Toast & Roast

76: The trouble with being on time

Episode Summary

Bring back the Nokia 3315! What starts as a potential story about Georgie's recent holiday to New Zealand turns into a discussion about getting to places on time (with a dash of TV show reference), how it's hard for people to change their habits/personalities and more!

Episode Notes

✍🏻 View the transcript for this episode

Bring back the Nokia 3315! What starts as a potential story about Georgie's recent holiday to New Zealand turns into a discussion about getting to places on time (with a dash of TV show reference), how it's hard for people to change their habits/personalities and more!

Social media

Toast & Roast:

Georgie:

Geoff:

Episode Transcription

Geoff  0:00  

And welcome back to another episode of Toast &. Roast. I am your co host, Geoff and as always, I have my co host, Georgie, here.

 

Georgie  0:19  

I am back.

 

Geoff  0:20  

Yes. From your whirlwind. How did how did how did this whole holiday come about?

 

Georgie  0:25  

Well, we hadn't been to New Zealand. It's, man. You know how, I don't know if you've had this conversation with other people who live in Australia. But it's this whole idea that New Zealand is quote unquote, right there. And when you plan a holiday, you just don't really bother going somewhere that close, you end up just going to Europe or something.

 

Geoff  0:48  

Yeah. That's very extreme. Well, as someone who comes from Perth the right, “it's right there” is Rottnest Island. And I hadn't I had never gone like the like, 30 odd years. I only went last year to Rottnest Island.

 

Georgie  1:07  

It's ridiculous. I went there before you.

 

Geoff  1:09  

Yeah. Isn't that ridiculous? You were there for a conference. You, conference of some sort?

 

Georgie  1:14  

Well it wasn’t there. Yeah, I went to Mixin, wait, did you not go to Mixin?

 

Geoff  1:17  

I didn't go to Mixin.

 

Georgie  1:20  

Sad face.

 

Geoff  1:21  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  1:22  

I'm sad it only went for one year? Because it was good.

 

Geoff  1:26  

Yeah. Anyways, so New Zealand's quote unquote, right there.

 

Georgie  1:30  

It's right there. Actually, it's funny because I realised my friend from Michigan, I've never met her. She's my online friend. And we met like, through our blogs, like back in 2007, or eight or something. I've never met her. And she'd been to New Zealand before me, all the way from the US.

 

Geoff  1:49  

I mean, people make an effort to go out that far. People don't make efforts to go close to, close by. I mean.

 

Georgie  1:57  

Yeah.

 

Geoff  1:57  

You meet someone for dinner or something like that. And the they're like up the word. And they're the last ones to arrive. It's just, everything's just too close.

 

Georgie  2:08  

Actually, speaking of being the last ones to arrive, I've been trying this thing lately, to stop being late to stuff because I feel like it's, quote unquote, in my blood, I hate saying that shit. But I refuse to admit that that's going to be a thing. So for people who don't know, my background is my parents are from Indonesia, and Jakarta traffic is such a real thing that people just accept that you're late all the time.

 

Geoff  2:35  

Oh. You think it's hereditary that you are late?

 

Georgie  2:38  

People say this, have you ever heard anyone say this?

 

Geoff  2:40  

No? Why would anyone think that being lazy is a hereditary thing?

 

Georgie  2:45  

Some people think it's just in your blood can't be helped. Anyway.

 

Geoff  2:49  

Unless you lived in Indonesia for an extended period of time, in which case, it became okay to just be late to things.

 

Georgie  2:57  

OK I didn’t. So maybe I should point out that when I was growing up with my mum and dad and my brother, we were often quite late to events for various reasons. Now, I'm not pointing the finger at anybody.

 

Geoff  3:10  

Haha, culturally speaking.

 

Georgie  3:12  

I’m not blaming my parents. But sometimes I do feel like somebody would hold us up a little bit. It was in the family, so to speak, someone would be rushing. But this feeling of being in a rush is so shit. Well, I hate that.

 

Geoff  3:28  

Well, like, is it that your family feels like they're in a rush to get somewhere because they're, they're going to be late? Or do they not care that they are late? Right? It's two different things.

 

Georgie  3:42  

They do care that they're late.

 

Geoff  3:43  

Okay.

 

Georgie  3:44  

But I think the fundamental issue is that they never give gave themself enough time to prepare or get ready.

 

Geoff  3:51  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  3:52  

That kind of thing.

 

Geoff  3:53  

So they never learned from their lessons, essentially, they just continue—

 

Georgie  3:56  

Pretty much.

 

Geoff  3:57  

The same way.

 

Georgie  3:58  

For years and years. And I feel like once I stopped living with my parents, I had kind of had that ingrained into me, be like, okay, 10 minutes to get the train. And I was like, that's fair enough. That's enough time, then I forget how long it takes to just get out of the building. I forget that some things can hold you up, even waiting to cross the road for 30 seconds. By the time it's like, you know, I'm like running really fast for the last three minutes to make some train. So yeah, I've been trying to stop that.

 

Geoff  4:34  

Yeah, my partner is really good at buffering time. We're giving everything a 15 minute buffer all the time now. Well, I am because I never used to do that. I stopped caring about being somewhere specifically on time unless it's someone I'm specifically meeting at a specific time then I, I try to at least make it there close enough. But yeah, like, I would just rock up to the train whenever whenever the train comes, this is whenever I'm getting on the train, arguably privileged with jobs that we don't actually have to be anywhere on time. But it's kind of like, it, like, I don't know, we start work at something like nine. And look, no one, no one's gonna die if we're there at 9:10.

 

Georgie  5:31  

Yeah, so that's one thing I had trouble with, in uni. I was like, oh, no, I am late for my lecture. But I couldn't quite like fathom, that there was actually nothing wrong with that, like, what is the worst that's gonna happen?

 

Geoff  5:45  

Yes.

 

Georgie  5:45  

Is generally, what I think is a good idea. If you're like running late to something, it's like, you're gonna die. Is someone else going to be in danger?

 

Geoff  5:54  

You're gonna miss out on material. I mean, you can always get the material back. It's like, yeah, it's just a waste of time

 

Georgie  6:01  

Gonna miss a minute of stand up, or are you just gonna read it in slack later, I don't know.

 

Geoff  6:05  

You know, I explained the concept of stand up to my partner. And she was like, that sounds really annoying. I’m like, yeah, it is. Standup is annoying.

 

Georgie  6:16  

Wait, do you still do standup?

 

Geoff  6:16  

Yeah, we still do stand up, we actually did like a ways of working session, because we have a delivery lead, which is someone who's in charge of when things should be delivered. Although we're in a design system team, so like, all bets are off when whenever someone has a role, that you're you're everything, essentially,

 

Georgie  6:39  

We had one, like, we used to have that, where I work, the delivery lead, and now we don't have the concept of that anymore. But also I'm in like a kind of semi siloed team that isn't like a product team. Yeah.

 

Geoff  6:52  

Well, our delivery lead is kind of like, they’re technically the people manager of the team.

 

Georgie  7:00  

Yeah.

 

Geoff  7:01  

So.

 

Georgie  7:01  

Kind of.

 

Geoff  7:02  

Yeah, so and they, they're not strictly bound to the fact that there's sort of whens, then it's more like whats and hows as well. So we're all basically contributing to whats and hows, delivery lead title it really means somewhat less of a restriction. So they're not like harping on us to try and deliver something by a specific time ever. They're just worried more about our processes on how we deliver stuff, right? So if there are teams that need something, or some kind of, like help, or they go out and gather information about about the stuff, you know, and then they'll come back to the team. So it's kind of helpful. We kind of co product manage the team. But won't get too deep into what design system teams, how design system teams work? Because—

 

Georgie  7:59  

Fucken boring. We don't talk about work on this podcast.

 

Geoff  8:01  

Honestly, it's bit hard to describe how design system teams work. I don't think anyone's really nailed it.

 

Georgie  8:07  

Don’t go there.

 

Geoff  8:07  

Yeah. Anyways, so right, so you're trying to break out of the habit of always like feeling rushed?

 

Georgie  8:18  

Yeah. Because it's so shit. So I find the easiest thing for me to do, which I've learned, is to just plan to be early, instead of planning to be there—

 

Geoff  8:26  

On time.

 

Georgie  8:26  

Like, yeah, yeah. Because it just, and then at the end, I think I had to accept that whatever estimates I was doing before, were very shit. Now, I'm not going to relate that to work.

 

Geoff  8:38  

But we are totally relating it to work in our head.

 

Georgie  8:41  

But estimates, right, like so I can realistically say cool. I can shower in like five minutes or less. And but then I will forget, I'll just be like, alright, I'll leave myself five minutes, it’s like, oh, no, you need to like also have less time to get dressed and yada yada.

 

Geoff  8:56  

Getting dressed, bah, what's getting dressed?

 

Georgie  9:00  

I mean, that's another like, few minutes, I guess. Just pick some clothes out and put them up. But yeah, I guess what I'm making is, I think whatever estimate was making before was really shit. And I needed to give myself time. More just, more time and more breathing room.

 

Geoff  9:15  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  9:15  

Because I just didn't like, and I don't like being in a rush.

 

Geoff  9:21  

Yeah, my, my dad's philosophy has always been kind of like, why, like, why did you get there late? And then you would say, well, the bus came late, and then his reasoning is, well, why didn't you catch an earlier bus? And then I—

 

Georgie  9:37  

Yeah. so I actually try to get a bus—now when I'm going somewhere for an appointment or something, or I'm planning to be someplace at a certain time. I try to get the bus or the mode of transport that's earlier than the one that would actually get me there, quote, unquote, on time.

 

Geoff  9:53  

Yeah. But it's a kind of an infinite cycle. It's like okay, but what if the, bus, the earlier bus was actually late, well then you should have taken the earlier earlier bus and you're like, well, what?

 

Georgie  10:06  

This is what annoys me, so I have a bus that I can get to a certain—to go to Newtown right? I have a certain bus that I take to go to Newtown. Which by the way it's not a place I've made up everybody it's a suburb in Sydney.

 

Geoff  10:19  

It’s next to Old Town and next next to Past Town.

 

Georgie  10:24  

Peters, it’s next to Peters ham.

 

Geoff  10:26  

Penis ham? Oh?

 

Georgie  10:27  

Peters...

 

Geoff  10:28  

Peters ham not penis ham.

 

Georgie  10:32  

(laughs) It's Petersham, anyway. I think it actually, I think Petersham actually came from Peter’s ham. What’s the other one?

 

Geoff  10:40  

Oh, do they sell they sell Peters ham over there. I don't want anything from Peter.

 

Georgie  10:44  

But they probably—

 

Geoff  10:45  

I don't want his ham.

 

Georgie  10:46  

...Like the 1500s. Who the fuck’s Peter? Actually you know people go oh, Pete's sake.

 

Geoff  10:52  

Oh yeah.

 

Georgie  10:52  

And like, who's Pete?

 

Geoff  10:54  

Pete.

 

Georgie  10:57  

Bob’s your uncle and you're like who's Bob?

 

Geoff  10:58  

Yeah. Or is it Pete’s sake? In which case you're you're now not getting ham. You're getting alcohol.

 

Georgie  11:07  

But it's but the name of the suburb is Peters ham. What's the other one? Oh, it's Lewis.

 

Geoff  11:14  

Lewisham.

 

Georgie  11:16  

Lewisham.

 

Geoff  11:16  

Yeah, Lewis’s ham.

 

Georgie  11:18  

Is it Lewis’s ham. Or is it Lewi’s ham?

 

Geoff  11:22  

Lewi’s ham. I think we have two big ham conglomerates. I mean, there's also, not new—Newcastle serves coal, it's not even called coal castle or something like that. Like something cool. Or New Coal.

 

Georgie  11:38  

Why isn't it called Old Castle?

 

Geoff  11:40  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  11:40  

What makes it so new.

 

Geoff  11:41  

I mean, it's named after New Castle in London. Like London's Newcastle.

 

Georgie  11:46  

Do you know what I realised? We have stolen all of our—

 

Geoff  11:50  

Oh, yes.

 

Georgie  11:50  

From, from the UK. Well, I saw a Cardiff when I was on the train. And I thought that was only in Wales.

 

Geoff  11:59  

Yeah. I mean, Australia is founded by a bunch of UK convicts. They don't know any other name. Other than like, the the names over in the UK. I mean, I'm surprised we don't have a London. I didn't know how Sydney came about. But.

 

Georgie  12:19  

Are you sure we don't have a London?

 

Geoff  12:21  

We have London Street, I guess, somewhere. London. London's bridge. Perhaps?

 

Georgie  12:25  

We have like a Canada.

 

Geoff  12:27  

Do we have a Canada?

 

Georgie  12:28  

Canada Bay?

 

Geoff  12:29  

Oh, yeah. Canada bay? Yeah. Canada Bay. So how's it worked out? Have you? Have you gotten to places slightly earlier?

 

Georgie  12:38  

Okay, yeah. So we're talking about the bus right though, like if the bus was late. So whenever I get to Newtown, I thought I thought it would take me 10 minutes to get to the bus stop, to walk there. But turns out it takes me a little bit longer. And I need like 15 minutes. I know that sounds ridiculous. But I live in a hole. So whatever, not the point of this conversation. So I had to leave 15 minutes to let myself exit the building. And there's this main bloody road I have to cross. And if I don't make the lights at that road, I'm waiting for the pedestrian light to go, to, just to get, and I can see the bus stop over there. So if I miss the bus, I see it going past and the pedestrian lights not turned green. My life just, I just feel like a huge failure. But anyway, it turns out I don't know. It's it's completely okay, what is it, correlation, not causation. But since I started trying to be early to things, especially when I'm going to Newtown, the bus that I want to take is always running early. So I come early, to get the earlier bus, but then that bus is running early, and then I miss it.

 

Geoff  13:45  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  13:46  

So as a result, I get the bus that I originally, would get me there, quote unquote, on time. But then sometimes that bus isn't running early, and it's running like late. And I'm like, well, that's, that's just great.

 

Geoff  13:59  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  14:00  

But for the most part, I think it's it's working out. It's working out and I'm arriving at places where I can actually just sit there and just wait for the person I'm meeting. Or, you know, I can just, you know, it's not I don't feel rushed, which is just so much better compared to what, like when I was always rushing before.

 

Geoff  14:21  

I think at some point when I used to take two, like a connecting bus, like I'd get to like take a bus to a train station and then take a bus from that train station to my location. And I think at one point when I figured out that you know what, doesn't matter what bloody bus I take, I will never be able to make it for that second bus to have that perfect transition. You know, get off one bus and get on the next one. I just realised, you know what, doesn't matter. Like, I don't give a shit anymore about, about trying to line this shit up, and like taking it on time. But yeah, usually I think in the uni days is when I took the most bus transport. I’d just go in the morning and I just stay there the entire day. I had two, two lectures, screw it. I'll just stay there the whole day because it just took that long took me like 40 or 40 minutes and two buses. I was like nope, just staying here.

 

Georgie  15:26  

Why would you go back? Yeah, why would you go off campus if you had another?

 

Geoff  15:30  

I mean, some people do. Some people just go and then come back. And well—

 

Georgie  15:33  

I lived far.

 

Geoff  15:34  

We're talking about like, like, talking like a lecture at 9, and a lecutre at 5, like you could, I could feasibly, go home for six hours.

 

Georgie  15:43  

I had like a lecture at 9 that would go for an hour. And then I wouldn't have anything until like 3 or 4. So pretty much just sit in the library or somewhere on campus working on assignments and shit. There was no point in going home.

 

Geoff  15:55  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  15:55  

Like no point.

 

Geoff  15:56  

Yeah. So I don't know, at some stage, I decided time, time is a construct of our mind. And we know, I no longer need to abide by it. And—

 

Georgie  16:10  

I don’t think time is a kind of, I think the concept of like, maybe not being on time or anything like that. But the fact that we set a time for things.

 

Geoff  16:22  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  16:22  

Is entirely a social construct.

 

Geoff  16:25  

It's, I mean...

 

Georgie  16:26  

But I do try to be respectful of the people I'm meeting. I think that's the main thing.

 

Geoff  16:30  

Yeah, 100%.

 

Georgie  16:30  

I don't want to turn up like late and someone’s been waiting, like, what if the other person was early? I would, I would feel a little bit shit.

 

Geoff  16:37  

Yeah. I watched the show called Bling Empire. It's literally it's like Crazy Rich Asians, but the TV's but the reality TV series version. And it just follows a bunch of affluent Asian, young ish, Asian Americans in LA.

 

Georgie  16:59  

How young is young ish?

 

Geoff  17:00  

So we're talking like, like, one of them is like, in their, like they're 18, 19, 20s. And then you got the mid to late 20s. And then you have saw, like some that hover in the mid 30. And then there's like the really old rich ones. You know, the, the 50, 60s.

 

Georgie  17:21  

What’s old?

 

Geoff  17:21  

Like...

 

Georgie  17:22  

Is 50 old? I feel like I’m almost there.

 

Geoff  17:25  

Fifty, sixty, where they're like, they're like got old money. And they, or I think maybe the lady who was like the richest was like in her maybe close to 70s, late 60s. So, so yeah, this they got like quite a wide range. In any case, I'm not talking about Bling Empire. I'm talking about the show that they then spun off Bling Empire, that's not in LA but in New York. So I think it was bling, yeah, Bling New York or whatever. Anyways, so one of the people in Bling Empire LA was like kinda like the main character in Bling Empire New York. And they like they like travelled over to New York and move there. Anyways, she showed up to this party that was held by the I guess the richest, like the king and the queen esque Asian couple, Asian, I wouldn't call them a family because they don't have any children. But anyways, the Asian couple. Anyways, she showed up two hours late to this, this get together. And all she did was complain and complain about how there's no food. And like normally I go to these things in LA, and everybody's got food and like a drink tab, and I'm like, holy shit. You like You're like new on the block and you rock out two hours late to a gathering that you were invited to? Oh my god this thing, no joke was like the topic for like three episodes and these are hour long episodes of of these people who are like, oh my god, she she like made a TikTok about it. And then like, oh, my God, the old rich people found it.

 

Georgie  19:09  

Is it dramatised?

 

Geoff  19:09  

Hey?

 

Georgie  19:10  

Is it dramatised?

 

Geoff  19:12  

It's I mean, any reality TV if you watched it is dramatised. I don't think anyone's that true self with cameras on, it’s almost impossible.

 

Georgie  19:19  

I just wonder if if it's very, very, very, very unacceptable in the US to be like, late.

 

Geoff  19:27  

Two hours is ridiculous.

 

Georgie  19:27  

Yeah, but I just wonder if compared to here, it's like completely like, no, that's super rude.

 

Geoff  19:34  

I dunno. How often do the people who are invited to your Zoom meetings like arrive on time?

 

Georgie  19:41  

Well, yeah, I mean, I, I feel like maybe we’re chill. I don't actually speaking of, you know, like differences in countries and stuff. One of my friends, she has been spending a lot of time—like she's originally from the UK—she has been spending a lot of time in Greece. And she said people there are just so relaxed that it's totally normal to be late to when, to come late to when someone like invites you or wants to meet you or whatever, and she personally has has trouble with that. She's said it’s really annoying. She doesn't like it.

 

Geoff  20:12  

Yeah, I mean, like.

 

Georgie  20:13  

But it’s totally normal.

 

Geoff  20:14  

Apparently there's something called Hawaiian time. Like.

 

Georgie  20:18  

Oh yeah.

 

Geoff  20:20  

Yeah, they just don't, they don't, like everything's really slow. So it's sort of like, Mahalo, you know, or whatever. What else do they say? Anyway? So. Like, yeah, everything runs really slow and people just like get there when they get there. So no one really cares, because they are also, They’re, they're there, and they're there and chillin out, you know, it's no big deal. What was it? Yeah, you were saying your UK friend was having trouble adjusting to just people arriving—oh, right.

 

Georgie  20:52  

People in Greece.

 

Geoff  20:53  

In Greece, I'm pretty sure in Greece, kind of like Italy. People eat like, all day. Yeah.

 

Georgie  20:59  

For hours.

 

Geoff  20:59  

For hours and hours, right? Maybe that's to accommodate the fact that no one gets there in time. You just like, Well, I'm just gonna start eating. And if you rock up between now and six hours, sure. Doesn't matter.

 

Georgie  21:11  

The other thing is, she said she has a colleague who lives like lives in Greece, and he doesn't even really work. Like. I mean, a lot of people who work remotely have flexible hours, but literally just work a couple of hours in the morn, in the early morning. And during the day, especially in summer, it's just so hot that they don't work and they'll just go work like in the evening.

 

Geoff  21:34  

That's trippy because like how do you schedule a meeting with that person?

 

Georgie  21:38  

Yeah, well, with great difficulty, I suppose. But speaking of like food and like, and when people eat and how long they eat in different countries and stuff—asking you because you're from Perth, which is like a kind of—

 

Geoff  21:52  

Different country.

 

Georgie  21:53  

Quiet town, right. Haha. Same country. Australia's two countries everyone.

 

Geoff  21:58  

Yeah, something along the lines of recently said like it's, Perth is solidifying their, or Western Australia is solidifying their, their, their need to—independence. Yeah, I don't remember what it was. It's some kind of law that's like different in WA.

 

Georgie  22:14  

Aw man, screw you guys.

 

Geoff  22:14  

Anyways, like, yeah.

 

Georgie  22:15  

But like.

 

Geoff  22:16  

Anyways, I’m from Perth.

 

Georgie  22:16  

When I was, when I go to places like like Perth and, just quiet towns, like even Tasmania. It's very common for things to close. Like eateries.

 

Geoff  22:27  

Oh my god. It's the most annoying thing ever.

 

Georgie  22:30  

Okay, wait, before we continue. I should point out for anyone listening to this podcast who's not in Australia and is perhaps in the US or Europe. Our shit closes at 5. Our shops close at 5, everybody. So if you need to go to like—the, OK wait, the supermarket. Yeah. But if you need to go to the post office, fucking good luck if you work at all.

 

Geoff  22:50  

Imagine working on World Time.

 

Georgie  22:51  

It’s like, people find this—(laughs)

 

Geoff  22:53  

Imagine World Time. Every everything's open, and it's like pitch dark.

 

Georgie  22:59  

Pitch black.

 

Geoff  23:00  

Anyways. Yeah.

 

Georgie  23:02  

Yeah. So while we were in New Zealand as well, when we were stopping over in small towns, we’d have to eat dinner, like, it was like 7:30. It’s like ah, not even hungry. But it's like, you got to go and get some food because shit’s gonna close soon. And I'm not like, yeah I mean it is kind of like first world problem-y. But it's just very different to here. Like you’re here, in Sydney, you go to the city. Maybe something doesn't close until 9 or 10.

 

Geoff  23:26  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  23:27  

But still, for some, I don't know.

 

Geoff  23:29  

Yeah, the shopping centres, like they have food courts generally. I think some of them... I was just at a food court at around 730. And I think most of them closed at 8, 8:30.

 

Georgie  23:40  

Yeah.

 

Geoff  23:41  

So, so that's like, still on the acceptable side. But yeah, after 9:30 You're shit out of luck going to like eat anything outside. Unless you go Maccas.

 

Georgie  23:51  

Unless you go to Asian dessert cafes.

 

Geoff  23:53  

McDonald's. Yeah, Asian dessert cafes. I think I think Japan's also quite nice, most of—they’ve like got pockets of places that open like way past midnight. And that's pretty good. Oh, Singapore, right. So I met someone in Singapore. I can't exactly remember how I know them, or how I met them. But essentially, they run a startup for meal deliveries between the hours of 3 and 6am or something like that. It's like super specific.

 

Georgie  24:28  

Oddly specific.

 

Geoff  24:29  

Yeah. And it's because apparently, the work culture in Singapore has everybody working past 2. Consistently. In most places. 2am.

 

Georgie  24:43  

What!

 

Geoff  24:43  

Yes, yeah. So that's why this business is actually quite niche—not niche actually, it’s not niche. Because there's enough market of people eating after 3am after they finish work.

 

Georgie  24:57  

What, but then hang on, wait, what are their actual working hours, or is this like a shift work?

 

Geoff  25:02  

Average working hours... But...

 

Georgie  25:06  

Is this also because it's very hot there and very humid, that people don't so much work during the day, and they maybe work in the evening?

 

Geoff  25:15  

I don't know, maybe.

 

Georgie  25:16  

I think that's a viable thing.

 

Geoff  25:17  

I mean, like, they, there was a GitHub repo from workers in China, who were trying to like, everyone was putting their work hours or whatever trying to, I don't know what it was called... China work hours, GitHub repo. Yeah, protest long working hours.

 

Georgie  25:42  

Oh I vaguely remember this.

 

Geoff  25:42  

So yeah, Singaporeans are officially working too hard at 45 hours a week. Top five hardest working cities. Tokyo, Singapore. I don't know if you can, like say it's hard work, hard working, when you do that long an hours.

 

Georgie  25:59  

Yeah, let's just say quality of work might not be necessarily reflected just because you spent...

 

Geoff  26:05  

Yeah... Oh, my God, let’s not get into the four day work hour week, four day work week.

 

Georgie  26:09  

Yeah, no no.

 

Geoff  26:09  

So let's have a look... part time, 35 hours, they don't even give us the times. They just give us hours. Average working time. Just time.

 

Georgie  26:25  

No, I don't think that's what you’re looking for.

 

Geoff  26:27  

Anyways, so yeah, so this guy was like doing a startup for like 3 to 6am or whatever. Getting food delivery is crazy.

 

Georgie  26:38  

Speaking of food delivery, actually, I don't even remember what I was going to say. I'm trying, I'm trying to do less food delivery because it's, it ends up you know, adding up. Like we honestly have food delivery maybe three times a week, it’s quite bad.

 

Geoff  26:52  

Woah. Where's your budget? I, I have a car now. So I usually drive out to get my food. Despite...

 

Georgie  27:01  

Pick it up.

 

Geoff  27:01  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  27:03  

You still get those HelloFresh boxes?

 

Geoff  27:05  

Nah, stopped that. Because yeah, my partner didn't really like some of the recipes. And also you have to cook midweek. So that was kind of unappealing to life. So I stopped doing that and started cooking more stuff on the weekends. I mean, technically, you get the box, and you could go to town, you could cook the whole thing on the weekend. But that's not bulk cooking. That is just cooking lots and lots of dishes, which is insane. Unless you have a lot of pots and pans and stuff like that. That's probably logistics. It's just logistically not fun. But.

 

Georgie  27:47  

Yeah, I'm trying to be better at like cooking something that like because I'm I'm shooting at the whole, yeah, like, buy—not buying, preparing food in, in bulk. Like I just don't like it because every day I eat something just depending on my mood, and I want something else or it just—

 

Geoff  28:03  

Yeah, it's hard. By by day, like five or five. Yeah, we're like—

 

Georgie  28:08  

Bored as fuck.

 

Geoff  28:08  

I need to go eat something else. But I've been going to office every most Wednesdays, I wouldn't say every Wednesday.

 

Georgie  28:16  

Yeah.

 

Geoff  28:16  

But so far. And I just eat out. And that breaks, that breaks it up. And then I come back and I start eating the eating fridge stuff. Actually, on the topic of going way back to when you said that you feel like it's hereditary that, that you, that you're rushing?

 

Georgie  28:39  

Yeah.

 

Geoff  28:40  

I was listening to, was I listening to a podcast when this was said? Anyways.

 

Georgie  28:45  

You're listening to our podcast.

 

Geoff  28:49  

But it's like, yeah, human, humans like to think they can change. But change is hard, is too hard work. And therefore humans like, are also, to put it in a more broad sense, I guess, incapable of change. And like that, that just creates a generation of more and more of the same, right? So you could say like, we're in the 21st century, but we still have I don't know, really annoying, strong religious people knocking on our doors, right? Like.

 

Georgie  29:29  

Yeah.

 

Geoff  29:29  

That's okay to have your religion and stuff like that.

 

Georgie  29:34  

But the fact that they're still doing it, right, like, trying to recruit people, even though—and many people find them bothersome, and it's still happening.

 

Geoff  29:42  

Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of like okay, it still happens. And then you you're like, in line for something and there's a loud person and they're, they're like complaining or, like trying to threaten to call the manager you like, it's, it's a, it's been, it's been really, we’re, we're in the 21st century and we still we still get people who are who are ignorant of I don't know, service, like not empathising with service people, right?

 

Georgie  30:08  

Along these lines. Nick told me a joke. I think it was either last night or this morning. He said, “How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light light bulb?”

 

Geoff  30:17  

How many?

 

Georgie  30:19  

So I said to him, I thought about it for a sec. And I was like “one?”, and he's like, “yeah, actually, it is one. But why?” And I'm like, “I don’t know, I just thought it might be”. And he's like, “It takes one. But the lightbulb has to want to change”.

 

Geoff  30:33  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  30:34  

I was like, oh, yeah.

 

Geoff  30:35  

Yeah. And then you're like, well, and then the there's, I don't know, there's still Nazis around. Like, how crazy is that? You still get extremists? You’re like, hasn't time, like, solved this stuff yet?

 

Georgie  30:49  

No, it's not. It's not going to.

 

Geoff  30:51  

Yeah, it's, it's yeah, it's just so hard to change. Even though every year, every everyone comes up with their New Year's resolutions and say, I'm going to change this year. But, but inevitably, two months later, like it, you fall back into the same pattern.

 

Georgie  31:07  

I think some of the things you mentioned, they're not like very individualistic..

 

Geoff  31:11  

No, it's group, grouping. Yeah.

 

Georgie  31:12  

Because you know, like, religion is like, it's like a group, right? So whoever's knocking on your door from whatever religion, they're in a group, and I think potentially some people see them as being in a, what's it called like an echo chamber.

 

Geoff  31:23  

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Georgie  31:24  

And even the Nazi thing you mentioned, like, I think some people are an echo chamber, but from a personal point of view, like another thing, you mentioned this customer service thing, which made me think of, like, just generally have, you know, the pandemic, when people realised that, oh, we need to be nice to each other.

 

Geoff  31:39  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  31:40  

That kind of thing, right. And that includes people, obviously, in customer service, who they're trying to, they're just trying to have a job, but everyone's like, raiding TP from the supermarket and that kind of thing. And, and, like after that, I still try to remember that/ like, generally, especially because I personally have never worked in any kind of customer service, I try to be really empathetic about—because I know they deal with shit people. And you see it. When you see them deal with shit people like well, I don't want to add more to that. And, and yet, yes, still, some people, they like to be rude. I was at the parcel collection the other day. And this woman behind me had a dog and I genuinely thought she was a nice person, but the person like, in front of her, or he had to hold up the queue, because he didn't have reception on his phone. And she was like, “just take a screenshot of it”. She's like, “Stop holding up the queue”. And I was like, Wow, I did not expect you to—

 

Geoff  32:35  

Just explode.

 

Georgie  32:36  

Burst out like that, I think it's an active but like, internal personal thing to change, like, you have to want to change like the fucking light bulb.

 

Geoff  32:45  

Yeah. And then like, you think that hey, like every new generation would know would know better? I don't know. We're all like, like, people are becoming a little bit more woke, I suppose. And then you just realise that if, if the generation before hasn't put in the work to change their views, then it's going to be really hard for the next generation to change theirs, and so on and so forth. And it kind of like, it's like, life hasn't changed very much in the last 100 years. It like day to day life, right? Sure. You can say internet's changed, or the way we do things, or technology, etc. But hey, every day, what do we do? We go out and have a meal. What did people do 100 years ago, they went out and had a meal, right? Like.

 

Georgie  33:46  

I wonder does this possibly explain why, you know, the whole thing about how Gen Z? Like bringing back these trends from the 90s?

 

Geoff  33:54  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  33:56  

Yeah, like how do we explain, is there a way in this is actually actually at all related that somehow they're interested in stuff that to us was just like—

 

Geoff  34:08  

Like the whole retro thing.

 

Georgie  34:09  

And normally we—teah, like the whole retro thing. And I think they just they're calling shit vintage. When, you and I are laughing and going yeah, I was wearing that when I was 10. And like all the quote unquote kids these days, they just never seen that shit. It's like, imagine if they start pulling out Discmans and Walkmans.

 

Geoff  34:29  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  34:30  

And stuff like that.

 

Geoff  34:31  

I think I think like everything at some stage it's kind of like you know, vinyl, you know, still, still doing vinyls.

 

Georgie  34:41  

Yeah, I have a few of those.

 

Geoff  34:41  

But it's kind of like, if you didn't grow up with it, eventually, you know, you we do have a whole generation of people who don't even know what the hell it is. Like it just in general, they’re like, oh, I never—

 

Georgie  34:57  

They’re just like oh, wow, that's cool.

 

Geoff  34:59  

I never—they literally didn't know that phones were rotary at some stage right? Like, imagine—

 

Georgie  35:04  

Oh my God.

 

Geoff  35:04  

Imagine, we didn't even like maybe some of the stuff we like we didn't know existed of, like 100, 200 years ago, because it just, you know, fell out of style. And then when you notice it, you're like, oh, hey, I like this thing, right? And then like—

 

Georgie  35:23  

It's cool.

 

Geoff  35:24  

It's cool. It doesn't matter that it came from 200 years ago. It doesn't matter if it's rinse and recycle. You're like, I like this thing. And then you share it. And all of a sudden, these days, you can share to millions of people just because it's mildly, like catchy.

 

Georgie  35:38  

I do wonder how it comes about, though. And I also think, because we've got social media, there's now crossover of like, like the crossover’s more obvious, it's like, you see, again, when I say kids these days, I'm just gonna say people who are like in their late teens and early 20s. And they're like, finding all this cool shit, like that, maybe toys or something that I played with when I was a kid. But they had no idea that these things existed. And by them sharing it on the internet, everyone can see it, whereas when, if you and I did that, like even five years ago, the older people who use those things weren’t on the internet, so they wouldn't have seen it. But now it's like, everyone.

 

Geoff  36:17  

Yeah, we've—

 

Georgie  36:17  

Is like in it.

 

Geoff  36:17  

We’ve come to a, the culmination of like, hey, we're young, we're young enough to have, oh, we're like old enough to have passed like, like, knowledge, or, no likes from, I don't know, can we remember? Twenty, thirty, forty years ago, 30 or 40 years ago, we can remember things that have happened 40 years ago, and we are in the internet, right? Like you said, and then the new generation who is starting out the internet generat—I'm gonna call it the Internet generation, people who never knew life before internet existed, imagine. And, like now they're discovering things via the Internet that we had used. And I think yeah, it's quite an interesting.

 

Georgie  36:59  

Oh, I think I probably told you this one. But it was probably, it was the mouse, you know the mouse, when you've got like a plug in mouse with a ball?

 

Geoff  37:05  

Oh, yeah.

 

Georgie  37:07  

Someone joked, like, I think it was on boredpanda.com or something? I probably I think I talked about this in an episode, someone joke that you had to hardboil an egg.

 

Geoff  37:16  

Oh, yeah.

 

Georgie  37:18  

To get the yolk to put it in. I'm just thinking can you imagine like, if someone who was like teenager, like saw that, like, they would never have seen that before.

 

Geoff  37:27  

They'd be like, why do you? Why does your mouse have a ball in it? Like, they'll look at their own mouse. And like, ha, no ball. Where do I put this egg?

 

Georgie  37:34  

Yeah. Oh, related as well, is, you know the, the notion of a file system?

 

Geoff  37:39  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  37:39  

In a computer?

 

Geoff  37:40  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  37:40  

Like, you know, you have a Downloads folder? Or, there's like, My Pictures and stuff, apparently—and I saw some, I'll try and find the link later—there was a tweet that went a bit viral, where someone said, apparently Gen Z, don't actually understand the concept of file system, because they grew up on their phone.

 

Geoff  37:59  

Oh.

 

Georgie  38:00  

And all they know, is apps, everything's in an app. And they said that I think people were sharing their stories. And someone said, yeah, I had to teach someone who was like for shadow High School, where to find like, the downloads, they just didn't know, when they downloaded a picture from the internet. Like, where where do I go to look for it? Where is it? And I think it was in that moment, I realised, oh, shit, I think we’re fucked.

 

Geoff  38:23  

I mean, do, I mean, like, you could also argue that, do they actually need to know what a file system is? Isn't file, aren’t file systems actually, pretty archaic, slash slow?

 

Georgie  38:36  

Are they though?

 

Geoff  38:37  

Yeah, I mean, that's why people use a, I don't know, command line interfaces to navigate through file systems, because, like, why would you think that opening a window and then, and then moving your mouse all the way up and down and opening the file tree—

 

Georgie  38:53  

Yeah but not everyone—

 

Geoff  38:53  

And down the file tree and like, hey, this isn't where I wanted it, so you go up the file tree, and then down the file, another file tree like, hey, that's not where I want it either.

 

Georgie  38:59  

But it's, it's visual, right? Like it not everybody's gonna use a bloody command line.

 

Geoff  39:04  

Well, that's the thing, right? We've, we've gotten to we've gone we've way past, gone full circle.

 

Georgie  39:11  

Full circle. Yeah, yeah like, I remember using MS DOS. Like my dad was telling me how to get to a game when I was like—

 

Geoff  39:17  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  39:17  

Yeah, I think I was like in year 1 or something. And all I did was like, remember what to type like, whatever it was dir, CD, this and that.

 

Geoff  39:25  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  39:26  

Run something dot exe, like, and then yeah.

 

Geoff  39:30  

It’s basically apps, apps just run that same command for you to the same folder and give you what what you want, right?

 

Georgie  39:41  

Shh don’t tell them our secrets.

 

Geoff  39:41  

I think I think, like, sure, like, I mean, you could say that oh, my god, people don't know that computers used to be run by punch cards. And and the person who really likes punch cards, like it's super efficient, like here, I just enter my punch card and hey, presto, it'll do the thing thing that I needed to do. To be honest, I didn't know how punch cards work.

 

Georgie  40:04  

I don’t know either.

 

Geoff  40:04  

But hey, the, like they're used to it and, and then you come along and you go, hey, dude, do you just move your mouse and you click, and then they're like, what, I don't have to do punch cards anymore. Wow, that's that's poppycock.

 

Georgie  40:18  

But some people, some people will be set in their ways, right? Like I think someone said to me, oh, what's your like, I think they saw me screenshare in a meeting. And they said, “What's your VS Code theme?” And I'm like, “I've never used VS Code in my life”. And they were like, “What?!” They were like, “What do you use?” And I said “I use Sublime”. And they were like, what the fuck. Because I started using this—for people who don't know, there's—how do you...?

 

Geoff  40:44  

Just like, text editor.

 

Georgie  40:46  

Code editor.

 

Geoff  40:46  

It's like, it's like spellcheck on Word docs, right? We, like, if you had to go to Notepad and type a bunch of stuff, it's not going to do grammar or word or spell check for you. But if you go in a Word doc, then it's going to do all that fancy stuff for you with bolds and—

 

Georgie  41:01  

It’s like plain text, it's not, it's not a rich text. It's like a plain...

 

Geoff  41:05  

So imagine that Georgie is from the 20th century. And she is trying to write a program in a notepad instead of a nice, rich text doc.

 

Georgie  41:15  

Sublime is fine. I've just been using it since my career started and I never wanted to change, right, so I am, yeah, kind of like that person with the with the punch card.

 

Geoff  41:25  

Yes.

 

Georgie  41:25  

Just like and someone's like, check this out shows me something in VS code, or I'm like, cool story, bro. But I don't want to move from where I am. And like there are some people like that. Right? Like people who don't want to upgrade their phones.

 

Geoff  41:37  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  41:37  

Some people like going back to friggin Nokias or whatever.

 

Geoff  41:40  

Oh. Yeah, there's a Light phone. Have you heard of that one? Light phone?

 

Georgie  41:45  

No, but I actually I liked the tactility of um, I had like a slide phone like the Sony Ericsson. And just like messing with it. It's—

 

Geoff  41:53  

Check this out. This is the light phone.

 

Georgie  41:58  

Is that like a Kindle?

 

Geoff  41:58  

It's, it's basically it's basically like a Kindle that can make phone calls. I think it has an ink screen. It just, it literally just makes phone calls. It receives text. I don't know if it can, it can, oh you can answer texts. So that's okay. It's literally phone calls and texts. There's no apps, you don't need to know a file system. But hey, that's that's the Light phone. And it's all—

 

Georgie  42:25  

I think I find it amusing that people are, there's like a market for this.

 

Geoff  42:29  

Yeah.

 

Georgie  42:29  

People are probably making a little money out of it simply because people are getting addicted to this smartphones, quote, unquote, addicted. And they feel like they need to go back to something like this.

 

Geoff  42:38  

They need to disconnect. And then they're like, Oh, hey, this is a fun way to disconnect. Imagine if they didn’t know phones were like this before. Like, that's—right?

 

Georgie  42:47  

Yeah. And they're just like, oh look at this—

 

Geoff  42:49  

This is really, yeah.

 

Georgie  42:50  

Oh my god.

 

Geoff  42:51  

You’re like, hey.

 

Georgie  42:51  

Well, that's exactly what this is targeting.

 

Geoff  42:53  

So like, using apps, I was like, oh my god. I, my, someone said like, oh, man, I need to get rid of my phone because I’m spending too much time on my phone, like, okay, how do I do that? So they just Google like, like a phone that can’t, that has no apps, and then they get this thing? And then you show this to someone? And we're like, yeah, phones used to be like that. They’re like what?

 

Georgie  43:15  

Yeah, let me just get out my Nokia 3315.

 

Geoff  43:18  

Yeah. But oh, it plays music and I plays music, too. That's pretty good. Hey, I should go light.

 

Georgie  43:27  

No, don't do it Geoff. You're just giving some company your money.

 

Geoff  43:29  

Hey. Hey, this is pretty good.

 

Georgie  43:31  

You're admitting, you're, what’s the word, succumbing to the the new product or whatever, when all you could really do is just delete the apps from your phone.

 

Geoff  43:38  

This is true. Hey, look, it's only available in America anyways.

 

Georgie  43:42  

Yeah, look, I think this is another one of those consumer things where, consumerism things, where they're like, you need this thing. And you're like, oh, yeah, I do. But you know what, you don’t.

 

Geoff  43:50  

You could just delete your apps. And on that note, you could also delete this podcast but please don't. New, uh, you can follow us on @toastroastpod on Twitter.

 

Georgie  44:05  

Yep. And you find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and, and your Nokia 3315.

 

Geoff  44:15  

Don't change your habits and we'll see you on the Monday next week. Yeah.

 

Georgie  44:21  

Bye.