Sad Boyz - Career

Episode Date: June 11, 2018

Today on Sad Boyz we're talking about our careers! Jarvis has worked primarily as a software engineer professionally and Jordan is in business development, but does it define them and their future? Nah, probably not. We go into how we decided our careers and how we reason about it in our planning for the future. Also in this episode, we pit Post Malone vs. Shawn Mendes and we peek into a dystopian future where sad boyz isn't successful.

Oh boy! Come in here. We can hide in there. We'll be safe. Master, what's happening? Why is this happening? It didn't have to be this way. It was just a normal day, and then suddenly all of the AIs tried to take over.

They killed my whole family. It goes back further than you think. What do you mean? Zed, has anyone ever told you about the butterfly effect? Well, a little bit, but only at school, which is now blown up. What is it? They say when a butterfly flaps its wings, a million universes are created. And this just happens to be the one that we messed up oh god you're saying that there was like a cataclysmic event maybe 50 maybe 60 years ago where people should have done something but they did the wrong thing and as a result there was an ai uprising that destroyed the entire culture that we know and maybe the planet also exactly except it was last year what do they do it was last year. What did they do?

It was a podcast. About feelings. This sounds great. What happened? Was it too popular? Like too many people listened and that made the AI overheat or something? No. The opposite.

Not enough people heard the show. Oh no. And society was eaten by toxic masculinity. Oh my god. Wait. There's nothing we could have done though, right? No. No, we could have helped. I wish I could just go back in time and get more people to listen to that damn show.

Oh, that would be so cool. Wait. I remember at school that I go to because I'm a child and not a 24 year old man doing a weird voice that you can go to because I'm a child and not a 24-year-old man doing a weird voice, that you can go to the laboratory down at the end of the street. And there's a time machine there. Is it still intact?

I would assume so. I don't think the AIs have reached it yet. Go! You have to go! I can't. I think my fighting with the AIs has left me a little weak. But if you aren't gonna go back in time, then who will? Zed, it has to be you. But if you aren't going to go back in time, then who will? Zed, it has to be you.

What do you mean? Little old me has to travel back in time all by myself? Yeah. It's too physically taxing on me. I think you'll be able to withstand it. Okay. I mean, I'll do it, but nothing bad's going to happen to my little body, right? I'll be fine. No, no, you'll be fine, but you can't stay for long.

Oh. What happens if I stay too long? You'll deteriorate. Oh, gross. But, oh, okay. I guess. But as long as I find somebody worth talking to and I tell them that they need to show the podcast more or else everything's gonna go bad, it'll be fine.

I'm counting on you. Okay. I'm gonna go to the laboratory, master. Good luck. I mean, you're gonna die because I'm gonna go to the laboratory master. I'm good luck I mean you're gonna die cuz I'm gonna change history and stuff, but I oh My god, they're coming. No Thing before I go he has it anything this podcast. Yeah, was it like funny? Kinda welcome to sad boys a podcast about feelings and other things also

I'm Jarvis And I'm Jordan and I feel kind of conflicted about how much I like the new Post Malone album I'm upset at you It's kind of very good is the thing No And it's nobody's fault I don't blame you, I don't blame Post, I certainly don't blame Austin But by God the album's good

Today we're talking about career and it's going to be me talking about career and trying to talk jordan down from this post malone album and why me liking uh beer bongs and bentley's is going to be the end of my career both socially and right at work today we're talking about now let's get real we're talking about post malone today we're talking about pre malone we're discussing what he did before uh not mid malone not pre malone but home alone come on no we aren't we're not talking about that we're talking about careers we're talking about careers today your career it's it's different than it's like a job but different sure yeah it's like it's a bunch of jobs or positions in a job or things that lead

you from one thing to another it's a journey it's a life yeah it's like a trajectory it's a path i think it's the closest thing journey that many people have to like a point system yeah justification for life and existence oh my career is this or a quest it's a quest it's a job quest it's a quest for cool people so jordan tell me why we're talking about careers today well we are discussing careers today on this our show sad boys uh today because we got an email from a very nice man called sean yeah that's right you sean listening right now i don't care where you are stand up and wave your your hands in the air. We won't tell you which Sean. Is it that other guy on the bus?

Is it you? Is it you? Who knows? Fight for supremacy. But we got a nice email from a man called Sean that raises the question. Yeah. Sean's email asks us what we think of career, which is this crazy thing we do. So we'll get into Sean's email a little later in the show.

But first, Jordan, how the heck was your week? Thanks for censoring yourself. thing we do so we'll get into sean's email a little later in the show but first jordan how the heck was your week thanks for censoring yourself maybe you feel very open and willing to talk about my week if you had said he double hockey sticks i would have been furious i would never do that can i say i i love that i love that term so much i didn't i learned that at like 22 double hockey sticks and crisscross applesauce are two of my favorite phrases did you have any um other swear word supplements growing up oh yeah like i couldn't resist that's not that's not going in the show can you oh please bleep it well aside from that uh my week's been pretty good you're crying i'm overwhelmed um yeah my week's been been perfectly nice it's been high pressure but not because of my job kind of ironically that because we're talking about korea today

and there's just a heavy weight on you and yeah i'm just currently lying down you put me all near on my chest yeah um no i there's dramatic music playing we're on a cliff i apologize for killing our father but i'll never take it back uh but yeah a good week overall but i've started grinding on this um new creative project i'm very excited about but is stressful because i care about it very very much right and there are a lot of factors at play and a lot of additional contributors all of the other contributors have been absolute dream to work with which is a nice uh depressurizer but you know it always feels weird to it's a writing heavy project it's a uh fiction project in part so a lot of what i'm doing is like putting myself on the page and it feels very strange right right done fiction writing

for god knows how long and as a result it's brought this weird emotional pressure to the whole project like if i put this out it just doesn't quite gain the traction i want it to do does that reflect on me yeah as a human being is that people saying no we don't want jordan on a page thank you yeah that's been a little weird but very exciting it doesn't by the way short answer oh great no pressure's gone yeah yeah no i know i know that's not going to change the pressure but i feel uh contractually obligated as a friend to let you know that it's not yeah no you're absolutely right i i i'm getting better at it over time but i think because it's just been a while since i went whole hog on a creative project like this i just haven haven't really attuned my skill set to it.

Yeah. I'm not quite comfortable. But the more I do it, the more comfortable I get. And I'm so, oh, I'm so excited about it. It'll be a few months until anything like physical materializes that people are able to listen to and check out. But it is a podcast and it is a interesting podcast. Are you leaving me? Oh, sorry.

It's called Sadder Boys. It's only me. I've received a lot of feedback based on this show that they kind of want like a sad boys that's funny and insightful. And good looking is actually feedback that I've gotten about it a lot. How could good looking even contribute? People seem to like the new one a hell of a lot more. Anyway, please leave an iTunes review for Sadder Boys available now. I'm not going to tell you where you have to find it. It's an ARG.

I can't believe you're doing this to me. Oh, sorry. Anyway, continuing the show and not addressing this any further. But Jarvis, before I ask you about your week, you seem a little tense, my guy. Can I loosen you up, maybe? Perhaps I can get you a libation all right sure because i my friend have found the definitive sad boys drink i'll you close your eyes okay and you will i'll reveal them to you on microphone okay my eyes are closed i hear the sound of a refrigerator opening and a refrigerator closing jordan is walking closer to me he's put

something down in front of me and when i click my fingers you will be awake my name is justin ah whoa this in my mind is sad boys this is everything that we are bottled this is so much describe to the listeners what you're saying uh it's a 40 ounce well okay here's here's my favorite parts of this so far it's it's called it's called 40 ounce rose and then it defines itself as french wine which is how you know it's high quality right it's dated 2017 yep which is last year uh and then legally they're required to tell you how much volume is in it at which point it reveals its lie and it is actually 33.8 ounces it's literally just the shape of a 40 yeah we're 40 ounce rose no in parentheses 33 almost 40 uh on the back to to clarify that it is very classy it then

clarifies that it's rose wine not just Not just French wine, but rosé wine. It's rosé wine. And then it says Vin de France, which I assume means vine of France. I don't think I've ever trusted a drink less than when it's clarified that it is French wine. It almost feels like it's protesting too much. Weird. The government warning on the back says bro at the end. It says don't do it.

Jarvis, with wine, Vin? vine uh it's vin diesel of France liquid vin diesel in hand uh why don't you tell me about your your little week that you had my little week well you know what it was a little week because memorial day we didn't have work it was a seventh littler it was a little littler and I spent that time taking photos of my friends very nice uh with their consent you're kind of just starting to get into photography as a thing right i yeah you know just just out of curiosity it's like magic to me that you can take a photo that like looks good yeah um and so that's been fun i bought a new lens this week from a 19 year old instagram model and they killed you unfortunately no i brought

back up in the form of tyler may and jessica crab they were the muscle our two most muscular friends i just stood in the background um collectively uh adding up to about six feet in height they were able to defend you and then work-wise it's been good a little compressed you know four days but overall positive and then this weekend tonight i'm going to a comedy festival so i'm excited but also worried because i want to make sure that i still have time to rest and do the normal stuff i want to do this weekend um but it's an exciting show you're seeing mulaney i'm seeing mulaney i'm seeing lonely island there's a lot of other comedians i just haven't looked at the schedule because i haven't had time i'm just very excited to cluster fest one other thing this week that's been giving me joy is that i'm really into the new sean mendez album uh i've heard about a new album that people

are loving i don't think that's the one i think it was mr austin post himself released beer bongs and bentley's official sponsor of sad boys please tweet at post malone saying james is taking a huge sip and rightfully so because this like a beer bong will go perfectly with our bentley which we will get for sponsoring my favorite album of the year no this this vine is from france speaking of vines speaking of vine sean mendez is a vine star good segue sean mendez uh for those who don't know him makes essentially the kid is 19 years old and on album number three just the three albums just the three at 19 okay uh they've all gone number one could i quickly have a break just to freak out and have an existential crisis oh yeah yeah go ahead go

ahead 24 and i just have this shit podcast frankly say no more all right i'm back i'm fine oh yeah you good all right great so um sean mendez his story is essentially at age 12 he gets a guitar uh he he spends that year learning guitar and then he learned guitar on youtube tutorials and then he became vine famous and then that same year he had a number one single um and i really like his new album i think he's like a he's got a really good you know in contrast to someone like justin bieber who also became famous at 14 and everybody's like oh yeah no justin bieber's antics this is just what happens when a kid gets famous like super young sean mendez has been famous for just as long the kid seems to have it together just sort of a pleasant guy he's just a pleasant mature adult

isn't it bizarre how much the musical landscape has changed in 10 years to the point where a justin bieber equivalent sean mendez yeah you know not in all senses but in the broad strokes but like if you look at the broad strokes you're like a guy who uses a new social media to become famous at 14 but like you take all of those broad strokes and then look at the nuances and they could not be more different the fans that they interact with the way that they grew the medium that made them famous the reaction to their fame night and fucking day yeah it's almost like people are different and you can't just generalize based on an external experience. It's almost like that, but that surely can't be the case. Anyway, that's Beer Bombs and Bentleys, available on Spotify.

Austin, I love you! No, check out Shawn Mendes' new album if you want to listen with me. Let me know your favorite song. Tweet me at jarvis i and if you're not afraid to go against the grain and be yourself and not listen to this mainstream stuff listen to platinum album beer bongs and bentley's by post below i uh i'll trade i'll trade you i'll listen to beer bongs and bentley's if you listen to sean mendez self-titled album sean mendez sounds great i mean um is his third album called sean mendez this is his self-titled one oh what a baller i know he's dude oh my god can i tell you the thing that freaking warmed my heart

uh she warmed your heart jobs is looking at his phone i assume because he got a text from sean mendez no i uh i read this article so there's this artist who was a songwriter in the early mid-2000s had a few really popular singles and was doing the artist thing and then they transitioned into more of a writer their name is teddy geiger and they wrote or co-wrote all of sean mendez's biggest hits from stitches the song that he put out when he was like 14 15 years old um to like you know mercy and nothing holding me back all these big sean mendez hits that have like gone number one and stuff. Yeah, that's super sick, but I know all of the chords on piano.

So one thing that happened recently is that Teddy Geiger, who at the time was a male pop singer and songwriter, transitioned and is trans. Oh, cool. Is a trans woman now. This was very recently? This is, yeah, like this week. Oh, wow. This week sort of. This is like this week. Oh,

wow. This, this week sort of came out about her journey. That's great. And, uh, I was just reading an article about Sean Mendez talking about Teddy Geiger and it gives me so much hope about the future of humanity.

And there's this quote from it. I'm just going to read a little excerpt from this and I hope it brightens everyone's day. So this article is about like Sean Mendez commenting on uh his frequent collaborator teddy geiger's recent transition he also says that the small act of getting geiger's pronouns right went such a long way i remember the day i said she and it wasn't because i said it consciously it was because i said it without thinking basically just in conversation i didn't realize i did it but she looked at me and she had the most incredible look in her eyes. Oh, my God, Sean.

And I was just like, I'm not crying. You're crying. I'm sweating from my eyes. And I'm just saying, Sean Mendes is a sweet boy. And he's conscious and he's got a good heart. And I want more young role models like that. I'm finding it frustrating that not only is he infinitely talented, but he's also moral. Yeah.

Well-intentioned and articulate. All things I am not. All of this stuff I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I'm finally ready to give Shawn Mendes the title of Justin Timberlake. Great. Finally, we have another one. Yeah, because I think Justin Timberlake wasn't really using his title uh and he passed away right with the release of the new album and he never came out he was he now is known as the woodsman yeah um and so I think Shawn

has earned it he's now new Justin Timberlake to me congratulations Justin the third Justin the royal Justin uh yeah Justin Bieber thought he was next in line for Justin Timberlake to me. Congratulations, Justin. The third Justin, the royal Justin. The third Justin. Yeah, Justin Bieber thought he was next in line for Justin Timberlake. Reasonable thought. Reasonable. Fair enough. But boy, was he wrong. It was his, well, maybe at a different time, he could have taken the Justin throne.

Unfortunately, at the time, Justin Timberlake, the original and the best, he had his own thing going on. He was very successful. Things were working. Yeah, yeah, was he had his own thing going on. He was very successful. Things were working. Yeah. Yet to even visit the woods. I think that we've been trying to reincarnate Justin Timberlake for like this is like, yeah, the second iteration.

And we keep getting things wrong. Like Justin Bieber was just a big misfire. Sure. But you have to experiment. Yeah, you have to. But I think Shawn Mendes is like the point where we're like, ah, we can take a deep breath and like invest in this one for a while. We really nailed it this time, boys.

Yeah. Notable tracks on his new album include a collab with Khalid of location fame. Also incredible 19 year old. And undoubtedly also a potential nominee for Justin in the future. Yeah. We're not saying it's off the table. Right. What will likely happen is that around 25 26 sean will enter the woods yeah that's just the natural path of all justice if in five years sean mendez releases an album called man of the woods it's all the same tracks all the same tracks and they're good this is just an admission that i am passing yeah and man of the woods good night what if what

if sean mendez could make that album good that's that these are the questions that i probably could and he kisses all the girls he wants to and i bet he's great at skateboarding why is it you know he's amazing at overwatch and stuff just quick question uh why whenever we're talking about cool people is the first place you go skateboarding because the coolest thing in the entire world all right i say that as somebody that literally can't even stand on a board. Yeah, yeah. It's just, he probably knows how to kickflip. Oh, jeez.

I bet. Oh, man. He kissed my girlfriend. He's so cool. You know who knows how to kickflip? This guy. No way. You know what?

I used to be a skater. Nope. Don't believe you. All right. Well. Wait. No, that doesn't make sense because that's for cool people. I just told you.

Right. And you're saying you can. And I know a lot of programming languages. Show me. Show me the kickflip. Here it is. Oh, my God. He's dead. Oh, know a lot of programming languages. Show me. Show me the kickflip. Here it is. Oh my god. He's dead. Oh my god. He's bleeding.

Shit. The skateboard launched into his head. How? Is that a kickflip? Is this okay? Do I look different? The voice. Who is this? Why are you laughing at me? What have you seen? The woods. I'm entering the woods. I've seen the woods i'm entering the woods i've seen

the woods i love the idea of justin timberlake's album basically being the island from lost i like the idea of people who have skateboards through their heads go to justin timberlake's woods maybe that's what happened to justin the original well what do we call justin timberlake now what do you mean the original what do we call him because now sean mendez is justin timberlake we don't we just don't refer to him we like he will not be named he no longer has a reference it's like a it's like a book in a library with no label on it it's like it's sure it's there but no one really knows how to get to it or like how to reference the former justin timberlake has no dewey decimal system code i'll tell you why we're talking about careers yeah tell me why we're talking about careers. Yeah, tell me why.

Because we got hit up by my best friend in the world, my new best friend in the world that I've never met, but wrote a lovely email to us called Sean Chua. Am I saying it right? Chua? Chua? I don't know. Let us know, Sean.

But thanks for writing in. It's definitely Sean. And he refers to himself as Sad Boy Sean. I like that. So I'm down with it. We got Sad Bree. We got Sad Boy Sean. Do you want him to just as sad boy sean i like that so i'm down with it we got sad brie we got sad boy sean do you want him to just be sad born sad boy um change your twitter name change your twitter name to this unpronounceable sound that i just said now you can tell that

sean isn't a day one because the dude references like five in jokes wait really email it's very impressive he refers to us collectively as justin which i always appreciate like that verse himself as sad boy sean um and i actually don't like that because somehow somehow you were supposed to be justin and then that got i got roped into it somehow yeah it spread like a venereal disease i'm upset uh but the content of the email also begins with emotional pervert so this guy's out of control he's already a top tier fanboy right fanboy sean um but here is our email from sean chua it says hi justin the collective the royal justin the royal justin uh emotional pervert here checking in i just binged all the previous episodes of sad boys and i couldn't wait to write in

i've never really listened to podcasts before and that's why he likes our show yeah he's just impressed by the fact that people are talking via his phone i've never had food before but mcdonald's is amazing they grill the burger perfectly incredible i think it's fresh i think it's wow how do they do it never really listened to podcasts before but you guys are so funny and genuine that it made the podcast really accessible to me thank you sean you guys are so funny and genuine that it made the podcast really accessible to me. Thank you, Sean. You're genuine and accessible too, I would assume. You see it that way.

Very nice of him to say. But anyway, I'm a student at Georgia Tech. Oh, God, another one of these. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Another one. What have I done?

Jeez. Okay. Oops. No, that's lovely. At Jarvis saw your video on the CS minor page haha oh yeah yeah i have there's a couple of videos of me explaining um the different like major specialties are called threads uh at georgia tech but but yeah that's a thing that's out there is it funny because he says haha it's funny because i look ridiculous first of all i woke up that day oh really you didn't do it most days i woke up

like this and i woke up and i basically just rolled out of bed and went i didn't look at myself in a mirror and then showed up to be on camera so i look fucking what a surprise that must have been as the viewfinder opens but i wasn't someone else was looking at the viewfinder so i never saw myself until i saw the footage. And then I was like, oh, no. I'm not good enough at After Effects to fix this. Nobody is. I don't have access to the raw footage. You need those people that removed Henry Cavill's mustache for Justice League.

Right. To, like, fix your whole face. Just put in Henry Cavill. Like a puppet mouth. Yeah. But our good friend Sean continues and I was kind of wondering how you guys really decided on your careers recently I've kind of been evaluating what I want to do

in a career path and I feel I'm attracted to a bunch of shiny career paths that society just says is prestigious in quotes right i.e. cool career path like data science consulting software engineering etc it's fascinating to me those would be considered cool i dig it i like that we're in that era they're so cool so they told me they told me that i they're making fun of me because i'm a nerd now

but one day i'm gonna be cool and this is my moment damn it you'll be able to self-identify as a software engineer at which point every single nerd that's ever wedgied you will wedgie themselves to death yeah right that's how I can't stop it you're just you know too many programming languages uh how do you guys think you've dealt with those kind

of societal pressures and made your own paths thanks again guys and keep doing you sad boy Sean PS I don't know if any of that made sense, but feel free to reach out for any clarifications. It made perfect sense. Thanks, Sean. Not a particularly obscure email.

I think we can pass it. Hey, uh, hey, Sadboys, I'm a big fan of your show, and that's all. What the hell is he talking about? Who is this guy? We don't know what the show is this guy means show have you been releasing these no no i would never do that oh fuck wow oh my god itunes reviews that's what i was editing no um thanks sean that's very sweet thanks so much no

clarification necessary so i think an interesting way of kicking off would be for each of us to talk a little bit about our career backgrounds how we end up where we are now whether it be through our educational path or just personal interests and just give a little flavor so people know what the hell we're talking about jarvis you have a career correct yeah and it's really funny like i don't necessarily identify like myself inside of my own head as having a career, but I definitely have one. Legally speaking, you absolutely have a career. And that kind of speaks to how I think about career now versus how I used to. With that in mind, not to interrupt, sorry.

What would you define your career as in a single term or sentence? I think my career is defined by software engineering today. My, my like work career in terms of like the career that pays the bills. Um, and that has a particular progression, uh, in branching paths related to it. So I started my career as a software engineer and did that for a few years. And then within that, I was promoted to a senior software engineer, for example. And then from there, there's a branching path in the opportunity. It's very much like an RPG or whatever. Like a skill tree where I'm like, do I want to go down a path of technical leadership

or do I want to move more into the management of people and teams? Both of which have their trade-offs and are kind of like just parallel to one another. And so I recently shifted into management, the management side, and I've kind of started that next phase of my career. and so that's my professional career but I could also talk about you know my career creative career in a similar way no I feel you there out of interest where would you say that your career began do you think it's the moment you start learning your trade or is it when you find proficiency in that trade or like when you decide that that's a job you're going to have i think i think uh it starts with a job for me literally day one on the location yeah well not i mean

i've for me i guess an internship but i was considering about a job um because that's like building the i'm often thinking of like the resume of like getting jobs in that field i think it's fair to say that a career is basically represented by your linkedin page right yeah anything you would put on there contributes to the broad scale career of jarvis yeah and the reason that i would like delineate that from like what you're studying because like lots of people change what they're studying a lot and you don't really it doesn't really become your career until you're like sort of applying that trade almost sure yeah it's like you kick off with this is a thing i'm interested in i'm going

to invest time in this it's almost like if you and me right after the recording just said you want to cook a meal and then we cook the meal and we go well this was nice i kind of want to only cook meals that seems like the most fun thing in the world and then yeah i cook two i cook three i cook five i cook ten at what point am i now a chef right like yeah it seems like to you and i would agree with this it's the moment that you go to a location that has hired you as chef it's not just the moment you feel like being but i do also see an argument for thinking about it more as a a trade that you're gaining experience in because um the i think the reason that i'm talking about jobs so much is kind of rooted in capitalism and if sure yeah if you were

like in a different like if you were a career chef and like you didn't get paid for your like i don't know maybe if you had inherited a bunch of money for example and spent all of your life cooking but never did it for money yeah or a job you you still are a career like a cook totally my understanding of a chef is based on all of the cooking video games i've played it's that you prepare the food usually with no more than three very large ingredients yes and then you put it at the front where customers are right and then they give you money. If you swipe the screen, you can cut some of the fruit. And the customers.

The customers that don't like your food, you can slice. Like some sort of fruit ninja. So it's like a super broad question just to kick us off. How did you end up in your career? Jarvis Johnson, the career that he has, the way that he self-identifies, what were the causes of that and why the hell are you here right now? Yeah. So I think I think a lot of people get really like this question kind of speaks to this is like in college and in life, people are thinking about their careers in this very high-minded very very premeditated way and i did not have that sort of approach to ending up in my career i just it came time to pick majors for college i figured i was going to go to college because all my peers

were going to college um and i didn't like any of the subjects that i took in school sure um so i was looking for other things that i could study uh and i wanted something that was like related to things you like right and the only thing the only thing i liked in school was psychology uh and the only other thing that i liked that I could do as a major was programming. And I heard computer science was related to that. So I kind of flipped a coin and decided to study computer science from that. Interesting. And in any other world, you maybe would have done something related to psychology?

Yeah. I mean, it was like a very close decision. I think by the i decided to go to georgia tech i knew i was going to study computer science but i had applied to a couple of other schools and was none of them were you have to pick your major before you apply so i was i was still planning to decide between those two things yeah you're definitely the authority on this but i'm curious do you think you would have thrived in a psychology environment do you think the same skill sets and proficiencies kind of lend themselves to that um so yes and no i think that i would have been fine like getting through it because of just like my natural like tendency to like try and swim in whatever pond i'm in but uh and and i have taken like a number of like there's there's a lot of interesting

uh work in the combination of technology and psychology and i've taken a lot of course work sort of in that and my my specialization in within my cs degree was partially in psychology um but i ultimately like hate doing tons of reading that's boring and then writing like lots of papers so i don't think i would have i think that cs ended up being very active and project-based, which I, which is more my speed. Did you ever feel pressure for something else from anyone or anything? No.

See, that's the thing. Like with my, with my background, like my parents were just happy. I was in college. No one else in my family had gone to college. I,

I had to find a lot of that from within, like in order to even continue. Cause I needed to understand why i was doing anything i was doing um and ultimately the pressure that i put on myself was like i know this kind of gets to another part of sean's question which is like i know that this now that i'm in this school and i'm and i'm starting to study these things i'm learning that this is like a valuable skill to have in the market sure and now i want to be successful in that because i'm trying to like make a life for myself and like find independence in my life i would say you you ever so slightly predate the migration towards computer science. Very slightly.

Not that there weren't a lot of people doing it. You went to school, what, 2010? 2010. But it was also that I didn't know about that world. Yeah. So it wasn't until I got to school that I discovered that that world was a thing. You were doing a thing that was desirable, unknown to you. Yeah.

So that's why I feel very lucky in that regard. Sure. But. unknown to you yeah so that's why i feel very lucky in that regard sure um but which may be an endorsement for people like sean and other folks to chase the thing that they are the most interested in on the off chance that it does lead to something valuable yeah as opposed to the other way around i do believe in pragmatism there uh like your everyone's situation is different and some people have to like value skills that are valuable to the market because of the financial situation that they're in. Um, and I was like, once I realized what my options were, I, I sort of skewed towards that. Um, because I knew that I was going to have student loans and I knew that I was going to have to do all these things.

But ultimately, I also knew that this was something that I would enjoy and that that was rare to find. So it felt something worth investing in. But I also know that you are so much more effective at things that you find interesting and that you're willing to do that if you can, you should do those things not only because it's like selfish to do so but because you will actually just be way better at them because you're far more willing to just put the

work in and those two factors uh find being passionate about something and finding something that is industrially appealing just happened to coalesce in computer science for you. For me. Yeah. And it's like, it's even less computer science. Cause I,

cause computer science is this very theoretical, very mathematical, very research based field. And I know space you can say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I noped out like after my bachelor's,

I didn't go to masters. I have no desire in a PhD or no desire to go back to school because you didn't like the academic component. It's, I just am more i'm not a i'm not like a white papers and slow research guy i'm like a do guy i want to make things you're not like an oxford citation kind of dude yeah i want to like apply things immediately and research is often like determining the things that can be applied eventually you want to be the person that's being cited not the person that's citing yeah you want to be the event that's studied oh interesting i i think i think it's the reverse i want to be the person who's like looking at the stuff that the research is doing and going

great i'm going to use that today. Right. That's like, I just heard that this is the new hotness from research. Now it's time to apply that to my real life. Whereas on the flip side, it would be like within this research community. And it's just like a lot of the types of, it's like the cadence of work and things and the path just was, is not that interesting to me.

So I'm far more interested in the application side of things but yeah how about you jordan how did you how did you come to come into your career do this whole weird thing that i now do for money for some reason yeah um it's actually funny that this is coming up as a topic today because yesterday i received a tweet i'm so sorry. I forget the name of the person. I'll look it up later. But I get a lot of emails, both from people on LinkedIn or via Facebook or even like random folks on Twitter, as the one that happened yesterday was, saying, how did you end up in the US?

What was the process you went through? Did you sign some special forms? Who do you talk to about that because it's actually very desirable in a lot of circles which is you know half the reason i'm here is because the us is cool to people in the uk people right here it's exciting there's all this vibrancy recently a bit of a decrease in interest yep i can't imagine why oh you know what it is i think it's uh post malone. I know what you're saying. I don't think it's possible that it's that. It may have been the Shawn Mendes album.

But the one thing I know that it definitely isn't is Post, my friend Austin Post. Austin Post. US Post Malone. The New York Post Malone. FedEx Malone. And he is a legend. Go listen to his new album. Officially sponsor. Sad boys, please. the new york post malone uh fedex malone he is a legend go listen to his new album officially

sponsor sad boys please uh but yeah like a thing that i get a lot is people reaching out to me and saying hey how the hell did you end up in la america and most of the time i have to just say to them i don't really know it just sort of happened right right but okay go ahead well the reason i mentioned it now is because i've had that mindset for a long time like this is just a thing that happened to me and I'm very fortunate. But for the first time in a while, I wrote out the chronology in a tweet yesterday. Oh. Like, somebody reached out to me.

They were like, hey, how'd you end up in the US? How do I do that? Who should I talk to? I just went, okay, well, in 2012, it was my second year of college. Right. And I was doing a journalism module. And I reached out to patreon.com never heard of it it's it's okay i would check it out it's fine it's got me involved which is

exciting all right well i'm not buying it you're sad boys fan you'll love it wrong guy but i uh yeah in 2012 i reached out to this website um specifically because i was a very big fan of the founder jack conti who i reached out and i was like hey would love to do an interview i do a journalism module on my film course and i don't know where it's going and i'm afraid my life might be falling apart might you be able to give me an interview this is all in the subject line yeah long subject line nobody nobody just sent a gif that didn't play right it was that little broken image icon yeah uh but no i read i wrote um the open email address that patreon had at the time that

no longer exists because it invited people like myself right um that was just hey i love your website and i love your mission and i love the people involved and right now you are eight people and i want to be able to help as much as i can uh this was actually 2013 not 2012 um and as a result somebody replied i was very fortunate i sent a few emails like this, not that many to like industry type folks. I messaged it to creators because I was in film school and I edited and I was like, hey, can I edit your videos? This was my first time really writing to an organization.

And fortunately, my good friend Cole replied, who has now forthwith become one of my best friends in the world. I was very fortunate for that. It's amazing. He hit me up and he was like, hey, strange English child, you want to do work for free? No problem. It was a very unprof that. It's amazing. He hit me up and he was like, hey, strange English child. You want to do work for free?

No problem. It was a very unprofessional way to address you. Very rude in retrospect, Cole. Cole, come on. Yeah, he sent me a very nice email back. And after about six months of negotiating and me occasionally reaching out and being like, hey, anything you need done, more than happy to do it for free. Again, I have no money. Happy to continue having no money as long as I can do a thing for you.

Eventually, they gave me a contracting job. And that contracting job over my final year of college parlayed into a full-time job remotely, which then parlayed into a full-time job on site. And I've been here, what? It'll be three years in October. Yeah. Which is mad. Right.

That's as far as my career. Right. How do you think about your career well here's the thing i in no world do i not consider my time with patreon to be my career like the things i have done with this company have defined so much of my skill set and my focus and my loves and my personal experiences right but at the same time i never once in my childhood thought jordan cope he's a business development kind of guy yeah like i just never self-identified with it which i think maybe you can reflect in the computer science experience totally yeah you just felt and i did as well i want to do a thing i like

yeah and whatever that thing is and wherever that thing is i'm sure it's out there and i'm just going to kind of mill about until i find that thing right in my case for people who don't know this is public on the website you can find this out yeah i'm a creative partnerships person and that basically means that i work with creators to launch and maintain their patreon pages yeah um so for the most part i work with people that i really admire and i've admired for a long time it's a very privileged position to be in because i get to make contacts and spaces i otherwise wouldn't get access to get to right go to vidcon and hang out with heroes all that kind of stuff yeah and it's all like superman batman exactly spider-man superman and batman i mean at this point ant-man post malone i think i've been hanging out with

ant-man i can't find him how about post malone Post Malone? Post Malone, he's too big. Oh, okay. He's too much of a hero for me to really meet up with him. He's like a superhero. Yeah, he's a super, super hero. Anyway, sorry, he's the official sponsor of this episode, in case anyone didn't know. Make sure to tweet him. Yeah, when he was saying beer bongs and Bentleys, what did that really mean? Well, I think

maybe that's the new Justin. You're beer bong. I'm beer bong. I'm bentley beer bong and the whiz beer bong and bentley on 41 fm god said man people love that little bit we did i love that bit i was very impressed let me take an aside from this episode to say to you jarvis my friend the editing you did on the uh bing bong and the whiz section a few episodes ago this is this is the epitome of me taking a very small you know 20 second section of something that is like an

hour and a half and spending just about as much time on that as i do the rest of the time which is why some segments of my youtube videos are far overproduced and others are not um but yes you you you have a cool job you are very privileged to work in that sure yeah and it feels strange because the things that i did were never really related to what i considered my career to be i mean at the time i thought i was going to be an editor that was the goal right i had decided jordan cope comma editor that's me for the rest of my life right maybe i'm editing films maybe i'm editing tv yeah right now i want to be editing youtube content that's what i'm going to try and push for and then i ended up in this role that i love just as much as that potential role but it's nothing like it yeah do you

did you experience any any pressures like societal pressures uh career i was very fortunate to have uh particularly my mom was obviously very supportive throughout the process but especially around like what my career path might be right she was never at all uh there was no friction in our household around me going to film school yeah cool you love movies fire away enjoy yourself meet interesting people and grow as a person yeah and i did it just didn't lead to a film industry right career um but no i think i was fortunate enough to not interact with too many societal pressures when i was doing the film degree there were you know a few shaking heads every now and then i would meet somebody especially i went to a school that was, bizarrely, half arts college and half marine biology college.

Whoa. Like a really strange mashup, because it was on the coast. I guess, okay, so I guess the closest we have in the States to that is Carnegie Mellon University, where my buddy Russell went to school. I did not get in, and that was like a big... Yeah, because he was smart and you weren't, yeah. Yeah, that's true um the uh they are known for computer science and theater so a lot of you know big actors uh who was the guy in white collar uh oh the guy that was also in the nice guys hang on matt bomer plays a neil caffrey on the show but yeah he and like a lot of other people went to Carnegie Mellon for college.

Oh, interesting. See, that's what Falmouth University, where I went, was like. It was this weird, hard delineation between the floaty artsy students like myself and then the hard science students like my friends. Sarah Sheldon, for example, who listens to the show. She and many of her pals uh would occasionally come around the house and every now and then i would meet like a a marine biologist person they'd be like film school are you sure are you sure about that you sure you want to do that and in retrospect

actually a very reasonable criticism yeah the closest thing i had to that was uh my school was about five percent computer science and really mostly engineering like just hard mechanical aerospace uh nuclear like people who are like gonna go off and like do real engineering jobs yeah physical v metaphysical yeah and i was just like i just write computer codes i could help you look at your calendar before you sure you want to do that was there ever an inkling did you ever feel like shifting to something else in that never always because i always felt like the like i was able to brush away the things i didn't like about school uh with the things i was good at with my my major major of computer science. No, I feel that. So if you were to say anything to Sean,

who is currently studying CS at Georgia tech, kind of a classic path at this point, classic, the classic 5% path. Yeah. Um, but he's feeling, you know,

he doesn't explicitly say it in this email, but maybe he's feeling a little self-conscious about like making what is to him a controversial choice. Well, here's the thing uh i i understand like that pressure of being like oh i want to do this thing or that thing like data science or data science team's hot right now or how about software engineering um honestly you're not you can try out those things but if you're not happy doing them, you're not going to be happy at any point probably in that process. And it doesn't serve anyone. Also, if a market's really popular, it's like, so you're a doctor.

Cool. I have a lot of friends and peers and stuff who are like, yeah, I started going to school to like be a doctor and then i got deep into it and i realized i don't want to do that and the only reason i was doing it was because society up until this point had told me that it was a good thing for me to do but guess what it's not meant for everybody it doesn't mean you're bad if you don't want to do it doesn't mean you're bad if you uh aren't a good fit for a data scientist or a software engineer. I think that these things are not only like, you cannot be a fit for it in the moment, in the stuff that you're studying,

but you could also not, it could not be your thing for the rest of your life. It could be a short, I didn't know that I wasn't going to be, when I became a software engineer, I wasn't like, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life. I was like, I don't know. It's working right now. It's a dangerous philosophy to get locked up in the idea that every choice you make

is the last time you get to make that choice. Yeah. Like, it's like if you eliminated all dating. You date because in the back of your mind, no matter how much you like the look of somebody's Tinder profile, there's a chance you don't get along in person right so you go on the first date and then suddenly that was fun but i want to make sure that we vibe in this environment you go to that environment you say yes yes yes and you develop and progress it's crazy to me that somebody would say to themselves i jordan cope i'm a cs major and even if i'm bad at it and i don't like it i'm gonna keep doing it

and in that like i want to i want to you know have the caveat of that it's it's a privilege to be able to like say something like that but that that's how i feel i think that in society we promote a lot of people who it's like well he just knew he wanted to be a snowboarder at age two and now he's a pro snowboarder and like he's just had it all figured out from the beginning and it's like i don't know that i buy that i think that there's a lot of it that was well i'm i'm 10 years in i guess i gotta keep going yeah you know and in the very rare cases where they really are virtuosos that found their thing at age two luck pure chance it's pure luck i i feel i feel lucky that i found myself in in in computer

science now and i don't think i'm gonna i felt lucky that i found my way into computer science and into software engineering and engineering management uh that i'm doing now but i don't think in 10 years i don't know what the future holds in 10 years you know like i think that we elevate and celebrate too much the people who are like yeah and they just like kept going down that path and like sure and it worked out i want to say here to sean that no one knows what they're doing no one knows how long they really want to do it for and a lot of times people are letting the pressures, the external pressures and the, like the things like family or monetary pressure, like a lot of these things are inputs into making

those decisions. And a lot of people make choices that are taking care of other people in their lives and doesn't necessarily speak to how, like their actual interests right like if i had a kid right now also i would be having a very different discussion about what i wanted to be doing because i've got a i'm optimizing in a different equation you know what i mean sure so while you have the agency that you have um don't take that lightly like lean into lean into that uncertainty because everyone who thinks that they know they figured everything out is lying to you including us hey hey there's the final takeaway for this episode everyone is lying to you especially jarvis but not me i'm your friend i'm jordan i would never lie to you especially not right now uh post malone's album is actually

the better of the two available new albums. Nope. It's got to be Shawn Mendes. Jordan, before we wrap up our topic. And thanks to Shawn for the topic. Shawn, really appreciate that. I have a thought exercise for you, kind of to illustrate the point that I'm making. Oh, hit me.

It's 10 years from now. Okay. And you're in business development yes how does that feel impossible i it's so strange to me i i love what i do because i do it for patreon that's like such a big component of what i enjoy about my job is the environment i do in the people that i do it with um the thing i like the motif that i expect to be present throughout my career and wherever else that leads and however I define it, is that I work with interesting, creative people. That is the only barrier of entry for me.

If I ever put that on the bench, that's when I've strayed away from my path, when I'm maybe losing my proficiency. But outside of that, it could be editing video. It could be being an audio engineer. It could be having my own creative project that is funded via Patreon. There are so many avenues in which I would consider myself

following my career as long as it sticks with that basic tenant. And that's something I would suggest to anybody listening. Find your tenant independent of the job. Right. Exactly. And Jarvis, same question to you. Yeah. My tenant is I like to make things and I like to help people succeed and like help people do what they want to do. And that's manifested itself in, I like to make things. I became a software engineer where I could use these tools to make things. I'm an engineering manager where I can

help enable people to do their best work and do the work that they want to do. But I also like to make videos. And if my friends are like, I want to make a video, I'm going to be the first person there who's helping them like script and storyboard and shoot and giving them camera tips because i want i i get so much energy out of both of those things and whatever i'm doing it's going to be some combination of that uh and whether or not it manifests you know it's like if you tell me in 10 years that i'm in engineering management or if i'm a software engineer it's like i'm not surprised one way or the other but i think think it's like a 50, 50 shot right now.

Like what that pans out. And it's also like, what else am I up to? You know? Cause, uh, maybe I figured out something where it's like, I do this for money. Uh, and I do some other thing for like fun and like creative fulfillment. I don't know. Like the future is so unclear that if you were like jarvis in 10 years you will uh be teaching a public speaking class at stanford university and that'll just be your job i'd be like interesting cool how do we end up there how come yeah it's like let's

let's find out you know what i mean but it's not like oh no that's not the life i want because what you have to realize is that if you got yourself into that situation it was likely because you felt the natural pull in the directions of those things incrementally so it's like much in the way that like me listening to a podcast that told me about computer science ended, like led to me studying computer science, which led to me like becoming a software engineer, which led to me moving out to the Bay Area. And then boom, I was out in the Bay Area and I started, you know, brushing elbows with all these people that were creatives.

And then I was like, oh, snap, there's this world out there. Maybe that one day ends in me starting a company that's for, that's for creatives, you know, uh, where you can pay them $5 a month to run creative membership businesses. Uh, and that's like the perfect,

what you're describing right there is the perfect example of not needing to fulfill the target you drew at age 18 yes i mean we talked about this in the adulthood episode right that was the last one yeah where your goals and personal aspirations don't have to necessarily map one-to-one for a decade yeah you can mix things up you can get weird that's fine as long as you feel like you're still tracing your truth and it's possible that the target you drew was completely off base yeah maybe you don't actually like the thing that you were told to like at some point in your life but as long as you're chasing it at least in some way like in your case jarvis thing is a fantastic example you i don't know if computer science is at your core and you can be

the judge of this obviously your main proficiency like the thing that jarvis loves like jarvis was built to do computer science yeah what i think jarvis was built for is creating things as you said and you happen to find this avenue right now that could lead all the way to this class you're talking about or it could go all the way to hey i do architecture now yeah but as long as you're producing you are bringing value and you are serving that proficiency. Right, right, right. I made a video a while back. I made it on January 1st, like 2018.

And it's called, What Are You Doing With Your Life? Or I might've renamed it. But one of those things is like kind of speaks to what we're saying here is that like, don't let your 18 year old self decide your path for the rest of your life. In 20 years from now, it's like letting an 18-year-old tell a 40-year-old what to do.

It's like what are you doing? But yeah, letting an 18-year-old decide literally anything because they're 18 and don't know how the world works. Yeah. If you're 18, that was totally a joke and I'm not zinging you at all. Please give us an iTunes review. It means so much. Young Jarvis. Yes.

This whole topic only came up because our new best friend in the world, Sean, sent it to us. Yes. And you could be like Sean. You could let us know what you want to see, what you want to hear from Sad Boys. Jarvis, I want to do that. I'm feeling that in my spirit, in my heart. Right. But I don't know how.

All right. Well, let me tell you how. Okay. You can do that on Twitter, at Sad Boys Pod. You can do that on Facebook, at Sad Boys Pod. Though, Facebook is really lagging behind right now. Facebook is a misrepresentative of the show's popularity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But as it is for just about everyone on Facebook,

you can send us an email at sadboyspod at gmail.com or you can go to our very nice website sadboyspod.com and let me plus one the very nice javis did such a good job putting that thing together oh looks lovely it's almost as if you do programming well this one's squarespace except for the css that i had to write precisely because i was upset one day do you want to say squarespace like five or six times so that maybe they pick us up in the um if you say it loud enough advertising hear you yeah squarespace this is squarespace please that's the day though honestly that's the moment where i feel like i've reached the end of my career is when squarespace asks us for an ad yeah yeah dude for sure the pod. I'll just lie down on the ground and cry.

It'll be amazing. One day. One day. One day soon. But Young Jarvis, what if I don't want all of the other stuff and I just want the kid? I just want Young Jarvis Johnson? Oh, for me? Mm-hmm.

Well, you can find me on Twitter, at Jarvis, or on YouTube, at YouTube.com slash Jarvis Johnson. Instagram is Instagram.com slash Jarvis Johnson. Instagram is instagram.com slash magic Jarvis. And a circle back on the at Jarvis. He ain't kidding. If you go on Twitter and you type the little at symbol, looks like a little circle, and then you put J-A-R-V-I-S,

that is the one. That is the correct Jarvis, correct? Yes, that's correct. That's me. Get in there. Jordan, how about you? If they want some more of me. Yeah. Theoretically, I mean, correct? Yes, that's correct. That's me. Get in there. Jordan, how about you? If they want some more of me. Yeah.

Theoretically. I mean, I can't imagine that they would. Right. Jesus, what can they do? They can hit me up on Instagram, the new social media that I'm going to try and get good at. Keep saying that. Have not posted a single image since I decided that that was my new goal. At Jordan Adika.

One word. J-O-R-D-A-N-A-D-I-K-A. They can find me also by that moniker on Twitter or God knows, basically everywhere. There's very few Adikas on the internet. That's true. So fire away. You can probably find me. You can also find my brother, actually, if you search that.

Oh, really? My brother, Alex, has a rap moniker, I think, under like A-Adika or something like that. So see if you can find him. All right. moniker i think under like a or d or something like that so see if you can find him all right um but yeah if you want anything more from me you'll be getting it in the show that is coming in a couple of months oh and one last thing we were recently on another podcast we recently annexed another podcast we recently annexed another podcast into our own we now own both sad boys and mr feels podcast because we were on the most recent episode of mr feels we sure were you can find that at where tyler may who's living

with me right now mr feels podcast.com oh my god he said it that's m-r-f-e-e-l-s podcast.com check it out it's a really fun show you know what I'll put I'll put a blog post up on sadboyspod.com with the Mr. Fields episode in there hell yes and I may I just say

Mr. Fields excellent show very insightful commentary on mental illness from a man that knows his shit young Tyler May who was on

I believe a depression episode maybe five or six episodes ago it's true check it out if you love that episode if you hate it still listen to it yeah if you love that episode if you hate it still listen to it. Yeah if you hate it what would you rate it? You're the best

you're the best. What should we do next? Anthony Fantano sad boys forever Sadthiny boys Tano here. Anthony boy Tano here. Oh God that's good. Are you proud of me that I know Anthony Fantano references now?

That was a big moment for me. That was like me when I referenced the Eddo period. That's exactly what that's like. Holy shit. We do have fun. We do have fun, don't we? There's no getting around it, Jarvis. We do have fun, and so do our fans, hopefully.

I mean, I hope they're having a good time as well. And we end every episode of Sad Boys with a particular phrase. Run me through it, big boy. Um, I was thinking like we could sing it. Okay. Do you want to sing it in like a different style? What style? So I haven't, we're going to do one take of this.

And I want to see how it comes out. All right. System of a down style okay okay i'm thinking chop suey yeah i got it three two one we love you Boom. We're going to get it.