We explore a little bit about our childhood/background, what we do for a living and our current experiences in the podcast area and all the random topics between.
✍🏻 View the transcript for this episode
We explore a little bit about our childhood/background, what we do for a living and our current experiences in the podcast area and all the random topics between.
We're trying to keep these short for now, but do give us feedback on twitter @toastroastpod :)
Georgie’s reads/podcast:
Geoff’s podcasts:
Social media
Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
ep.01 Transcript
Geoff: Welcome to the very first episode, take two, of our podcast Toast & Roast. I am your co-host Geoff.
Georgie: And I am Georgie.
Geoff: Cool, cool. So, um, I guess for our very first podcast we should give a bit of an introduction to each other. I’m Geoff, I’m a Sydney-based UI systems engineer, as my official title states. What about you Georgie?
Georgie: I don’t believe in official titles, but you know, I like to call myself a cascading stylist. I’m also based in Sydney but I grew up in Western Sydney but that’s a nice topic we can talk about another time.
Geoff: Yeah I think we can deep dive into our backgrounds another day, but um… actually why not now? Why not now?What was life like growing up in Western Sydney?
Georgie: Because it’s going to be big – it’s going to be a big explanation. But basically, if you’re listening to this and you’re from Western Sydney, we’re probably going to get along. And there’s probably some jokes about Western Sydney that we both understand, um – there’s just this thing about people from Western Sydney being super chill, and when you meet other people from Western Sydney in other areas of Sydney, it’s just like, “oh hey! You’re from Western Sydney!” And you just kind of get each other in this weird way. I mean, I don’t know if it’s like that in other areas but we’re also just known to be more chill in general. Apparently.
Geoff: Yeah, I kind of get that, because I’m originally from Perth. And I try to hide this fact, ’cause, I dunno, I’m semi-embarrassed about my Perth origins. Just because, Perth is, known for being very far away, very “retirement village”, you know, small town.
Georgie: So it’s the stereotypes.
Geoff: I’m actually not fully aware of the stereotypes, I just believe that I’m a city guy at heart, so I come from a very “city” mindset. I enjoy my dense, um, architecture, and the… not so much the smoking I guess, but you know, the availability and the immediacy of a city. The pace is also pretty good. So. But yeah, I’m from Perth, it’s very slow over there, and we do get that same kind of connection where if I meet a Perth person like, ooh okay, so we probably have some Facebook friends in common. And we all the get the Perth jokes, like it’s boring, it’s a quiet town, ghost-town type place.
Georgie: That’s funny, I think that it’s the same with Western Sydney, that Western Sydney is the butt of many jokes. Um, but yeah, unlike you, I think I have a weird sort of pride that comes with coming from Western Sydney. But that pride hasn’t always been there. It used to be a little bit embarrassing. I think the older I got, and the more I spent time in the city, and like, eastern SydneyS basically, the more I started to appreciate where I grew up. But since you specifically mentioned Perth, I remember when I first visited Perth, I actually – I liked that it was quiet. I wouldn’t specifically call myself like a quiet town person or a country person or anything like that, but also I’m not really a city person either. I feel like I’m sort of in between.
Geoff: You went to America didn’t you? Where was it again?
Georgie: Yeah, so I’’ve been to a few different cities there, that are quite different. So I’ve been to Portland, which –
Geoff: Right, Portland is what you absolutely love.
Georgie: People would say it’s a bit sleepy. And New York kind of overwhelmed me, like, I liked it, I liked that there was always something to do, but I found it really busy and just really overwhelming for my liking. But I didn’t live there, and they say if you’re living in a big city, versus visiting, is quite different.
Geoff: It’s true.
Georgie: So I feel like some people would say the same thing about Sydney being busy, but because I just live and work here, it’s just different.
Geoff: Yeah my brother, when he came over to Sydney, he was just like, “Everyone’s so rude around here” and I’m like, “it’s fine?” But I haven’t actually noticed that kind of difference between Perth and Sydney, like people being more or less rude. But I guess he’s a bit more sensitive to that type of thing. And I spent two and a half months in San Francisco. So, um, living in Sydney is pretty good I think, compared to San Francisco. I’m not an “interaction with people’ kind of person though. Like I don’t go around saying hi to people, they don’t necessarily talk to me, like, sitting on a bus bench, nobody just strikes a conversation. You get that in America though.
Georgie: Yeah I’m definitely not that kind of person. Yeah I do find them to be more friendly over there. THey’re more likely to start a conversation with you in America.
Geoff: Yeah.
Georgie: You get that a bit here, but I feel like people are more reluctant.
Geoff: I remember being on the bus and I actually – a whole conversation on the bus about startups and that person’s startup. But that was thing back in – I dunno, when was it – 2011? 2010? Um, in San Francisco everyone was doing a startup and you could literally talk to anyone about that topic.
Georgie: I remember someone writing a blog post exactly about this. Wherever you went there, you’d be in a cafe and someone would be talking about starting up a startup.
Geoff: Yeah I think on Twitter right now I have a lot of American – I follow a lot of American people, they’re like “I need to leave San Francisco because this is all that people talk about”. I think there is a fatigue now for people living there. But in any case, that’s our semi-histories. I mean, I’ve got a really long history, because I wasn’t even born in Australia. Born in Hong Kong and we moved around a lot because of my dad’s job. I don’t know how much I’ve told you about this, but
Georgie: You have told me. As they call it, and I hate this term – they would say you had a colourful childhood or something like that. I really don’t like that term.
Geoff: Actually, that’s really interesting. Would you call my – I’ll go through what I went through first. So I was born in Hong Kong, we moved to Taiwan a couple years later, and a couple years later we moved to Malaysia. We went even to Jakarta, Indonesia and then we did a couple back-and-forths between Hong Kong and Malaysia again. And then my dad decided to retire in Perth when I was 10 years old. So I moved around every couple years from 0 to 10. So, yeah. Would you call that a colourful past?
Georgie: Well, I wouldn’t call it that. but if other people didn’t know the details, I feel like they would come up with a way to descried it that’s in like one word or something. In America for example, I think they call them… like children of people who were in the army?
Geoff: Army brats.
Georgie: Yeah. When their parents move around a lot for whatever reason, but yeah. I mean I feel like that’s just – people have different experiences. They might move around a lot when they’re a kid, but everyone’s parents is in a different occupation. So it would depend. I wouldn’t call it colourful. I feel like that’s such a strange word.
Geoff: Yeah when you said “colourful” my mind went straight to, like, I was in jail. I beat a bunch of people up. That’s a colourful past.
Georgie: So speaking of colourful, did you hear about the guy, the McAfee guy?
Geoff: Oh yeah the McAfee guy had a colourful past. That’s colourful.
Georgie: That’s what they said in the news article. So I reckon if someone was writing about you in a news article Geoff, they might try and, you know – make you sound more cool, more interesting. And play it up a little bit.
Geoff: Yeah. yeah. What]s your thoughts on the McAfee stuff by the way?
Georgie: I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think I have an opinion on it. It’s strange. They said he might have committed suicide? I don’t know, obviously. I did see a meme.
Geoff: Oh no, they’re not meme-ing him already?
Georgie: He should have installed, like… Norton? Was it?
Geoff: Oh yeah, I did see that one.
Georgie: They meme-d him. They meme-d him. Yep.
Geoff: Yeah but the joke is that he would have – he would have been able to escape like, the United States if he had installed Norton instead of McAfee or something like that.
Georgie: Yep.
Geoff: But I read he didn’t actually install McAfee at all. Like, he didn’t use his own product.
Georgie: Why does that not surprise me? I feel like that’s – that doesn’t seem that uncommon. Common?
Geoff: Yep. Anyways, so I moved around a lot when I was a kid, and then we moved to Perth when I was ten, and then by the time I was eighteen I was like, “why did my parents choose to move to Perth?”
Georgie: You started asking the hard questions.
Geoff: Yeah. Well, it’s like, ok, it’s kinda quiet, we don’t have any gun violence I guess, it’s like really suburban. It’s really suburban, I rode my bike to school. I rode the bus to school. I was like, twenty minutes…
Georgie: Wait, what’s wrong with the bus, Geoff? What’s wrong with the bus?
Geoff: BUSES. I’ll tell you about buses, man. They have to go through fuckin’ traffic, none of them are very good drivers, the gas lift suspension is always soooo over-exaggerated. I can’t tell if it’s a science thing or not. But I just feel so sick riding on buses nowadays. I think it’s maybe Sydney buses. And maybe a little bit transfers to Perth buses.
Georgie: I think you might be right.
Geoff: But yeah I can’t do it. It’s just horrible.
Georgie: But I was going to say, I don’t think much has changed since you were a kid, and buses now, because I genuinely feel like, the same way, about buses as a 30 year old. So there’s that.
Geoff: Yeah. I guess there might not be any difference. I think the – for the most part –
Georgie: The other thing I noticed –
Geoff: Yep?
Georgie: Is that we’ve just been not really moving around much because of this pandemic. So I think the first time I got on a bus for the first time in, I dunno, 6 months or something. It was really odd and I stepped off the bus and I’m pretty sure I had vertigo because it felt like the ground was moving a little bit. And it was probably because I hadn’t been on a bus in a really long time.
Geoff: Yeah maybe. Also I think we are – our phones are a little bit more addicting. Addictive. So
Georgie: I try not to use mine on the bus. Because the bus does move a lot more than say, a train would.
Geoff: Yeah exactly. So as a kid I didn’t have like a smartphone or anything to constantly read on the bus, and nowadays it’s really hard not to just pick up your phone every, I dunno, ten-fifteen minutes and look and it. I do have a bit of good discipline where I only check my phone maybe fifteen to twenty minutes at a time on the bus. And I don’t read very much. So
Georgie: It’s a good habit to have. There was a period of time like obviously before the pandemic started, where I just decided I wouldn’t use my phone on the bus on the way home. And I would just listen to music or possibly a podcast. I say possibly because I don’t listen to many, if any, podcasts. And here I am recording one.
Geoff: Yeah, it’s a bit weird huh. Because I only listen to one podcast.
Georgie: Oh, yep?
Geoff: It’s a very nerdy one. It’s based on these three guys who do live Twitch streaming. They Twitch stream playing games and stuff like that. They play board games and things.
Georgie: That’s kinda niche.
Geoff: Yep, kinda niche. They don’t talk about games very often. That’s the thing actually, the podcasts I do listen to – which are brought together by three guys who usually do games - don’t talk about games. And three guys who usually do anime-based YouTube videos don’t talk much about anime on the podcast either.
Georgie: So do you listen to them because you like these people? Or you know them and they did a podcast and you started listening to them?
Geoff: Um… I got introduced to the three guys who do the video game one by my friend. I think I just listened to it because it was something to do on my walk. Like, half an hour. The thing is an hour long. So I usually just listen to half an hour and then stop and then listen to it again. The other one - the anime one – they sometimes have funny topics and they do that whole thing where they record and then they chop it up into clips. And so I watched a few of their funny clips. And then I started watching their whole two-hour long podcast videos when I’m really bored. I think that’s about it. How about you?
Georgie: Yeah, so – right now I only listen to one podcast as well and it’s called Becoming Better. It’s kind of related to being a better person but also there’s a focus on productivity and how you can do better at your day-to-day in terms of how much work you get done and yeah.
Geoff: Sounds way more productive than my podcasts.
Georgie: I came across it because the guy who co-hosts it, his name’s Chris Bailey, I have been reading his blog, alifeofproductivity.com, for like a really long time. And I really enjoyed his blog posts because they were pretty easy to read, they were like, no bullshit, you know how you’ve got those productivity-porn-type people who get really preachy and that kind of thing
Geoff: Haha sorry the term productivity porn – it’s the first time I’m hearing this term.
Georgie: Yep, oh really? Well, that‘s the word that people use for a lot of things when you get like, really into it.
Geoff: Yeah.
Georgie: Yeah so I liked his blog, and I read his book as well, which he published um, I think… It’s called Hyperfocus, I think he’s got another book on the way or maybe I’ve only read one of them. I can’t quite remember. But he seemed like a cool person and just his – the fact that his stuff was not like, preachy and it was really honest and open, and I appreciated that. And he came out in the podcast as someone enjoyable to listen to. And he does the podcast with his wife and I just really like their dynamic. I’ve just never enjoyed any other podcast. Like maybe I haven’t looked enough or tried. I generally feel like podcasts are not my thing. But yeah. That’s what I’m listening to at the moment.
Geoff: Podcast discovery is a bit of a weird thing. Like unless someone’s um, got a strong presence in other presence where you’re interested in, and then you find out they have a podcast you might listen to their podcast. I think in general the discovery is just not as virulent? virial? Or whatever
Georgie: I don’t know what word you’re saying…
Geoff: Like it doesn’t – it’s not as easy to find. Like if you think about how YouTube operates –
Georgie: There is an algorithm.
Geoff: I know you have strong opinions about YouTube and Google!
Georgie: YouTube…!!
Geoff: But there is an algorithm, right. It’s constantly pushing new content you may not know of or you may not have watched before, and I think – yeah, podcasts just doesn’t}t have that recommendation algorithm and ways to find it. Someone randomly called – emailed me – about their new podcast platform, which is basically aiming to be YouTube but for podcasts.
Georgie: Mhmm.
Geoff: It kind of triggered that and I’m like, oh, you’re right. There is just no platform that really promotes podcasts and recommends podcasts as an engine. But it’s very shady. That particular platform.
Georgie: It’s a little difficult, I think. You have to listen to something, there is no sort of visual to accompany this conversation, for example. We don’t even have a logo as we’re talking about this. I don’t even know if we need a logo? What’s the cover of this thing? How do you get people to discover podcasts without getting them to listen to, like, 15 seconds. Because people are lazy. People don’t want to listen to 15 seconds of audio.
Geoff: That’s true, that’s true. I’d say it’s probably description based. Maybe you can write an AI to just extract the key points of a audio clip and describe it to somebody in a couple of sentences. But you’re right, yeah visuals are pretty important when capturing someone’s interest. So yeah when it comes to audio, do we get like a custom sketch made for every podcast that completely and like, conveys the idea of our podcast in an illustration somehow? That’d be mad.
Georgie: It’s going to eventually sound like a TV advertisement. And somehow I don’t like where that‘s going. We’re going to end up having a jingle for every single episode. And it’s going to be a silly song that’s – yep.
Geoff: Um, does the podcast that you listen to, the productivity porn podcast, come with a jingle? Does he have one? Or do they have one?
Georgie: Yes, there’s a little bit of music at the beginning, it’s pretty simple though, so, you know… I mean, I don’t know, maybe it was stock music or something. But it’s just a basic intro to before they start talking and I think it ends with that as well? I feel like it never needs to be anything fancy.
Geoff: Yeah same for the other podcast I’m listening to. Actually the anime one doesn’t have any jingle, the gaming one they have a little bit of a jingle. But they’re high production value. like, these guys, they do charity events and they’re quite prominent in the gaming industry. They do those charity live streams where they go on for like 24 hours and they have guest stars come on and stuff like that. They have a whole production. So it’s understandable that they have a little jingle at the beginning. Not that it should be that high production. So yeah. I wonder – I guess we could talk about why we decided to start this podcast.
Georgie: OK where we do we start?
Geoff: Because we’re fucking bored!
Georgie: That’s one thing, also, for anybody who’s listening to this, we’re basically in a lockdown in Sydney, so what a good time to start a podcast, because we’re fucking bored.
Geoff: Yeah, yeah, you also mentioned something about how you wanted to do something non-tech related. As a hobby.
Georgie: Yeah I guess so, but that’s just a general – an overarching thing. But I think there have been times in the past few years where I’ve had a really funny conversation with one of my friends – and one of them is you Geoff,
Geoff [sarcastic]: Oh really? Woah!
Georgie: Yeah and it’s been like this topic –
Geoff: SO surprised.
Georgie: And I thought in my mind, someone else should listen to this conversation – and maybe I’m like, tooting our own horn here, but – I think the conversation is fucking hilarious and people should hear it. And I was like, this will make a good – this will make a good podcast. But I guess, you know, when I’ve been interested in that, it hasn’t quite come to fruition. But yeah, we’re here today!
Geoff: Yes!
Georgie: And I think some of our conversations are probably – I think they’re in this bucket that you call hot takes.
Geoff: Yeah, I mean like, when I suggested the podcast to you, it was basically after having a hot take conversation. So – for anyone listening – we have a pretty long list of topics to go through over our journey in the podcast area. And I think it will be interesting to just record conversations. If anything, I enjoy the podcasts I listen to because it’s kind of like, just a couple of friends, they’re just catching up after the week, and it’s nice to listen to them bitch – and well in our respect we gotta be roasting a lot of things here – a little less toasting, a lot more roasting. And moan about their lives and take the piss out of each other, so. I guess – the thing is, podcasts have taken off in the COVID era, hasn’t it?
Georgie: You saying we have competition?
Geoff: Not really competition, I’m just saying that I think people, because they’re locked in –
Georgie: Have an appreciation?
Geoff: They’re locked in, they can’t really have that conversation in the office anymore, they can’t – don’t – socialise like they used to. So I think listening to other people talk about stuff they’re interested in…
Georgie: Like a pleasant welcome.
Geoff: Yeah. It’s just a replacement for that. Because I find like, if you’re doing remote work, and you wanted to try emulate that, you’d have to have some kind of always-on Zoom or Google meeting. And everyone should be in that Google meeting all day. But no one does that, and it’s a bit awkward because you have to keep exiting.
Georgie: Well actually, I think I do that sometimes. With a couple of my colleagues.
Geoff: That’s nice.
Georgie: But usually we’re pairing on something. And we’ll just be on a call, and we’re just both focusing on something. It could be different, could be a little bit collaborative, at times we might then need to let the other person know, “hey, I’ve pushed some changes, you can work on this”, and so in that regard it’s kind of useful – not to always be on a call, but to be on a call with someone for like, an hour or so, and it’s sort of like, you’re sitting next to them in the office. Yeah I don’t do this with everybody, obviously it depends on the person’s level of comfort. But yeah, there is a barrier to getting to that stage and being comfortable with your colleagues.
Geoff: Yeah, I mean you’ve been at your job for what, five years now?
Georgie: Five and a half.
Geoff: Five and a half. You’re a lifer.
Georgie: Yep. I’m never leaving.
Geoff: I think you said one time. If you made it past five years you’re never leaving.
Georgie: Well, I said if I made it to five, I’m gonna go for ten.
Geoff: OK.
Georgie: I’ll give you an update when I get to ten. Don’t know what I’m doing then. Depends how sick I get of tech. Which is also another topic we’ll probably talk about.
Geoff: Sick of what, sorry?
Georgie: Tech!
Geoff: Oh, of tech. That’s right. Tech burnout. It’s a very deep conversation that we probably won’t try and dive into right now.
Georgie: Yep.
Geoff: But yeah. But I mean, strong contrast to you, I’ve moved jobs every like, two to three years. And you’ve stuck around at that one job for five years. And I think that’s nice. Like why do you think you’re still there?
Georgie: It can come with challenges. I think I just persisted and there were definitely some low points but, you know, I think – I’ve always had faith in the company, and there were always good reasons to stay. I always found that when I persisted, I just had to be patient, and things would improve. I believe it takes some time for change to happen in a company. It takes a long time for you to see that change. So sometimes things might seem pretty difficult for a period of time. But yeah I think I was patient for as long as I possibly could have been.
Geoff: Yeah. Yeah. Actually I think you’ve skipped over what you actually do.
Georgie: Haha. Have we talked about this? Have we talked at all about what we do?
Geoff: I said I’m a UI systems engineer.
Georgie: It’ll be a mystery.
Geoff: And you were like, I think you just avoided the question.
Yeah, I glossed… I glossed over it because I don’t like titles.
Geoff: You don’t like titles.
Georgie: I basically do the same thing Geoff does. My title is UI engineer, I mean like, basically. Which, for other people, they might call that a – a front-end engineer. I might just say software engineer. You know when you’re filling in those government forms, there’s like a big umbrella and so I just go, “software engineer”. I talk to people I probably will never meet again and they ask what I do, “software engineer” makes the most sense. Because after all, I do engineer software. But like, to be super creative I just started calling myself “cascading stylist” because I do deal with CSS a lot.
Geoff: Cascading stylist. It’s a good one. I might steal that for my Slack title.
Georgie: No. No you’re not stealing. That’s my Slack title.
Geoff: I think the tilting thing is very difficult when it gets into more of the – outside our industry. So only – I think you lucked in, actually. You lucked into a UI systems job right off the bat, didn’t you? There wasn’t always a UI systems job. I’d be there for five years as well.
Georgie: Yeah, well it wasn’t like – having a design system was not something we always had. It was something I suppose I grew into and something that got introduced to the company while I was there. So I mean, some people would call it lucky. I think other people would attribute it to me just sticking around for a long time. It depends. Like everybody’s journey is different right.
Geoff: Yeah so what did you do before that team was even formed?
Georgie: Yeah so were in your traditional sort of team where you had one front-end engineer per product team? That pretty standard thing where there’s like a back-end engineer, a front-end engineer, product manager, tech lead… so there were only 3 or 4 of us in the whole company and we just worked on different features around the product.
Geoff: Yeah OK. And someone broached the topic that you might just form your own centralised UI team?
Georgie: Yeah to be honest, I don’t remember the exact details, but yeah. It was something that – I think we started working on a really super early iteration of a design system then there was a bit of a re-org because a couple of people left the company, and then it was decided that we would probably form a team and work on this design system. And that was about three and a half years ago now. The goal for me was like – I didn’t really have goals in my career. We’ve had this conversation before but, there was that whole period of time where I just refused to learn JavaScript because I found it difficult and, it was a crappy learning curve for me. I was just like, “I really want to keep building UI”, no one had really shown me or demonstrated, like, how useful JavaScript would be. And I’d looked at React and it was just a bit of a terrifying scary place. So even if I – I think at the time, if I wanted to go and find a role better suited for me, it would be difficult, there was a lot of JavaScript/React stuff going around at the time and I didn’t know any of it. So I feel like I was almost trapped and that persisting was the only thing to do, and yeah. I guess I got lucky in that roles grew for me at my company.
Geoff: Yeah. I think your company has been really supportive of you. So I wouldn’t fault you for sticking around when a company has been that supportive of your growth and your goals in general. And even if they decided to try force you to learn a bit more JavaScript, and because the company was moving to React – you’re React now, right?
Georgie: Yep. So it’s just something that I think I had to sort of accept and slowly find my own way. Rather than being forced into it. Because at first it sort of felt like – there was a period of time where – I don’t know if you’ve experienced this before, but they try and make you go full-stack because people devalue the front-end… again, another topic for another day. But there was a period of time where that was the case. And obviously no fault to the company, because we’re all just trying to adapt. But for me I think the important thing was like, focusing on my own journey and not getting kind of distracted by what everyone else was doing outside of my company or in the same field. So I had to kind of find my own sort of way to learning JavaScript and React. But yeah, I mean, another topic for another day: impostor syndrome. Even now I’m like, wow.
Geoff: Glossing over so many topics. Yeah, 100%. I think for me I developed goals that were beyond the reach of – beyond the reach of the company I was with, and therefore I seeked out a different job to achieve those goals. And now I’m in a UI systems team!
Georgie: Woo!
Geoff: And I hope to ride this out and see how far I can go. I did also want to… ah there was a topic in my head that I was thinking of just now. But that’s OK. We’ve glossed over a lot of topics. We’ve given a bit of an insight as to what we do. But –
Georgie: Other than talk shit, that is.
Geoff: Other than talk shit. That’s it. This is the podcast everybody. This is the podcast where people dive into their opinions about random things. And hopefully you enjoy that. And that’s about it everybody. Thanks for joining us on our very first podcast, hopefully we can make a couple more interesting maybe. Thank you.
Georgie: See you next time!
Geoff: See you next time!