Being forced to learn a musical instrument in your childhood vs. actually wanting to play one for fun.
✍🏻 View the transcript for this episode
Being forced to learn a musical instrument in your childhood vs. actually wanting to play one for fun.
Geoff 0:00
Hi and welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. It’s your boy Geoff and your girl Georgie.
Georgie 0:17
That’s great.
Geoff 0:18
In the house. (laughs) Been watching too much other YouTubers who have like—
Georgie 0:25
An intro?
Geoff 0:26
An in, like a real intro like, “what’s up everybody?” And like they—
Georgie 0:31
What do you mean?
Geoff 0:32
...have a signature thing.
Georgie 0:33
Ours are real.
Geoff 0:34
I know, I know, but like, they have a catchphrase. I guess we, as, like, ours, ours is like? I don’t know.
Georgie 0:42
Mine’s inclusive and generic. I literally just say “hey everybody”.
Geoff 0:46
Yeah, I guess I guess mine’s still... anyways.
Georgie 0:52
I went to, I went to Peters ham and there was no Peter and there was no ham.
Geoff 0:57
Oh yeah, that’s right. Wait, why were you in—
Georgie 1:00
Why was I, why was I—
Geoff 1:02
...there no Peter and ham?
Georgie 1:04
Well there’s a music store there and Nick wanted to get his old guitar like restrung and cleaned up and yeah cuz he started playing it again, it’s an electric guitar, and he started playing it again recently and it kind of needed some love.
Geoff 1:22
Yeah?
Georgie 1:22
And there’s a, yeah.
Geoff 1:23
Do you go to a specific person that tunes guitars?
Georgie 1:27
Uh, he went to this place called, I think it’s called Deep Tone. And they specialise in... yeah, like, whatever, doing up your, they do like as professional like service.
Geoff 1:38
Yeah, I’ve heard of the piano ones.
Georgie 1:41
Yeah, like you get a piano tuned and stuff.
Geoff 1:43
Yeah, I couldn’t believe that pianos. You can be a full times, like specialist piano tuner. I didn’t even know you can do that full time.
Georgie 1:55
Wait, what do you, what did you think it was like a 20 minute job and just go and like, have a beer.
Geoff 1:59
It kind, it kind of makes sense. If you can go you go to a music store and you go, oh hey, could you tune my guitar? And the guy, the guy or the person that says yeah, sure. I’ll tune your guitar. It’s like a secondary service to the music store.
Georgie 2:12
Tuning is like you could just do it yourself at home. But it’s like if you want, like care, more further care for your instrument. Like—
Geoff 2:19
Yeah
Georgie 2:19
It’s like a deep clean or whatever.
Geoff 2:21
Yeah, in any case, I just assumed that you know, you. I guess I didn’t assume, I didn’t have any idea, really? I was like, oh, yeah. Pianos need tuning and someone would have to come out to tune your piano. I don’t think you can carry it to a store.
Georgie 2:35
Oh, yeah, of course.
Geoff 2:37
Yeah, yeah.
Georgie 2:38
I had one right, because I learnt piano. Oh, here’s an interesting thing, right. So Nick bought a keyboard, the other week and he’s he’s almost got an entire music room at this point. You know, he has—
Geoff 2:48
Drums...
Georgie 2:48
An electric drum kit, yeah, electric guitar. So he bought a keyboard. Now I, I was, quote unquote, Asian forced to learn piano kind of thing. I actually wanted to play the violin. And because I guess I was made to learn an instrument that I didn’t super enjoy. And I had to do grades, which is kind of boring. You get really boring music to learn. I think there’s maybe one song out of my, whatever, almost 10 years of playing piano that I—
Geoff 3:14
It’s like English.
Georgie 3:16
Like English at school?
Geoff 3:17
Yeah. When they give you that that one book—
Georgie 3:19
The one book that you kind of appreciate.
Geoff 3:22
You don’t, because you have to write essays about it.
Georgie 3:25
I actually didn’t—
Geoff 3:25
Did you appreciate all the books?
Georgie 3:26
I didn’t mind most of my English texts, but I don’t know if that’s because I went to a selective school and were they different? Maybe?
Geoff 3:32
I don’t know, we did To Kill a Mockingbird.
Georgie 3:35
Okay, my brother did that. I didn’t do that one. I did Catcher in the Rye.
Geoff 3:39
I’ve never of that one.
Georgie 3:41
Oh.
Geoff 3:41
1984.
Georgie 3:43
See, we had the Great Gatsby.
Geoff 3:45
Okay, Great Gatsby. And I didn’t do this one. But my sister did Ender’s Game.
Georgie 3:52
Oh OK.
Geoff 3:53
And I ended up reading, I ended up reading the book outside of school. Because my sister had the book and she said you might enjoy this sci fi book so I read Ender’s game.
Georgie 4:02
We had Brave New World for like, that—
Geoff 4:06
I have no idea these books that you’re talking about.
Georgie 4:08
What! But okay, so I guess Brave New World is what like, what do you call it aligned or whatever with 1984 was a dystopian fiction.
Geoff 4:15
Yeah.
Georgie 4:16
There was another one we had called. Oh, what was it? It was by the author Melina Marchetta.
Geoff 4:25
No idea, I don’t know—
Georgie 4:26
She was Australian, it was about... dammit. It totally slipped. There was a movie made out of it, or like an Australian—
Geoff 4:33
Wait what’s it called again?
Georgie 4:34
Her name is Melina Marchetta. M, A, R, C, H...
Geoff 4:40
There we go. [Italian accent] Marchetta. Oh she’s Italian.
Georgie 4:44
Yeah, Looking for Alibrandi.
Geoff 4:46
Looking for Alibrandi.
Georgie 4:48
Yeah, so that was a kind of interesting sort of like young adult kind of like, about a girl trying to find her place in the world and stuff. And oh, wait, maybe I shouldn’t put spoilers. Something, something bad happens. She goes through a bad like a tough time, whatever. But yeah, it’s like about like identity and belonging and shit. Anyway, piano, hated it. And at some point, I was like I quit. And Nick is playing for fun. And it’s very interesting. Watching him like learn in a very different way from I did, like I saw a—
Geoff 5:20
Like YouTube learning?
Georgie 5:22
Yeah. (laughs)
Geoff 5:25
So you’re looking at his hand structure and you’re like, dude.
Georgie 5:27
And like your fingering is wrong.
Geoff 5:30
Yes, you just have to finger better. (laughs)
Georgie 5:32
(laughs) Yeah, so like, when you learn as like a classically trained piano or whatever you learn, like the placement of your fingers and different keys and the way you should move them in the most efficient ways to do that, when you have to play like more advanced stuff. It’s, you know, you’re not struggling and your hands aren’t sore, so to speak. But he’s learning from yeah, like YouTube, and they don’t go through those sort of fundamentals. So you just sort of like looking at the keys, and then sort of remembering what to play and then sort of like figuring the tiny, like, improvements out later. But the point is, he’s having a lot of fun with it. And he can just go there and he’s learnt like a few different songs. Not completely in full.
Geoff 6:14
Damn him for having fun.
Georgie 6:16
Yeah, I know, right? It feels like that. And I’m just like, damn you. So like, he’s learnt this Elton John song and like a Beatles one and some more modern, like, I think like The 1975 one of their songs, and, and then another, like Ragtime styles, or a jazzy sort of thing. And he was just, like, he’ll plug the keyboard in and then start playing one of them and then who get bored and play the next one. He would just like, I think he’ll just remember it now. And I’m like, fuck you.
Geoff 6:42
(laughs)
Georgie 6:42
(laughs) It’s very different. Like when I like the way I learnt was like, so and he’s done this in like a matter of like two weeks or something, maybe even less at this point. And just when I was learning at two weeks, you’re just going to remember the fucking read the sheet music and shit. And that’s the thing, right? Like some people don’t, some musicians can’t even read sheet music. They have just like, they learn by ear.
Geoff 7:04
Yeah. There was a guy in high school who learnt by ear and he played like perfect piano. So basically he’d just sound robotic. I remember one time, he’s just practicing, we’re practicing and we’re all just hanging out, in there for some reason, don’t ask me why we were hanging—
Georgie 7:23
You were hanging in the music room?
Geoff 7:24
Piano music room.
Georgie 7:26
That is something, that was such a thing. Like I studied music in high school, and I was just think, like, hang out in the music room. Even if you weren’t like a music person, like everyone else just pile in.
Geoff 7:36
And he really liked Coldplay, so he would play Coldplay all the time. What’s the, what’s that famous Coldplay song?
Georgie 7:44
Is it Clocks? The one that goes—
Geoff 7:46
Clocks. Yes.
Georgie 7:47
Yes.
Geoff 7:47
[sings tune]
Georgie 7:49
That’s another one. Nick learnt that one as well.
Geoff 7:52
Yeah.
Georgie 7:53
Because it’s not too difficult.
Geoff 7:55
So I was bored. And he was playing his ultra perfect piano and I was like, “two times faster”. So he sped it up. And then I was like, “faster”, and he’s continue going faster. He did like five, five times faster, Clocks.
Georgie 8:08
Like no mistakes.
Geoff 8:09
No mistakes.
Georgie 8:10
Fuck off.
Geoff 8:10
I mean, I was, I was like, what 12 or 13, he could have been making a mistake. So he would be like, the shifting would be like really fast. So it looks really impressive. And then, and then I said, okay, switch song. So he just like switched to a different song and he was keeping the tempo. And I’m like, okay, this is ridiculous. I just kept asking him to keep switching songs. Midway through. So yeah, really tested, tested his ability, but the problem with his playing was that it’s too, it’s too precise. And there’s like, you don’t have any, like, soul. No, kind of like—
Georgie 8:50
No feeling.
Geoff 8:52
No, no feeling.
Georgie 8:54
Interesting.
Geoff 8:55
So yeah. He’s on YouTube, I can—
Georgie 8:59
Oh really.
Geoff 9:00
I’ll send, I’ll send it to you later.
Georgie 9:01
Okay.
Geoff 9:02
I don’t know if he ever, he ever did Clocks at five times speed on YouTube. But he had he had a couple.
Georgie 9:06
Wait, why do that when you can just update the video controls to watch it at that speed?
Geoff 9:12
True. True. But it’s kind of funny, I think back to your point around like hating the fact that he’s having fun.
Georgie 9:21
Yeah. I’m like, I’m not triggered. But it’s just very interesting to watch, right? Because like, and here’s something another theory I have is for me piano, I just quit. Like I was like, I’m done.
Geoff 9:33
Me too.
Georgie 9:34
Yeah, I’m done. And and so every time I went to a piano after that, I was like, well, I remember how to, I, like, I can remember how to play but I have like no interest at all in like, trying to learn again. This kind of thing. Whereas I taught myself guitar and this is where I sort of find like parallels between like having like Nick is having fun learning to play the piano or keyboard or whatever. And I’ve played guitar for fun. And I taught myself that and then I like wrote some songs and stuff. And then in the middle of the pandemic, I was like, let’s get out the, you know, the old guitar and just have fun. And it’s because there was never any sort of notion of quitting the damn thing. So it’s kind of like, ah, you know, it’s not, and so it’s, it’s not that it’s specifically fun when I pick it up again. But there’s no like, weird, like, restraint that I have to deal with.
Geoff 10:27
Yeah, it’s like, I guess the only the only reason you would quit something is if you were actually like, like work, you can kind of quit work because you’ve, you’ve gotten in to this rhythm of, and you have to do it. It’s like this. There’s this idea you have to do it.
Georgie 10:45
Yeah.
Geoff 10:46
If you don’t have do it, then there’s I guess no sense of quitting. Yeah, inteersting thing is like, what I was watching, some other YouTube video about how like the the idea that you hate when—oh, right, right. What was it, shit. Anyways. So back to that idea you hate. So it’s like, it’s so like, everyone has to go through the same turmoil as you, before, like before doing something, the whole hardship thing?
Georgie 11:18
Right, right. Yeah.
Geoff 11:20
Yeah. And it’s sort of like, and—
Georgie 11:24
It’s not fair?
Geoff 11:25
Not, yeah, it’s not fair. Not to get too political about it. But it’s that whole idea of debt, like they’re doing some level of thinking around... relieving education debt, I can’t remember what the exact terminology is.
Georgie 11:39
Interesting.
Geoff 11:40
So essentially, that they’re erasing people’s debt, the education debt. And for people who don’t know, in America, every one has hundreds of thousands of dollars of education debt, loans, loans for education.
Georgie 11:54
Because it’s fucking expensive.
Geoff 11:56
And, and they get charged interest on it. It’s not like Australia, where we got a basically a 0% interest loan on our education.
Georgie 12:08
That they only make you pay back once you actually have a full time job.
Geoff 12:12
And earn, I think, above 50, or 60k. 60k, 70k, either way. So the funny thing is that people are really angry, because they’re like, “I had to pay off my debt. Why don’t they have to pay off their debt?” And I’m like, okay, I guess I see your point. But also, why do you want everyone to go through the same pain?
Georgie 12:38
It’s, I think it’s a trauma thing. So there are a couple of like things that have been popping up on Instagram, like reels and videos that I’ve seen about, like generational trauma. And there was one where a cashier was saying, showing his hands moving quite fast and saying, this is me, when I see a kid in the queue, and their parent has left them briefly to go and pick up something. So I start speeding up scanning.
Geoff 13:06
Heheheh.
Georgie 13:07
There were people in the comments, outraged. Saying, “I thought we were going to stop this”. And it’s amusing how many people relate to that experience of like, your parent leaves you in the shopping queue, and they go, I’ll be right back and you’re like, oh my god, what if it gets to our turn, and you haven’t come back. What am I supposed to do? (laughs)
Geoff 13:25
(laughs) I’ve never, I’ve never had that experience. But OK.
Georgie 13:32
So the funny, yeah, look, the funny thing is like, I don’t know if I can, like even remember having that experience, but for some reason, I, the trauma seems familiar. Maybe I... Or maybe my mum had, has come back and you know, and I didn’t have to panic.
Geoff 13:48
You didn’t get too close.
Georgie 13:51
The other one, is, do you know the cookie tin one?
Geoff 13:55
No?
Georgie 13:57
The Dani, there’s a there’s a Danish cookie tin.
Geoff 14:00
Yes.
Georgie 14:01
And in many households, which people’s, well it was mostly an Asian thing, but it seems to be a worldwide thing. Parents have or grandparents have this cookie tin, like, whatever stainless steel or whatever it is tin.
Geoff 14:15
Yeah.
Georgie 14:16
And it doesn’t have cookies in it. But it has sewing supplies.
Geoff 14:21
Hahaha. Actually, I think my mum—
Georgie 14:23
Surely you know this.
Geoff 14:24
...tin has, I think my mum’s tin at one point had sewing supplies. Yeah.
Georgie 14:29
Yeah. Did you Did you ever have that experience? Do you know anyone who has that experience of that’s in their house, and it’s like they know that there’s a sewing, like sewing supplies in there, but a small part of them, like you think, like you want to open it and just check. And you’re just disappointed because you swear there were supposed to be cookies in it.
Geoff 14:50
Ah man, I don’t know if I’ve ever had that one either, but I’m pretty sure we used to use the tin for the, like yeah definitely use the tin for other things other than cookies. I don’t think I particularly liked any of the cookies and in the, in that one.
Georgie 15:06
Really?
Geoff 15:06
It’s a blue tin, right?
Georgie 15:08
Yeah, the butter cookies. So it turns out this is a very universal thing. And I just thought, I just assumed as an Asian thing. So I went, I found an article that tried to figure out why this became a thing, like globally, and they say was probably during the war time when people were encouraged to reuse things. And that tin just kind of like, the size of it. And the way that it closed properly, made it a very good thing for like, storing stuff. And it just kind of yeah, it kind of took off. Like I mean, this is so funny. Maybe I should have one in my house because like my sewing kit’s just in this little fucking Daiso basket, like open.
Geoff 15:49
Yeah, we need a sewing kit.
Georgie 15:53
Do you occasionally just get a hole, like a small rip and you’re just like, oh shit, like—
Geoff 15:57
Ah. Yeah, I’m the I’m the worst. Because I am pretty wasteful. I just go buy a new one.
Georgie 16:04
Like, you get a hole in your pocket and you buy a whole new pair of pants.
Geoff 16:08
Yeah, to be honest—
Georgie 16:08
Fuck off.
Geoff 16:09
I don’t know when the last time I had a hole in my pocket. Like when I was wear, when I had, when I had to go to the office every day, and I was only wearing one pair of jeans and it was like tearing left, right and center. I did get a hole. And the hole was very specific to the corner of the phone.
Georgie 16:26
Oh yeah, yeah.
Geoff 16:27
Just the way the phone sits just wore a hole in there. And I sort of just lived with the hole in the pocket. And then when I got everything, like when I got my, when I got the bigger holes in the legs parts, like sewed up. I also got them to fix the hole in the pocket. And they just took out like a big piece of like fabric.
Georgie 16:49
Yeah, and they reinforced it.
Geoff 16:50
They reinforced it. It’s pretty funny how they fix things.
Georgie 16:53
Did you think, “oh yeah, I could have done that myself?”
Geoff 16:57
No?
Georgie 16:58
Haha. Okay, good. Okay. I feel like some things are easy to like, mend, like, depending on like, if it’s a tiny hole like a rip or like inside corner or pocket or whatever, versus like, there is a straight up hole in the crotch of your jeans.
Geoff 17:13
Yeah. Do you have holes in the crotch of your jeans?
Georgie 17:15
Um, I think I think we had an episode where I was just like, hey, so I finally like, I was putting my jeans on and I fucking ripped, like inside of the leg somewhere. Just actually, not too long ago, like I think it was like a couple of weeks ago, I was putting on pantyhose. Like I, so, we call them stockings, but I’m saying pantyhose because it’s a bit more um, what’s the word. I think in the US, you call them pantyhose. And they were quite old and I kind of didn’t give a fuck about them. But as I was pulling them on, I tore a hole just with my bare hands. And I was like “shit”. And like he was sort of quite far up the up the leg or whatever. And Nick was around at the time. And I go “oh shit, I just ripped my stockings”. He goes, “what, like, just then?” I’m like, “yeah”. And then, I made a point of the fact that I ripped it with my bare hands. And I straight up just grabbed like the fabric and tore it.
Geoff 18:11
Tore it. That’s nice.
Georgie 18:11
He was just like, “what the fuck?” He was, he was like so shocked. He was like, “What did you do that for?” He was like, “It was still good”. I’m like, “there was a hole in them”. You think that they were fucking good? No.
Geoff 18:22
The... you were giving your tattoo some breathing room?
Georgie 18:25
(laughs)
Geoff 18:26
That’s what you were doing.
Georgie 18:27
Actually that’s, that’s an intentional thing that some people do though. They’ll just cut holes like for ventilation. (laughs) Nah. It’s like a look. It’s like a look.
Geoff 18:34
Yeah, yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I was like, it could, you could just make it the look, having holes and shit. I still don’t understand why people want holes in their jeans.
Georgie 18:45
Oh yeah. Did you say your uncle was just like, oh, I should have kept—
Geoff 18:48
Yeah, should have kept his like jeans from I don’t know, the 90s or something like that. Who knew it was going to be come trendy to have holes in jeans. But yeah. What were we talking about?
Georgie 19:01
Piano. Being forced to learn stuff.
Geoff 19:05
Being forced to learn stuff. Yeah, I think it’s really it’s really interesting. Because you when you’re an adult, sometimes you just like I wish my parents actually told me to, like forced me to keep going with whatever language or whatever, like extracurricular skill, like piano playing, because I would really love to be able to play the piano like now.
Georgie 19:27
Yeah, I guess, like I had that for a brief time. And then I was like, oh, I don’t know if I care that much.
Geoff 19:33
Yeah.
Georgie 19:35
Like—
Geoff 19:35
Me neither.
Georgie 19:35
Yeah, like, it’s like, if I could still play the piano. What would I do? Just go to public piano and show off. Like—
Geoff 19:41
Oh, you only want to learn skills which can be externally appreciated.
Georgie 19:47
Yeah, I mean, that’s why I have this podcast, right? Because I can talk and (laughs).
Geoff 19:51
You can talk about it. What’s interesting is I watched this YouTube video about how that... the idea of not not being able to learn new things is quite prevalent, like the idea that, oh, I’m—
Georgie 20:07
An adult?
Geoff 20:08
I’m too old. I’m too old to do X. And I think most of the people are like, oh, yeah, I could have oh, like, by the time they’re 30, or something like that. They’re like, oh, you know what? It’s too late to learn.
Georgie 20:25
I kind of disagree. Like, what do you think about it?
Geoff 20:28
Well, he described exactly how I guess I thought about it as well, in that he, he’s a gamer, so he’s gonna, he uses gaming terms. Because people are like, oh, no, I can’t, I can’t get that skill anymore. Because I’m too high level now. Like, I’m too old for that skill. But he says, well, actually, you can, you can learn anything, you could become proficient in a whole language in like two years. And it will be the, the, where it kicks off is that actually you could turn your entire life around, you could go from someone who doesn’t have a job, doesn’t have a girlfriend or a partner, or, and has, I guess, like zeros in savings or whatever. And in two years, you could be successfully in your job earning, earning 100 plus k and having a girlfriend in just two years. And he kind of describes it as first four weeks is about like building building up habits, like understanding exactly what prevents you from doing these things. And then the after those four weeks is like just working on self improvement. And in two years, you should be able to achieve anything, including learning a completely new language.
Georgie 21:50
Do you think people just don’t make it past that sort of like, beginnery—
Geoff 21:53
Yeah.
Georgie 21:54
Kind of like, I don’t know, hump obstacle, whatever you want to call it?
Geoff 21:58
Yeah, I think that’s just it. They, they like, like, within the four weeks, if you’ve seen no pro, like, quote, unquote, progress, then you’re like—
Georgie 22:09
You’re not trying hard enough? Maybe? I don’t know.
Geoff 22:12
Yes. Not, not, not enough dedication. But yeah, you definitely have to be like, completely dedicated to, to learning that thing. But the, yeah, the point is, it’s not impossible to to, like, learn, and turn your life around, et cetera, et cetera.
Georgie 22:30
Yeah, I think for a lot of people, they might possibly not have enough time, because whatever, like, let’s say, arbitrarily 30s. Like, a lot of people start a family around that time. So you might not have time for such things. So I understand that. But like, I literally picked up a skateboard in my 30s. Very weird, very, like, kind of out of the blue or whatever. And I’m not like good, right? But I can like roll on the board for a bit. And that’s because I just kept practicing on it. And like, I’m seeing Nick, like, pick up the drums, like, basically in his 30s and pick up like playing a fucking piano in his 30s as well. And, you know, he does put the time to like, practice.
Geoff 23:14
Yes. Is it too late? Whatever. So yeah, it’s, life’s an, yeah, life’s an RPG. It’s kind of like, oh, I spent too, too much time learning how to do, playing games. And then now this is all I’m good at. And I can’t, I can’t like, skill up in other areas.
Georgie 23:34
I think, also that we spend a lot of our, I think early adulthood, like 20s to maybe even yeah, 30s trying to figure out how to fucking do life. So that’s probably why some people also feel like, oh, by the time I figured it out, it’s fucking quote unquote, too late to, like, start shit.
Geoff 23:56
Yeah, oh, life isn’t a race. Like I tried to think of it as levelling up daily, putting stat points, I get into the right stats.
Georgie 24:04
So I don’t get the game analogy. But like, the kind of improving daily thing is something that I just kind of think about, in general, with most things, like whether it’s something I want to do long term or not.
Geoff 24:17
Yeah.
Georgie 24:18
And I think that’s, I don’t know, I feel like people maybe expect too high of themselves, like, like, as if I was to say, I want to be like a pro skateboarder. And it’s like, well, yeah, maybe it is too late. Because in like, seven years, my bones might fucking crumble. Who knows?
Geoff 24:34
(laughs)
Georgie 24:34
I don’t know. I go to the gym. Right. But that’s not what I’m thinking about. Like my short, I think the short term goals are important when you’re learning something brand new, like people probably think about these things as like trying to reach some kind of expert level.
Geoff 24:49
We we also have known many people who didn’t start out as software engineers, but have but have succeeded.
Georgie 24:59
Yeah.
Geoff 25:00
Who made, like, the transition to software engineering. And like, a lot of these comments in this video is like, “10 years I levelled up in engineering and realise I made a terrible mistake in my early 30s and swallowed my pride and and I’m a second year med student”. And like, I’m 24, it’s too late, dude, I’m 34 and starting to get back on track. It’s never too late to do something, giving yourself an excuse. But yeah, I guess like, it really depends. When people just think, “well, I’m really good at this thing. Like, there’s, there’s just no way I could be anything else but this thing”. Or it’s too late to, you know, start a family. And that’s like, well, besides biological reasons.
Georgie 25:48
Yeah.
Geoff 25:49
There’s like, there’s almost no bounds to like, transitioning from one from one thing to it to another. If you really are dedicated.
Georgie 25:58
I’m always envious of people who do that, if that makes sense. Like—
Geoff 26:04
Making the jump. Yeah.
Georgie 26:05
Yeah. Like they they sort of defy what people think are odds, but there’s not really odds, but you’re just like, that’s like, you know, because I just feel like we were just like, sort of fell into it ish.
Geoff 26:17
Yes.
Georgie 26:17
Yeah. You’d be doing it for a while. It’s like whatever, right? And you see someone like you, I don’t know if I should name drop them just in case. But she used to be a baker. And she spoke SydCSS, I think a couple of times. Do you know who I’m talking about?
Geoff 26:31
Probably.
Georgie 26:32
She used to be like a baker. I think like a cake decorator?
Geoff 26:35
I feel like I know who it is—
Georgie 26:36
Yeah.
Geoff 26:36
Without even, like I—she looks kind of like someone who would do baking. (laughs)
Georgie 26:43
Yeah, but then like she got into—
Geoff 26:46
Just a homely vibe.
Georgie 26:46
...tech. And I was like, this is a sick story. Like, I think she’s around the same age as us.
Geoff 26:53
I know, someone who used to be a pharmacist. That transitioned, I know so many, yeah. What was... like plenty of other stories that I can’t remember exactly. But you, if you go, you get into tech, and you ask someone oh, what did you do? Like teacher?
Georgie 27:13
Yeah.
Geoff 27:13
You just never know how people started because software engineering has kind of turned into this, I say low barrier of entry, but high glass ceiling.
Georgie 27:23
Yeah.
Geoff 27:24
Glass ceiling, because you can, you think you can see through it.
Georgie 27:29
That’s not the ceiling, dude.
Geoff 27:31
Not the ceiling. Yeah. Also, the there’s also a point around here is that you can actually become an expert in a lot of different things at the same time, you don’t actually have to, so you don’t have to stick to one thing. So yeah, it’s quite interesting. The, the mentality, the mentality of, of doing this stuff is really hardcore, like trans, like getting out of whatever you’ve been doing for 10 years. It’s crazy. Like, I’ve been doing this for 15 years, and I’m like, can I actually be good at anything else?
Georgie 28:09
Go on and be a med student now.
Geoff 28:11
Go and become a doctor? Man, I don’t even want to write software for laser eye surgery. Like my—
Georgie 28:17
Ooh shit.
Geoff 28:18
Like my brother in law used to do—
Georgie 28:19
Too much responsibility.
Geoff 28:21
Exactly. Cutting people open, uh...
Georgie 28:25
I think it’s like, what do you want to do? Right? I think if you really wanted to pursue something, whether it’s for career or hobby, it’s like, do you want to do like, I don’t really have any interest right now to like, quit tech, but I always have these sort of like, weird wild, like, imaginary situations of like, if I ever get sick of this, I’m gonna just do something completely else. Like, I dunno, some people think that’s silly. But am I like no, I, I want to—
Geoff 28:48
Yeah.
Georgie 28:49
You know, if if one day I get fully completely sick of what I’m doing, then I’m pretty sure I want to do something completely different.
Geoff 28:57
Yeah, my, my sister recently took a dive. A dive? That, that implies downwards. But, took a jump?
Georgie 29:04
Jump.
Geoff 29:05
Leap. She’s been like consulting, I think she, was she a director now or something like that? Director and a big 4 consulting firm. And she’s doing that for 15 years, kind of similar, but she stayed at the same place for 15 years. So I’ve been hopping around, not you. And she recently decided that she took she took up like a diploma in sustainability and did part time, part time education and now she’s like, she’s gonna apply for jobs and jump ship to something that is closer to what she wants to be, like moving on from. And it’s, it’s almost starting at zero. So it’s a, it’s a big jump, got got three kids, partner—
Georgie 30:04
Yeah.
Geoff 30:05
House, all that kind of jazz. And just talk, talking to her because she hadn’t like, done a job—
Georgie 30:13
Interview, yeah, yeah.
Geoff 30:14
...slash application in 15 years. And I’m like, giving her advice I’d usually give—
Georgie 30:21
Someone younger than you?
Geoff 30:22
Someone starting. Also, like how to start, because technically, like, it’s semi portfolio based, semi like project based, if you want to get into the space, you have to prove you have to show that you can, that you’ve got some kind of experience, right. And that’s, that’s like everything we do whenever we’re talking to people who try to crack into software engineering. It’s sort of like that balance between, like giving give, volunteering your skills versus like freelancing.
Georgie 30:55
Yeah.
Geoff 30:57
And having the confidence to freelance and things like that. Yeah. Because people can take advantage for sure. Like you showed them that you do. Like you start volunteering at something. And then like you, you do way—
Georgie 31:07
Start milking it.
Geoff 31:09
They start milking you. So yeah, it is. It’s quite interesting, quite brave, to just to switch up, but like you, I don’t have any other interests to switch to. Plus, it’ll take forever to... to learn—
Georgie 31:28
Now you’re one of those people. Going “oh, my god, I don’t want to do that”.
Geoff 31:31
It’s not too late. I know. It’s not too late. But I’m lazy.
Georgie 31:36
Yeah, actually, there was a point in my career where I was kind of a little bit stuck. And I didn’t want to leave, like the company I’m still working for. And I was like, should I do design? And I even thought, like, should I do like technical writing? I just wanted like something else, because I was just going through some rough shit at the time. And just thinking about like, starting from zero, I was like, urgh.
Geoff 31:59
Yeah, urgh.
Georgie 32:01
And then, and then eventually, everyone knows this—not everyone, everyone I’ve either worked with or like know, in tech—they know that I just finally decided to fucking learn JavaScript.
Geoff 32:13
Yeah, that took you way too long.
Georgie 32:16
Hey, I avoided it for the longest time possible. And I’m not even mad about it. Like I actually had, I actually had someone who is like, a bit younger than me, who I was sort of, I don’t know if I would say mentoring or whatever. But we would talk about career stuff. And she said, she kind of like, admired the fact that I just, when I am set about something, I’m just like, no, this is, this is what I like, this is what I want to do, or this is what I do, do not want to do. And she thought that was good.
Geoff 32:47
Yeah, but it’s kind of a career limiting move in a way.
Georgie 32:52
Yeah I guess?
Geoff 32:52
But it’s alright. Yeah, it’s it’s by, by no means does JavaScript even make sense sometimes. But hey, yeah, new skills. Or as, well, in our industry, we’re not technically new learning new skills. We’re just reading new framework documentation, and new tooling and things like that, everything works the same way.
Georgie 33:22
I think learning new ways of thinking as well.
Geoff 33:26
Yeah, that too. And that’s kind of like, some ex coworker asked me like, why do I like design systems? And sorry, for being too worky. But it’s like, if you get into somewhat of a leadership position, in a design system, you’re more than, you’re more than technical, you actually have to be product minded, you have to be marketing, you have to be customer service. And you have to be technical all at the same time, sometimes. Sometimes all at the same time.
Georgie 34:04
Yeah.
Geoff 34:05
Which makes it pretty interesting. It like flexes some consulting skills that I’ve learnt, basically, everything I’ve learnt for the past 15 years, kind of like rolled up into a single roll. So that’s fun.
Georgie 34:17
Yeah, I think it’s like that whole, like, there’s a set of skills that you grow, like, whatever it is, fucking horizontally or whatever. It’s not simply, it’s not simply—
Geoff 34:27
Oh yeah, T-shaped.
Georgie 34:27
Yeah, it’s not like technical, and I think I’m always like flexing communication skills.
Geoff 34:35
Yeah.
Georgie 34:36
It’s useful because yeah, you’re not always like working by yourself, and this is just your and this is your skill set. Like you’re working with other people. You have to like collaborate and that’s also something to navigate.
Geoff 34:50
Yeah, it’s pretty good. Anyways. The, yeah. Enough about work, enough about work. So yeah. Yeah, it just takes that four weeks, I guess that initial four weeks to get over that hump, and then actually see some results and like, become like, Nick. Have fun.
Georgie 35:13
Have fun. Yeah.
Geoff 35:14
Have fun learning piano.
Georgie 35:15
Goddamnit.
Geoff 35:20
Happy go lucky. How do you have all the space for all these instruments? Is it—
Georgie 35:25
Oh, yeah. Right. So because there’s this room, this is my room, right? I think it’s bigger than his like study nook. So he’s got a desk, right? The keyboard doesn’t actually have a permanent spot. He puts it literally on his desk in front of computer screens and stuff. And like the guitar is on a stand, but like, he sits in his desk chair to play the guitar. And the drum kit is like it’s, it’s kind of like a standard complete drum, like drum set, like with all like the cymbal, but he’ll be like, oh, I want another cymbal, but it’s not going to fit. Like so, there is limited space. And yeah.
Geoff 36:07
Are you gonna move at any time? Soon?
Georgie 36:11
No, I don’t think so.
Geoff 36:12
No?
Georgie 36:12
No, I like this apartment.
Geoff 36:15
Yeah.
Georgie 36:15
And they’re not kicking us out. We actually had an inspection the other day.
Geoff 36:20
Ooh?
Georgie 36:20
And she just like, was so funny. Like—
Geoff 36:23
You have way more inspections than I think I’ve ever had.
Georgie 36:25
Yeah, it’s funny, cuz one of my friends said that he hadn’t had one in like four years. And he was actually kind of concerned. And I was like, oh, yeah, like, I guess, like, if you don’t you don’t know what the hell’s going on then yeah. But I think we have one about once a year. But our property manager, she literally, she gets her phone. And like, you know, when you hold your phone, take a photo and you just sort of wait for things to focus she’s not doing it’s just just going point, press, point, press, point, press. I’m like those might be blurry, but alright.
Geoff 36:56
Just for documentation purposes.
Georgie 36:58
Yeah, I was here. Someone lives here. Check out the clothesline, or whatever. Right, done. Bye.
Geoff 37:06
Yeah, homeownership is, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Georgie 37:11
Yeah.
Geoff 37:12
I went to I went to our annual general meeting the other night.
Georgie 37:15
Yeah.
Geoff 37:16
I don’t know if I spoken about it on the pod.
Georgie 37:17
I think you have.
Geoff 37:18
We have spoken a few. My god.
Georgie 37:21
(laughs)
Geoff 37:22
It was the shortest one I’ve ever been to. And for those who don’t know, my AGMs can go from like, it starts at like six. And I think one of them went till 10 o’clock.
Georgie 37:32
Get fucked.
Geoff 37:33
My god. But this one went till 8:30, which is which is, which is good. But I think we’ve had—
Georgie 37:39
How boring is that.
Geoff 37:40
We had 29 motions to pass. Like last time at this time, we had 18. And we spent the first hour on motion 2, like, it is so unbearable. The interesting thing is that it’s long. I think it’s long in particular, because they they brought a translator in now. And they’re speaking English and translating into Mandarin.
Georgie 38:10
Yeah.
Geoff 38:11
And then people are asking questions in Mandarin, and they get translated in English and then they answer so it’s like twice as long because everything gets repeated twice.
Georgie 38:20
Do you learn any Mandarin just by listening?
Geoff 38:23
I think... it’s the, there’s a word. There’s a word for every everyone voting “yes”. And there’s a word for voting “no”, I think the no one’s [phonetically] “ahn-doi”. I couldn’t remember the one that said voting yes. Or like agreeing or disagreeing or whatever. But no, I’m not letting any Mandarin because there are no subs.
Georgie 38:48
Oh yeah.
Geoff 38:49
So I was just—
Georgie 38:50
You have to like use your brain a bit more to like...
Geoff 38:53
Yeah. So they brought in a lawyer, like the lawyers that have been dealing with my building’s legal issues. I think we’re, yeah, we’re recouping costs for building defects. So yeah, I mean, I don’t have to go. But I mean, you’re a homeowner. This is kind of part and parcel.
Georgie 39:16
Yeah.
Geoff 39:16
You should go and find out what’s happening in your building. But there’s a dude who has like, I think he has like 40% of the votes in the room.
Georgie 39:26
Yeah.
Geoff 39:27
He literally can, like, dislike, destroy anything, or agree with anything and pass it. It’s, it’s crazy. You just need like three other people to agree with him. And that’s it.
Georgie 39:40
How many people?
Geoff 39:41
Half any motion.
Georgie 39:42
...in total?
Geoff 39:43
To you have to reach a quorum, which I think I learnt, I learnt during this process is like the minimum amount of people in order to be able to make meaningful votes. I think it’s like 15. I think 15 people, you need at least 15.
Georgie 40:00
But how many people are in the meeting? Like attend the meeting?
Geoff 40:03
I don’t know. Like 15 to 20
Georgie 40:08
Okay, okay.
Geoff 40:09
Yeah, but this one dude has a he’s a proxy vote for, like 8, 10 apartments or something like that.
Georgie 40:18
Oh. Right. And so like to get this 15 he just needs a couple other people just go yeah as well.
Geoff 40:25
Exactly. So there’s like seven people, and then him with like eight. It’s crazy. It’s crazy.
Georgie 40:34
Wait, what if he says no to something?
Geoff 40:36
That’s it. You, you, it doesn’t pass.
Georgie 40:39
You just need him to say no and it does—
Geoff 40:42
Yeah, yeah, pretty much.
Georgie 40:44
So hang on If he says yes to something and everyone else in the room’s... So you need a lot of people to say “no”, to beat his “Yes”.
Geoff 40:56
Yeah, yeah.
Georgie 40:56
Because he’s worth like, whatever five or eight people, whatever.
Geoff 40:59
Exactly.
Georgie 41:01
Holy shit.
Geoff 41:01
Exactly. It’s almost pointless.
Georgie 41:05
A scam.
Geoff 41:05
It’s almost pointless. So the whole room but him has to kind of like agree or disagree to outvote him. And he only needs like two or three other people to agree with him to vote to get anything passed. So yeah, it’s quite a process. What else is quite a process, is ending this podcast.
Georgie 41:28
Yeah.
Geoff 41:29
So new ep... you can find... no, that’s not the one?
Georgie 41:34
Haha.
Geoff 41:36
I don’t know how to end the podcast.
Georgie 41:36
I’m waiting for you to call out the friggin, it’s not called Twitter anymore.
Geoff 41:41
You can follow us on @toastroastpod on X. Dot com.
Georgie 41:46
Fuck.
Geoff 41:46
We need to talk about this in the next episode at some point.
Georgie 41:51
You know, I think I might be done. Like I think that was actually the last straw for me. That made me—yeah, anyway. You can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you find your podcasts, and the big X.
Geoff 42:05
That we won’t talk about yet. And new episodes every Monday
Georgie 42:10
X. (laughs)
Geoff 42:11
See you X week.
Georgie 42:15
(laughs)
Geoff 42:14
Bye.