're interested in writing for the field, you could do well, blah, blah, but anyway.
Speaker 2:So I gradually migrated into writing in my master's and then my PhD into professional writing. Went to the University of South Carolina for my master's which was great literature, really cool Purdue for my phd fun, uh, great to read and teach writing. And then got a professorship at Wright State University in technical writing, where I was sort of like the only person who did it in my like era. So, starting like 2011, english program and programs were just kind of grasping for air, like what do we do? What do we do? And so a lot of people around the country, especially in regional comprehensive universities like Wright State or NKU or whatever, they start hiring at least one professional technical writing person. So I was that person at Wright State and where, even though they only wanted me to publish four things, it's like I was like I'm going to publish real, real difficult things, but you might take a few years to write an article and they might take a few years to get back to you.
Speaker 2:So by the time my tenure window was closing, I was not going to make it. It turns out I might've squeaked by if I hadn't gotten another job. But I got another job and my wife and I you had been married, and so we moved out to oregon and so I got tenured, and western oregon university, where I ended up, was a great place, except, as I said, like the public funding was just like shrinking. So, um, it did make me nervous. They're probably fine, but you know it's. There is like a shrinking in the uh, college economy or whatever. You know what I mean. It's like they keep saying we're gonna see waves of colleges closing. It's not clear when that's gonna happen, but it made me nervous. So, um, so yeah, so like, uh, when it came to like thinking about education and thinking about like how I thought education was functioning in the world, I feel like that was like probably the most profound influence. And then I was answering a specific thread of the conversation. Now I've forgotten, I can't remember exactly where we started.
Speaker 1:No, I know, I think this is fascinating, though, like to hear about like your life as an English professor, like one of the things that has already struck me is like how you talked about how you had to be super specialized. Was that? Just to like set you apart. Is that because there's too many like general English professors teaching you know American lit? Or?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's okay. So it's really crazy, Okay, so like what's a good? Well, we live in a specialized society. So, like you know, if you were a young person thinking about law and you watched, like you know, um, who's in?
Speaker 3:young Mr Lincoln whatever any movie about Lincoln you might be like.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'll be like a Lincoln type lawyer, Like and not like Matthew McConaughey, but, like you know, like a general lawyer and they I guess they exist, like family law or whatever, but it's not you. You really kind of have to specialize, right, and then if you want to work at a university or be like a regional guy, you have to be on that. You know what. I mean.
Speaker 2:Not just like I could do different things, but like quite good as far as I can go. And so the university is the same way relatable to you or other people is like the field of education and professorship had gotten by the time I got into English, had gotten so kind of like rarefied and specialized and and there were so many students in English cause that was like a default major by the time we were in undergrad for a lot of people. Um, that it was just they were. They were basically flush with money. It's a pretty cheap department, everybody needed one. They were basically flush with money. It's a pretty cheap department, everybody needed one. So literature people could be like everybody needs us. Wow, this is great.
Speaker 2:And the old gatekeeping model of education was still happening, right, like the tough teachers we had. So they could be very hard on their students and very hard on each other and be like oh yeah, you wrote about the Marxist underpinnings in Moby Dick as they affect the emerging immigration status of Croatia. But what you didn't recognize is that Croatia has already emerged and has a history of that kind of stuff. Oh man, and if people cared about that and would publish it, then that was great and you would just have to publish your ass off because you'd be compared to people throughout the university just on the number of books and articles you published and do you get quoted in the New York Times and all that kind of stuff, and so, and writing a book is always good, which means you have to convince a publisher to publish it, which means there has to be it's a publisher to publish it, which means there has to be sort of a way of, you know, fitting into your field and it's just a lot. You're right, it kind of sounds like a lot.
Speaker 2:This is not what I thought it was going to be. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Although and you can let me know we don't have to pursue this, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on something. So I didn't understand how the university functioned until like very recently and specifically why I didn't fit into it, and here's why I think. So there's this guy named Tony Jutt who's a historian J-U-D-T is his last name and he wrote a really interesting book called Thinking of the 20th Century, and so he talks about his career and the kind of stuff that happened over the 20th century, with special attention toward communism and some fascism and stuff. It's really interesting. It's like a history book, and I've never been good at history, are you good at history.
Speaker 1:I loved history yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it's great. Something about my lack of understanding timelines really got in my way, but anyway, he was, he's from the UK and so and he went to Oxford where I think you could just like study what you're interested in in and just get serious about it. So we got serious about socialism. So he had a few different reasons for that Traveled to Paris and got kind of a fellowship to study like what was happening in Paris in the 60s, brushed up against people who were still alive, had been around that time, sounded very interesting. But he also had like. He was like, okay, well, how's this happening now, right, like.
Speaker 2:But he also had like he was like, okay, well, how's this happening now, right, like, what are the specific things that happened in paris in the 60s when there were all the riots and you know communist stuff, and then how did that spread, whatever? And then so he's like developing an academic interest and I think he's very driven, very intense. And then he's like teaching at oxford, kind of. Sometimes, apparently, one of the secrets of oxford, cambridge and the English universities is the English professors, like professors in England, are unionized. So you get the same money if you work at Eastern Manchester State as you do if you work at Oxford.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh so they're trying to make ends meet Like they're not actually rich. So, anyway, at some point he was offered a job at Berkeley, you know at UC Berkeley, and he said it was something like I don't know. It was like an astronomical sum to him, whatever, it's probably like $78,000 or something, but it was like in the 80s or something. So it was like huge. And he's like I'm sorry, $78,000. He can't believe how much that is. And the person on the phone is like okay, 90.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh so he's like what like? He's like I guess I gotta stop. So he goes to berkeley and it's kind of cool. But what he noticed was that at the in the american university system, there's like a social dimension to your field and you really got to pay attention to what people in your field and in your school are studying, because you kind of have to fit in and you kind of have to talk about what they're talking about. And he's like that's an academic where you're you interest in, fit in and you kind of have to talk about what they're talking about. And he's like that's an academic where you're interested in the study but you're really interested in, like what other academics think, like what is the academy doing on this topic? Right, and that's kind of what I mean, I guess, by the English stuff, something I wouldn't have thought to put that way until I read his book. So it was like you know, it was like because I got really interested in Vladimir Nabokov you know will lead on all that stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was like, oh, that's cool. But it was like I met people who were doing their PhD and they're like, yeah, I don't know, like I've got a really interesting angle. I don't know if they won't publish my stuff and then I'll be totally out of luck. I mean, I can't just start over, you know. So anyway, so this guy, tony Judd, in the book he goes an academic is somebody who is interested in what other people think about that field and is interested in spreading his knowledge about that and having that social dimension. He sees himself as more of an intellectual, which is more like I'm just interested in this topic and I think it applies to everybody. And you know, he's still specialized in what we would call academic, specialized language, very intense but he thinks he could have something to say to, like, general people.
Speaker 1:This is kind of like a universal thing he's interested.
Speaker 2:That's like the intellectual part thinking about mind stuff. And then I realized I'm not either of those Like. I'm more like a nerd, and nerds can get obsessed with things, but they're really only interested in what they think you know, and there are nerds who do well in academia and there are nerds who become famous and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:But the part where you have to really care what other people think and fit into the way that they talk and read their documents and that kind of stuff, even though you're talking about whatever Nathaniel Hawthorne or somebody I didn't really care about that, I didn't care about it enough. But what I think is I think everybody has a little bit more of one or the other Like they're interested in the thing, but they really only care about what they think about. Uh, what, what they're only interested in themselves, or maybe they want to share it but not like to other people. There are people who are like, oh yeah, I care about this thing and I'm in this community and I want to think what they think, and I could go back and forth. And there are some people who were like, yeah, I'm interested in this thing. I think it applies to everybody. I'd love to share this thing. You know, I'd like to be, I guess, like a teacher or something, like teach everybody. And so if you had to put yourself in any of those areas, do any of those.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm option three out of those three. Okay.
Speaker 1:Like I like a variety, I like learning in general, like I'm going to be like a lifelong learner kind of thing. You and I were kind of talking a little bit off mic before we started For me to go back to the legal kind of analogy. I was a general counsel in my last job. So a general counsel is the attorney for a company. They handle a variety, basically anything that comes before the company they try to handle, and if it gets too intense let's say it's like litigation or something like that then you kind of send it off to the specialist.
Speaker 1:That's much more my speed I like the variety, I like learning about a wide variety of things. If I do too much of one thing, like I'll just I'll just lose steam, I'll just lose interest. I can only go so deep down the rabbit hole. I mean, even if it is something I'm really into. I mean, granted, there are things that, yeah, there are some subjects I could go deeper on.
Speaker 1:We're all going to have our interests, but I'm not someone that can totally put on the blinders and be like this is what I'm going for. I don't care what everyone else thinks. So, yeah, I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 2:It sounds like there's a pretty steep social penalty if you are not kind of going with the flow in academia. Yeah, I think that's right. Like and I mean the like I ended up with a job I kind of thought I would have like, at Wright State and then at Western Oregon. Um, I was like, let me, the students were awesome and my colleagues appreciated what I was doing. And you know, and especially at Western, because older universities aren't very prestigious, they're still not all that excited to like require you to publish thing after thing after thing. You know, it's like, you know, for a while you just kind of teach. But universities were also cheaper.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's this really fascinating book called life at yale, something like that. Um, and it's about this guy, it's like written the 1800s, and it's just like. Yale was just like a grade school, you know, it's just like. Or like you know like like a kindergarten for adults. You know like just it's just total bedlam, but nobody was making any money. Like the life of a professor was not very enviable because you're just almost like a step down from a priest, you know, and and a lot of people were in the priesthood because they had like less overhead, you know, to pay for, so they could afford to, like, teach in the spare time. That's like a very common thing, um, and you could be obsessed right with your topic. Because you're you, you've got room and board from the Catholic church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so anyway so like um, the uh, so. So universities used to be like pretty cheap and pretty easy to get into. There were periods in the 20th century where I feel like, with the Soviet panic and stuff, it was like, oh, now universities have money and whoever's already at the university is actually doing pretty well. Like you make solid money, you get to keep doing what you're doing, especially in English and stuff, and people like, wow, that's killer. And you know, at that time a lot of people in society were reading, people cared about like novelists and stuff.
Speaker 2:So as an English professor you could fool yourself into thinking, oh, I'm doing great. But then really what was happening was you were just benefiting from these broad social movements, you know that kind of thing. So anyway. So yeah, it was like eventually academia just kind of tightened up and there was kind of an arms race between professors like who can publish more, who can do whatever, and so it was like you just had to publish, publish, appear at, you know, conferences, lead committees, all that kind of stuff which I didn't realize. Now I realize it feeds into each other Right.
Speaker 2:Because if you're serving at conferences, you're meeting other people, some of them are publishers. They ask you to publish something. You have to be in there and I'm not that social. Yeah. So that didn't work either, but anyway, interestingly now, because universities are so tight, it's like grant stuff has replaced what publishing used to be. Oh, interesting. And a lot of those grants come from the government or private industry, that kind of stuff. So it's like even publishing is probably not like enough now at a lot of universities and so that's interesting yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That sounds that tracks with like. I listened to a few different other podcasts as well, and often the ones I listen to are run by academics and it's funny you can hear, especially in the one it's called Very Bad Wizards. It's a philosopher from the University of Houston and a psychologist from Cornell. It's really fascinating. It's great. They tackle really heavy subjects but they're kind of like a little bit vulgar and crude and so they kind of bring it down to our level a little bit. But like all their guests and like a lot of the way they talk about whatever subject they're working on, they will cite these like different social circles, be like this is like so-and-so at Duke is doing this and like so-and-so at Yale doing this, and so, yeah, I can totally see what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:You know, what that also reminds me of is I've heard that like big corporations kind of used to operate that way as well.
Speaker 1:In the sense that they were big, they weren't as worried about efficiency Bell Labs is what's coming to mind they weren't as worried about, like, the efficiency so they could give people the space to be like if you're an inventor or an engineer, like, yeah, go wild with like transistors or radios or you know early computers or something like that and like they had the space they didn't have to worry about. Like then I want to say they have to worry about results, but like they kind of, didn't you? Know they were kind of like you know, we'll give you the freedom and eventually we hope, we, we, we trust that something will come of it that we can use down the line.
Speaker 2:That's totally right. Yeah, it's interesting. It's like I don't know what, I don't know how this should translate into like our advice for our kids. But it does feel like if you're at an institution whether it's university, corporation, government institution, nonprofit, whatever and they they're doing well, like whatever, like they probably have an excess of money and funds, which means you could probably be there and not just be exhausted every day because they probably have money to hire people for all the necessary stuff, so you could just kind of fit in, as opposed to, like you know friends and stuff who work for non-profits in, you know like major gifting, donations, whatever, and they just there's no backup. You know, you just got to work all the time and you would think it's chill, right, just like you would think being a librarian is chill.
Speaker 2:But in fields like that, where there are also these cutbacks, it's exhausting. It's very hard to get a job. Once you're there, they're like okay, so eight people used to do this job. Now it's just you to do this job. Now it's just you. So you're like, like why?
Speaker 1:am I so busy all the time? It's like doesn't seem like fun, it's so interesting. I mean, this is related, but not exactly now I guess, but like I think of, like modern productivity like and like and all these like tips and tricks about, like how to maximize your day, plan your time, get the most out of your day, like we're probably like, as individuals, the most productive we've ever been like you're starting to see like more and more things to talk about, like we've been on the 40-hour work week for 100 years and like and yet we're I can't remember what percentage more productive because of because of technology, basically, uh, you know, email alone is probably accounts for a huge chunk of
Speaker 1:that. But yeah, it's just the demands are greater and like I think there's more and more that's out there. It's like we actually don't function our best if we are trying to sit there and chug out eight hours of productivity in a day. I mean, I guess you know, coming from the legal field, it's all about the billable hour if you're in private practice, and my first job out of law school was I was of counsel, which means I was basically a contract attorney, but I did title work for an oil and gas firm, and what that meant is it was around the time that the fracking boom was big in eastern ohio.
Speaker 1:So if you're an oil company and you want to go out there and lease all the oil, you go up to these. I'm we're in farmland you go up to the farmer.
Speaker 1:You had to make sure that they actually owned the oil underneath the surface and like you would think, like well, yeah, duh, no, not so, um, because that was also like a coal part of the country part of the state as well, and it was not uncommon for someone back in like 1910 to say like, hey, I'm selling my farm to someone, but I'm retaining the mineral rights because I basically want those royalties if you, if you, were to excavate or dig or whatever you know, fast forward 110 years. Now we're talking about oil that's being fracked out of shale, as opposed to just like regular, you know lignite coal or whatever so like.
Speaker 1:So the job was to review all the deeds that went back to like. I mean, like we would find like patents from the presidents from back then when it was. We would find like patents from the presidents from back then when it was like northwest territories, like it was crazy and like it was super boring. It was very dry.
Speaker 2:This is again one of these for and for people just listening at home. Uh, nick has been rubbing his temples indicating the stress, and now I have a milkshake, but he's putting his long straw over and drinking my milkshake. All the way over.
Speaker 1:That was a great movie.
Speaker 2:So good.
Speaker 1:I got to rewatch it, but this was like where it didn't fit for me.
Speaker 1:It was doing the exact same thing every day it's like you get done with one parcel, you move on to the next. You get done with one, you move on to the next. But it was all about I only got paid because we had this contractual relationship with the firm. Let's say I worked eight hours in a day. I would not actually bill eight hours in a day. That's not how we function. Even if we have a full workload and we are sitting there cranking on something that was a lot of times pretty mindless, it is so hard to be 100% efficient with your time. A lot of times I would bill six hours in a day. That was pretty good.
Speaker 1:that wasn't bad, that's you know um, but it, like it made me like look at my time completely different. It was like oh, like, oh, did you work 40 hours this week? Well, it's like well, yeah, I did, but no, well, really, I billed like 30 or 32, and then I'll it for me that like really messed with, like how I looked at it.
Speaker 1:But then a lot of other private kind of jobs are all like that too. Um, so what you find in this field it's like it's not uncommon to have to bill 1800, 1900 2000 in a year.
Speaker 1:I mean if you build 2000. That means you're billing 40 hours a week, 50 weeks of the year, like you're going to work 50 to 60 hour weeks on on the regular. To do that like forget those days where you're kind of feeling crappy and your kids home sick from school and like like those, they like. I don't know how people do it like I've been wanting.
Speaker 1:I've actually been wanting to like, kind of ask a lot of different attorneys during covid, like did you hit your billable hours and, if so, how on earth did you do that? Because, like when my kids were home during covid, I felt like I was constantly torn between parenting and working, not doing either one particularly well and so yeah, I don't know, but then, like there's all these, like the other place I was going to go with that is like you know I've been.
Speaker 1:I think this is an area that I'm, like actually pretty intrigued by is like how do we, how do we function best, like what's the best way?
Speaker 1:a lot of times it's like really, uh, you only have you know one or two rounds of like 90 minutes to do true deep work focus kind of stuff and like when I finally heard that, it like it was such a relief because I I felt like I was struggling all the time I felt like I was always like oh, why can't I? Why can't I sit there and do? Because, like my, my previous job had to do with a lot of legal research. Very interesting, very mentally intense like I would just get to the end of the day and be completely exhausted even though I sat on my butt.
Speaker 1:The entire day, and you know, checked reddit every. You know, of course it started off I would check reddit once an hour and then, by the end of you know, by 3 30, I'm checking it, that's I think that's where everybody's at.
Speaker 2:And then, by the way, the yeah, my cal newport DAR got ticked when he mentioned deep work, yeah, cal Newport, yeah, yeah, he's so good. Yeah, well, I knew there was something up. I mean, when I was like desperate to take a nap when I was at Wright State and a friend of mine even was like on Facebook she was like I kind of take a nap sometimes right, I was like God bless you admitting this there's no way, I just gotta lock your door.
Speaker 2:At some point I had like office hours and I wanted to take a nap. I just put a note outside that said, like knock loud, I'm here, and I think I locked the door just so they didn't like walk in on me. Like you know, with my legs up on my chair, I've always had real tiny offices, but anyway. But so, um, yeah, uh, jerry seinfeld, when comedians in cars Getting Coffee started popping off on the internet, on YouTube pre-Netflix, somebody in one of the interviews it might have been the one with him and Eddie Murphy, it's really good, but anyway, he somebody's like, okay, he's like, yeah, youtube has all these metrics and how people are watching all this stuff and he's got millions of views. I mean, just like Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee is a a phenomenon, even just when I was on youtube. And they're like well, how are people? When are people watching it?
Speaker 2:He goes at work. Yeah, no, totally people. Yeah, they like they're at work, pretend to do something else, they're just watching this and it was like oh, millions of hours. You know like, this is like. This is not an isolated instance. People are. You know, if you ask us to fill our time. You know we'll be filling our time, but yeah, yeah, cal Newport, I really like that slow productivity stuff. Right, it's most recent, or one of his most recent books.
Speaker 1:Have you read it? I have not read it. I listened to, I heard him on a couple different podcasts and I was like, all right, I get the gist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 2:There there's all sorts of little stuff you can kind of pick up. I've become kind of a productivity. Junkie is always a weird term to use you know, like a fan, and so yeah, for me it was David Allen's Getting Things Done, which is good. Have you ever?
Speaker 1:done that. I haven't done that one.
Speaker 2:It's super old school, it was based on paper, and so it's like you just take everything in your life that doesn't have a place and then you like organize it, spend like a day or like a week, just like getting everything in the system, and then the idea is everything that comes in goes somewhere and you have these lists and blah blah, but it's a lot, you know, it's like a lot to manage, and so then, like um, then cal newport and a few other people have kind of more actionable ways of doing that. And I really like this guy who has this blog called Raptitude. It's great, and he has a book, it's like a PDF, but he talks about blocks. He's like, but it's basically deep work, it's the same term. It's like you know that focus time and he's like for him, he's like you just take like no more than 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:First few minutes is like imagining what you're going to do, imagine what you're going to accomplish, and then you do it, set the timer, and then you stop and then, like Cal Newport recommends, then you mark it down, right, and he's like people aren't getting dozens of blocks a day. It's like you know you're lucky if you get five and that's half an hour, that's two and a half hours I've had to start doing and having a two-year-old at home doesn't help, but I've had to start thinking like four blocks is a lot, like two hours of straight-up work hardcore. I'm just going to imagine that's almost like a day and then I can take a break, meditate whatever and then get back, do another block, whatever.
Speaker 1:But but yeah, it's tough, yeah, really tough. I was just listening, I'm listening. I'm actually in the middle of an episode right now on um that's going through captain and hobbs like the history of coming to hobbs and they mentioned that with like bill watterson, the author, that a lot of the way he described like his process.
Speaker 1:He's like, well, for the first hour, like I basically just stare, like I stare off into the space trying to think of ideas. And he's like in the second hour, like I try, I I continue to stare off into space but eventually, like some ideas start to percolate and so I yeah, I find that fascinating. It's like that like, yeah, we just need the space. I'm a yeah, I'm a big fan of like doing the block kind of like not scheduling. I guess it's kind of block scheduling.
Speaker 1:But, um, I know that like late morning is like my best time to like write, for example and so like that's when I'll try to do that kind of or like more concentration kind of stuff do you write still?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, um, I'll write comedy a bit. Um, that was always the best part about stand-up. Comedy was in oregon. It was like thinking about an idea, refining it enough, performing before crowd and then getting the reaction. So stuff still comes to me, but now it's more kind of I picture myself saying it in front of a crowd when my son does something bananas. But yeah, I think I'm going to bring it into my life for real. The 750 words, what's? That.
Speaker 2:So 750wordscom is the thing that started. It's sort of an imitation, a digital imitation of what they call the morning pages, the 750 words, what's that? So 750wordscom is the thing that started. It's sort of an imitation, a digital imitation of what they call the morning pages from Julia Cameron's. The.
Speaker 2:Artist's Way. It's really cool. So Julia Cameron is actually the sister of James Cameron, okay, and she has a book called the Artist's Way based on a bunch of seminars she's done over the years for creativity, and I think she's seen all the different times of where it was like this is stupid to now being like, oh, that's respected, you know yeah so it's a popular book, bazillions sold and there's like kind of a program of a few weeks to like get your groove back creatively.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of cool stuff, like one of them to take one of you take yourself on like an art date or something where you're like, okay, my whole thing is just going to go to a museum and just like let myself recharge or whatever. It's great. But then the one thing that everybody says like the guy who did Billions, brian Koppelman, people like recommended hardcore is morning pages. So it's like first thing or as soon as you can, you just write like freehand two pages until you stop and you could just like I think we were taught in study skills at some point. You know, pre-writing is like you can say like I can't think of anything to write. I can't think of anything to write.
Speaker 2:Doing that freehand is a special thing and actually I might get back into that because I'm in a fountain, pens and stuff and it feels good to write. But 750 words is doing that digitally and it feels great because, no matter what, by the end of it you've written 750 words, which is pretty substantial and your brain is just kind of going. So you plan your day, you reflect on life, whatever.
Speaker 2:Apparently all the stuff you write is pretty secure, um, and then you get points for streaks and all that stuff so it's neat and it's awesome pretty minimal, but um, but yeah, that like, how do you get yourself into a space where you can, like, create on the blank page, and then what do you? Yeah, what do you do with it?
Speaker 1:you, know what do you like to write?
Speaker 2:uh, let's see well so. So I was a professor for what felt like a long time. I was on the eve of getting full tenure. You know, I was already an associate so I had tenure. But then it was like on the ease of even becoming a full professor and I don't know. I was kind of done with it like it was. It was great to be a professor and awesome, but like a lot of jobs, a lot of it was teaching. People didn't want to be there, publishing things I didn't care about. You know that kind of stuff. So, um, so I kind of had the thought it's like I think I could do something else. I thought about being a therapist for a long time. Looked into programs on. That seemed really cool. Can I tell you a quick aside about this?
Speaker 2:absolutely okay, so, like so. I was like, oh, I'll become a therapist. And then you kind of find out like, well, there are different masters level therapy things you can do. You can get the master's in social work, which is like pretty hardcore. I mean, social work is tough in some ways. You can get your oh man, I can't remember the other ones More master's in, like master's in counseling and something C whatever, msc maybe, and then you got to get certified whatever. But so it's like so if I want to do it, I would have to get at least a master's, but with a master's?
Speaker 2:I don't know you bill, okay, but it's not. You're not like a famous rich psychologist, for that I would have to get another phd or sci-ed. So it's like, well, that's you know. Like yeah, to talk my wife into doing it. So, and a sci-ed is also tough because you have like a residency. So you got to like go somewhere, you know so then. So I was like, okay, master's, whatever. So I look it up in Oregon and they're like, yeah, you got to do the master's, but then you also got to do the practicum. You got to get the hours and in Oregon it's 2,300 hours, which seems like a lot. And that is working. Like you can get a job at like a drug rehab center where you're like putting in the hours you know with like individuals or groups, whatever.
Speaker 2:If you're real confident which probably I should have, I could have done you just go into practice. You just let people know that you're in training and then you're kind of under the auspices of like an observing thing. Yeah, um, there's somebody like I think there's different aspects of medicine that are that way, and then you just kind of pay somebody to check in on you every so often, blah, blah, um, so you can. I think you can kind of make a living wage if you do that. But, um, but anyway, 2300 hours and I, you know we were starting family and whatever. So it's like, well, this is kind of a lot. And then I was like, oh, but I'm going to move to Kentucky, I'm going to move to Ohio. What is it there? If it's 2,300 hours in Oregon, it must be less in Ohio, right? Well, ohio, it's 3,000 hours. And then in Kentucky, I'm like, okay, well, I might be, you know, my mom's in Kentucky it is 4,000 hours. Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 2:It's the highest number. And in. Kentucky, and I might be getting the number up. It might be five, but it's a lot, it's the most. And in Kentucky they have the gall to say in case you thought it entered your mind that they were trying to take advantage of these do-gooder therapists it's confirmed by the fact that in the law they say we recommend that these hours be spent in a state correctional facility. I was like, oh okay.
Speaker 1:You should do that just for the stories.
Speaker 2:I mean the stories would be wild. It was like, okay, only getting the master's. And again I mean it's like it's a perfectly living wage, all of these white collar jobs are.
Speaker 2:you know, we're not working in an airport, in the Starbucks or whatever you know like that's, which actually probably not a bad job, but you know so anyway, airport in the starbucks or whatever you know like that's, which actually probably not a bad job, yeah, but you know so anyway. So I thought about doing all that and then I was like you know what? I bet I could just bullshit my way into a job actually associated with the technical writing I've been teaching. And so then I was like, oh yeah, so this emerging field called ux, where people study, you know the um, online patterns that make it effective for people to use blah, blah, um. And so then now, and so then now I'm working at a place called Baymard Institute. It's super cool. It's this Danish company, kind of a think tank for e-commerce sites.
Speaker 2:Oh, nice, and so we just study different fields and areas and watch people use different types of sites. I just finished a big study on insurance. I studied the. I finished the study part. I still got to write it up, but it was wild.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was like when people go to liberty mutual, what's their experience? You know like what trips them up. You know, for instance, quick note liberty mutual um, the good sites will automatically find you and everyone registered to your home and they also have your car and your vin and your and your license number. Oh, my god, wild. Yeah, and you know, I mean it's a database. They might not have all of it, whatever, yeah, but it's crazy people. People are like shocked, like oh, I didn't have to put that in. So liberty mutual I think I haven't figured this out, but I think because they want to make sure that you don't get into that troubling thing where, like you know, you're like you know your son is like I want to borrow the car and you're like you're not on my insurance yet, whatever, it's like oh, come on, like okay, and then it gets into a wreck and then who knows what happens, right, so liberty mutual is like okay, we think these people live at your house? Do they live at your house?
Speaker 2:And then you might say, as one of my like users did, one of my test subjects oh, that's my son. Oh man, he hasn't lived here for a long time. Oh, he doesn't live here, and and you can tell there's some pain in the guy's voice. And then Liberty Mutual says why doesn't he live there? And you have to like give a reason why you're like estranged from your son. You know like well, he used to live here and he doesn't, or he lives here part time or whatever. And then you can also say yeah, he lives here, but he doesn't. My car. And then liberty mutual says why don't they drive your car?
Speaker 3:yeah, it's like that's not your business like oh man, that's fascinating, it's really cool.
Speaker 2:Like every app has these weird ins and outs, and so that's been cool to find so. So part of my job is writing up the results of my studies, um, combining the studies that other people have written um, and then like kind of editing and stuff. So I've been doing that, actually doing that kind of writing more than ever maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's been really fun. Okay, that's cool. So when you made the transition from academia to you know, private, so you knew you wanted to do UX kind of work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was what I was most open to.
Speaker 1:You're like all right, who's doing UX kind?
Speaker 2:of stuff. Okay, yeah, that's funny. You know I mentioned like English was like the default major for our generation. In a lot of ways there were like big ones, right, it's like English history. Communications is now like in this or was in the ascendance. Psychology was massive just recently.
Speaker 1:Oh, really, that was like the major.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting, crazy. Now it's kind of down, I don't know. By the time I left Western, it's like everything was down. I mean, it's just, it's crazy time. It's not like there's like a lot of countrywide support for the endeavor of college so nobody knows what to do, yeah, but anyway. But so, um, ux is like a thing and it's a thing that is not uh it's not data analytics, yeah, and it's not statistics or logistics.
Speaker 2:You know, it's not the other kind of like math driven ones, and there is still a bit of qualitative study to it.
Speaker 1:There's a little bit of a humanity to like how do people use this stuff? A little bit of an art to it. Yeah, it's not pure science. Okay, that's right. That's right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Analysis, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's tech, you know. So it gets a little bit of like props. I'm lucky. Baymard Institute is all about UX. Like, that's all they do. They build up like. They've built up an awesome database of like how do you build an e-commerce site? And I'm not going to start plugging them, but it's a great. It's a great thing, and so I'm unlikely to get fired for doing UX there, because they do UX, but much like a lot of fields, maybe including some like law fields, fields. Sometimes you get attached to a company and you're like a barnacle on the side.
Speaker 2:Like but you kind of know, like if times get tough you might get scraped off, which is okay. If you're making a living wage, you're good at saving, blah blah, but I'm excited that in this case it's like dedicated UX. But there were a lot of jobs I was looking at where they were like oh yeah, it was probably like that's a good one. I don't know like some sub sub subdivision of png and they think they should have a ux person because they were told that they do and they can afford it right now. But then unless that person makes themselves fully, you know, uncuttable. And even if they do, maybe they'll get, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:So, oh yeah, it's not as simple as oh yeah, I bring a lot of value to the company. Like it's not. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Yeah, um, that's pretty interesting. Like it's also, you know, even though you said you know, ux is not necessarily the data side of it. It is very fascinating how much like companies know about us. I mean this comes from the data, but also just from like your kind of study is, like just learning human behavior and being able to like predict it.
Speaker 1:in particular, I'm very curious to see how, like our data changes and like privacy wise, but also like these kinds of things at some point, like will we push back harder on it than we have already.
Speaker 1:There's a little bit of that out there. I mean there's like California is most notable of the data privacy, privacy laws, but there's other states as well, because I'll give you another example. Like I know someone who works for a data company that is associated with a national grocery chain. I have to like be kind of vague about all this because, of course one like.
Speaker 1:One of the things they are able to predict through their data, through tracking people's shopping habits, are the likelihood that someone is going to develop diabetes in the near-ish future. However, so they know this based off I'm assuming it's based off of how much soft drinks you buy or donuts or whatever. I want to say, though they can maybe connect it even to like the pharmacy as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's interesting but they are not because the way I was explained to me is because of dated privacy laws, although I don't know that's, I'm not sure which which law would be this way? But like there is. There is a barrier that's keeping them from like notifying people, because probably it's more like the backlash they would get if, like one, people are going to be offended, if they're like wait, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:I'm going to develop diabetes, Like, how dare you? Yeah, why are you giving me ads for this insulin?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but also, too, that's super creepy. Like because I think like it's not a secret secret that companies track us this way, like I mean it's not like that's completely forbidden, but like, like I mean it's not like that's completely forbidden, but like probably it's not well-known knowledge how closely they track us right, the one other story I've been meaning actually I've been meaning recently to fact check this because I've seen it come multiple times and I want to be crystal clear, it is true, before I go along right saying it have you heard about the target story?
Speaker 2:yeah. So for those who haven't heard it, charles doohig's habit, uh, habits, or habit, or whatever. If you want to continue the breadcrumb trail, I'm sure I was gonna say so.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say. So this one does check out like. For those who haven't heard it, basically it was I don't know how many years ago. Target sent a bunch of ads to like a teenager, like a teenage girl, for babies, and like because, like because it based off of her shopping habits, they predicted that she was either pregnant or about to get pregnant and her dad came up, chewed out the store, got all mad about it and then came back, you know, like a week or two later saying like actually you're right, she is pregnant. So that's like the big aha story that I've heard, like in this, in this realm yeah, it's um, yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 2:I always uh my two thoughts on that. The first one's west world. Did you watch any of west world?
Speaker 1:I never watch west world now, so really just watch the pilot okay, pilot's sick.
Speaker 2:it's awesome and maybe, maybe it's the end of the first season, but so spoilers it's like not that new at this point. Like there's this amazing amusement park that they make. It's sort of like if Grand Theft Auto was a place and so it just brings out whatever you are, you know. And it has touches of Skyrim. Do you still play video games much?
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little bit Okay.
Speaker 2:So you kind of know what I'm saying so it's sort of it's clever, it's neat. You know, there's like people kind of beckoning you onto quests and you kind of do it and they're all you know some version of AI bots, but it turns out, I think, at the end of the first season or somewhere. It's like oh yeah, this is like it's basically a loss leader, much like Google's products and these other places. They're gathering data about what people want and what people do and how people are, and so that they can then have sort of behavioral insights to then have, you know, control of stuff which is like a hundred percent right. That's just what's happening. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's treated as like a reveal. But instinctively, when you watch it, you're like, well, that is creepy. But I'm somehow not bothered by that, like I know I should be. Yeah, and I think it's.
Speaker 2:It's exactly the same yeah but the other thing, it's wild. Um, that is, for me, the thing that doesn't encapsulate it in. That is something I learned from one of my wife's co-workers when she was at right pat air force base. So right pat, I think I'm I'm being a little fuzzy here with, like, my interpretation, but in a way, right pat is one of those places where they have the resources to do more stuff than you would think that they do. So like I mean, I've heard about crazy experiments that they have with drones and other stuff. So that's like they probably have their own kind of skunk works.
Speaker 2:But more than that, like the United States School of Air Force Medicine, yusef, sam I'm not getting all the acronyms right, but they do that there and they do really cool stuff like hearing conservation. And they also do stuff like like my wife knew at least one guy who did like a weight loss thing and and so she was like that's interesting to study weight loss. Don't we know what it is. Because he was like oh yeah, we're studying like oxygen deprivation, how that affects stuff. She's like isn't it just diet and exercise? He's like, yeah, it is, but that doesn't work for people Like everybody, not everybody but like basically, people know it's diet and exercise but it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:Like we all know, it's diet and exercise but most of us are gaining weight. And if you create a product to solve a thing, like if the product is diet and exercise but people don't take it and they don't want it and it's getting worse, it's not a product that works.
Speaker 2:So you need something else? Yeah. And so that's where my mind goes when I think about the diabetes thing. Because it's like if you just like, add a letter and you're like, hey, you're gonna get diabetes, keep eating like this, don't do it. Or even if you were like, oh, we'll create a law in congress you have to drink smaller soft drinks, people get pissed off and wouldn't want it to happen. Yeah, but even if people knew and they do if you keep eating this way, it will happen. That's not necessarily enough of a solution.
Speaker 1:like awareness doesn't create a one-to-one behavioral link oh for sure, and that's wild, you know, you know.
Speaker 1:What else that reminds me of is the example of putting calories on menus yeah I want to say there was some, there was some study out there that said that you know they followed some place that put calories on menus and what they found found is that these numbers are a little fluid, but you'll understand the point. It's like 25% of the people when they went to that restaurant they would pick something intentionally with less calories because they saw it there. 50% of the people just did not care. And then the other 25% intentionally bought things with more calories because they thought they were getting a better value.
Speaker 2:They were getting more bang for their buck. That's fascinating. I did, I. That totally makes sense, and I did talk to a nurse or like at that um, miss, classic car wash like on horse branch, whatever, oh nice yeah and uh, and she was like yeah, like a lot of my I think she dealt with some like older patients and she's like a lot of these people don't have much money, so they're like yeah, like I'll go to fish's and get a giant cheeseburger because it's like there's more calories.
Speaker 1:You know like it's I have to make this money last and that's that's crazy right it's kind of all that food, desert stuff, you know yeah and I'm and I'm guessing, like as far as diet and exercise, I'm guessing just goes against our programming too much like we are. We are programmed to consume calories and not burn them as much as we can to survive yeah unfortunately, modern society, like you know isn't, isn't hunting in the woods anymore and hunting and gathering, you know, that's right, yeah so now, now we have, not only does it like go against our programming, but we have entities that benefit by selling us as much, and so they've learned how to make things as tasty as possible.
Speaker 1:Like they know that right combination of salt, fat, sugar and acid or whatever. Oh, that's right. I resent that I cannot buy a bag of Doritos and have it in my house and know that I will be disciplined enough not to eat it throughout the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my mom can have cookies around, and when I visit her it's like it's just every time I pass the that area of the house I'm just like I'll have a cookie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just one, just like single time it's like, oh, where the bag goes oh, I had you know, I walked around the house, which is good for my steps.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, not so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it is wild. Well, we were officially the longest podcast. I just checked the time for the first time Nice and we're trucking Sick. Hey man, Thanks a lot for coming on the pod.
Speaker 2:This has been a blast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was great. Thanks for.
Speaker 1:Cool, have a good one. Thanks, man Bye. Thank you, lars, for coming on to the cast. It was an absolute blast to catch up and hear about your journey since sixth grade. Thank you to everyone for tuning in. I appreciate you all. Keep the feedback coming. For an easy way to send feedback, please check out the show notes for this episode. There's a link that lets you send a text. Until next time, take care.
