Jack_Herrington:
Welcome to React Roundup. I'm your host for this podcast, an hour, I guess. And with me on the panel today is TJ Vantolle.
Tj_Vantoll:
Hey everybody.
Jack_Herrington:
and Paige Niedringhaus.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Hey everyone.
Jack_Herrington:
And our guest today is Tommy Groschang. And he sort of talked to us about getting into management and aspirationally from a developer's perspective, what that looks like in terms of a career progression and how that feels. But before we get into that, just wanted to let people know that we do have a Discord server and a Discord channel on that server, the React Roundup Discord channel. And if you want to go there and hang out with us anytime, We'd love to meet y'all and get your feedback on the show and get answers to any questions you might have. Tommy, why don't you introduce yourself to our listeners?
Tommy_Groshong:
Sure. Hi everyone, Tommy Groschon. I've been an engineer for just... coming up on 10 years, so just starting to feel old finally. And Jack laughs.
Tj_Vantoll:
Zzzz
Tommy_Groshong:
And
Jack_Herrington:
Ha ha ha.
Tommy_Groshong:
just recently moved, moved back into management and kind of loving it. And happy to talk about, you know, both the perspective of, you know, what's it look like, you know, in your career progression as a as an engineer and where you want to go in your career and kind of soft skills and good ideas for into it and figuring out if it's something you want to do. So yeah, happy to be here and excited.
Jack_Herrington:
May have it heavier.
Tj_Vantoll:
So maybe we could start by just, you know, what drove your trip back into management? Was it something
Jack_Herrington:
Hehehe
Tj_Vantoll:
you asked for? Were you thrown into it? I'm just kind of curious your story and how that went.
Tommy_Groshong:
Sure, sure, yeah. So this is kind of my second go-around of like jumping into like, you know, the team management side, the managerial route. And the first time around, a few years back, it was definitely the kind of thing where I was thrown into it, where it was like, no one else is doing this. You're kind
Jack_Herrington:
Hehehehehehe
Tommy_Groshong:
of the most
Tj_Vantoll:
Hehehehe
Tommy_Groshong:
like experienced person, so maybe you just do this. And you know, like a sucker, I agreed to it. And like, yeah, sure, why not? What could go wrong? You know, and I ended up like, it was kind of a mixed bag where it's like, you know, I've enjoyed certain parts of it because I love dealing with people, even though in a lot of ways I am very introverted. I've liked almost every team I've ever been on and the people that I get to work with. I just enjoy that part of the job of working with other people, especially smart people doing interesting things. I've always loved that. You know, at the time though, it was kind of like I didn't really know what I was doing. I kind of came in with a lot of good intentions and with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement. but I still hadn't really figured out like what management kind of felt like. So did that for a little while, it was kind of a mixed bag, moved then after a while I moved back into engineering to kind of, because I kind of got burnt out on the managing
Jack_Herrington:
Mm-hmm.
Tommy_Groshong:
side. And after a few years of especially... doing some engineering consulting and stuff, which was awesome, working with other teams again, and being able to bounce around different organizations and work with their teams and people. I realized once again that there was this kind of missing thing in my career where I really, as much as I love the technical stuff, I really missed the opportunity to work directly with teams and kind of operate more at a higher level of you know, what does it look like, you know, helping a team reach their full potential. So then recently decided to go in and go all in on that thing and make that move back into management. And I've loved it. It's been about six months of being back in here and it's been much better than the first time around.
Jack_Herrington:
What's different this time around? I'm curious.
Tommy_Groshong:
I think a little bit is like I came, kind of coming into it with better expectations around what I'm looking for and what I can and can't affect. So kind of being a little more. you know, having more understanding and experience on that level. But also, like I picked I picked a company and a team where I thought it would make a lot of sense, where I felt really good about filling that role with that team rather than, you know. Previously, I picked a job where it's like, okay, I really like that technical project I have no idea how it would be to actually be a manager in a company like this so kind of identifying different parts of the company that I you know kind of made sense to fill that role in because different companies like sometimes I've been on teams where You know, the engineering side is is amazing and awesome to work with but once you start getting into you know you know, the more managerial side, all of a sudden... that organization may have some weird political games that are completely hidden to engineers,
Tj_Vantoll:
Yep.
Tommy_Groshong:
you know? So it's like, you kind of, when you're going into these different roles in a company, you kind of have to judge a company a little differently, depending on the role
Jack_Herrington:
Mm-hmm.
Tommy_Groshong:
that you want to fill. So that has helped a lot is kind of going in, not only like me having done this before and kind of seeing what did and didn't go well when I first tried it, or rather things that I could improve. But then also like specifically picking, okay, this would be a good company to do management at because I can see I'm aligned with other managers and stuff like that. I'm not going to be cutting against the grain on, you know, approaches. And that that's there's a big part of it that of that whole decision process that is really about like the people that you're going to be dealing with.
Tj_Vantoll:
So one thing I'm curious about is, I'm curious your take on what an engineering manager should do or what responsibilities that person should take on, because I've seen the role done so many different ways at so many different companies. Like everything from the engineering manager is basically just another coder on the team that has like the most responsibility, all the way to like the flip end where the engineering manager is more or less just like an HR person that like doesn't touch the code at all and just
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Yeah,
Tj_Vantoll:
like. goes to
Paige_Niedringhaus:
they're
Tj_Vantoll:
meetings
Paige_Niedringhaus:
in meetings
Tj_Vantoll:
all day.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
all day.
Jack_Herrington:
Mm-hmm.
Tj_Vantoll:
And then I've also seen all variations in between. So I'm curious to hear take, if you could structure this role, how do you see it done best? What would you recommend to companies and organizations for how to create a role like that?
Tommy_Groshong:
Oh yeah, no, that's a really good thing to bring up because I've seen the exactly the same thing where there's so much variability because it is a very kind of softly squishily defined role, which means that it normally is a role that accretes all these other responsibilities and stuff into it. The same thing is like when you have code, you have some piece of code that has a lot of responsibilities, it attracts more responsibilities as you go. Whether that's a React component or a big scary class, complexity attracts other complexity and it's the same with job roles. I think a big part of it kind of comes down to the kind of the stage and maturity of the company that you're at. Younger companies will tend to, You kind of should always go into that expecting to wear many hats and a lot of them, you're going to, you really, an engineering manager should expect to get their hands dirty on code. and
Jack_Herrington:
Mm-hmm.
Tommy_Groshong:
things like that as those companies start growing and you know, maybe move out of you know, a startup moving out of series A and B and maybe into like a series, you know, BCD. Plus, you know, once you start getting, you know, you know, a dozen engineers or so, that's when the managerial side of the job definitely takes off. So, I think that engineering manager is always going to be a very softly defined thing because different organizations have such different needs that they're trying to fill. When you're on a small team, being able to kind of be more of a very senior experienced engineer and be able to give engineering advice is really critical. Being able to help unblock engineers as they're doing work, that's one of the most important things you can do. engineer being a staff level engineer. You know, as teams scale and you get more people trying to increase your delivery and do more with your code base, then things start to adjust where now the bottleneck tends to be coordinating across people. So you naturally end up, the need is now shifted where You need to spend a lot more time, you know, personally and as an organization, figuring out how do we make sure that all these different people who are working on different things, their work is going together well. So,
Paige_Niedringhaus:
So,
Tommy_Groshong:
yeah.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Tommy, what is your preferred team structure? Like, do you prefer where you get to be kind of a coder and a delivery person, like a team lead almost, or do you prefer more of the coordination across different teams in a larger organization?
Tommy_Groshong:
I definitely prefer the younger smaller organizations. I love startups because I think they're a lot of fun and they have a lot of things that they are... They have a lot of opportunities for really cool innovation because you have people
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Mm-hmm.
Tommy_Groshong:
trying to solve new things with limited resources. And I've always loved that from earliest time in my career. I've always enjoyed that. So I personally love the kind of smaller team size where I can get involved on technical decisions and give technical advice. I really like onboarding. This is something I figured out as a consultant for a long time where I was primarily doing implementation consulting, not just management consulting, but engineering consultant, like looking at code, being like, okay, here's how we can improve the code and make it more likely you're gonna hit the deadline coming up. And I love onboarding to teams, especially as a manager or something like that, by coming in and trying to make some code submissions. Because then you actually can be in touch with what is the development process actually look like? What does, you know, where are the bottlenecks? Was it hard to get a development environment stood up? Was it hard to figure out where a specific change needs to be made? Or did or was were those things easy? And was it really difficult? to, you know, to get the, to babysit the change through, you know, through the code review process. you know, and then taking it all the way to deployment. Like is the problem that is there a bottleneck at actually getting changes in front of customers and stuff. And that's the kind of thing that you can ask. If you're really good at asking questions, you can kind of interrogate that out of people and figure out where those things are. You have to be really good at asking questions and really good at kind of. you know, probing on like, you know, interviewing people and, you know, it can be kind of tricky. But if you come from an engineering background, it's the kind of thing that you can get almost instantly, just trying to put a PR through. So I highly recommend that for anybody who is like starting, you know, either onboarding to a new, you know, to a new company as a manager or is moving into management and you probably are managing, you know, some teams or projects that you haven't had to work with. like exercise your technical skills and try to actually like, uh, submit code because you learn so much just through that process. And that's why I think the best engineering managers tend to be people who came out of engineering, who wanted to have more
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
of those, uh, you know, soft skills and interactions and the way that they're able to incorporate their. Kind of engineering expertise into their management, like the more dividends that pays out later.
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah, that's really well said. I liked the bit about different companies need their managers to be doing different things just because all companies are, they're structured differently. There are different phases of whatever it is they're building. And I'd say the, the only time I've seen negative sort of interactions between developers and management is when the management had absolutely a very minimal technical experience. Um, cause I feel like you always want, like, even if you're engineering managers aren't day to day in the code, you know, submitting PRs all the time. Having that background, like you said, people that came from a technical background that just discovered that they like some of the more manageable, like almost like product management type skills, I think it'd be quite successful. But I've been a part of larger organizations where we've had people that were brought in from other segments of the company, and then when they have absolutely no background, it creates this sort of internal resentment where. you're trying to like, it's almost hard to communicate if you have someone that doesn't come from, doesn't have that engineering experience and you're trying to like convey deadlines and timelines and backups and stuff like that. It creates this just weird dynamic. So I think
Jack_Herrington:
What do you mean you want testing?
Tj_Vantoll:
I'm just, yeah.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Right? Why
Jack_Herrington:
What
Paige_Niedringhaus:
is
Jack_Herrington:
is
Paige_Niedringhaus:
this
Jack_Herrington:
this
Paige_Niedringhaus:
gonna
Jack_Herrington:
testing
Paige_Niedringhaus:
take so
Jack_Herrington:
you're
Paige_Niedringhaus:
long?
Jack_Herrington:
talking about?
Tj_Vantoll:
Well,
Jack_Herrington:
What?
Tj_Vantoll:
yeah, cause I feel like if you've been through
Tommy_Groshong:
Yeah.
Tj_Vantoll:
it too, like if... If a development team is saying like, oh, we need to dedicate a month to like refactor this, right? Like,
Jack_Herrington:
But it
Tj_Vantoll:
unless
Jack_Herrington:
works.
Tj_Vantoll:
you've been through that yourself and know like the pros and cons, because I feel like that's where you need somebody with some experience that has said like, okay, like understands the long-term, this might be a good idea, but at the same time, you also have to understand that developers always want to refactor everything. So you can't necessarily give them free reign or else you do nothing,
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Ha ha ha
Tj_Vantoll:
right?
Paige_Niedringhaus:
ha!
Tj_Vantoll:
It's like things like that that you need somebody with some experience to strike some balance on and be the decision maker.
Tommy_Groshong:
Yeah, absolutely. No, I think that's a really good point. There's, when I was doing consulting, one of the things that I would tell to a lot of the clients that I'd work with, because a lot of them were in the similar spot where they were small companies who became successful and now were growing into big companies. And... One of the hardest things to do in that transition period as a company, as a person leading that company or guiding that company is navigating this change where the things that you did to get to that success are not the things you need to continue doing to continue having success. The things actually change,
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
which is really difficult. I've seen that not just in tech, but I've seen that in businesses in general. when businesses start to grow and become successful, the behaviors and activities that were working for them and were driving the success that got them there, those things actually change out from under you. And like all of a sudden, you can't keep doing the same thing because it simply doesn't work anymore. Either because you are, you know, because like your market and customers start to shift a little bit as you grow in size, or the people that you're working with and the coordination amongst them as the team gets bigger changes. Like all these things start to change And sometimes people start to think like, well, this was the right way to do it before. The right way doesn't stop being the right way, does it? It's like, no, no, that was the right way facing in the environment and with the company structure and situation that you were in at that time. But now those things have changed. So you need to be able to adapt. And that's one of the things we always try to lean into with Agile is prioritizing adaptability in our code and in our how we respond to when code needs to change. It's the same with organizations and we need to be able to navigate those things where it's like, yeah, behaviors just need to naturally change as we're, you know, as we're progressing and as a company is progressing and stuff like that. So
Jack_Herrington:
OK,
Tommy_Groshong:
it's
Jack_Herrington:
so
Tommy_Groshong:
a really good point to bring
Jack_Herrington:
that's
Tommy_Groshong:
up.
Jack_Herrington:
a good segue into what I think what a lot of folks want to know is I'm a junior developer. I'm a middle level, a senior developer, whatever they're going to call it. And I'm like, I don't know if I want to do the programming grind for the rest of my life. I want to be a manager. Right. So what are some skills? What are some things that I can show to my manager to to get me noticed as somebody who wants to be, you know, a manager? What are some skills
Tommy_Groshong:
Sure,
Jack_Herrington:
I can
Tommy_Groshong:
yeah.
Jack_Herrington:
show?
Tommy_Groshong:
Yeah, so I kind of hear two things. So I'm gonna answer your question at the end.
Jack_Herrington:
Hahaha, okay.
Tommy_Groshong:
But what I kind of hear, so one of the things that comes to me very first is that when you're thinking about career progression and. And I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. You want to for yourself, you want to be able to identify which parts of your job you really like and you want to do more of and your tastes in that do change over time. So you need to it's not something you figure out once and then like you just know that that's always true. You need to kind of check in with yourself because guess what? We change over time. So you always want to be able to take regular check ins with yourself to figure out which parts of the job you like, you know, at this stage versus which parts that you don't like as much in what would like to minimize. I'm a firm believer that all organizations should have two separate tracks for engineering career progression that there should be. Like most places agree that there is a management track where it's like, eventually you become a senior engineer and then at some point you become an engineering manager or you know, a team lead engineering manager, maybe someday director of engineering, etc. And that normally tends to be a little clearer because you know it just fits it patterns very nicely. the corporate structure that already has existed for a long time. So, but,
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
um, There's a whole nother side which organizations are kind of a little more hit or miss on in the tech space where we need to also recognize that there needs to be there always should be a career progression opportunity for the for technical leadership, where it's like, okay, this person has, you know, continue to progress and become, you know, acquire expertise in the technologies we care about and really matter. And we want to be able to broaden that person's impact. in the organization, which also includes give them more opportunities to, you know, to work with other parts of the system and improve them, get more opportunities and access to people to help train them and mentor them. A lot of those things are, you know, really represent a kind of digression of responsibilities from the management track. And I think that that's one of the things that is most often missing in a lot of organizations that hey, someone after they become a senior engineer, that's normally the cutoff, right? You become a senior engineer and it's like, where do I go from here? Well, normally there's like some management thing you could potentially go into, but there should also be, and if there's not, you should definitely talk to your organization leadership that there should be a route for people who... want to focus on and expand their technical contributions across the organization. So that being in mind, if you're the kind of person who is thinking like, maybe I want to go into the management track, I say that if you want to identify that thought in yourself, kind of figure out, do you like when... Can you move into like a team lead role and do you like working with people and helping them become better at what they're doing at their job, help them become better at, you know, their day to day work. You know, that's kind of the first thing of like progressing out of, you know, beyond senior engineer is you start to look a little more outward and see how do I affect how does my work affect the rest of the team.
Jack_Herrington:
Hmm.
Tommy_Groshong:
if you start to enjoy more of the seeing people succeed and trying to figure out and enjoying the Finding ways to help people You know people on your team have fewer blockers You know be more effective by Not being pulled into meetings all the time and stuff like that Which I am on an eternal crusade to get engineers out of out
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Ha
Tommy_Groshong:
of
Paige_Niedringhaus:
ha
Tommy_Groshong:
meetings
Paige_Niedringhaus:
ha.
Tommy_Groshong:
wherever possible Except for
Jack_Herrington:
You're
Tommy_Groshong:
the meetings
Jack_Herrington:
doing the lords
Tommy_Groshong:
they really
Jack_Herrington:
work,
Tommy_Groshong:
need to
Jack_Herrington:
sir
Tommy_Groshong:
be in.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Yes.
Tommy_Groshong:
Yeah see Once again, the kind of thing that if you came out of engineering, you, uh, you know, you tend to have a really good barometer for
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah!
Tommy_Groshong:
like, yeah, the more senior
Paige_Niedringhaus:
They don't
Tommy_Groshong:
a person
Paige_Niedringhaus:
need to
Tommy_Groshong:
gets,
Paige_Niedringhaus:
be here.
Tommy_Groshong:
the more, uh, everybody wants to pull them into a meeting. Right. When you're wanting,
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
if you're thinking that if you want to move into management, um, one of the, uh, kind of little, what would I call it? A little heuristic is, would you rather go to a meeting to make sure that no one else had to go to that meeting? It's like,
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Mm-hmm.
Tommy_Groshong:
you
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Ha ha
Tommy_Groshong:
might
Paige_Niedringhaus:
ha ha
Tommy_Groshong:
be an engineering manager. It was like,
Paige_Niedringhaus:
ha.
Tommy_Groshong:
that's like a
Jack_Herrington:
Hahaha
Tommy_Groshong:
really
Tj_Vantoll:
Heheheheh...
Tommy_Groshong:
good thing right there. You know? Which is something I kind of found early on, which is why I had initially moved into management, was that I was happy to do that. Was like, I'll go to this meeting, so you guys don't have to.
Jack_Herrington:
So you don't have to.
Tommy_Groshong:
And
Jack_Herrington:
Exactly, yeah,
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Mm-hmm.
Jack_Herrington:
yeah,
Tommy_Groshong:
so
Jack_Herrington:
yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
you don't have to, I'll go do that. where I can kind of I can relate to them what they would ask you or And then I can relate back to you what they would ask and there was enough trust there where people were like, yeah Sure, we're cool with that and you always have those kinds of people who kind of you know make themselves known onto a team because you just have people who are good at communicating and who like to see in the same way that you know, I think we see this a lot in engineering with engineers and engineering minded people of people who are driven crazy by inefficiencies and stuff sometimes you're driven crazy by just seeing code that's like poorly set up and working badly and Other times it's a process thing where you get driven crazy by seeing poor processes where you're like we could be
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
get so much more done if XYZ terrible behavior
Jack_Herrington:
Well, I think everybody
Tommy_Groshong:
wasn't happening
Jack_Herrington:
knows when they're in a meeting that they shouldn't be there like
Paige_Niedringhaus:
I'm
Jack_Herrington:
that's
Paige_Niedringhaus:
going to go
Jack_Herrington:
pretty
Paige_Niedringhaus:
to bed.
Jack_Herrington:
but that's like
Tommy_Groshong:
Oh
Jack_Herrington:
an
Tommy_Groshong:
yeah.
Jack_Herrington:
actual instinct Like
Tommy_Groshong:
Yeah, exactly.
Jack_Herrington:
I haven't talked to his entire time. So
Paige_Niedringhaus:
This
Jack_Herrington:
I probably
Paige_Niedringhaus:
could have been
Jack_Herrington:
shouldn't
Paige_Niedringhaus:
an email.
Jack_Herrington:
be here. Yeah, exactly. Yes
Tommy_Groshong:
could have been an email.
Tj_Vantoll:
Hey.
Tommy_Groshong:
That's a big one. This could have been an email.
Tj_Vantoll:
The other thing too is if you're given the opportunity, so I've had a lot of friends and coworkers over the years that have went into engineering management and it seems like one of those things that like you get a sense within a few months, whether you like it or not from firsthand experience too. Cause it, and from amongst my friend groups, it's almost like a straight 50 50. Like some people just discover it's their passion. They really love doing it. It becomes where their career goes and some hate it and just run away. run away from it, go back to like straight development. But the thing is, it's another life thing that sometimes you don't truly know until you try. And I don't think the people that did it regret it, right? You tried it for a while, you discover you didn't like it, and it's like a now you know situation. There's always time to go back into development. It's not like you lose anything by trying something out for a year and just experiencing something different too.
Tommy_Groshong:
Yeah, I think that's really good. I think that's a really good point. Like I can look at my own progression and say the exact same thing. Like I had to move into management to decide if I liked it or not. I realized that I did like management. I didn't like managing there. You know, and, you know,
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
it wasn't the right fit. But, you know, after, you know, having kind of a, you know, that kind of mixed experience the first time I did it. And then, you know, I needed to take, you know, a bit of a breather of like, okay, let me, you know, do, um, you know, go back to, you know, a comfortable spot of being in, in engineering where I know I'm, I'm solid and good and kind of regroup and see where I want to go. And after having time to introspect, be like, no, I really like not having that opportunity anymore. I really missed these. Uh. these ways of being able to help the team that I'm on. And then realizing yeah, something's missing. I definitely should uh, you know, it has been confirmed for me So for me i'm a bit of a slow learner because I had to like do it and then lose it before I realized no No, I do actually want to do it Because when I when I had left
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
that original management job, I was like i'm never doing this again, you know, uh, It's like that was a waste and stuff and then after a little bit of time of of not doing it I'm like, no, no, no, I really did like that. I just I realized now I didn't like that you know, experience that I had, you know, it's like, oh, okay, so let's try this again. This time, I'm going to try to correct for that by interviewing the, you know, the potential company that I'm going for to see if it would be a good place to manage at, not just a good place to work at.
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
So one question that I have that I think comes up for a lot of, I've seen a lot of people who move into engineering management on Twitter, even ask this of their colleagues is if you're a manager who also is a contributor and adds code and works with the team very closely like that, how do you balance the time between being in the meetings that you need to be in to understand, you know, what's happening next and communicate that to the team as well as keeping up and staying relevant with the new trends in the industry and contributing in a way that is meaningful because that seems like a 24 hour job, not an eight hour job.
Tommy_Groshong:
No, yeah, that's a really good one. And I definitely, like, I know exactly what you mean because I've definitely felt that
Paige_Niedringhaus:
I'm gonna go to bed.
Tommy_Groshong:
personally. Yeah, it's a tricky one because, and here's the real truth is that becomes harder as you progress in your career period. Some people think it only happens when you go into management, but it's just as true if you go into more technical leadership. You then start realizing that you now are unblocking problems that are very different than what and you know designing solutions and and kind of dealing with things at a level that Don't keep you down in the nitty-gritty of how things get implemented and you do a lot more of Hey, this would be a good idea of how we should structure these things and implement these things for these for these reasons and these You know, this would be a good approach to do and then you end up like even as a technical leader You end up handing a lot of that stuff off to be implemented, you know still, you know, are
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
able to carve out time where, you know, you can be involved a little bit because you don't want your skills, especially if you're, you're still going that, you know, technical leadership route, you don't want your skills to ever totally atrophy. And I think it's,
Jack_Herrington:
Right.
Tommy_Groshong:
I think it's also a good thing to kind of remember on the management side is that those technical skills do atrophy after a while if you don't continually feed them. So one thing that I would encourage any new manager or long time manager to do is the same way that it's generally recognized to be a very good practice to give your team explicit time. to take for themselves in order to like further their, you know, you know, kind of continuing education or, you know, it's like, a lot of places will do like flex time with, you know, you should spend x number of hours a week trying out, you know, you you know, doing your own projects, doing your own research on blog posts, maybe writing your own blog posts and stuff like that. I think you're starting to see that get picked up a lot more in the industry, which is a very good thing because we're starting to explicitly recognize how important it is for people to kind of break out of the day-to-day work in order to have that self-growth and self-edification. the engineer level, why wouldn't that be a good idea at the manager level? Like it still is, and it's still just as important. You may have to adjust like how, uh, you know, the actual details of how it works because yeah, as an engineering manager, you definitely do get pulled into a lot more meetings and the annoying
Jack_Herrington:
Hehehehehehe
Tommy_Groshong:
thing about meetings is they, uh, you know, they tend to like the way that they block out your time. It's like, okay. In a 20, in a 30 minute meeting, probably 10 minutes of it is normally like really valuable. Um,
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Right.
Tommy_Groshong:
if you're really good at doing meetings, you'll end the meeting, like you'll, you'll front load it, get all the good stuff out in the first 10 minutes and then just
Jack_Herrington:
End the
Tommy_Groshong:
end
Jack_Herrington:
meeting
Tommy_Groshong:
the meeting.
Jack_Herrington:
early.
Tommy_Groshong:
end the meeting
Jack_Herrington:
Yes.
Tommy_Groshong:
early that is the that
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
is the one true way is solve
Jack_Herrington:
Ha ha
Tommy_Groshong:
the
Jack_Herrington:
ha!
Tommy_Groshong:
problem and then you end that meeting early you know that's the way to go but it's like again back to that same point like if we recognize that giving developers time uh developers and engineers time um to personally like improve their craft um then that being a good idea like naturally that says that, you know, managers aren't much different. Like they need time to actually spend, they need to be able to set aside time and protect that time where it's like, okay, for, you know, even if it's, you know, you know, 20 minutes a day where they can just, you know, be more focused on like a technical skills, especially, but also like as a manager, you want, you also want to work in things of like, how do I be a better manager? How do I deal better with people and improve my communication? amount of skills that you're trying to do, because you're trying to not lose too many of your engineering technical skills, but you gotta have to lean into, you're gonna lose a little bit of that stuff, because you're just not going to be doing it at the same rate as you were doing it before. But that doesn't mean that you have to let it go completely dull and completely useless. You don't have to completely let it atrophy. But
Jack_Herrington:
Hmph.
Tommy_Groshong:
you should always prioritize being able to... effectively take some time on a recurring basis. And it's better to have 20 minutes every day than two hours once a week. You know, it's
Jack_Herrington:
Mm.
Tommy_Groshong:
just time management wise. I think as you as you progress in your career, and this again, this is one of those things that applies to technical and management leadership. you find that time management becomes more and more important because you're taking on so much more responsibility, regardless of which avenue you're going down, you're taking up so much more responsibility that you need to be, you know, you really need to level up your game and how you manage your time. That's probably one of the biggest
Jack_Herrington:
Hmm.
Tommy_Groshong:
tricky parts to learn as you're progressing in your career. If you want to take on more responsibilities, like you normally don't lose that many responsibilities. You can delegate some things, things but at the end of the day you uh whichever route you go you normally take on more responsibilities than you lose so
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Ha ha.
Tommy_Groshong:
you know kind of uh you know going into that eyes wide open if you really want to progress in your career regardless of which way you go you really want to become uh you know more disciplined at how you manage your time regardless because you're always going to have those things you know it's like as a senior engineer Like I found like just on the technical side, like I would have more ideas for, you know, projects that I wanted to do than I would have time to do those projects. So it was like that same problem still.
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
It was like, and when I was a young engineer, it's like, that wasn't too much of a problem because it's like, I that's, that's kind of beyond my, you know, my abilities to kind of do, so I'm just not going to worry about it. Once you become really good because you've been doing it for 10 years, you're like, all of a sudden it's like, no, I could literally do anything. The question
Jack_Herrington:
Hahaha!
Tommy_Groshong:
is, how do
Jack_Herrington:
Ahem.
Tommy_Groshong:
I balance
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Ha ha!
Tommy_Groshong:
it? You know, and. management becomes increasingly important as your career progresses.
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah, my wife is in a very senior developer role and it's funny, the thing she complains about now are like, she'll get thrown on the like super hard pull request sort of deal, right? Where it's easy to get sucked in for like, you could lose a day on like an important, like somebody sends you something like this, here's an important feature for our system, right? That we want to integrate and it's like up, you're the person that's responsible for making sure that that thing works and is maintainable and stuff. you can easily just get your all the time for your personal development just gone through things
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah.
Tj_Vantoll:
like that. Or
Tommy_Groshong:
Yeah.
Tj_Vantoll:
meetings for senior technical people also super common. So it's constantly a fight.
Tommy_Groshong:
It is, you got
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Well,
Tommy_Groshong:
to
Paige_Niedringhaus:
and
Tommy_Groshong:
constantly
Paige_Niedringhaus:
I think that
Tommy_Groshong:
defend
Paige_Niedringhaus:
this,
Tommy_Groshong:
it.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
yeah, I think that it also, you know, we've been talking about how you progress and how you go to that next level, but I think there's also something to be said that is talked about a lot less, but. you can stay at the level that you're at. If you like what you're doing and you really like the position that you're in and you like writing code or you know whatever it is that you you're doing, you don't necessarily have to always be progressing to that next level or looking to get to that next level. Like I worked with developers at my last company who had been in development at that company for 25 years and they were very happy being senior engineers. they came in, they did their work, they got to do exactly what it was that they wanted, which was to write code all day and work with interesting people, but they didn't necessarily want to get to that next level where they would have to take on either team lead responsibilities or be in more meetings or do, you know, whatever it was that the next the next roll up the ladder required. And there's nothing wrong with that. If you found that place that you really like and you get to get to do what you're enjoying the most, you don't necessarily have to go beyond that. You can just say, I really like where I'm at.
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah, more senior positions can come with more, you know, more money, more like all these things, but they can also come with more time taken up, more stress. It's always a balancing act. There's a reason that those positions
Tommy_Groshong:
There's a reason
Tj_Vantoll:
you
Tommy_Groshong:
they
Tj_Vantoll:
pay
Tommy_Groshong:
offer
Tj_Vantoll:
well
Tommy_Groshong:
you
Tj_Vantoll:
as
Tommy_Groshong:
more money. Yeah.
Tj_Vantoll:
yes,
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Yes.
Tommy_Groshong:
Right, yeah.
Tj_Vantoll:
you're giving something in return.
Tommy_Groshong:
Yeah, you are. And I think that's a really good point to bring up. And like the thing that comes to my mind about it is you shouldn't take on more responsibilities for anyone other than yourself. Like when you're looking at progressing your craft, or your influence in the company, your career, whatever. It's like, you should do that for you and you should do that because you're ready for it. You shouldn't do it because like, well, that's the next thing you do. You know, you shouldn't do that because, well, like I've been encouraged by a mentor that I really respect that this is the next step in my career that I should take. You know, that may be really good advice for you. Or it may be something where it's like, I am honestly happy where I am and I would rather, you know, focus here. of think that again, like going back to, you know, one of those early points, you don't feel the same way all the time. Right? You, you may find that, yeah, you technically could move, uh, move into a, uh, more technical leadership role or a managerial role. You may find like at some points, like I could do that now. But I don't actually, but are, have you in, you know, self-introspected to say like, do you, is that something you're actually ready to do and want to do right now? Because you don't want to fool yourself into saying like, no, no, no, I should want to do this thing,
Jack_Herrington:
Mm-hmm.
Tommy_Groshong:
so I
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
will. Because that's, you know, that's a path for pain. You know,
Jack_Herrington:
Whether there's a
Tommy_Groshong:
and
Jack_Herrington:
societal
Tommy_Groshong:
why do that?
Jack_Herrington:
expectation
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah.
Jack_Herrington:
that, you know, you've been there or whatever,
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah.
Jack_Herrington:
you're ex,
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah.
Jack_Herrington:
ex
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Right.
Jack_Herrington:
years
Tommy_Groshong:
Mm-hmm.
Jack_Herrington:
old, and therefore you should be a manager. What the heck are you doing still, you know, doing this kind of thing?
Paige_Niedringhaus:
I'm sorry.
Jack_Herrington:
You
Tommy_Groshong:
Ambition
Jack_Herrington:
know,
Tommy_Groshong:
and drive are really
Jack_Herrington:
yeah,
Tommy_Groshong:
good
Jack_Herrington:
I get.
Tommy_Groshong:
things and they can push you to really good heights, but you need to be able to balance that with really what you want out of life. Do you actually
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
want to focus on adopting all these new responsibilities right now? Because honestly, I do think it's a bit of a myth that you like... You know miss your chance at doing something because guess what like in tech
Jack_Herrington:
Oh, lord, no.
Tommy_Groshong:
there's
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
always another job You know and you know It's like I don't I don't buy the idea that like, you know You have one you have a chance and if you don't take that chance, you're gonna miss it. It's like no like Like there's all like there will be other chances and it's better to do a to do a jump when you When you're ready for it rather than saying like well Yeah, like that. I have that expectation, you know, set by something else, someone else somewhere else that I should do this next thing. You know, like, look, do it for you. Always prioritize doing it for you first.
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah, I feel like that mentality that you're gonna miss it if you don't like jump at it comes from an era where people used to work for the same company for 30,
Jack_Herrington:
Mm-hmm.
Tj_Vantoll:
40 years and
Tommy_Groshong:
Yeah.
Tj_Vantoll:
like that technical manager roles opening up and if you don't grab it now, right, it's it's not going
Paige_Niedringhaus:
It'll
Tj_Vantoll:
to
Paige_Niedringhaus:
be gone.
Tj_Vantoll:
be available for another five years or whatever.
Tommy_Groshong:
Whoever gets
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
that job is gonna be in it for 30 years, so you don't
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah,
Tommy_Groshong:
wanna
Tj_Vantoll:
they're
Tommy_Groshong:
miss it.
Tj_Vantoll:
gonna have a nice cushy office, the one with the blinds, and it's gonna be, you know.
Tommy_Groshong:
There you go. Yeah,
Paige_Niedringhaus:
It's true.
Tommy_Groshong:
if I want
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Well,
Tommy_Groshong:
a
Paige_Niedringhaus:
it's
Tommy_Groshong:
better
Paige_Niedringhaus:
true.
Tommy_Groshong:
corner office, you know, I just redecorate my current office, you know,
Tj_Vantoll:
Hehehehe
Paige_Niedringhaus:
right?
Tommy_Groshong:
it's like boom my home
Paige_Niedringhaus:
It's either
Tommy_Groshong:
office
Paige_Niedringhaus:
that or it's the kind of FOMO where you know some some company that you've been lusting after working for forever comes to you and says hey we've got an opening and even though it's not the tech stack that you want or it's not really the opening that you were looking for it's like oh it's this company and if I can get in there and I can do well then maybe I can move into the place that I really want to be and I've had those sort of situations and I've had those conversations and you realize as you're talking to somebody that this is not at all the position that you are suited for or really want. But it's so hard faced with that and the possibility of what could happen to kind of back away and say, no, this is not what I'm suited for, this is not what you need, this is not what I need. But
Jack_Herrington:
Right.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
it's really, like you said, it really, it comes down to knowing yourself a list of what do I want in either my next position or in my future career and is this this thing going to help me get there or is it really just kind of a you know distraction along the way.
Tommy_Groshong:
Mm-hmm. I love that you connected that to like to FOMO the fear of missing out because I think that does drive a lot of things here is like it's like I don't want to say that that doesn't exist, that there isn't, there aren't opportunities that come up once and then you like totally miss them, you know, and, and you may never get those opportunities back. It's like, I do believe that those exist and I've maybe experienced that, I think one time in my entire career and I've had a pretty broad career doing a lot of different things. I think that has maybe come up like very clearly one time and I'm not even convinced, like I know that I missed out on. opportunity. I'm not convinced that that opportunity was necessarily better than what happened later. I just know that that
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah
Tommy_Groshong:
door came, that door was a temporary thing, and that door went away, but for the most part... the other 99% of opportunities that have come up, those doors are kind of always open, especially if you're focusing on doing your best work, being a good member of an organization and adding value where you can. You find that more doors are opening than there are doors closing. So a lot of times that fear of missing out is really just a thing in our head that we need to kind of deal with more than anything else It's pretty rare in my experience that you legit miss out on that one great opportunity.
Tj_Vantoll:
And I think too, we can say this a bit from a position of privilege just because the software development world is just so good for it to be such a good place to be in right now. I think that's what affords us some opportunity to do that, because I think in some other industries, you have to be grinding a bit because there are limited jobs and you have to make sure that you're getting the next one and the next opportunity. But the fact is, there are so many, if you're listening to a React podcast right now, there are so many React jobs out
Jack_Herrington:
Hahaha,
Tj_Vantoll:
there.
Jack_Herrington:
yeah.
Tj_Vantoll:
There's an
Tommy_Groshong:
So
Tj_Vantoll:
absolute
Tommy_Groshong:
many
Tj_Vantoll:
ton.
Tommy_Groshong:
React
Tj_Vantoll:
If you
Tommy_Groshong:
jobs.
Tj_Vantoll:
wanna be a React Senior Developer, if you wanna be a React Technical Manager, if you're looking to be like a new junior position, like it's a great time to be a JavaScript or React person. And so
Jack_Herrington:
big time.
Tj_Vantoll:
you'd be stupid not to take advantage of it though, right, like take advantage of the flexibility that you have and enjoy it.
Tommy_Groshong:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things that that goes along with that, that is sometimes like people don't always jump there doesn't always jump to their mind is it's never been easier to do. to take a side project and make it like a real thing. You know, entrepreneurship is still hard, but like all things considered in the tech world, you know, regardless of like the rest of the ecosystem, it's really never been easier to. do your own, launch your own service, launch your own product, do your own, be your own boss. That has literally never been easier. So it's like, I think we are definitely in a position of privilege that is, on one hand is kind of just the ecosystem and the industry and market that we're in. But on the other hand is also just a part of the age that we're in where the costs to doing something yourself are so low like that's something that's on my mind a lot of, and I think it's a healthy thing for people to have, you know, to a certain extent is. If there's something that you really want to do or accomplish in the world, there are very few roadblocks for you just doing it yourself. Then, you know, compared to, you know,
Jack_Herrington:
Oh, for
Tommy_Groshong:
historically
Jack_Herrington:
sure.
Tommy_Groshong:
what's been true, you know, doesn't mean it's easy. It's definitely not an easy thing.
Jack_Herrington:
Hahaha!
Tommy_Groshong:
But the the the roadblocks that are typically there just don't exist in the tech world, you know.
Tj_Vantoll:
Man, the joke used to be you had to start it in your garage, but now that's like the expectation, right?
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah.
Tj_Vantoll:
You don't move out of, everybody's just in their own like garages or apartments until you hit like, well, heck, you could just stay totally remote, right? You don't even need to have, like the barrier is so low now it's kind of crazy.
Tommy_Groshong:
Yep, 100%. Never been
Jack_Herrington:
Well,
Tommy_Groshong:
lower.
Jack_Herrington:
Tommy, this has been awesome. I'm going to do my traditional TJ thing and ask if there's anything that
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Ha
Jack_Herrington:
we you think we should have covered
Paige_Niedringhaus:
ha.
Jack_Herrington:
so far that we haven't covered.
Tommy_Groshong:
I'd say one thing that's kind of on my mind is not just in management, it was kind of just engineering in general, is the idea of trying to have a clear picture in your mind when you're thinking of like a good project or a good product, a good team in software is trying to be clear on which parts of it you have control over and which parts you don't.
Jack_Herrington:
Hmm.
Tommy_Groshong:
something I've been thinking about a lot and because it becomes like a bit of a you know longevity in the in the market and a kind of protection of your own mental health and prevention against burnout is trying to be clear with yourself on which things do you actually control, which things do you not and in software I think like we tend to like when you think about really good software it's like you know I like to break it down to kind of like four things you have like the solution itself or the problem that it's solving the design of the software that's being used and then the quality. of the software itself and how defect free it is. And then lastly, like your ability to deliver and deliver changes and deliver improvements to it. Those are kind of the four things. Engineers have direct control over two of them.
Jack_Herrington:
Right.
Tommy_Groshong:
You know, engineers don't really have like a normal day job, a normal project that you're not doing completely yourself. It's like engineers don't really have much direct control over the problem solution. And we don't have a lot of direct control over even the interface when you really come to think about it. Who has real control over that? The product people and the designers, they really have it, you know, and
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
and I'm glad they do because there is a ton of work that goes into that of talking to customers and being able to be like, OK, what what what is going well with this interface. What is not good about this interface? What can we change? There is so much work there and I think it's really easy to trivialize that. But when we really look down on it, the only two things that engineers, whether you're management or whether you're just an engineer, the two things you have direct control over are quality and delivery. And a lot of the things that we do should really be focused around how ability to deliver value. And, you know, kind of being able to kind of demarcate, you know, those areas where, you know, this is where we have influence and this is where we have control. And, you know, that doesn't mean that you don't concern yourself with design and with like the actual problem and solution of the product, because you should be. But really what that is identifying is your role as an engineer is trying to make sure that there aren't dropped handoffs somebody else, and it's really on you and especially on you as a manager to make sure that those interactions and stuff happen. And when you look at something like agile projects and agile, you know, methodologies and stuff, so much of them come down to how do you handle those transitions between teams and try to cut barriers out of those things being a problem because it is in a very implicit way. uh, kind of centering this idea that some things engineers have direct control over and in other things we're very much downstream of what things are going and be able to have that clearly in your head. It helps you to kind of know like where should improvements go, but it also helps you to kind of protect your own, your, yourself against having unreasonable expectations about things.
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Tommy_Groshong:
Pretty much it for me though.
Jack_Herrington:
All right. Well,
Tj_Vantoll:
Well
Jack_Herrington:
I think
Tj_Vantoll:
said.
Jack_Herrington:
that
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Good
Jack_Herrington:
yeah, absolutely.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
advice.
Jack_Herrington:
I mean, I think the best managers take care of the mental health of people to work for them for sure. You know, keep an
Tommy_Groshong:
100%
Jack_Herrington:
eye on that.
Tommy_Groshong:
yep,
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
nothing will kill a team faster than people getting burnt out and then
Jack_Herrington:
Ugh.
Tommy_Groshong:
and then trying to leave like Or even like if they like best-case scenario they get burnt out and they don't leave like that's still no solution But nothing will kill a team or nothing will kill a product Faster than that, you know
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah, for sure.
Tommy_Groshong:
quite honestly
Jack_Herrington:
Alright, well I think that brings us to our picks section. And let's start us off with TJ this week. TJ, what's your pick for the week?
Tj_Vantoll:
Sure, I'm gonna pick Only Murders in the Building.
Jack_Herrington:
Oh!
Tj_Vantoll:
It was actually a recommendation from a previous guest of the show.
Jack_Herrington:
Mm-hmm.
Tj_Vantoll:
So I watched it because I love a good murder mystery and it was entertaining. It was good. I only watched season one, which I think season two is now like
Jack_Herrington:
Just
Tj_Vantoll:
halfway,
Jack_Herrington:
coming out?
Tj_Vantoll:
maybe more than half.
Jack_Herrington:
Oh, okay.
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah,
Jack_Herrington:
All
Tj_Vantoll:
it's,
Jack_Herrington:
right.
Tj_Vantoll:
I usually, because I usually binge season, so lots of times
Jack_Herrington:
Ah.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Yep.
Tj_Vantoll:
I wait until, wait
Paige_Niedringhaus:
It's done.
Tj_Vantoll:
until they're all the way done. But we went on a short camping trip and I was antisocial. I downloaded the whole season
Jack_Herrington:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Tj_Vantoll:
so that I could just watch it in the tent. So
Tommy_Groshong:
Nice.
Tj_Vantoll:
maybe don't recommend that, but
Jack_Herrington:
Enjoying
Tj_Vantoll:
the
Jack_Herrington:
nature
Tj_Vantoll:
show was good.
Jack_Herrington:
and also my iPad.
Tj_Vantoll:
Yeah, there's your pro tip. Download shows you wanna watch before you get to the campsite
Jack_Herrington:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Tj_Vantoll:
and you don't have internet.
Tommy_Groshong:
Huh, huh. Also a pro tip for parents when you're going
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Yes.
Tommy_Groshong:
on a trip. You download
Tj_Vantoll:
Yes.
Tommy_Groshong:
everything
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
to the devices. There you go.
Jack_Herrington:
Oh my
Tj_Vantoll:
Apps
Jack_Herrington:
gosh,
Tj_Vantoll:
have
Jack_Herrington:
yes.
Tj_Vantoll:
gotten really good about letting you do it. It used to be really sketchy, but now they pretty much all have really easy ways of letting
Jack_Herrington:
Oh yeah,
Tj_Vantoll:
you do that.
Tommy_Groshong:
Yeah,
Jack_Herrington:
yeah, offline
Tommy_Groshong:
now that
Jack_Herrington:
mode.
Tommy_Groshong:
you don't have to carry pirated content on your device anymore, it's much, it's kind of better. Nah.
Jack_Herrington:
Never did that.
Tj_Vantoll:
Hehehehe Hehehehe
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Never.
Jack_Herrington:
Never. Okay. All right. Well, Paige, what's your pick for the week?
Paige_Niedringhaus:
My pick this week is going to be a book series that I started recently and it's called Outlander, which is also
Jack_Herrington:
Ha!
Paige_Niedringhaus:
I think it's a stars or a Showtime
Jack_Herrington:
Yes.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
show as well. But these are the books that it's based on and I'm only, I don't know, not too far into the first one, first book, but really enjoying it because it's
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
such an expansion on the parts of the TV show that were great. And it's fun reading Scottish accents written down. it's very enjoyable and takes you out of whatever it is that you might be thinking about otherwise and you really get into 18th century Scotland. So if you like fantasy but history intertwined with it and you want to read about the moors of Scotland and all kinds of stuff that was a problem back then, I would definitely say that it's a good one filled with sword fights and romance and all the things that everybody enjoys. That's what I'm going to pick this week.
Jack_Herrington:
Awesome. Awesome. Oh my gosh. Awesome. Awesome.
Tj_Vantoll:
My
Jack_Herrington:
Awesome.
Tj_Vantoll:
wife loves the books, loves the show. So
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Nice.
Jack_Herrington:
Awesome.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Ha ha.
Jack_Herrington:
Awesome.
Tj_Vantoll:
she's tried to get me into it for years.
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah, my wife and my and my sister read all, I think all the books and also like there's there's a side series with Lord John and I mean, wow,
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Hahaha
Jack_Herrington:
it's it's an expansive
Tommy_Groshong:
whole
Jack_Herrington:
universe
Tommy_Groshong:
world.
Jack_Herrington:
of books.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
I
Jack_Herrington:
All
Paige_Niedringhaus:
haven't gotten that far into it yet, but so far so good.
Jack_Herrington:
right, Tommy, what's your pick?
Tommy_Groshong:
Sure, my pick is, I really love movie reviews and movie analysis, so there's a new podcast that's up called Should I See This Movie, which is a lot of fun. It's a- So you can find it wherever podcasts are. But should I see this movie? And so it does, they do like, yes, no. Like, should you see the movie? Should you not see the movie? And then they do fast reviews. Just be like, okay,
Jack_Herrington:
Mmm.
Tommy_Groshong:
here's the highlights of why you should or shouldn't spend your time on this particular movie. So it's a lot of fun. Kind of a newer podcast, so still kind of young, but when they put out content, it's a lot of fun. So yeah.
Jack_Herrington:
Cool.
Tommy_Groshong:
Movie Podcast.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Nice.
Tj_Vantoll:
It's an awesome name too.
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah,
Tj_Vantoll:
It's great.
Jack_Herrington:
exactly
Paige_Niedringhaus:
It is.
Jack_Herrington:
what you want to know. Should I go
Tommy_Groshong:
That's
Jack_Herrington:
see
Tommy_Groshong:
exactly
Jack_Herrington:
this?
Tommy_Groshong:
what you want to know.
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah,
Tommy_Groshong:
Should I see
Jack_Herrington:
OK.
Tommy_Groshong:
this movie? There you go.
Jack_Herrington:
Right, you know, I think there's there was a site a long time ago. Hold run to pee, which is like when during
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Yes.
Jack_Herrington:
the movie it's it slows down enough to when you can go to the bathroom and come
Tommy_Groshong:
when
Jack_Herrington:
back.
Tommy_Groshong:
it's
Jack_Herrington:
I
Tommy_Groshong:
okay
Paige_Niedringhaus:
I've
Tommy_Groshong:
to
Paige_Niedringhaus:
heard
Tommy_Groshong:
go.
Jack_Herrington:
I
Paige_Niedringhaus:
of that.
Jack_Herrington:
it's
Tommy_Groshong:
That's
Jack_Herrington:
hilarious
Tommy_Groshong:
brilliant.
Jack_Herrington:
because there's always something, you know, it's like, you know, the Hobbit or whatever there are trundling along and nowhere.
Tommy_Groshong:
Probably got like 20
Jack_Herrington:
All right,
Tommy_Groshong:
different
Jack_Herrington:
well,
Tommy_Groshong:
spots in that movie, yeah.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Hehehehe
Jack_Herrington:
yeah, well, OK, that
Tj_Vantoll:
Heheheheh...
Jack_Herrington:
was a bad,
Tj_Vantoll:
Heheheheh...
Jack_Herrington:
bad,
Tj_Vantoll:
Heheheheh... Heheheheh...
Jack_Herrington:
bad,
Tommy_Groshong:
Hahaha
Jack_Herrington:
bad example. All right. So let me see. My pick for the week would be Westworld season four. Westworld's back for its fourth season and where the third season kind of went off the rails into kind of wow, what the heck is going on? Season four is. Still what the heck is going on, but somehow more explainable. So definitely a bit more enjoyable this time around. Still the same sort of idea, though. Incredibly hot people in incredibly beautiful places with random acts of violence kind of thrown in. So, you
Tj_Vantoll:
See
Jack_Herrington:
know,
Tj_Vantoll:
you
Jack_Herrington:
and
Tj_Vantoll:
soon.
Jack_Herrington:
weird
Tj_Vantoll:
See
Jack_Herrington:
existential
Tj_Vantoll:
you soon. Yeah.
Jack_Herrington:
talk all the time. Yeah. If you like that sort of thing. And so that's
Paige_Niedringhaus:
definitely
Jack_Herrington:
Westworld.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
watch it when the season is finished.
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah.
Tommy_Groshong:
with
Jack_Herrington:
Have
Tommy_Groshong:
that
Jack_Herrington:
you
Tommy_Groshong:
kind
Jack_Herrington:
watched
Tommy_Groshong:
of
Tj_Vantoll:
Is
Tommy_Groshong:
description.
Tj_Vantoll:
this
Jack_Herrington:
the
Tj_Vantoll:
like?
Jack_Herrington:
other Westworlds?
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Yes.
Tj_Vantoll:
Is this like the like in terms of the grand scheme of things, is this like the last season getting towards the end? Like
Jack_Herrington:
Who
Tj_Vantoll:
is
Jack_Herrington:
knows?
Tj_Vantoll:
there, do
Jack_Herrington:
You
Tj_Vantoll:
we know where they're going?
Jack_Herrington:
know, every season it was like, what are they going to do now? You know, it's like what next, right? And like, I think Anthony Hopkins got whacked at the end of season one. And you're like, wow, they do what do they do with that? That guy was really big. And it's like, no, they figured out a way to come back for season two. You know, it's like all these things, you know, you ever know. You never know, like how they're going to come back. If it's good, then, you know, they wrap it all up. But then somehow they reopen it again.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
Yep, there's a cliffhanger
Jack_Herrington:
All right.
Paige_Niedringhaus:
still.
Jack_Herrington:
Yeah. Excellent. So this has been really fun. Thank you, Tommy, for your time. And we will see you all next week.
Tj_Vantoll:
Bye everybody.
Jack_Herrington:
Bye.
Tommy_Groshong:
Thank you all, bye.