NZXT PODCAST - #070 - Kenneth

Episode Date: December 17, 2020

This week on the podcast, we are joined by Kenneth from our support team! Kenneth and the crew discuss his team, taking over the company, and morning routines. Follow Kenneth on Instagram: instagram.com/Kenneth.rose.photo/ Listen live to the NZXT 💜 CLUB CAST on our Discord server at discord.gg/nzxt every Thursday at 10AM PT and submit your questions to [e-mail]! Thanks to Pikastan#5574 for the artwork!

Welcome to episode 70, the NZC Clubcast, the official podcast of the NXT community. This podcast is recorded live every Thursday at 10 a 10-N-Pacific Center time with the official NZT Discord server and is available to stream on demand on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. So don't forget to bump this podcast in your mayonnaise colored bands. We call those Miracle Whips. My name is Dennis. With me as always. Well, actually, not always. I've been taking a break again today.

He's a very, very busy man. But we have a very special guest. Today's special guest is Kenneth from the customer service team. How are you doing, Ken? Not bad yourself. Doing great. Is it Ken or Kenneth or Kenny? You know, it's, I, what's appropriate one?

I say, you know, it's Ken, Kenny, Kenneth, and pick one and stick with it. Pretty sure I go by Ken, you know, in the NXC server, but Kenneth pretty much everywhere else. So it really depends, yeah. Okay. What if I called you Kung Fu Ken? Is that fine? You know, we'll go with it. We'll go with it.

Kung Fu Kenny. Also, I was holding back laughter with the mayonnaise comment earlier. I just hope you know. I just hope you know that. Just so you know, I'm not as smart as people think I am. That's not original. I totally stole that. But I think it's okay.

I think the core demographic for this podcast doesn't know where that comes from. And I'm totally okay if they don't. Copy success. Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, it's what's that phrase? Was it Shakespeare or something? It's like a good artist, imitate great artist steel or something like that. Yes.

I think it's a good, something like that. Anyway, I have no idea. I just said yes, because it sounded great. The idea is that like nothing is really original in this world. So just like Jack, whatever you can, whatever sounds good, right? So I think, yeah, I don't think anyone will really care. How are you doing any, man? How are you feeling?

You know, it's a lot. it's holiday season and a pandemic. So, you know, as well as I can. Doing good, doing good. What does what does a holiday during a pandemic look like to you? Lots of tickets. Lots of, lots of order status questions. If you, if you ordered a BLDPC before Black Friday, you know, you would have, you would have got it in like a day or two.

Right. And then the shipping method, well, it would have been shipping. out in it there too. Yeah, yeah. Like whatever shipping method, but now it's like a couple weeks. And, uh, you know, that's, there's a lot of people who, you know, even, there was even a banner on our site and, and I don't, you know, that I'm sure most people understand and have seen that before they make orders, but yeah, there's, there's some people who, uh, you know,

don't. Right. Don't. So. Yeah. Um, I, um, yeah, I was, I was answering someone's question the other day. I think it was on Facebook DMs or something. and they're like, I heard of my computer like three days ago.

And it's not here yet. I'm like, well, there's a banner website that says it's going to be like two weeks. So I'm going to get it for Christmas. I'm like, I'm like, contact support, dude. Like, I can't tell you. I have to feel those hard questions. Yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, it's like, all I can give you is the information that is on the website,

anything else. I don't, you know, they don't trust me to do it. So ask the experts. You know, that's why they get paid to, to, you know, to answer those questions, not me. It's funny. You know, Chesa Call Ivan says, I'm just the mailman, right? I just, uh, I just direct people or direct the mail where it needs to go.

I don't really know what's the type of. Yeah, I feel that. It's like, it's like if I went up to the mailman and I'm like, why did he get a bill from AT&T? And he's like, bro, I have no idea who in T&T is. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. So, Ken, for, for those who don't know, um, yes.

You've been in the community for, for a good while now, actually. Um, it's always nice seeing you in, in. in chat. What is your official position at NZXT? My official position is customer service specialist, uh, one right now. So is that, is that better than two or is that like, like what's the tiering? Is you know how how sometimes like number one is like is like the top dog. Yeah. So one and two that when I got hired, they didn't have a tiered system. Um, and so essentially what has happened now is a lot of the, uh, the easier stuff.

you know, order statuses, order changes, things like that, they get put into tier one. And things like technical troubleshooting, RMA requests, things like that gets puts into tier two. Okay, okay. And I'm just going to say right now, just based on volume of stuff, I guess I can say this. I turned down a promotion like a couple times already just because of, you know, just the sheer volume of stuff that I see back here is like I'm just waiting. until after the holidays, you know, maybe something, something will come up and, and I'll, and I'll be feeling it, but. Maybe one day, right?

Maybe one day. Yeah, yeah. But I was, you know, I was doing tier two stuff, technical troubleshooting and, and, you know, Armays and all that when I got hired. But it was, there was, there came a point where, you know, it got so busy that we're like, look, we need more people and we need to split this up into, you know, tiered system. And it's, you know, we're growing, you know. Yeah, no, for sure.

is growing faster than I feel, you know, it's bursting at the seams I feel sometimes. Yeah, I am of the mind and you're going to hate me hearing this. I don't think it's ever going to get like, quote, unquote, back to normal because we've grown so much, right, just like this year alone, right? We first off, I was just saying this to some of the people in the marketing team. We've been like incredibly blessed to still have jobs, right? Because there's a lot of people right now who just aren't even working. Exactly.

Like, you know, if you're in the, in the tech and the gaming space and, like, any of these spaces that are, like, necessary for people to kind of get connected, you're, you're super lucky, right? Like, like, we still have jobs. We're still working. So, like, number one, this is, like, the best thing ever, right? Like, we're, we definitely dodged a ton of bullets in that respect. Oh, yeah. No. But I think because of, like, the amount of, like, I mean, it's no secret, right?

Like, we're selling a lot, right? Like, I mean, we, we had, like, order issues during, like, Black Friday where people couldn't get their computers. I don't think I've ever seen. I don't think I would have ever seen the day where we're like, yep, no more pre-bilts. They're just, they're gone. Like, what? Yep, we don't have no more to sell. We just sold too many.

Yeah. So, yeah, and I was, I was talking to someone and they were like, wow, it seems like you guys have like a lot of issues on your social media. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, yeah, you know, like everyone's complaining. It's like, well, you know, it's like if we sold 100 computers and one percent of those, which is one person complained. And now we're selling like 2,000 computers.

And, you know, that same 1% is just like, you know, that much bigger. Like, we're going to. get more complaints no matter what, right? And it's like, you see this with like any company, you know, like Razor, Corsair, Steel Series, like the bigger the company is, the more people complain just in the, like, on Twitter mentions, as opposed to go in through like the appropriate channels. It's like, listen, like, I'm just a Twitter person. I can, I can link you the support chat, but that's literally all I can do. Like, I'm not going to sit down and like troubleshoot via like Twitter mentions your computer. I probably could because like, I used to work and like tech

support myself, but I'm not going to do that. It's not the place for it. But I think, I think just like due to the to the amount of people we sold computers to we now have a much wider, much bigger customer base, probably much much more diverse too. And I think I think those questions aren't going to stop. I think we're still going to have a bunch of people coming to the CS team for help and recommendations and so and so forth. So I think I don't think it's ever going to get better better in the sense that it's not going back to to normal Canada. I'm sorry to tell you dude. You better do that promotion.

I think you're right on that to a certain extent. Yeah. I don't know. I'm scared now. He's scared. Depends on the industry. I am scared. I am scared.

But now, I mean, there's busy seasons and slow seasons. Oh, for sure. But yeah, no, definitely a lot of things have changed because of COVID-19. and I feel like, yeah, I definitely agree with what you're saying that there won't be ever back to normal. It's just going to keep chugging on, but maybe with some changes and such. Right. Sorry, hold up here. I'm going to, my computer's being really funky right now.

It happens. Live recording, folks. We do record this podcast live. We live. Yeah. So next question, Ken, what does your daily work routine look like? You get up in the morning. I'm assuming is your coffee and or tea.

What do you do? Well, I really should be better about this. But I mean, since I work from home, really you can, you know, sleep until five minutes before you have to clock in. So I can either confirm or deny that that's been my daily schedule for a little bit. But, you know, turn on my PC and. you know, boot up all the things that I need to. And I'm on, I'm usually on phones in the morning.

So that's what I'll do. I'll just, you know, hop on phones. So I, some days I can literally, you know, within five minutes of waking up, be talking to a customer, you know, halfway across the country. So kind of cool in that respect. Uh-huh. I think, I think I'd do the same thing as well. I'm trying to think. So like I usually, so I start my day at 9 o'clock.

because I'm usually up doing all kinds of other stuff. Not including playing video games, right? But like I think like Mondays and Fridays are the days where I wake up quote or quote early because I have a meeting like right like right as soon as we start. As opposed to everything else, I can just like lay in bed, scroll through Twitter, scroll through Facebook, scroll through Instagram. I'm going to like, you know, get my bearings and like what people are talking about. You know, hopefully I didn't miss anything.

Hopefully we didn't post like a tweet or something the night before. And like I'm just like now seeing like the, the, the anger from it or something. But yeah, those days, I literally just like, okay, meeting time, roll over, get on my phone, do the Zoom meeting from my phone, get ready, and then hop on the computer while I'm grabbing my coffee. It's pretty sweet. You know, it's a real thing that work from home life, though.

Yeah, it's weird to you because like I remember, you know, it's like you had to get up so early to drive into the office and then you're in the office a little bit and then you go back home. It's like, I want to pretend like that whole chunk of time has come back to me, but I don't think it has and I don't know where it went. Exactly. Yeah, I feel like I didn't even get that time back, you know, with sleep. I'm staying up later because I can, you know, and that's never, I used to plan for a commute. And now my commute is from my bed to my computer.

So, you know. I just, well, my commute starts from the bed to the rest of, right because we want to schedule here right and then from the restroom to the kitchen to make coffee right and then from there it's to the computer um so that's so that's my daily routine uh morning wise okay so you wake up literally 30 seconds before you clock into work what happens then um talk to customers you know i i again you know pull up everything i need to get all my resources I have two screens. So, you know, I like to have one screen dedicated to sort of my messaging tools

and another screen dedicated to kind of work stuff that I need to look at. Right. And, you know, just clock in on phones, you know, while I'm doing, while I'm doing that, you know, I don't know. I don't know. What do you do all day, Ken? What do you do all day? Yeah, what do I do? People are probably wondering, you know, what does, what does Ken do?

It's always funny when you ask someone like what they do and like they know, but they don't know how to articulate it. So you're like, exactly. It's like, do you work. No, I do work for sure. I promise I do. I do. I don't know what to say. I do.

I just, I just don't know how to explain to you the things that I get paid to do. That's funny. No, I mean, you know, just on phones. And then, you know, we have different, so different shifts and things in customer service. So I'll be on a phone shift for a couple hours, and then I might do a couple hours of tickets or a couple hours of live chats. It just depends.

But I've been on a pretty set schedule for the last couple of months. So I'm kind of in my jam, in my groove as far as that goes. So for those who want to maybe get a hold of Ken, what's the best time on getting it? If you want to directly bug Ken, I knew this would come up. I knew this would come up. And I was prepared to answer this.

No, don't. Please, please don't. I don't want people bugging you. I, so, you know,

I, the cat's already out of the bag here. And, uh, I don't know. Um, real quick, if you can just do me a quick favor and,

uh, check your slack. Um, I'll get your next question rolled up here. Don't forget, folks, we do, um,

we do take live questions at the end of the show. Also, if you want to email the show, please send an email to Clubcast at NZXT.com. That's C-L-U-B-C-A-S-T at N-Z-T.com. We do read all the emails on air, except for the marketing one. So I don't know where people are getting this email from, but I'm getting a bunch of emails on the Clubcast email regarding, like, fake, like,

partnership or something. Like, for example, or Ken's reading his message, Dear NSXT Club, I just came to be back in my place of work and I passed inside of your SoundCloud prof. And I want to say, I really relish the content you got there. I hope I'm not bothering by texting you. I just thought you deserve more attention and might need a hand on your profile. And first off, I'm like, oh, that's a very nice email, a little oddly written, but, you know, I'm down.

So I want to propose to you this video site, and it's like some weird app, some super weird website for SoundCloud that improved me with my lifestyle, bring up movement and engagement by increasing more. I'm like, all right, this is not the email I'm looking for, but. But we get a lot of those. All right, Ken, how did you, how did you, how long have you a bit at NZXT? So I knew, I knew you were going to ask this, too, because I heard previous ones. As you should. I think it was like 288 days. I did the math like yesterday.

And so that's about eight months. Okay. For doing in months. So. All right. And what did you do before in Zex? you know I've been I've been a couple places a man of the world I mean you know it's it's not like a jack of all trades thing but I've done several different industries I'm not like you know one man one one industry one one deal I actually am a veteran as well of the US Air Force so you know came back from the Air Force and you know got back into sort of a customer service IT kind of role kind of jobs like that and it's kind of interesting how I got hired from NGXT, actually.

I kind of moved to L.A. without a plan. I'm from Utah. So one day I just kind of decided I was going to move to California and, you know, headed to L.A. And I didn't have a plan. You know, I just started applying for jobs. I just, you know, that kind of thing. Right. And I saw NCXC was hiring

And I had previously built with the with the NZXT 340 S340 case Okay, okay And I never should have sold that bill But I loved that thing. I had like a 30, I had like a 1070 in it at the time and Yeah, it was, you know,

it was a good PC at the time, but I had to sell it because I was actually going overseas In the military. And then so anyways, had heard of NZXT before and had really liked their case that I built in. And I was like, oh, wow, you know, maybe it'd be really cool to work for them. And then, you know, I got an email back. They asked for a time for an interview.

And, you know, I'd pack my, I'd pack my, uh, my suit and everything. And so I literally did a, did a like a Google Hangouts interview in a, in a hotel I was staying at in my, in my suit. That is nuts. And that's how I got hired. Who did you interview with? It was Josh and Dom and I think Dakota, maybe one other person, but I think it was at least those three. What were your first impressions of each of them?

They were good. I thought they were, you know, they asked good questions to kind of get to know a candidate. And it really, I didn't, you know, it's one of those things you don't, you can't really tell a whole lot about. a person until you've met them or talked with them for a certain amount of time. But it wasn't uncomfortable and it wasn't like they were, you know, they just, they just genuinely felt like a conversation like they were just trying to get to know me. And it was cool. It was cool.

All right, all right. And what was the hardest part of the interview? I wouldn't even say there was a hard part. And look at you. Humble brag, let's go. I've been trying to brag or anything. I've been in the PC hardware kind of, it's kind of been a hobby of mine for years.

And so maybe what you could have been considered the hardest part would be like, they asked me like a technical troubleshooting question, and I kind of just went through my thought process on that. And, you know, I think the question was, so a customer calls in and their PC won't turn on, what do you do, you know, kind of thing? What can you do? It's kind of a 90 mile per hour fastball, you know, thrown at my face.

And it was like, okay, well, you know, I didn't say it at the time because I had never run into this problem before. They, you know, spoiler alert, the end of the, the end of the question ended up being, well, it might be a RAM receipt. You know, you might have to receipt your RAM. So, but I went through and I started from the ground up. I was like, okay, well, do they have the PC plugged in, you know, is the, is the, the power outlet known known for having good power you know I like from A to B I kind of just step through my thought process um on it and and anyways yeah it ended up being like a or it might be a RAM receipt and I'm like oh yeah it could be that and so but then they asked another

question too I thought it was really weird it was like so um how would you make a sandwich and I'm like what I had to ask her clarification I'm like hang on what someone googled hard to interview questions I think and there's like hey this is a good idea Yeah, exactly. Somebody was like Googling interview questions probably, but apparently it shows how well, like what your thought process is on like how deep, how in depth you are on troubleshooting. That makes sense. If you just say like, oh, a ham sandwich, you know, I'll just make a ham sandwich, right? Yeah, like, okay, well, how would you make it? You know, I was like, well, I'd just make it instead of I don't want to say my answer because it sounds dumb. But anyways, I just, I just like listed out every single ingredient on my favorite subway sandwich. And it was just they started laughing because they're like, hold up, hold up. All right. Hold up. Alan wants to know, how would you make a sandwich?

What is your. How would I make a sandwich? What is your subway sandwich order first off? I want to know what this sandwich looks like. All right, all right. So it depends on how hungry I am, you know, six hundred foot long. Okay. Get a side of the size.

Okay. Got it. I was love getting. So I used to work at Subway, too, right? So I'd see some weird orders. And I found out what, what orders like that I'd, love. And so my favorite order was like a spicy Italian, right?

So you get that. You get that pepperoni and you get that salami, right? So I'd get it on Italian urban cheese bread. I'd get spicy Italian. I'd get it toasted with pepperjack cheese. And then I'd do spinach, tomato, and I would do cucumber, olives. I would do oil and vinegar. salt and pepper and parmesan cheese and that is my absolute favorite sandwich all right all right i'm down

i'm down for it i'm i'm i'm a fan honestly of just like a really good simple club sandwich i don't need anything more i don't need anything fancy you know the the the you know the bacon the ham the turkey um but it has to be on sourdough has to be on sourdough bread and unfortunately i i can't find a good place that makes a good club sandwich anymore like you have these places like like like like Mike's and Jimmy Johns and whatever but there's this place that go to called a submarine and the hell of it down the street for me

and they shut it down and that place made I think the best club sandwich ever had their mayo and their mustard game was on point the bacon was always crispy but not like burnt right and just everything tastes it's super fresh and I don't know I don't know where to get a good club sandwich anymore like I'm legitimately distraught like my life was destroyed no

Because because like there's there's nothing like just like a good. This is my type of order sandwich, you know? Like it just hits different. I can't ever say I've had a club sandwich with a set with sourdough though. That sounds like that honestly sounds pretty good. Sardot is the best spread out there, man. I don't care. No one says sourdough is the best spread out there.

Don't ant me with that. Please and thank you. Okay. So continuing on. What's your favorite thing about working in support? Favorite thing? I honestly, so I've been, like I said before, I've kind of been in the PC hardware industry as like a hobby for a while. My favorite thing is kind of people who are like, hey, I don't really know how to do this or what this is.

Can you help me with that or can you explain maybe or point me into the right direction, things like that? I always love taking people on that same PC hardware journey that I've been through. And that kind of is really satisfying to me as like a mentor or like a guide as like, you know, what's what's new in the industry. Some people are, you know, have built PCs but they were like their knowledge is kind of outdated, you know, things like that. So that's kind of like the favorite, my favorite aspect of the job is kind of, you know, taking people along that that same path that I've walked.

whether that be, you know, telling them to Google something so they can see a picture of it or, you know, telling them, you know, what I think about certain products or things that I've noticed about certain things. And I know it would be kind of general and vague, but it's, it really, there's, there's so much to learn about PC hardware. And it's, it's really, you could focus on one aspect of it. And it's, it's a really deep rabbit hole. so no I'm kind of the same way when I used to work in in in tech support so I used to work at Staples easy tech I was one of those kids yeah so um the majority of work is really is like you just throw in like a thumb drive and run some tools to like clean someone's computer with like you know with like viruses or whatever but every now and then we get someone who needed like a new power

supply or they need like a new a new like a cooler for their for their CPU or something. And it was always really fun to kind of like get in there and like diagnose the issue and then like fix it. Right. It kind of speaks like a certain part of my brain that kind of like likes to tinker with stuff. But like I'm getting paid to do it, you know? Yeah.

And like sometimes, right, someone will like send us a DM and I'm like, yeah, I got five minutes. I can figure this out. Right. Let me save you guys the time here and support. I'll just, I'll just deal myself. Right. Because you know like.

Home you come through. Yeah. because like, you know, you work with computers long enough. And this is what, like, I always recommend people. If they don't know anything about computers and they're scared to build one, build, build one first, grab a pre-built. And then once it starts to break down, just fix it yourself, right? Just start Googling how to fix this, how to fix that.

That's really the best way to learn. I think just going in, like, just like, diving right in is always great. But some people legit can't, like, you know, you don't want to do that. But I think, like, if you get something working to start and then you can kind of like do a little bit like you know there's like a little bit of stuff here and there um i think you know i think i think i think it helps you learn a lot a lot better yeah absolutely also uh tarrapin and be in the chat i do help people sometimes right not all the time because i don't always have the time but every now and then right i'll get i'll get like that little it's where

i just want to provide some like you know some some some bank uh n zx t level customer service and you know i'll i'll do the best help out but i always end it with you know but by the way I'm not on a support team. I'm as a social media person. So if this doesn't work, please contact support so then they can help you. Because like, you know, because like that's, that's like your guys's literal job, right? Like I honestly would love, no lie. I would love to do support stuff because like I really do like helping people out.

Like believe it or not, I know people see me like some kind of big jerk or something, but actually legitimately like helping out customers. Like I, I, I, my, my first job was working as he's candies and that like kind of at this really like just stable foundation for customer service for me because as these candies, the customer is literally never wrong. Right. Like you can literally and not using this in any like hyperbolic manner, you can actually buy a box of chocolates, eat half of it, have ants infest the other half, take it in the disease canies.

He'd be like, yo, I don't like this no more. And they'd be like, oh, sorry about that. Here, we'll give you another box. Yeah. They legit don't care. and like they always teach you know that that like every customer matters right it doesn't matter if you're buying a hundred dollar box if you're kid with like a dollar and you just want to buy like a couple of chocolates right which is like to me it's always funny when people like yell at us and like mentions yo i spent two thousand dollars i'm like i don't care how much you spend i don't care if you bought the six and a name pre-bill or if you bought the creator for like $3,500 or however much it is that doesn't matter to me every customer is equal in my mind is the the only thing that will dictate how much I care about you is like your level of careness, right? And everyone has a little bit of Karen in them, right?

I mean, this will be real. Something, you buy something that doesn't work, right? You're going to get a little caring about it. But at the same time, what are you going to yell at the person who's on who's on Twitter? Why are you going to yell at poor Ken who's, you know, in like live calls with you? He didn't make your computer. He's just trying to help you fix it.

I'm going to run now. Just doing my best out here in 2020. I'm going to rant now. Let's move on. No, you're good. What's your least favorite thing about working in support? Next question. least favorite thing about organ and support oh man um i think that covered it though i mean

you're honestly like it's it's it's only so if you think about it in in the context that you said earlier right like you have one percent of the people that call in or texting or even have an issue you know of that percentage there's an even smaller percentage that you know whatever you do, whatever you offer, whatever you, whatever troubleshooting you provide, they just, they just don't like it. They just don't understand. They don't, they don't want it. They don't, it's like you give them a solution and, and they're like, no, I want to be mad. And you're like, well, okay, but can you like be mad at like not me, you know? Oh, I like that. Don't be a Karen, be a Ken. That's funny.

No, but it's true though, right? There are some people who just literally, who just no matter what you offer them, they will never be happy, right? And I remember when I used to work in a customer service, customer-facing role that one, like, person just being like just nice to you can make your entire day. And then conversely, one person who's just like a real big jerk

and kind of like set the tone for the entire day, right? It's really funny. It's really funny because, like, you know, we always say, you know, like, oh, you know, they're just this and that, just people, right? But there's like, there's like a certain bit to it where like, you know, one like old nice lady saying, thank you so much young man. You're like, I am a nice young man. Thanks.

I really appreciate that. Yeah, even just this morning, I had a call. And he was like, wow, dude, like, because I knew what his issue was like before he even said it. And I'm like, and I just, I don't know. He was like, wow. You're like, you're like, you're really good at your job. And I'm like, oh, like, thank you. Like, being support, you know, you don't hear the good stuff.

lot of the time. And that was just, it made my day because it was like, yeah, all right. Yeah. Yeah, it's basically what B says, right? CS agents are people. And if you are nice to us, we will think about you all day because that stuff means a lot. 100%. Yeah. It's a.

I still remember nice people from like six months ago. Dude, I still remember people who are nice to me from like six years ago. No lie. Every now then I'll just be like sitting there, not even like working. and I'll just think about, oh, I remember that one time, that one old lady said this or that, and then we feel really good. I'm just hold on this feeling for a minute because I know it's going to go away. If I could bottle those feelings, I definitely would.

That would be, you know, like in Call Duty zombies or something, you know, let me just get this. Let me just get this juggernaug, you know, drink the little, some extra health. I could just have a, you know, bottled up happiness. be great. All right. All right, Ken. What is your favorite NZXT product? Favorite NZT product that I've used or that I that that I that I am ogling just just in general in general. What's your favorite NZXT product? In general. You know I so I have I I love aesthetics. And when the when the NZXT H1 came out, I was actually like, super excited.

It's still a dope case. It's still a dope case. I mean, you know, it's cool looking. It's, it's, I don't, I don't know of anybody else on the market besides like, uh, maybe fractal who has a case that I'd be that would be compared like a mini ITX case, you know, that looks as cool as that. Um, I don't know, S340s are cool too. If I'm talking about cases, you know, S340s, uh, the H710 I, what I currently have.

Um, I just, I just traded, I just changed over from my H3. one build, but I was going to say favorite NZXC product, I'd probably have to say to H1. Okay. Just on the looks alone. So. Nice, nice. What's your, what's your least favorite NXT product and be honest? Anything that starts with Hugh.

Yeah, I think, I think RGB in general is probably one of the more frustrating, um, technologies out there, just in general, right? Just in general. Yeah. because it's like this very well-mashed together blend of software and hardware, and it's always hard to get those two good, like, working together, right? Right. For one reason or another, right?

It's just either hardware capabilities or, you know, I don't know, power or all kinds of stuff. I know that, like, before I started working here, I've never once had to deal with, like, RGB once in my life. It was just like, either it's on my keyboard or it's not. That's really all it was. And then I started working here. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to get an NZXT case.

Let me get the RGP fans. I'm going to get the strips, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, man, like, I don't know how any stuff plugs in. The first time I did a cooler, first time I did like a cracking cooler, I was so confused. I had no idea how that thing plugged in because I've never seen one before. I've always used like air coolers, right? I was, I was part of the Hyper 212 squad for the longest time. Hyper 212.

It's a good cooler, dude. People talk a lot of snout, but it's like 40 bucks. And like, it does everything you need to do. And then the Hyper T2 as well. Like, yeah, that's, I mean, it's, it's the best probably budget air cooler you can buy. And if you were to step up from that, you get like a knock to a cooler or something. But yeah, Hyper 212. I always recommend that if you're going to go air cooling.

Yeah. It's like a starter if you don't care about RGB and everything. Yeah, like what else do you need, right? Like, it's a giant block with fins and you slap some fans on it. You're good to go. Exactly. Easy, yeah. Which actually makes you happy that like the, uh,

the stock AMD coolers actually pretty decent from what I saw. Yeah, the race coolers. Yeah, they're pretty good. They're pretty good. Can I make someone to grab one? I just don't like having to use motherboard software to do any kind of

RGB stuff. It's always a pain. Yeah. That software is, it's just not good to deal with. Yeah. I have a, I have some RGB, I think, ballistics RAM, and I think it's crucial.

And the software I have to use for it is, I used it once a change the color, and then I turned it off because it breaks stuff. Having that software open doesn't make my computer happy. Yeah. No, I have the same thing with my RAM RGB software. I don't even remember what it is at this point because I just turned it off and I don't even care about it anymore because it's just,

it's so difficult sometimes to get it to do what you want. It's honestly the worst. Like I don't know what it is with RGB RAM or just motherboard software in general. It must be really hard to like, to program at that low level like hardware type of deal. But I've, I've almost,

yeah, I feel you there. Yeah. I think it's why we're making us a very slow but gradual move into supporting more and more RGB stuff in the CAM software. Because what we do,

AOR sync now, right? And I think that, I think that, that the more we, we start supporting that, the less we'll have to worry about those kinds of things.

let's see here this is a good question okay what would you like to see nzxte make any product in the world we got it okay so you know you know supreme right

like supreme has some drops they got some random stuff they got the supreme brick you know they made a brick and they put a supreme logo I think ncxte should do a brick with with nzxte on it brick zxte I like it

yes but it has to be a purple brick right it has to be a purple brick right it has to be purple brick, but yes, I would, I would pay, I would pay at a ridiculous amount of money for a purple NZT brick. Can you make a purple brick? I mean, as Google purple bricks. Purple bricks, I'd say agents, no. If you can make a red brick, you can make a purple brick. Well, I think red might be like a more of a more of a natural occurring color and like, yeah, you're right.

Rock and stuff. But food growing exists, right? I mean, even paint. I mean, heck, I'd still buy an NZXT painted brick. Like, come on. We got, we got, we got a problem with, let's, we're coming up with The solution, let's get this out there. The solution is a brick. The solution is the brick, dude. 100%. All right. And the final question is, do you have a special shout out for anyone or any group in the company?

Yes. So first of all, I'd like to thank Josh Jay for allowing me to be on this podcast. I know we're pretty busy. So thanks, Dad. Thanks. I appreciate that. If I was going to pull out anyone in the CS team, it'd be the whole CS team. So I know it's kind of a cop out, but I'm literally pulling up on my phone like the schedule because I know we just keep adding people and there's some new people I haven't met yet.

So I think I'm just going to list off a couple people that I feel like, you know, that I've worked with closely for, you know, for a while. and maybe give him a shout out. So if we're, if we're separating it by tiers, maybe tier one, you know, we got,

we got Eli, we got Matt, we got Hope, we got Jorge, we got Edny. Mike is, I'm sorry, I don't really know you that well.

I'm sure you're great. We got Sky. Same thing with Sophia, kind of a newer person. I'm sorry, I don't know you that well, but I'm sure I'll get to know you. You know,

we got we got moses um he actually used to work at razor so he's cool um we got we got angie um tier two uh you know we got vivian we got vega uh we got i'm sorry arthur arturo i'm really sorry i don't know you i really need to get to know some of these some of some of our newer folks in uh ncs but um we got jonathan we got matthew k uh we got jack we got jules we got Juan and we got Shelby and Calvin so you know that's I'm done now so you can you can you can listen now no shoutouts for the leads right because shoutouts for the leads no yeah we got Sergio we got we got Dakota we got Josh yeah 100% I I've I don't I don't think I've had a bad experience with almost with with like anyone I've worked with so and that's really hard to say

just, you know, with all the, with the amount of people that we have. Did I say Vega? I said Vega, right? I better have said Vega. This guy wants to know why you're not acknowledging the Germans. Okay. I'm just, I'm pretty sure I said Vega. I don't, you know, I've worked side by side with him for probably the longest.

So if anything, Vega, Vega already knows. If I didn't shout him out, Vega knows. If you know, you know. So. If you don't know, all you know, homie. That's funny. But yeah, I mean, you know,

that's, that was probably the longest shadow ever, but I mean, you know, I feel like people deserve to be recognized. Also, Stephen from RMA, Ricky from RMA, Andrew from RMA. Right.

You know, even Gina. I feel like nobody knows who Gina is, but Gina's my homie. So ask, ask Vega about it. He knows. but yeah

I don't know I've you know interacted with a lot of people in this company so far and looking forward to interacting with more heck even Helen from HR is

you know like Helen is super cool like Helen and Melinda yeah like the dream team right there so but yeah it is it is all good all is good in the in the NZXT

people world as far as I'm concerned. All right, all right. So next, I got some fun questions for you. And these questions, you do not know. They've not appeared anywhere on the podcast before. I am ready. I love this.

All right. Number one question, right? And I asked some people who know more than I do for some specific questions. First one is, what is it like being hopes slash bees desk buddy? Oh, I love it. honestly we go back and forth like hopefully like ask me this question that I might know because I worked there a little bit longer because I got hired a bit before she did and like I'll ask her things about like things she might know like there was this one time I she got like these desk

plants and it was really cool and I wanted one and so like I got one and I was like asking her questions this is a long time ago so I don't remember exactly kind of what happened but I I had a little desk plant at one point in time. Next question is, why didn't you save Hope snacks from the RMA team? Because Red Bull is delicious and I'm sorry. I feel so bad because she tells the story all the time. Yeah. And like in voice chats and that she like I think we were in the office for maybe like a week or two.

We were going to do like some like on off like work. at the office, right? And then, like, you know, just like, chill at home or whatever. Um, and, uh, I think, like, I helped her put some stuff into the office. And I think maybe we spent me one or two weeks in the office before like they had like a harder, harder lockdown. And we're like, now let's just, it's just all of us like everyone as much we can't stay from home. Um, so yeah. I don't think she's been to the office since then. And, uh, I think she was like, super worried about her snacks. Yeah. And, and that's the thing is like, um, Stephen felt bad too.

So I remember Stephen came in one time and he got like, he took a bunch of red bulls and snacks and whatnot. But Stephen's the homie. So Stephen replaced the snacks. Oh, did it really? That's great. He did. He did. And yeah, I feel bad about the Red Bulls I've taken because Hope was always like super chill about it.

You know, she'd be like, you can take whatever you want and it's here for the office. And the first day she got hired, she brought like some. I can't remember what it was like donuts or something. but I don't know I was like I was like wow like Hope is the homie hope is coming through with snacks like it was it was a happy day

it was a happy day in the office when that happened but yeah I felt bad about the amount of Red Bulls I drank after after Hope started working from home and I was still at the office we're not gonna we're not gonna throw a number out because it's embarrassing to be fair I'm mostly just salty because I never got a chance of this

snack so. It's okay. I'll buy you a Red Bull, Dennis. I'll buy you a Red Bull. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Buy you three Red Bulls. Why three?

That's so many. I can barely do one before I can start exploding. I can't do anymore. All right. So we got some pin questions here from the community to forget, guys. You can ask your questions live. If you are not listening live, you can send an email to Clubcast at N-X-T.com. That is Clubcast, C-L-U-B-C-A-S-T at N-S-T.

dot com. First question is from Sky. Ken, who's your favorite in CS and why is it me? Can I? I really do not know how to answer this one. All right. Next question is from...

Do they all need an answer? Can I do like pass or skip or something? You can definitely pass if you want to. All right. I'm passing that one. I'm passing that one. Hard pass. All right.

Next question. This is from Mary Kim Miss. official position being a single chicken nugget. What is your position on being a chicken nugget? What is my position? I'm sorry. I don't understand the question. What is your position?

What is your opinion on being a chicken nugget? A single chicken nugget? Well, you know, it's better than being two chicken nuggets. Because, you know, I mean, I like being, you know, contained into one piece of meat rather than two. so don't we all like being contained to one piece of meat and also breading all right this one's from Tittmiss

I don't know why he's asking this I guess I'm annoying but on a scale of 1 to 20 how annoying is Den one being extremely annoying plenty being he doesn't let you sleep at night nah I don't I don't even think Den's on that scale I mean we were just talking before the podcast and it felt like I was talking with an old friend

so you know that's that's a ridiculous question whoever asked that you call me old dude you get bonged I'm not that old bro All right. Jayden wants to know. Oh, okay. I see what you say.

Jayden wants to know. My question to Ken is, do you like anime? If you do, what are your favorites? Yes, I do. I do enjoy anime. I'm pretty new to the anime space. So probably my, the ones that I have watched are going to be like, oh, wow, you don't really watch anime, man.

But I've watched one punch man. I like Attack on Titan. There's this one I like called. or on high school host club. That's an OG dude. Yeah, dude, I don't know. There's a couple ones like that. I'm trying to get into like, oh, my all-time favorite,

all-time favorite one was SAO, so Sword Art Online, in case for those of you who haven't heard that one, please watch that one. It is worth your time. So. I'm a hard-passing sword art. I'm sorry, dude. I can't watch Sword Art.

Oh, dude. Okay, see, and this is where it might diverge, you know, somebody would be like, oh, that's a trash anime, but I liked it. So to be fair, to be fair, all anime is trash, right? I think the medium kind of like survives on like really like super campiness, but we enjoy it because of that, right? Because we don't take it as seriously. Exactly.

It elicits feelings that you wouldn't get otherwise. So I think at the end of the day, you know, you're going to like what you're going to like. And, you know, that's how it is. So those are my anime recommendations. They're kind of noob ones, but I think they're cool. Anyways, it works. Trying to look into like my hero academia or something, but I don't know yet. All right.

Minnie Cuddle wants to know. Ken, the power light ring on my H510 elite keeps flickering. Is it broken? Submit a support ticket. Please don't for that. It just means your computer's thinking. Like, that's the kind of stuff that I can answer. insert and like a DM really easily, right?

It's like, hey, my, my light's flickering. Like, yeah, that's the HD indicator. Like, says that your hard drive is doing stuff. Oh, it's annoying how I turn it off. Unplug the cable from the motherboard. And the little adapter cable comes with your H510 accessory box. You need to consult your motherboard documentation, though, as to how it plugs in there. But I've done that with almost any, with every NXT case I've had just because, like, I'm not a hard drive.

I'm not a hard drive activity indicator light person. Who is a hard drive activity indicator light kind of person? I don't know. I feel like that's a carryover from like computers from 2009, but that could be just me. Yeah, that's when the logo or like the icon for the for the light was like a cylinder. Yeah. For whatever reason, they decided a hard drive is a cylinder even though I've never seen a circular hard drive before. It didn't even look like a spinning disc or anything at the time.

It was like the little cylinder. It's like a thick disc, I guess, or something. Yeah, but why would it be a cylinder? Like, if anything, it's going to be like a CD-looking icon or something. But I don't know. The save icon on Adobe products is still a floppy disk. So, you know, go figure. Yeah, now I'm looking for a picture of that icon right now to see if I can show people.

Because I feel like some of the kids in here might actually not know what that. Oh, no, that's crazy. I still can't believe people don't know what a floppy disc is sometimes. Oh, here you go. Don't copy that floppy. Here, check us out. This is it right here. So it's on the left side.

Sorry if you're not listening live. This is a great radio, by the way. On the left side, this is only for the people listen. That left icon is the hard drive indicator light. The hard drive activity indicator light. No idea why it is a thick boy cylinder, but it is. All right. Next.

Sky wants to know when are you coming back so he can do photography things soon actually planning on heading down to Cali for sort of a new year's type of deal so soon right next is from director who's your best buddy at work best buddy at work or Comey I don't feel like I really have one I feel like if anything, it's going to be a group.

And I feel like a lot of them were at the office at the time I got hired. So. Everyone's your friend. I miss Lee, though. I miss Lee. Like, honestly, people can say what they want. But like, when Lee left, I was legitimately sad. Say what they want.

The heck. I always thought Lee was cool. People talking smack on my boy, Lee? You talk about smack because of where he works now. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no worries that. I misleaded. He's cool.

He's cool. Defried avocado. Are there any rivalries between employees of companies? Like have NXC's employees ever had beef with Coursera or Origin PC employees? Officially, obviously not. Because I just would be really, really silly, right? I think honestly, I like having competitors because having competitors pushes us to do better and to stay ahead when we're ahead and to catch up when we're behind.

That being said, you know, you know, I always tells me to stay humble, but N6T is literally the best. So sorry about that. Except though, I will say I just bought a Razor Viper Ultimate and that mouse is very, very nice. It's a very nice mouse. Currently looking at one. It's great. I was going to buy the Steel Series like wireless super light one, but I realized one, I saw it that there's, um, that there's no, uh, there's no, uh, there's no, uh,

ambidextrous version because I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a lefty. So, you know, I got to. Oh, okay. Yeah, a very, very particular taste when it comes to, uh, peripherals. Medectuous. I mean, for that reason in particular. Um, but you know, I mean, this, less handed, uh, 10, uh, 10, like a one of those 10 key keywords. Oh, heck no, no, no, that'd be weird. No, that'd be weird. No, no, it's, it's just a regular. the keyboard. If you're a lefty or not, I got you.

I mean, your right hand it can still do the typey thingies, right? So. All right. Yeah,

but, but no official beef or anything like that, you know, is just, you know, we're all, we're all competitors

in the same space pushing each other to be better, right? We all do, we all do things differently. I have different philosophies with how we run our businesses and how we create our products. And I think,

you know, there's enough room for, for everybody. but mesh is gross. Anyway, Jaden wants to know, do you get a lot of questions once something has already been shipped because that is out of your hand?

I can answer that question, yes. I get those questions too all the time. My computer is shipped. Why isn't it here? I don't know. Call the shipping company. Exactly. Once it leaves a warehouse,

we can't do anything about it. There was at one point where so we use Slack for internal messaging. I made my Slack status. FedEx, but with an NZ or yeah, FedEx but with an NZX t-shirt. It's just like, we got like all of my phone calls that morning were just order status of like things I had no control over. And I was just like, why am I FedEx right now?

Yeah. Sky wants to know, why don't you acknowledge the Germans? Why don't I acknowledge the Germans? Yes. Well, first off, calling them the Germans is not cool. second off Carolina is amazing and third off rest in peace Jacob

I forgot there's another person who got added to the Germany team but that's it Marco yeah Marco so I'm sure he's cool I haven't met him but you know Germany team's awesome shout out to Marco

good old Marco Terrapin wants to know who is the best lead like straight up that's just like that's it yeah who is the best lead well look I feel like there's a conflict of interest here because you know he's my direct supervisor so you know my direct supervisor is the best but uh no I mean Dakota and Sergio um they're they're like I feel like the the leads team have a lot of not a lot on their plate and uh you know just the other day they were talking about like uh projected numbers

for quarter one and quarter two of next year, like how many, how many tier twos do we need? How many tier ones do we need? All that stuff. That's going to be kind of internal information, but, you know, like, it was interesting just the,

some of the issues that they have to solve and work together to and come together to get to. And so I, you know, I have no complaints on that. So, but yes, Josh, Josh is the best. I would say,

if I had to rank them, right? I'll rank them in different categories. Josh is the most dad and the most is going to, like, scare you a little bit, but it has, like, the biggest heart, right? Sergio is just like... I would say that's true. Sergio is just, like, the chillest dude, like, ever.

He just, like, I feel like nothing ever phases him, like, in the world. And Dakota is just, like, I can't put him in a category because, like, his face is everywhere, like, on the website and whatnot. But I feel like, I feel like he's, the necks in line to like to like take over the company.

Oh, 100% dude. I do see him like that man types like 120 words per minute without looking behind his back. Like I don't know what this dude does in his spare time, but it's probably practice typing. Like it's ridiculous. I have heard that it does type very, very quickly. Very, very quickly. Yeah. I would say like I don't know, like the code is going to hard to pin and I feel like that's almost like a positive for him.

he's like a man of mystery, right? Like, you don't know what he's going to do or what he's going to, like, say next. He's just, he's just, he's just always there lurking in the shadows watching. You know, who made these descriptions? Is that just you? Yeah, I just, it's just me up top.

What? Why are you so accurate right now? Like, what is? Because I'm, I'm a pretty decent judge of character to T, T, B.H. That's so funny. Um, director wants, uh, director wants to know, uh, Director wants to know is Sky your favorite?

Director wants to know a direct or a question. Yes. Got him. Well, Sky is going to be mad at me either way. So, you know, like I'm a, I'm a pass on that again because it's when I pass on Sky's questions. I don't think you've ever seen the double pass when you're on the server. What a G? What did you?

All right. So that's it. That's it for the questions. I think we're done with that. Do you have any questions for me? Do you have any questions for the community before we move on to Community Roundup? You know, that's, I can't really think of anything off the top of my head. I know you have your own things that you do every day. I hope so. I would hope I have my own things to do every day. I'm just talking, man. I'm just talking. I don't know. That kind of, that question threw me for a loop for sure.

Only, only question, last question I have for you is, who is Ken? Who is Ken? Ken is me. Ken is you? Okay, cool. Me is Ken. Ken is me. All right.

Time for Community Roundup. So congratulations to, I had to scroll down a little bit to see it because I don't know where it went. Oh, so actually I'm going to say this. We have our good friend, Mushu Beef, Alex, who's doing streaming hours on most Wednesdays. So if you guys have any questions about streaming or how to set up a stream or in the streaming audio content creation type of questions, he's your guide to go to. So, you know, check them out.

I think it's Wednesdays at 4 p.m. PST. congratulations to Jun Juan for being our setup of the week winner wallpaper of the week winner is incoming Let's throw out some great wallpapers here guys Maybe maybe if we see a really good one that I absolutely love We might throw you a little extra something something Don't quote me on that but you never know right Let's let's bump that up a little bit

It's got some good stuff out there low effort Maybe maybe not anymore I mean I appreciate all efforts but if I see something that's like particularly like really really cool, right? I might throw a little something extra around there. That's a solid. Podcast exclusive. All you're going to say about that.

Yeah, podcast exclusive for all you all's out there. Also, to forget about Pucci's professors, guys. Phich professors is still a program. That's a thing that's designed to help the community. Again, thanks to be for setting that stuff up and for for heading that. So apply, apply, apply, apply. Someone will probably throw the link into the chat. as soon as I say this.

Pucci's pick. So we made a few, a few ish changes to Pucci's pick. So for Level 30 plus, which I believe is the adventurer role and the homies role, now have the ability to help us decide on the Pucci's pick. So if you guys want to nominate someone

to be Pucci's pick, please do so by using that form. And I believe you can also, I forgot what the form looks like off top my head, but I believe there might be a section in the kind of detailing why you think that is. Keep in mind that we do have previous picks, so please don't pick them. We want to give as many people a chance to earn that cool title as possibly can.

And if you are in the EU, please apply to be a mod if you feel like you could do it. Things we're looking for. Basically, think whatever you imagine by our description of Dakota, be that person and then apply to be a moderator for the EU. We're looking for Dakota type individuals. If you don't know what that means, and I can't really be more descriptive than that, to be honest. If you know you know. But to be serious, though, like, you know,

we want people who, you know, can keep cooling their pressure, who can be positive, who can help the community, who wants to shepherd the community into being more positive, more friendly, you know, who has the ability to, like, you know, think on their feet and think on their own, you know, kind of like a self-star. you know and then you know all we need is like a really small fee of $50 and then and then what you do is that you bring in other people to be under you you start your business that way and then those people bring in other people to be moderators as well so we just have a multi-tiered I'm going to call it like a I'm called like a almost like a it's like a hexagon with like some extra stuff up top right with like an extra little hat up top you bring in more mods right and then they'll start working for you and building up your business so please uh you know,

uh, please supply, uh, you know, uh, more mods is, is better. Uh,

it helps. Helps. Helps. Get rich. Get rich. Get rich. Get rich. Get rich in community support quick.

Um, and I think it's actually a reverse pyramid scheme. Yeah. Yeah. We call it the upside down pyramid. So it actually funnels. Yeah. That's it.

Um, oh yes. And, and, and, makes a good point if you get mod you get trained you get trained by B if you get mine you get trained by B so she's a she's our she was our lead mod for a reason and now she's an employee here so you know if you want to work in n ZXT maybe that's the path

you got to go you know or just move to L.A. with a suitcase in a dream and you know pretty much yeah and McAye uh Ken any any last any last thoughts any last words before we move on. Yes. Two things. My moderator application is still pending. Please talk to me about that.

Thank you very much. Bye. You're right. Okay. Sounds good. I'll DM or later. And I forgot to shout out a couple of people that I feel deserve recognition. Ron and RMA.

Your Ron is lit. I'm waiting for another soda update. I haven't heard one in the longest time. Where are my soda updates, Ron? I need my soda updates. Sorry, continue. Yeah, so Ron and RMA and Vivian, you know, I've been working with them for a while and, yeah, have zero complaints. In fact, just the opposite can only say praise.

So those are those are two things I forgot to mention. Are we talking Vivian FiaS Space Mountain Vivian? FiaS Space Mountain Vivian. Vivian, yeah, that Vivian is I think I think other than the code is probably like the next person who's like poised to take over the company. I don't know what she does, but it's always everything. Exactly. I come to her with questions about the most random things, and she's like either knows who to ask or knows the answer to my problem.

Yeah, I cannot tell you for the life of me what her actual job description is and what she does, but I know that without her, the company would probably grant to the halt. Oh, yeah. No, 100%. All right. 100%. And with that, thank you for joining us, Ken. I really appreciate it, man.

It was fun. Yeah. No, absolutely. I'm happy to be here. And yeah, appreciate it. It's been good. And thank you to everyone else who tuned in. Remember to tune in next week at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time of the official N60 Discord server and follow at NZXT on all relevant and irrelevant social media.

And if you can be so kind, please send an email to Clubcast at nz60.com. If you want to ask any questions off the air and can't make it live, don't forget to listen to previous episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. And finally, if you could leave us a positive review on your platform or choice, if you like what you hear, but especially if you don't, we like the haters. Thanks again. Thanks, Ken. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.