We Should Be Working

Thomas crashes the party for the first 15 minutes or so, then takes off when mom gets home. After that, Jace and Critter get into depression, videogame addiction, and Jace's morning routine. Rollercoaster of an episode. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of the poddy: https://anchor.fm/jace-and-critter/ Critter's em...

Frank is CTO of Phase2 Technology and an ultramarathon runner. We chatted mostly about fitness - how he's prepping for his upcoming 100km race, what it's like to run a Spartan race, scary animals he's seen while trail running, all that.  Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of the poddy: https://anchor.fm/jace-an...

Jace isn't interested in your garbage rewards for doing his job. Critter finds another opportunity to ramble about how team retros are everything. Also: high school reunions, team parties, why we decided to start exercising, and why teachers hated Jace. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of the poddy: https://anchor...

Critter is convinced that THIS TIME he has figured out the key to building the perfect male body. Jace has his doubts. They both spend an annoying amount of time talking about macros and different types of martial arts.  Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of the poddy: https://anchor.fm/jace-and-critter/ Critte...

Critter realizes that honesty is good, Jace realizes Critter is stupid, and we both try to understand what adults are. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of the poddy: https://anchor.fm/jace-and-critter/ Critter's email: mikecrittenden@gmail.com Critter's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcrittenden Critter's blog: http...

Jordan is a life and career coach at https://jordanhirschcoaching.com/ and the Director of Training & Facilitation at Phase2 Technology. We talked about coaching vs. therapy, the power of metaphors, imposter syndrome with being a coach, what a typical coaching session looks like, and lots more. Super fun and fascinating chat! Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/p...

Critter's in a thousand island phase, Jace had a super messed up childhood, and they both agree the world needs more practical jokes. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of the poddy: https://anchor.fm/jace-and-critter/ Critter's email: mikecrittenden@gmail.com Critter's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcrittenden Critt...

John Cartier is a fiction author who writes under the name J.B. Kish. He also happens to be a top notch project manager who's had the misfortune of working with the two of us.  We got into his writing routine, different lengths (books vs. flash fiction vs. short stories), lessons learned, and niche communities that circle around weird things. Super fun episode with a seriously cool cat. Leave...

Critter is annoyed at internal company docs that are too long for anyone to read them. Jace is unimpressed with The Sopranos and doesn't want to be excited enough about any band to wear a diaper to their concert. We both debate intelligently about the finer points of modern day rap.  Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 H...

Michael is currently COO at Entrepreneur Media, and he has a long and storied history of CTO and SVP roles. He's kind of a big deal.  He joined us to chat about how agencies are like foster parents, why short running teams feel like studio musicians instead of bands, why resourcing in agencies is so hard, how to initiate cultural change, and his experience with mindfulness meditation.  L...

Jace only has like one meeting per week and he still multitasks during it. Critter thinks DMX sucks but Yung Lean is pretty good. We both don't get the hype about potatoes and we try to figure out how to get some podcast guests that aren't our friends. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of the poddy: https://anchor....

Good old Erik joins us to chat about why he thinks we're living in a simulation and why that doesn't matter. We also talked about his 15 musical instruments, argued about whether "on your deathbed" is a useful framing device, and discussed whether misery in the moment leads to happy memories later in life. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-work...

Critter realizes that he doesn't like challenging tech problems, Jace starts playing crypto games for stupid reasons, and they both discuss the complex strategies involved with the morning poo. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of the poddy: https://anchor.fm/jace-and-critter/ Critter's email: mikecrittenden@gmail....

Wight Mike joins us again to talk about his brilliant startup ideas, why work travel has lost its luster, the timeless phrase "on and poppin," and why/how we should interview a proctologist. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of the poddy: https://anchor.fm/jace-and-critter/ Critter's email: mikecrittenden@gmail.com...

Critter tries to grow a mustache and get into rap, both of which go as well as you'd expect. Jace achieves his dream of being left alone at work. They both argue about what's a "puzzle" and what's just work. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of the poddy: https://anchor.fm/jace-and-critter/ Critter's email: mikecri...

Critter thinks it would be really awful if someone else came up and started eating him, yet that happens all the time in the animal kingdom. Jace hates people who live on the bright side, which surprises exactly no one. We both try and fail to figure out Jace's enneagram type, and debate if there's a difference between liking things vs. liking being a person who likes them. Leave us a review on Ap...

Jace is drinking stupid energy drinks again. Critter wants to learn to be more "unreasonable." We both whine about how much of our lives depends on random chance. Despite this terrible description, it was actually a pretty solid episode. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of the poddy: https://anchor.fm/jace-and-cri...

Robbie is an engineering leader who has done a heck of a lot of government work, and has had the good fortune of managing Critter in the past. He hops on to chat about tattoos, working on your passion, getting fulfillment out of making other people happy, and what it means that government work is done by real people. Bonus money quote: "imposter syndrome is the honey badger of privilege." Leave us...

When's the last time you got full on furious? What would you do in a lifelike simulation of your life with zero risk? What do horses with closed lips look like? What's the stupidest thing you've lost a friend over? All this AND MORE in this week's pointless episode! Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of the poddy: h...

Joe Still is a friend and former coworker of ours, and he's impressively nerdy about peopleware, process, and infraops. And Erik's been on the poddy too many times for another introduction here.  After 11 minutes of inside jokes and nonsense, we got into a debate about the mantra "hire slow, fire fast." Erik disagrees with it, of course, which led to some tweaks and gotchas. Where do PIPs fit...

Critter's freaking out because books are written by people and people are often wrong. Jace started a new job that doesn't involve Drupal, so that's a win. Then we get into a chat about exercise during working hours. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of the poddy: https://anchor.fm/jace-and-critter/ Critter's email...

(Note that Critter's stupid computer was being stupid so the first half is Critter-less.) You may know Bloom from such episodes as #26! He's a Principal Frontend Engineer at Knapsack (https://www.knapsack.cloud/). He joins us to chat about frontend interviews, junior devs, and dev tools he's excited about. Link to "Zero To Dev" as mentioned in the poddy: https://holly-hearing-fa6.notion.site/Zero-...

Critter feels guilty when he makes people feel sad, but Jace is a sociopath so he's not too worried about that. Jace ripped a door-curtain-thing off that his mom worked on for him, because he's a sociopath. Critter fakes excitement for even the most terrible of gifts, but when Jace (a sociopath) was younger, he threw wrapped presents back at the people who gave them to him. But at least we can all...

Erik Summerfield's been on here before (#3, #24). This time, after he was super late and unprofessional, he joined us to talk about how we choose to identify ourselves vs. how other people identify us. Erik has no pronoun preference, and the implications of that are fascinating. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-should-be-working/id1545522072 Homepage of...

- Critter's life is changed from creating a list of stressful things and blocking time for Slack. - Jace is bored by both of those things, and whines about it like a stupid baby. - Critter is sheltered from always living in the same place his whole life. - Jace thinks strong women are awesome. - They both think social networks are dangerous because losing touch with people is actually healthy. Lea...