Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chloe Condon (02:01):
Ah the song I know we save every time but the song
is what I need to wake up atthis time of the day. Hi, we're
back for eight bits. I'm Chloecrimson, one of your co hosts
here. And of course, we haveBrandon Minnick here as always.
Hi, john. Brandon.
Brandon Minnick (02:20):
Good to see you again. I am good. I've been I've
been playing around with Redditthis week.
Chloe Condon (02:27):
Okay, tell me more. I only recently two years,
but I'm very obsessed.
Brandon Minnick (02:35):
Well, um, So to be clear, I'm not just sitting
around playing on Reddit. Butactually exploring Reddit API's
and trying to build reportingtools. It's it's selfish. It's
to help help me out. But, uh,yeah, you know, I I'm on Reddit.
And I like to hang out in thedeveloper communities, all about
(02:59):
the C sharp subreddit, dotnetsubreddits, Amer developers
subreddit and love it. But Iwanted to kind of build a
dashboard where I could seeeverything in one place. And so
started playing around withReddit API's and turns out, you
can you can pull all that data,you can pull it all for
yourself, you can pull it allfor other users can aggregate it
(03:20):
together. And so you have beenplaying around with that. And
we'll be, I'll be showing it offto you soon. Chloe, keep an eye
out for it.
Chloe Condon (03:30):
Fun. I think Becca Rosenthal on the show, read it
and play back Rosenthal, some ofthe URLs, right. Yeah, thank
laughs to get her back on talkabout the Reddit API, I'm sure
yeah.
Brandon Minnick (03:42):
Sure. My tool, see what she thinks cuz. Yeah,
for me, it's like, you know, Ilove hanging out in these
different subreddits. Yeah, Ilearned a lot. And I try to
share a lot. But yeah, I'vealways been curious. What like,
Are there trends, right? Like ifI share something in this
subreddit versus this subreddit,because some are kind of the
same, some are kind of similar,or so like, what gets traction,
(04:04):
what does it we're working tobest engage with the developer
community. So stay tuned. We'llbe I'll be showing that off to
hopefully later today.
Chloe Condon (04:15):
I'm totally paying attention. I'm just trying to
your favorite wholesomesubreddit is, but I needed to
figure out mine, which I thinkis I've been a big fan of our
slash dad like reflexes. It'snot even just dads. It's just
people like catching somethingbefore it falls or baby's about
(04:38):
to like fall off the couch. Andit's brought me a lot of joy. To
just watch people have dad likereflexes.
Brandon Minnick (04:46):
There's our slash, Ah,
Chloe Condon (04:48):
oh, yeah. How
Brandon Minnick (04:49):
many W's A w w w. That's always a good one. But
Chloe Condon (04:54):
yeah, so I like oh, I've got Animal Crossing.
Like design to get inspirationfor my island. Oh, absolute
units, someone it's all justabsolute unit of a cat, absolute
unit of a bear. But yesterdaysomeone posted I think they
ordered a pizza from dominos,but they were out of the cheese
(05:14):
that they put inside the crust.
So they gave them extra cheese.
So it was absolute unit of acheese pizza where it was like a
cheese, gosh, two inches ofcheese, the dream
Brandon Minnick (05:25):
dish, but not a deep dish.
Chloe Condon (05:27):
Egg zactly. So Brandon, I thought of you
somewhat related. I saw thatBritney Spears is in Mali, and I
was like, oh, going on withMaui. I bet Brandon's got some
updates.
Brandon Minnick (05:42):
Down at Maui, but yeah, I mean, I'm still
working on it. I'm working onit. A couple tools myself for
it. But yeah, I'm still chuggingtowards the November release
date. It's available in previewright now. Although with dotnet
Maui, yeah, there's still it's awork in progress. So the
(06:03):
previews of dotnet Maui rightnow are, here's what the team's
gotten done so far. So if youwant to try it out, play around
with it, you totally can. Butyeah, I'm not. I'm not
converting my apps to dotnetMaui just yet. Because literally
the team's not done building it.
It's it'd be like trying to racea car with with a wheel missing.
So there's still some UIcontrols. They're still working
(06:25):
on building and optimizing. ButI can't wait. Actually.
Chloe Condon (06:30):
Cool merch, that T shirt that are Yeah, Jeremy
Sinclair was wearing.
Brandon Minnick (06:36):
Yeah, those are awesome. I just got, I'm going
back to a conference. So I'll beat that conference. It's It's
literally called thatconference. It's one of my
favorites.
Chloe Condon (06:47):
I think this is a full circle moment, because I
feel like we've talked aboutthis conference on some of our
very early episodes. I thinkwhen we first met Brandon, you
were about to go to bat calm.
Me, maybe I've
Brandon Minnick (07:02):
spoken at it three times. So this will be my
fourth. But yeah, it's myfavorite conferences. One of my
favorite parts is they focus somuch more on the wellness and
the wholeness of the developer.
So it's not just tech talks. Imean, granted, I'll be giving a
talk at Maui. But there's talkson mental wellness, they
encourage you to bring yourfamily so as part of the speaker
(07:22):
registration, they ask you howmany family members are you
bringing, and they have tracksand courses and workshops that
are just slightly tech related,but for families, so like,
children can hang out and havefun, and even younger speakers.
So I remember the first time Iever checked in, I was waiting
in line and my speaker check inand right in front of me was a
(07:45):
10 year old who is giving a talkthe next day. So really, really,
really good conference. It'salso online this year, so highly
recommend it. Check it out.
that.us
Chloe Condon (07:57):
I've heard so many amazing things about that
conference from you from ourcoworker Cassie, I think Seth
spoke there. Maybe two yearsago. Um, I have a lot of FOMO
Wait, your go? Are you goingphysically to it?
Brandon Minnick (08:10):
That's the plan. I yeah, I talked with our
managers and made sure we hadbudget and made sure everything
was okay. And I just got thethumbs up. So I booked plane
tickets again. I booked hotelsagain and rental cars. It's It's
uh, it's weird.
Chloe Condon (08:26):
What a time to events, hopefully, fast, right?
Um, well, I just got done withan event this morning. I was up
right on early 9am. We startedthe static web apps conference,
maybe let us know in the chat.
Are you still here, maybe youleft a tab open. And now you're
(08:47):
joining us after thisconference. It was super fun. I
got to host it. JOHN Papa wasthe keynote speaker. And truly,
you know, I mentioned this onthe on the stream for the
conference. But it's rare duringthe pandemic that I have the
attention span to just like, sitdown and watch every talk back
to back. But I got to watch allof them, y'all. And they're all
(09:07):
really great. I learned a lot.
We talked about geo cities. Wetalked about angelfire. We
talked about flash animation. Iof course talked about the first
website I ever visited the 101Dalmatians live action marketing
page, featuring Glenn Close. Itwas a good time had by all you
can check out all of theprevious talks@aka.ms slash swa
(09:31):
comp on demand. And it was Yeah,it was it was a great time I
learned a lot. I'm talking aboutjam stack. We're talking about
the CLR. We're talking about allsorts of different ways that you
can use static web apps, DevOps,oh my gosh, covered all the
things my brain is very full. Sofrom kind of like, zoning out,
I'm probably thinking aboutstatic web apps.
Brandon Minnick (09:50):
Can you define a static web app in one sentence
or less?
Chloe Condon (09:54):
Very cool. No.
Yeah, so it's Well, itstatically messenger with Azure.
Obviously, there's a bunch ofdifferent awesome plugins and
integrations that we have anextensions with VS code that
make them a lot easier. But it'sjust a single simple web page,
basically. And it's really cool.
It's very, there were a lot ofwhat I really loved about this
(10:16):
conference was, you know,typically you do an event, and
you're talking about the deeply,deeply technical things. And
that's all fine, right? Like welove to get in the code. But
what was cool was how manyconversations were being had
about, hey, static web apps, notonly are this super useful, like
thing that you can get up andrunning quickly, but it enables
other people who don't havethose deep technical skills to
(10:37):
also get things online, youknow, your crochet knitting site
for your grandma, you know, atheatre company, website, things
that require a lot less deep,deep coding and building. So
it's exciting. It's making theweb more accessible for other
people. And I'm really excitedto see o r g, dear friend,
Brian, Ben's friend of the podare to our other two part
(11:01):
guests, other than our guesttoday, is going to be talking
tomorrow, I think in the eveningat 11pm. Pacific time with
Burke, Holland, all about all ofthe new features that were just
announced, because it's allgenerally available right now.
So check that out. Brian's gonnabe Burke is so fun to watch
y'all. I mean, it's going to beI'm going to probably stay up
(11:22):
late watching two of ourfavorite co workers. But yeah, I
am. I'm so static right now. Yousee, my hair is just like stone.
Brandon Minnick (11:34):
They give
Chloe Condon (11:37):
Rocco's modern life static cling the newest
revamp of rocks, but I somehowmanaged to not reference during
that conference. How did thathappen? Um, well, Brandon,
anything else you want to saybefore we bring in part two of
one of our favorite guests?
Brandon Minnick (11:57):
Oh, we got it.
We got to bring her in. Cuz Lasttime, we didn't even come close
to finishing the interview. So Idon't want to lose any more
time.
Chloe Condon (12:05):
I secretly kind of like once we got to like the
three quarter mark. I was like,This is great. We have to bring
them back. Welcome back to theshow for part two.
Katy Farmer (12:23):
back Oh, you know what I love you know,
Chloe Condon (12:27):
wha the squeak wall if you will? At to Farmer
farming. We haven't seen you fora full week. How are you? Oh, in
that week,
Katy Farmer (12:39):
I think I'm probably changed forever. But
also I did nothing and it wasfantastic. I just spent a lot of
time with my dogs looking atsquirrels and thinking about how
how to get squirrel. How to benext to squirrel. You know, all
the hard questions.
Brandon Minnick (12:59):
What to do when you catch squirrel? Yeah, it's
my it's my dogs biggest problem.
The squirrels Jason.
Katy Farmer (13:06):
Girls are taunting My poor dogs know what they're
doing?
Chloe Condon (13:12):
So for anybody who is just joining us on this
episode, we'll do a littlethrowback we should have we
should have done like a montage.
Previously on eight bits. Getit? Tell them lovely humans
tuning in who you are, what youdo, and a little bit about
yourself.
Katy Farmer (13:29):
I am Katie. I am the community technical
community manager to be specificat circle ci. I was a late
career changer. I went to schoolfor music and then for
literature and then worked as aneditor for many years and then
thought boy money would be surenice. And then I got into tech.
(13:53):
I went to a boot camp. I did allthe things that you're supposed
to do to become a successfulgirl boss. I'm mad that I said
it. I was gonna say it just cameout real and I didn't know how
to fix it. The
Chloe Condon (14:08):
term business Ma'am. Ma'am, I do like that.
Katy Farmer (14:13):
I also I have a shirt that says I'm a
professional, which reallyencapsulate my idea of business
casual.
Chloe Condon (14:21):
For anybody listening to the podcast. I am
wearing a hat today that says Ilove meeting. And I feel like
you need to wear this hat withthat shirt.
Katy Farmer (14:31):
Also for the people who are at home it does
Chloe Condon (14:36):
an absolute mood.
So you were here last week andwe covered we covered a lot of
the origin story of Katie.
Brandon, let's start to recaptogether. Let's tag team this. I
feel like we started withMarissa computer in Katie's home
growing up, no computer, try andfind one Talk about band music
(15:02):
specifically playing in the highschool band and the trumpet the
trumpet. We'll also talk aboutpiano. We talked about a lot of
stuff.
Brandon Minnick (15:11):
Working in it.
Yes. Right. And I was in collegeright now. So even though you
weren't studying computers, itanything like that? Nope, you
worked in it. So your first jobis just choose one, turn
everything off and turn it backon again. And it fixes it every
(15:32):
time. Really?
Chloe Condon (15:35):
Did we talk about like, how you got on boarded for
that job, though? Like, was itliterally like, type? I mean,
you would use a keyboard, Iassume I was
Katy Farmer (15:45):
typing. Okay, that was I would say, that's my main
skill. When it comes tocomputers, I can type. So good.
Um, most of that was, so Istarted during the summer, like
semesters, so like, a little bitslower. And basically, I had to
stay, stayed in the shop, as itwere, and watched all the other
(16:09):
technicians solve problems andjust learned by just kind of
being apprenticing sort of, youknow, just, I was definitely the
only fan of any kind. It was,and I was also shorter than
everyone by about a foot and ahalf. And when we would have to
(16:29):
Yeah, I'm, I'm small.
Chloe Condon (16:31):
It's useful to like crawl under desks to plug
things in and unplug things Ifound personally as a five foot,
yes,
Katy Farmer (16:38):
we would have to walk across campus and I would
be walking with some of theother technicians and they're
walking and I'm like, literallyjogging next to them, like Slow
down, slow down. But yeah, itwas just a lot of like, Watch
and learn. And again, in thatlike scenario of like, at the
university, the computers arevery much. You know, they're,
(16:58):
they have like ghost imagesthere. You just reset them if
bad things happen. So it was aneasier environmental learning, I
think, because there was justlike one way that it should be
there. Like this is how windowsshould be set up period on this
campus. Yeah, so that made it alittle easier. But then later
on, I became a manager of thehelp desk and things got
(17:20):
complicated again. Because Istarted figuring out that while
I very well could learncomputers, I have always been
good with people. And that's thething that's, that's the bridge
that's often missing, right islike, I know how I figured out
how this computer works. But Istill have to be able to tell
this, this person with a PhD inmusic theory, or biology or
(17:41):
calculus or whatever, like, howto get another email. And that's
a different altogether.
Chloe Condon (17:47):
I have a question for you. We asked this to Brian
or no, this was to Carmen Ibelieve he used to work at the
Microsoft customer support HelpDesk. And he said one of his
favorite customer supportquestions or requests was
someone thinking there waswizardry in their computer
because of the Microsoftdownload wizard and wanted to
(18:10):
get the occult out of theirwindows? Do you have any
favorite help? stories gave me Imean, I have so many.
Katy Farmer (18:22):
I my favorite one was this like staff member
called all the time and theyalways had problems with their
computer. They were always like,it's slow, it's freezing. They
they always had a virus, thejust always and I had reset her
machine so many times. I waslike, You know what, let me just
(18:45):
come on over. Let me just comeon over and like see what's up
and like spend a little timewith you on your computer. And
when I got there, they were ontheir computer like you know, in
a very traditional way forpeople who you know, a lot of
people keep things are on thedesktop, you know, like, however
many documents and files so thedesktop is like completely
(19:08):
covered. It's real hard to findanything and then I'm like
trying to look for the mouseamong the sea of like icons and
the mouse is like instead of thecursor on the screen, it's like
the little cat that like was
Chloe Condon (19:23):
guilty of adding that I think like back in the
day that was super popular ongeo cities and angelfire and I'm
pretty sure on my live journal Ihad like a little peek at you
cursor. Yeah,
Katy Farmer (19:34):
it was just like she kept downloading these like
cat cursors they were from thislike random website because she
was just searching for them andI was like, Listen, I you have
to stop downloading these.
There. Getting
Chloe Condon (19:52):
I feel like we have a comment here from Aaron
Aldridge that says sometimesthey really missed direct Help
Desk slash support work and Iused to work in VIP Video Game
support. And I truly think thatevery developer at some point in
their life should should have towork in support and help desk
because it's humbling, and youalso get a lot of empathy. Well,
you also start to understand theimportance of product feedback,
(20:14):
like you're right there in thetrenches. I truly, we should all
be doing customer support HelpDesk like once a week.
Katy Farmer (20:21):
Really? Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's, it's such a fastway to learn, right. And, like,
I remember, I mean, that waslike my returning clients, you
know, I think I helped thatperson like, once, once, or once
or twice a week for a while,like, somewhere in the middle,
it was a lot. But my favoriteone, kind of, I don't know, I
(20:43):
think there's something about itthat relates to tech, but like a
lot of people who work inuniversities who I'm sure if
anyone, like watching has workedin academia at all, it can be a
very, it's a tough, it's a toughplace. People who have PhDs and
our professors can be a littlefull of themselves, sometimes
they're good at what they do.
(21:08):
And when they're not good atsomething like that feels simple
to them, they are angry. And Ijust remember, like talking to
this professor over the phonefor like, a really long time,
like they were just, they werereally upset, they had grades to
turn in, and their computerwouldn't turn on. And it was
like, Alright, well, like do yousee a power light? And like, do
(21:28):
you check the cables and likeall the things and they were
just like, they'd had enough ofme trying to help them. They
were like, just come over here.
Just come over here and just fixit. I was like, eventually is
like, Alright, I'm gonna comeover there. And then, you know,
the first thing I do is I like,check the powerlines it's not on
I checked the cables. And thenI'm like, following the
following the cables. And I waslike, Okay, I have some news
(21:52):
that you're not gonna like,which is that you are correct,
that all the cables are pluggedin, they were all plugged into a
power strip, when the powerstrip was also plugged into the
power strip. Oh, no.
Brandon Minnick (22:09):
It doesn't give you enough power. It was just
the power back on itself,
Katy Farmer (22:13):
this beautiful moment. Cuz at the time, you
know, I was probably like, 20.
And I can't imagine that as youknow, this person who's very
good at their expertise. It'sjust real hard to have people be
like, you just, you plugged itin wrong. That's a hard pill to
swallow. You know. Brandon, doyou have any Tales from the help
(22:34):
desk?
Brandon Minnick (22:37):
Oh, gosh. So yeah, I worked in IT support as
a as an internet, Disney. So wedidn't necessarily handle the
hardware like that. But Iremember. So we supported the
website. And yeah, all the time,people would reach out and say
something like the websites downor it's not working. I'm trying
(23:01):
to remember an exact scenario,but just in general, yeah. Like
everybody was always mad.
Everybody's always upset. at usat me. It was my fault. And
yeah, similar to Katie story,most of the time is a user's
fault. I mean, yes, some of thatfeedback can be taken and we
could do things better make thebutton bigger. Yeah, people
(23:24):
would like if, if a listshuffled, like we maybe
reorganize things on a page andsomething wasn't in the exact
same spot where it used to be.
We can help desks to help desktickets about the website being
broken. I don't know whatthey're talking like. I'm
(23:44):
literally on it right now. Andit's working. Now like nope,
it's not there anymore. It'slike, Oh, you scroll down. You
scroll down a little bit. Yougot it. Yeah, it's always I
mean, it's always it is fall.
It's always a help desks fault.
And you can't
Katy Farmer (24:01):
just say thank you, you know what I mean? Like
there's they're always pretty,like decently irritated. And
then just like going from there.
Brandon Minnick (24:11):
Right? And and you just gotta take it. Like,
once you get off the call, thenyou can vent to your co workers,
like a happened again, orsomebody thought the website was
broken, or was it but whenyou're on the call, it's like,
yeah, I'm so sorry. Yep, you'reabsolutely right. That button
used to be there and now it'snot Yes, it's just a little bit
lower. Look into it.
Katy Farmer (24:33):
I think my my, the years I put in in support, I
think probably attributed to mybeing able to like be successful
once I moved into tech justbecause I was used to like, I
worked on a lot of customerservice. I worked retail like
places where people are justlike, they're not that nice to
you because they don't have tobe or because the they're
(24:55):
already starting off with aproblem once they come find you
right like they're not coming tohang out with you, because they
already have everything theyneed. So I think that like when
I got into tech, and you like,again, the bar is like very low.
But, um,yeah, definitely, like, feel
like being able to like listenand bring people down from that
(25:19):
edge and like, you know, have afull conversation is z is
Chloe Condon (25:25):
my customer support experience, I think was
a unique one because I worked invideo game customer support. So
I was dealing with very angry,mostly men who were very upset
about not getting their gold,because like, that was the
reward system. This came. Andluckily, we only used email
customer support. This was likemaybe like 10 years ago. And all
(25:48):
of the subject lines would belike my gold, I need my gold
Bring me my gold. And I learneda lot about logs, not like
wooden logs, but like chat logswhen I worked in that role. And
I, I learned from a lot ofpeople who were like, why am I
banned? Why am I banned? Ididn't say anything bad that
people really try to cover thatthey have not said really
(26:11):
terrible things that theyactually have. So shout out to
moderation tools. Microsoftawesome content moderation tools
out there. But yeah, I feel likeit I it's interesting that you
guys actually worked in likephysical it customer support or
things that actually existedbecause doing customer support
for imaginary war commanderbases. And imaginary gold is a
(26:36):
whole thing to wrap your headaround when you're like I serve
these people like I help themwith their fake bases that
they've spent a lot of money oncreating in this, you know,
spotting the internet on aserver somewhere. But really
learn a lot about like how todeal with people how to
communicate with people, thecustomer is always right, as I
(26:59):
learned for retail and Trumpdoing video gave customer
support. And yeah, I love I seea lot of that in you, Katie,
because I feel like a lot ofyour tweets, which was I'm
really going to talk about todayare very positive and uplifting.
And when I'm going through myday, and I see your tweets and
my feed, it brings joy to mylife. I feel like I needed these
(27:19):
tweets when I would take breaksas customer support agent be
like, You know what? I can doit. So, okay, we chatted last
time, all about your journey toyour boot camp. And I think we
ended around talking about howyou chose we had a question in
the chat about how to chooseyour boot camp. We've talked
(27:41):
about this a little bit on theshow before of not all boot
camps are created equally justlike any university or school,
you're going to want to bet theinformation about the program,
see what stock they're using?
How did you end up choosing yourboot camp? Katie?
Katy Farmer (27:55):
Great question, Chloe. I think it's like I just
want to kind of make it clearthat it's really hard,
especially because you knownothing about the subject. And
yet you were trying to look fora place that is like,
theoretically, the expert,right, then you're like, well, I
don't really know what thecriteria is for being good. So I
(28:17):
guess, oh, and I was very luckythat I had programmers like in
my life who could weigh in, andthey did extensively about like,
the various boot camps. And sothey're there. I mean, now
there's a lot more options, evenat the time I lived in Denver.
(28:38):
And there's an in person school,they're called touring. And I
knew I needed to be in aclassroom setting like
physically because I knew thatif I could learn online, I would
have although I know that theylike they, you know, there's
differences with like curriculumand stuff, but online learning
is like, it's not for me, I needa teacher in front of me.
Chloe Condon (29:03):
I am the same way.
ej Metz, who was self taught,but I need accountability in my
life as well.
Katy Farmer (29:11):
Yeah. And honestly, like, I went to like, you know,
the schools usually have likeopen houses. And like, always go
to those. And honestly, like, ifno one tells you anything bad
about the school, don't go toit. Because that means there are
many secrets. Because everyone Iknow who's gone to a boot camp
has pretty complex opinionsabout them. Because that none of
(29:35):
them are perfect, right? Like,sometimes it's a cultural
sometimes the cost is like,enormous and I think, especially
when you're choosing one, likemake sure you understand what
the range of like tuition costsis because some of them are a
lot more than other ones like Ithink. I think a lot of them sit
(29:57):
right around 20,000
Chloe Condon (29:59):
which is There's an interesting trend of tuition
deferments, like not having topay until you get a job and
taking a certain percentage. So,thinking through those things
like where am I at financially?
I mean, I always say, no oneever just wakes up one morning
is like, you know what, I'mgonna go do that. I think we
said this on the last episode,right? But like, usually people
who are making a career change,either have had a huge
(30:21):
existential crisis about theirlife and career like me. They
have, they need to make moremoney, they want to have more
security in their life. It's abig, big financial, also life
decision. Most of these programsare full time. But truly, it's,
I always say, people, if youhear someone who's graduated
from a boot camp, just assumethat that they've seen it, they
(30:43):
can, they can live throughanything.
Katy Farmer (30:48):
And there's like, even more like, I mean, I didn't
grow up with any kind of likefinancial literacy. And so even
the idea of being like, adding,you know, getting another loan,
like, Well, I have these studentloans, and it's all just putting
this loan with these otherloans. Right, which like, in my
mind sounded fine. But then it'slike, well, actually, this is a
(31:10):
different type of loan. I can'tpay this private loan back like
I can my federal school loansand stuff like that. So just
like, the best thing to do is tojust ask as many people who've
gone to that school as you can,whoever will talk to you reach
out to absolutely everyone, someof them will get back to you
(31:32):
like this, just just reallythrow it all out there. Because
they'll all be able to tell you,like I said, and if they don't
have critiques, then like,honestly, I do find that a bit
suspicious, mostly either,because sometimes the schools
are, you know, might have waysto convince people that they
shouldn't be talking aboutwhatever it is like, I'm more
(31:55):
than happy to tell you thethings. I think were wrong with
the school that I went to whileI was there, but it's also like
been a few years and it'sunsure. It's different now.
They're really quickly evolving.
So there's a lot to payattention to.
Chloe Condon (32:08):
Yeah, I love this comment from crazy in the chat
that says nothing wrong with anexistential crisis or two before
you find your career.
Absolutely. Yeah, not, not allof us just wake up knowing what
we're good at what we want todo, for sure. And of course, you
did your boot camp, and it wentperfectly and you didn't have
any imposter syndrome. And younailed it, right?
Katy Farmer (32:31):
No, felt great, never cried. Um,
Chloe Condon (32:38):
see, I'm laughing because my boyfriend loves to
say that I powered through myboot camp hackbright with tears
and code, and coffee. How wasyour experience? Because I know,
for me, I felt quite a bit ofimposter syndrome. And I didn't
even know what imposter syndromewas until the first day of my
boot camp. So it was a it was abig weight on me. You know,
Katy Farmer (33:03):
I think it's interesting. Like, I definitely
didn't know about impostersyndrome. But I think it I think
as people, we tend to gravitatetowards things we're good at,
right? So I spent the first halfof my life really in like the
arts, things, I felt like I wasmore naturally inclined to do.
Whether or not that's true, Istill think there's a lot of
nature versus nurture here,like, I spent more time in the
(33:24):
arts, therefore, I was better atthem. Therefore, I felt more
comfortable there, you know,kind of rolling that way. But
like, when I got into boot camp,I started getting into it. I
don't know that I felt like animposter. But I, I felt like I
still wasn't sure it waspossible to start later. Like, I
(33:46):
felt like maybe you have to havebeen, maybe you have to have had
a computer your whole life. Likemaybe the only way to like, be
really good at this is to justhave been doing it. And you
cannot fast forward. And so inthat way it feels like it's a
little imposter. But it's almosta little bit more like age and
(34:06):
experience based. Because I knowa lot of people who like yeah,
they had you know, they werewriting basic. And I was like,
tell me what go in there a discyou say? And it's not because
I'm, like, so incredibly babyyoung that I don't know what
that is. I just didn't have it.
So I think there's thisfascinating edge of like, I
(34:27):
didn't really feel like Ibelonged. But I also felt like
it wasn't because like I thoughtmaybe this is just not how
you're made.
Chloe Condon (34:41):
There's a lot of vulnerability. I feel in
learning a new skill. And I wasrecently thinking about, I was
never a good dancer. I didmusicals, but I was terrible at
dancing. And I remember I triedto remember why didn't I just
keep at it, you know, and Ithink that I took a ballet class
and it was a beginner balletclass. I was in my probably mid
(35:01):
to late 20s. And I was theoldest person in there and it
was a bunch of kids. And then Inever, like, I don't belong
here. This isn't for me. But Ithink that's what the cool thing
about boot camps around thistime in 2016 was, that's what it
was. For me. I was like, Oh,these are people like me who are
making a career change later inlife. But yeah, it can feel very
(35:25):
jarring when, you know, I had toGoogle what stem was like, they
were like, Who here works inSTEM. And I was like, on my
phone, just like, like, I don'tknow what this acronym is. But
there were a lot of moments likethat, where I was just like, Oh,
do I belong here?
Katy Farmer (35:42):
And even like the number of people who switched
over from like, other sciences,that can be intimidating, right?
It was like, Oh, well, a lot ofmy classmates were like,
chemical engineers, or somethingthat sounded intimidating to me.
So I was like, Oh, I am anexpert in the Oxford comma.
Thank you. So in reality, itturns out that like, knowing
(36:04):
grammar really well actually isa is a pretty big skill when it
comes to code. Because everycoding language has its own
grammar and like lexicon that'sreally important. So being able
to remember those thingsactually really helped me be
able to just like straight up,type and write code a little
faster.
Brandon Minnick (36:21):
Nice, ever. I mean, I, I have a slightly
different origin story where Idid get a degree in Computer
Engineering. But yeah, I'venever even those first
programming classes. I had neverwritten a line of code before. I
knew I wanted to learn it. Butyeah, I just felt like I was
surrounded by everybody whoalready knew what they were
(36:42):
doing. And I had no clue whatwas going on. And you're like,
Oh, yeah, hello, world. Yeah, noproblem. Like, what
Katy Farmer (36:55):
are you thinking?
Like? I can, I can memorize alot, right? Like, that's how I
was always really good atschool, because I'm really good
at like memorizing things. AndI, so I could memorize code and
be like, Okay, I know, this ishow I make like a REST API. But
I, I think maybe almost until Iwas all the way done with
(37:17):
bootcamp didn't know why I wasdoing any of it. And I think
that's one of the really hardthings. Because this used to
happen to me in, in math inschool, too, is I would say,
like, Well, why, like, what isthe cosine? And they would be
like, you don't worry about thatright now. I am worried about it
right now. And there's just likethis brink of learning where
(37:42):
they're like, Okay, well, likeyour brain can't handle this
other information. So you justneed to do this. And I find that
a very frustrating experience,although I have yet to find a
solution for it. It's like,yeah, you just have to memorize
this for a bit. And then onceyou get going, you'll start to
pick up like, why it's happeningthat that that patience is
really important. But it's alsolike, yeah, it made me furious.
Chloe Condon (38:08):
I was person to I drove my boyfriend crazy during
my boot camps and be like, butwhy is everything zero index?
He's like, that's not important.
It just is I'm like, but
Katy Farmer (38:16):
why? Why would just tell me?
Brandon Minnick (38:20):
I mean, sometimes the answer is just
whoever made this said, so. Theyjust decided 20 years ago that
we'd start counting at zero. Andwe still do it. It's like, Okay,
moving on. Sometimes that's thatis the only reason it's just
like, yeah, whoever made C sharpjust decided that was going to
be the thing.
Chloe Condon (38:41):
Yeah, I will find a link for it and drop it in the
chat. But our coworkers MorganBell and Burke Holland
interviewed person who createdthe first hello world, you know,
that ever happened? And Ibelieve one of the questions
they asked them was like, Whyhello world? There was just
like, because I love hearingthose answers. Because, yeah,
(39:02):
truly, a lot of times when wemake decisions in our programs,
it's just like, because why didyou make a Shania Twain but
because we love Nightwing?
Sometimes we can make. So Katie,I think the biggest question
that I get, as a former bootcampgrad is about the job search
post bootcamp. Which is anothertime in my life when a lot of
(39:24):
tears, tears were expelled frommy face. I always like to say
that the highs are very high andthe lows are very low during the
job search. What was yourexperience, like as a junior
developer out of a boot camp?
You know, starting this newcareer, you probably had a
resume similar to mine that hada lot of arts and you know,
(39:45):
literature stuff on it. What wasit like being a candidate fresh
out of a boot camp?
Katy Farmer (39:51):
It's kind of a wild experience. I am. I have a hard
time sometimes saying very like,positive things. Myself, I am
really good at interviewing,okay, like, I'm good at talking
to people. It's a skill that Ihave. But then they were like,
actually don't talk, just justdo this exercise. And I'm like,
(40:11):
but if you talk to me, you wouldlike me though, for sure. You
want to try that.
Chloe Condon (40:16):
I don't want to conversations with PJ about
this. And he was interviewingthis year because we were right
there with you like, gettingyour foot in the door is part
one, getting past the recruitingsoftware past the hiring
manager, recruiter, whateverthat is. talking to them is
another thing. But a codingchallenges is very different
(40:36):
than the original informationalinterviews, as you know,
whatever it is we do teachersretail, things outside of
technology, interviewing as anengineer is so vastly different
than any other career. I think Isaw someone Emily Calgary think,
tweet like, oh, you're a doctor.
No, this is a tick tock. She waslike, Oh, you're a doctor do
surgery right now, like on thisthing that you usually don't do?
(40:59):
Like? We put it in context. It'slike, Wait, what? Why are we
Why?
Brandon Minnick (41:06):
You don't do surgery? in your free time on
nights and weekends? Yeah, no, Iam a doctor, I get paid to do
that. That's my job. My
Chloe Condon (41:17):
doing 10x surgeries. You're not a 10x.
Doctor, how dare you. But it'strue. Like this industry. I
think that was the biggestadjustment for me coming into it
was my whole life. I too amlike, Hi, I'm a nice person.
Here's my resume, I interviewreally well. But once I found
out about this whiteboard,anything, I was like, Oh, no, a
test.
Katy Farmer (41:38):
Yeah, a test in an area that I still felt very much
like, Okay, if we do thistogether, and I know you, I'm
going to get there, right? Like,that's where I was at, as when I
left the boot camp, I was like,okay, like, if I feel
comfortable with this person,then together, we'll get to a
solution. I know that. But witha stranger who doesn't always
(42:01):
feel like they're rooting foryour success. I'm not going to
get there. In fact, I am goingto actively work in the other
direction, whenever that islike, whatever, when one time, I
won't tell you the name of thecompany. But I'm sure they've
changed their interviewpractices, because at the time,
it was very small. And it wasjust the I think it was like the
(42:22):
director of engineering or theCTO. And I done a coding
challenge in go. And I hadlearned go just to do this. And
I was like, super interested init. I was like somebody like, I
don't know, I didn't really getit. But I was like fascinated by
go. And then we were doing like,you know, you turn in the
(42:42):
assignment. And then you havelike a review. And I remember
the interview or anything atall. Yeah, I remember the
interviewer asking me like,Okay, well, um, why did you use
this technique? And I was like,it's the only one I know. Good
answer. Yeah. And then and thenhe would say like, Okay, well,
(43:04):
what are some other options? AndI said, I don't know. He said,
just tell me. And I was like, Idon't know. Like, we just, this
interviewer just couldn't stopasking me to try to dig for
information. I'd already toldthem I didn't have. Yeah, and
like, it was so painful. I justthought like, clearly you're not
(43:27):
going to hire me. Right? Like,you are looking for things that
I don't currently have. But hewould not be graceful in the
interview about like, how doesthat be free? He was just, it
felt like he was just torturingme. He would just be like,
right, but why? And I'd be like,I don't know. I learned go for
this. I was just so excited tohave a working go anything. And,
(43:53):
and not only did he like herobbed me of that joy of like
having done the thing. But thenlike, I mean, still to this day,
it's one of my worst interviewsbecause because he made me feel
so bad for not knowing when itturns out is actually a thing
that people don't mind.
Brandon Minnick (44:10):
Yes, that's a great answer. That's what I try
to teach junior developers iswhen you don't know don't
pretend don't fake it. Don't tryto make it up. Be very upfront
and say, I don't know what theanswer is. But maybe maybe have
like an inkling you can saylike, yeah, I'm not really sure.
But maybe we could try this. Andthat that really just in my
(44:36):
experience I've noticed that'sthe big differentiator between
junior and senior I mean there'sa lot of things that
differentiate but yeah, seniordevs are Oh is very upfront with
like, oh, I've never done thatbefore. Hey, Chloe, how long do
you think this projects gonnatake? Oh, I have no idea. I've
never done it before.
Unknown (44:55):
No idea. We
Brandon Minnick (44:57):
figure it out.
Chloe Condon (45:00):
Yeah, gosh, Tales from the interview vault. I very
similarly had to learn Ruby. Myboot camp was Python and
JavaScript. And I had a codingchallenge that was Ruby. And I
was so scared because I got thisemail the night before I had
been studying Ruby up and down.
And the recruiter said, Hey, youknow, we're so excited to have
you come in tomorrow, we willbe, you know, testing you and
(45:21):
this, this and this, and Ididn't know, these additional
languages that they mentioned.
And I asked my boyfriend, like,What do I do? Like, I can't just
go in there and pretend that Iknow all these crazy languages.
And he said, let them know.
Like, they know you're abootcamp grad like set
expectation, you can givepushback here like this is they
are bringing you in. So I alwaysI totally agree read in like
(45:42):
honesty and beingstraightforward. I love that you
answered it, like, I do notknow. Because when you do Harry
Potter spell and suddenly
Katy Farmer (45:51):
know the syntax, I know. Phone, not screen sharing
or anything, we were on a phonecall, and we were just both
looking at my test. So Icouldn't. I literally have
nothing else to give you. Like,
Chloe Condon (46:08):
I think like, there's a tendency, especially
with Bootcamp, grads, andjuniors, that they feel that
they cannot be choosy with theirroles that they're like, I gotta
take whatever job I get first,which usually I emphasize
empathize with, becausefinancially, you're running out
of money, you need a job, youkind of don't even know if it's
possible for you to get a job.
But um, if you feel at anypoint, when you are
(46:30):
whiteboarding to aninformational interview, or even
a phone screen, any weird vibes,culturally from the company, or
just like Katie said, likeanything, where you're like,
this person kind of gave me anegative experience, I think
it's important to say that theseare things as an interview II
versus an interviewer that youcan make decisions on, I always
like to tell people that Imentor, it's much better to say
(46:52):
no to a job and keep jobsearching for another week or
month, then start a job and haveto do this all over again, in
two months, because you'reunhappy. So I think honesty is
best.
Katy Farmer (47:07):
Yeah, well, and that's the thing too, right? I
think, like, if you're honestwith them, maybe you don't get
that job. But like, I alwaystell people like you will get
one you will. Like, I firmlybelieve this, like, build your
build your networks keepreaching out to people, I got my
first job because of a fellowalumni. Right, like, and I
(47:29):
didn't know him, Well, I don'tthink I'd ever met him before
that. But he was just like, inthe, in the broad network of the
school. And just like, invitedme to come and chat with him.
And then he was like, Well, mycompany is hiring. So like, Why
don't you talk to this personand kind of set me up on that
path for success. You know? AndI think, like how you feel
(47:53):
during the interview, like ifyou are like maybe like
pretending a bit like oh, yeah,definitely. SQL I hear. Docker
Yes, yes. Yes, I, I havecontainers. That feeling. That's
how you're gonna feel every dayat that job, if you get it,
(48:13):
where you're like, Oh, Iactually don't know anything.
And I'm pretending here. Like,that's how you're gonna feel at
work. And that's, it's not good.
And it's not sustainable. Right?
It feels terrible to work likethat. And I'm not saying that I
haven't. Because maybe we alllearn. But it's, um, I think it
is really important to know thatlike, there, there are people
(48:34):
who are already in the biz thatwill like that we want to help
you. Right? Like, I want to helpyou. I always open my dm so like
underrepresented folks like youwant to resume review, whatever,
because, you know, we have towork within the system that
currently exists, while itexists while we burn it down.
(48:56):
But, um, you know, while it isand we need these, like jobs to
survive, and like we have to dowhat we can to make sure that
there's room for for new people.
Absolutely. And if y'all arefollowing Katie on Twitter, get
out your phone or computer right
Chloe Condon (49:11):
now. And follow the cater taught on Twitter.
Mostly because all of thesepositive tweets seriously are
talking about being a positiveforce for motivation in the
community. I would love to talkat about we talked about you
talked a little bit about kindof networking, like so to speak
(49:32):
and how you got this first jobthrough someone through your
boot camp. I think I got mysecond job in tech from my
network of boot camp andTwitter. I have seen a lot of
folks who've gotten jobs onTwitter recently. You're very
active on Twitter, as am I but Ireally love these positive
tweets tell us like how thisstarted, why you do it. And that
(49:54):
I'll bring up some examples ofthe joy that Katie
Katy Farmer (49:59):
I mean That's a good question, I think. So I
have an anxiety disorder, whichmeans if you're not super
familiar with it, it's kind ofit's the difference between
worrying and anxiety is theamount of control that you have.
So I might worry, I'm going tobe late. But I know that like,
(50:20):
I, you know, can leave my houseearlier or whatever, but I have
anxiety about things I cannotchange, I have anxiety that
like, my dogs will get sick whenI'm not home. Or that, you know,
some friend, somewhere I haven'ttalked to you in 10 years is
like, mad at me. Or, or a lot oflike more serious things, too,
(50:44):
you know, like, I justfundamentally am anxious about
my existence. And it got reallybad during my boot camp. Because
it's a very high pressuresituation. And once I got into
like a working schedule,especially because I was
traveling, going to conferences,I just saw a lot of people who
(51:07):
maybe didn't have anxietydisorders, but it was clear to
me that the people around mewere like, stressed out. And so
was I and like, there are a lotof like physical symptoms that
come if you have any kind oflike, anxiety or depression that
come with a lot of physicalsymptoms. And for me, one of
them is that I just get like, Iget like too hot, yet really hot
and like flushed. And I feel alittle bit like someone is like
(51:27):
crumpling me up like a piece ofpaper. And it's really hard to
escape that feeling. And the keyto not like the key that I've
learned through years of liketherapy and medication is that
like I have, I have to have sometool to stop the crumbling
before it reaches like criticalmass. And one day I got on
Twitter. And I just rememberbeing like, I just needed a
(51:52):
distraction. Like, I feel reallybad today. And I want to tell
you something nice about you.
Because what I really wanted wasfor someone to just say
something nice about me. Youknow, like, the secret to be my
positivity on Twitter is thatthey're all things that I'm not
good at saying to myself. Andwhen I put them out on Twitter,
(52:12):
I can kind of say them to myselfin this public way. Then I'm not
too good at in private.
Chloe Condon (52:21):
I love all of that. I find a lot of that very
relatable as a person withanxiety myself, I love this
tweet that you did the other daythat says I don't ask folks how
they're doing. I say, I'm gladyou're here. And then in the
thread, it says I care about howyou're doing too. But it's a lot
to ask right now, no matter howyou're doing. I'm glad you're
here. And I think especially nowasking someone like hey, how's
(52:44):
your year? Fred? How are youdoing? Especially? Good
question. I think I tweeted theother day, you know, people,
I'll be like, hey, so sorry, Ididn't respond to this text.
I've been having like anexistential crisis with the
pandemic. Like, I think we'reall really in this kind of
chaotic headspace. Um, but Ilove like you're tweeting out
(53:04):
tips and tricks for like, how tobetter interact with people lots
of like, hey, you're a positivemuffin of loveliness. And it's
it's needed. We have in the chathere crazy is saying to China
following the cater taught onTwitter. I have been encouraged
more than once by her tweets.
Same Aziz. Absolutely. The same.
(53:27):
Um, are there any that you arelike particular you think are
like the top one we should sharehere? I feel like there's so
many good ones, Katie. Oh, mygosh,
Katy Farmer (53:38):
I honestly can't remember. The as as someone who
again, was a writer for a lot ofmy life, they leave my head and
then they go away. Yes, I likethis one. What's your sign?
yield? Just make way.
Chloe Condon (53:56):
Yeah. And I think you know, mental health in tech
is an important topic that we donot talk about nearly enough in
this industry. So I think I lovethat you have not only just this
channel to talk about thisTwitter, but that we're talking
about it now. I know therapy hashelped me quite a bit as
especially as a
Katy Farmer (54:17):
new developer,
Chloe Condon (54:18):
you know, navigating the landscape of
corporate america and whatnot.
Also shout out to ariana grandede, who just donated I think a
million dollars worth of therapyto women this week. But yeah, I
love that work. There are morecandid conversations happening
out there about the importanceof mental health, the importance
of therapy and just gettingespecially during this chaotic
(54:42):
time making sure your head is ina good because can't write code.
If your head's not in a goodplace, at least not I can't. I
can't do much.
Katy Farmer (54:52):
If I'm not like taking care of myself and sort
of an interesting question thatI Tell people like. So I did a
conference talk about a littlebit about anxiety. It was called
accepting compliments and otheracts of bravery. It's a favorite
(55:13):
talk of mine, which is justlike, how do you accept things
you like about yourself orstories you tell about yourself
that you want to be true. Andthe conference had a situation
where they would set up liketables in the public areas for
like topics. So I'd be like, Oh,this table is gonna talk about
like, and DevOps. And this one'sgonna talk about this. And there
(55:33):
was one that just said, anxiety,and I was sitting at it by
myself, just like, and it waslike, you know, whatever. I was
just like, hanging out at thistable, like on my phone. And
then someone came and sat down.
And I just remember, I just likesaid, Hi. And then he said, How
do I know if I have anxiety? Andthen we had, like, a
conversation about it. And I wasjust like, you know, teardrop,
(55:55):
like, I don't know, could it beokay, you know, like, it was,
it's so rewarding to havesomeone have a moment of
reflection. Like, it means a lotto me when people reach out to
me on Twitter to tell me that,like I've said, anything that
resonates with them, justbecause, again, I'm often my
(56:15):
tweets are kind of a form oflike, my own anxiety. Like, I
got to get this out, I have toget this out and shout
Chloe Condon (56:24):
out to one of my favorite conferences. I think
this is in 2019, no 20 2019anxiety tech, it was a whole
technical conference aboutapplications and mental health
services and ways to deal withanxiety in tech. Some videos
online, I think of you know, Ithink I built the Azure
(56:44):
Functions ADHD, medicationreminder app. So just very
practical things that you cantalk about. And, you know, that
we struggle with and deal withas developers, because we're all
humans, I think. I mean, I don'tthink we're androids. I think
Brandon Minnick (57:00):
there's that new, what's a new GitHub thing
called? Have you seen that?
GitHub just announced this newthing that will basically write
code for you? Oh, so watch outworld.
Chloe Condon (57:16):
Goodbye, world.
I'm Katie. It is so lovely tohave you back for part two.
What? Of course people can findyou on Twitter. Are there other
places where people can followyou on your all your awesome
positive tweets and beeps andboops out there? No, most of
Katy Farmer (57:32):
it happens on Twitter. If you're a circle ci
user? I am I spend a lot of timeon our community site answering
questions helping people there.
But I'm always happy to see youhowever you choose to engage. I
put up educational materialabout circle ci on their YouTube
channel. So you can find somelike technical resources from me
there. But Twitter is the placeIt's fine. It's my jam.
Chloe Condon (57:56):
And if you ever get the chance to see a live
talk with Katie, Katie oftendoes her own illustrations and
talks. So definitely make sureyou check out any opportunity
that Katie is speaking. Brandon.
Gosh, I almost want to bringKane back for part three. Like
it just seems like we're endingthis too soon. As a trilogy,
right? Yes. Yeah. A New Hope.
(58:20):
cater dot the new hope. Um,before we close out the session,
we've got about two minuteshere. Any words of advice to
anybody out there? Who's who'ssimilarly struggling with
anxiety and wants to be aparticipant in the community?
Because I know even for myself,that can be hard sometimes.
Katy Farmer (58:40):
Yeah, I think that I'm going to be Nike about it,
just to do it. I think that wasthe thing I wish I could have
told myself a million times islike, just click Send sooner.
Because like, and as a techniquethat I use that I doesn't work
(59:00):
for everyone. So keep in mindeveryone is you know,
individual, but um, sometimes Ichase an anxiety to the end. So
you say like, Okay, well, whathappens if I send this email?
And like, what's the worst thingthat happens? They say no, the
end. So like, really justremember that, like, people who
are interviewing you want you tosucceed, your coworkers want you
(59:21):
to succeed. at best. You haveone enemy out here.
Chloe Condon (59:24):
We want you to succeed.
Katy Farmer (59:26):
We want you to succeed.
Chloe Condon (59:29):
Amazing. That is a great advice. Thank you, Katie
for coming back. And Brandon. Westill don't know how to end the
show after eight days out,Brandon.
Brandon Minnick (59:42):
Well, thanks, everybody for joining us. We'll
see you back here this week.
Don't forget to check out eightbits.tv where you can find the
podcast subscribe to all theepisodes. You can catch Katie's
episode from last week and allof our other amazing guests. But
until then, we'll see you onWednesday.
Ah the song I know we save every time but the song
is what I need to wake up atthis time of the day. Hi, we're
back for eight bits. I'm Chloecrimson, one of your co hosts
here. And of course, we haveBrandon Minnick here as always.
Hi, john. Brandon.
Brandon Minnick (02:20):
Good to see you again. I am good. I've been I've
been playing around with Redditthis week.
Chloe Condon (02:27):
Okay, tell me more. I only recently two years,
but I'm very obsessed.
Brandon Minnick (02:35):
Well, um, So to be clear, I'm not just sitting
around playing on Reddit. Butactually exploring Reddit API's
and trying to build reportingtools. It's it's selfish. It's
to help help me out. But, uh,yeah, you know, I I'm on Reddit.
And I like to hang out in thedeveloper communities, all about
(02:59):
the C sharp subreddit, dotnetsubreddits, Amer developers
subreddit and love it. But Iwanted to kind of build a
dashboard where I could seeeverything in one place. And so
started playing around withReddit API's and turns out, you
can you can pull all that data,you can pull it all for
yourself, you can pull it allfor other users can aggregate it
(03:20):
together. And so you have beenplaying around with that. And
we'll be, I'll be showing it offto you soon. Chloe, keep an eye
out for it.
Chloe Condon (03:30):
Fun. I think Becca Rosenthal on the show, read it
and play back Rosenthal, some ofthe URLs, right. Yeah, thank
laughs to get her back on talkabout the Reddit API, I'm sure
yeah.
Brandon Minnick (03:42):
Sure. My tool, see what she thinks cuz. Yeah,
for me, it's like, you know, Ilove hanging out in these
different subreddits. Yeah, Ilearned a lot. And I try to
share a lot. But yeah, I'vealways been curious. What like,
Are there trends, right? Like ifI share something in this
subreddit versus this subreddit,because some are kind of the
same, some are kind of similar,or so like, what gets traction,
(04:04):
what does it we're working tobest engage with the developer
community. So stay tuned. We'llbe I'll be showing that off to
hopefully later today.
Chloe Condon (04:15):
I'm totally paying attention. I'm just trying to
your favorite wholesomesubreddit is, but I needed to
figure out mine, which I thinkis I've been a big fan of our
slash dad like reflexes. It'snot even just dads. It's just
people like catching somethingbefore it falls or baby's about
(04:38):
to like fall off the couch. Andit's brought me a lot of joy. To
just watch people have dad likereflexes.
Brandon Minnick (04:46):
There's our slash, Ah,
Chloe Condon (04:48):
oh, yeah. How
Brandon Minnick (04:49):
many W's A w w w. That's always a good one. But
Chloe Condon (04:54):
yeah, so I like oh, I've got Animal Crossing.
Like design to get inspirationfor my island. Oh, absolute
units, someone it's all justabsolute unit of a cat, absolute
unit of a bear. But yesterdaysomeone posted I think they
ordered a pizza from dominos,but they were out of the cheese
(05:14):
that they put inside the crust.
So they gave them extra cheese.
So it was absolute unit of acheese pizza where it was like a
cheese, gosh, two inches ofcheese, the dream
Brandon Minnick (05:25):
dish, but not a deep dish.
Chloe Condon (05:27):
Egg zactly. So Brandon, I thought of you
somewhat related. I saw thatBritney Spears is in Mali, and I
was like, oh, going on withMaui. I bet Brandon's got some
updates.
Brandon Minnick (05:42):
Down at Maui, but yeah, I mean, I'm still
working on it. I'm working onit. A couple tools myself for
it. But yeah, I'm still chuggingtowards the November release
date. It's available in previewright now. Although with dotnet
Maui, yeah, there's still it's awork in progress. So the
(06:03):
previews of dotnet Maui rightnow are, here's what the team's
gotten done so far. So if youwant to try it out, play around
with it, you totally can. Butyeah, I'm not. I'm not
converting my apps to dotnetMaui just yet. Because literally
the team's not done building it.
It's it'd be like trying to racea car with with a wheel missing.
So there's still some UIcontrols. They're still working
(06:25):
on building and optimizing. ButI can't wait. Actually.
Chloe Condon (06:30):
Cool merch, that T shirt that are Yeah, Jeremy
Sinclair was wearing.
Brandon Minnick (06:36):
Yeah, those are awesome. I just got, I'm going
back to a conference. So I'll beat that conference. It's It's
literally called thatconference. It's one of my
favorites.
Chloe Condon (06:47):
I think this is a full circle moment, because I
feel like we've talked aboutthis conference on some of our
very early episodes. I thinkwhen we first met Brandon, you
were about to go to bat calm.
Me, maybe I've
Brandon Minnick (07:02):
spoken at it three times. So this will be my
fourth. But yeah, it's myfavorite conferences. One of my
favorite parts is they focus somuch more on the wellness and
the wholeness of the developer.
So it's not just tech talks. Imean, granted, I'll be giving a
talk at Maui. But there's talkson mental wellness, they
encourage you to bring yourfamily so as part of the speaker
(07:22):
registration, they ask you howmany family members are you
bringing, and they have tracksand courses and workshops that
are just slightly tech related,but for families, so like,
children can hang out and havefun, and even younger speakers.
So I remember the first time Iever checked in, I was waiting
in line and my speaker check inand right in front of me was a
(07:45):
10 year old who is giving a talkthe next day. So really, really,
really good conference. It'salso online this year, so highly
recommend it. Check it out.
that.us
Chloe Condon (07:57):
I've heard so many amazing things about that
conference from you from ourcoworker Cassie, I think Seth
spoke there. Maybe two yearsago. Um, I have a lot of FOMO
Wait, your go? Are you goingphysically to it?
Brandon Minnick (08:10):
That's the plan. I yeah, I talked with our
managers and made sure we hadbudget and made sure everything
was okay. And I just got thethumbs up. So I booked plane
tickets again. I booked hotelsagain and rental cars. It's It's
uh, it's weird.
Chloe Condon (08:26):
What a time to events, hopefully, fast, right?
Um, well, I just got done withan event this morning. I was up
right on early 9am. We startedthe static web apps conference,
maybe let us know in the chat.
Are you still here, maybe youleft a tab open. And now you're
(08:47):
joining us after thisconference. It was super fun. I
got to host it. JOHN Papa wasthe keynote speaker. And truly,
you know, I mentioned this onthe on the stream for the
conference. But it's rare duringthe pandemic that I have the
attention span to just like, sitdown and watch every talk back
to back. But I got to watch allof them, y'all. And they're all
(09:07):
really great. I learned a lot.
We talked about geo cities. Wetalked about angelfire. We
talked about flash animation. Iof course talked about the first
website I ever visited the 101Dalmatians live action marketing
page, featuring Glenn Close. Itwas a good time had by all you
can check out all of theprevious talks@aka.ms slash swa
(09:31):
comp on demand. And it was Yeah,it was it was a great time I
learned a lot. I'm talking aboutjam stack. We're talking about
the CLR. We're talking about allsorts of different ways that you
can use static web apps, DevOps,oh my gosh, covered all the
things my brain is very full. Sofrom kind of like, zoning out,
I'm probably thinking aboutstatic web apps.
Brandon Minnick (09:50):
Can you define a static web app in one sentence
or less?
Chloe Condon (09:54):
Very cool. No.
Yeah, so it's Well, itstatically messenger with Azure.
Obviously, there's a bunch ofdifferent awesome plugins and
integrations that we have anextensions with VS code that
make them a lot easier. But it'sjust a single simple web page,
basically. And it's really cool.
It's very, there were a lot ofwhat I really loved about this
(10:16):
conference was, you know,typically you do an event, and
you're talking about the deeply,deeply technical things. And
that's all fine, right? Like welove to get in the code. But
what was cool was how manyconversations were being had
about, hey, static web apps, notonly are this super useful, like
thing that you can get up andrunning quickly, but it enables
other people who don't havethose deep technical skills to
(10:37):
also get things online, youknow, your crochet knitting site
for your grandma, you know, atheatre company, website, things
that require a lot less deep,deep coding and building. So
it's exciting. It's making theweb more accessible for other
people. And I'm really excitedto see o r g, dear friend,
Brian, Ben's friend of the podare to our other two part
(11:01):
guests, other than our guesttoday, is going to be talking
tomorrow, I think in the eveningat 11pm. Pacific time with
Burke, Holland, all about all ofthe new features that were just
announced, because it's allgenerally available right now.
So check that out. Brian's gonnabe Burke is so fun to watch
y'all. I mean, it's going to beI'm going to probably stay up
(11:22):
late watching two of ourfavorite co workers. But yeah, I
am. I'm so static right now. Yousee, my hair is just like stone.
Brandon Minnick (11:34):
They give
Chloe Condon (11:37):
Rocco's modern life static cling the newest
revamp of rocks, but I somehowmanaged to not reference during
that conference. How did thathappen? Um, well, Brandon,
anything else you want to saybefore we bring in part two of
one of our favorite guests?
Brandon Minnick (11:57):
Oh, we got it.
We got to bring her in. Cuz Lasttime, we didn't even come close
to finishing the interview. So Idon't want to lose any more
time.
Chloe Condon (12:05):
I secretly kind of like once we got to like the
three quarter mark. I was like,This is great. We have to bring
them back. Welcome back to theshow for part two.
Katy Farmer (12:23):
back Oh, you know what I love you know,
Chloe Condon (12:27):
wha the squeak wall if you will? At to Farmer
farming. We haven't seen you fora full week. How are you? Oh, in
that week,
Katy Farmer (12:39):
I think I'm probably changed forever. But
also I did nothing and it wasfantastic. I just spent a lot of
time with my dogs looking atsquirrels and thinking about how
how to get squirrel. How to benext to squirrel. You know, all
the hard questions.
Brandon Minnick (12:59):
What to do when you catch squirrel? Yeah, it's
my it's my dogs biggest problem.
The squirrels Jason.
Katy Farmer (13:06):
Girls are taunting My poor dogs know what they're
doing?
Chloe Condon (13:12):
So for anybody who is just joining us on this
episode, we'll do a littlethrowback we should have we
should have done like a montage.
Previously on eight bits. Getit? Tell them lovely humans
tuning in who you are, what youdo, and a little bit about
yourself.
Katy Farmer (13:29):
I am Katie. I am the community technical
community manager to be specificat circle ci. I was a late
career changer. I went to schoolfor music and then for
literature and then worked as aneditor for many years and then
thought boy money would be surenice. And then I got into tech.
(13:53):
I went to a boot camp. I did allthe things that you're supposed
to do to become a successfulgirl boss. I'm mad that I said
it. I was gonna say it just cameout real and I didn't know how
to fix it. The
Chloe Condon (14:08):
term business Ma'am. Ma'am, I do like that.
Katy Farmer (14:13):
I also I have a shirt that says I'm a
professional, which reallyencapsulate my idea of business
casual.
Chloe Condon (14:21):
For anybody listening to the podcast. I am
wearing a hat today that says Ilove meeting. And I feel like
you need to wear this hat withthat shirt.
Katy Farmer (14:31):
Also for the people who are at home it does
Chloe Condon (14:36):
an absolute mood.
So you were here last week andwe covered we covered a lot of
the origin story of Katie.
Brandon, let's start to recaptogether. Let's tag team this. I
feel like we started withMarissa computer in Katie's home
growing up, no computer, try andfind one Talk about band music
(15:02):
specifically playing in the highschool band and the trumpet the
trumpet. We'll also talk aboutpiano. We talked about a lot of
stuff.
Brandon Minnick (15:11):
Working in it.
Yes. Right. And I was in collegeright now. So even though you
weren't studying computers, itanything like that? Nope, you
worked in it. So your first jobis just choose one, turn
everything off and turn it backon again. And it fixes it every
(15:32):
time. Really?
Chloe Condon (15:35):
Did we talk about like, how you got on boarded for
that job, though? Like, was itliterally like, type? I mean,
you would use a keyboard, Iassume I was
Katy Farmer (15:45):
typing. Okay, that was I would say, that's my main
skill. When it comes tocomputers, I can type. So good.
Um, most of that was, so Istarted during the summer, like
semesters, so like, a little bitslower. And basically, I had to
stay, stayed in the shop, as itwere, and watched all the other
(16:09):
technicians solve problems andjust learned by just kind of
being apprenticing sort of, youknow, just, I was definitely the
only fan of any kind. It was,and I was also shorter than
everyone by about a foot and ahalf. And when we would have to
(16:29):
Yeah, I'm, I'm small.
Chloe Condon (16:31):
It's useful to like crawl under desks to plug
things in and unplug things Ifound personally as a five foot,
yes,
Katy Farmer (16:38):
we would have to walk across campus and I would
be walking with some of theother technicians and they're
walking and I'm like, literallyjogging next to them, like Slow
down, slow down. But yeah, itwas just a lot of like, Watch
and learn. And again, in thatlike scenario of like, at the
university, the computers arevery much. You know, they're,
(16:58):
they have like ghost imagesthere. You just reset them if
bad things happen. So it was aneasier environmental learning, I
think, because there was justlike one way that it should be
there. Like this is how windowsshould be set up period on this
campus. Yeah, so that made it alittle easier. But then later
on, I became a manager of thehelp desk and things got
(17:20):
complicated again. Because Istarted figuring out that while
I very well could learncomputers, I have always been
good with people. And that's thething that's, that's the bridge
that's often missing, right islike, I know how I figured out
how this computer works. But Istill have to be able to tell
this, this person with a PhD inmusic theory, or biology or
(17:41):
calculus or whatever, like, howto get another email. And that's
a different altogether.
Chloe Condon (17:47):
I have a question for you. We asked this to Brian
or no, this was to Carmen Ibelieve he used to work at the
Microsoft customer support HelpDesk. And he said one of his
favorite customer supportquestions or requests was
someone thinking there waswizardry in their computer
because of the Microsoftdownload wizard and wanted to
(18:10):
get the occult out of theirwindows? Do you have any
favorite help? stories gave me Imean, I have so many.
Katy Farmer (18:22):
I my favorite one was this like staff member
called all the time and theyalways had problems with their
computer. They were always like,it's slow, it's freezing. They
they always had a virus, thejust always and I had reset her
machine so many times. I waslike, You know what, let me just
(18:45):
come on over. Let me just comeon over and like see what's up
and like spend a little timewith you on your computer. And
when I got there, they were ontheir computer like you know, in
a very traditional way forpeople who you know, a lot of
people keep things are on thedesktop, you know, like, however
many documents and files so thedesktop is like completely
(19:08):
covered. It's real hard to findanything and then I'm like
trying to look for the mouseamong the sea of like icons and
the mouse is like instead of thecursor on the screen, it's like
the little cat that like was
Chloe Condon (19:23):
guilty of adding that I think like back in the
day that was super popular ongeo cities and angelfire and I'm
pretty sure on my live journal Ihad like a little peek at you
cursor. Yeah,
Katy Farmer (19:34):
it was just like she kept downloading these like
cat cursors they were from thislike random website because she
was just searching for them andI was like, Listen, I you have
to stop downloading these.
There. Getting
Chloe Condon (19:52):
I feel like we have a comment here from Aaron
Aldridge that says sometimesthey really missed direct Help
Desk slash support work and Iused to work in VIP Video Game
support. And I truly think thatevery developer at some point in
their life should should have towork in support and help desk
because it's humbling, and youalso get a lot of empathy. Well,
you also start to understand theimportance of product feedback,
(20:14):
like you're right there in thetrenches. I truly, we should all
be doing customer support HelpDesk like once a week.
Katy Farmer (20:21):
Really? Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's, it's such a fastway to learn, right. And, like,
I remember, I mean, that waslike my returning clients, you
know, I think I helped thatperson like, once, once, or once
or twice a week for a while,like, somewhere in the middle,
it was a lot. But my favoriteone, kind of, I don't know, I
(20:43):
think there's something about itthat relates to tech, but like a
lot of people who work inuniversities who I'm sure if
anyone, like watching has workedin academia at all, it can be a
very, it's a tough, it's a toughplace. People who have PhDs and
our professors can be a littlefull of themselves, sometimes
they're good at what they do.
(21:08):
And when they're not good atsomething like that feels simple
to them, they are angry. And Ijust remember, like talking to
this professor over the phonefor like, a really long time,
like they were just, they werereally upset, they had grades to
turn in, and their computerwouldn't turn on. And it was
like, Alright, well, like do yousee a power light? And like, do
(21:28):
you check the cables and likeall the things and they were
just like, they'd had enough ofme trying to help them. They
were like, just come over here.
Just come over here and just fixit. I was like, eventually is
like, Alright, I'm gonna comeover there. And then, you know,
the first thing I do is I like,check the powerlines it's not on
I checked the cables. And thenI'm like, following the
following the cables. And I waslike, Okay, I have some news
(21:52):
that you're not gonna like,which is that you are correct,
that all the cables are pluggedin, they were all plugged into a
power strip, when the powerstrip was also plugged into the
power strip. Oh, no.
Brandon Minnick (22:09):
It doesn't give you enough power. It was just
the power back on itself,
Katy Farmer (22:13):
this beautiful moment. Cuz at the time, you
know, I was probably like, 20.
And I can't imagine that as youknow, this person who's very
good at their expertise. It'sjust real hard to have people be
like, you just, you plugged itin wrong. That's a hard pill to
swallow. You know. Brandon, doyou have any Tales from the help
(22:34):
desk?
Brandon Minnick (22:37):
Oh, gosh. So yeah, I worked in IT support as
a as an internet, Disney. So wedidn't necessarily handle the
hardware like that. But Iremember. So we supported the
website. And yeah, all the time,people would reach out and say
something like the websites downor it's not working. I'm trying
(23:01):
to remember an exact scenario,but just in general, yeah. Like
everybody was always mad.
Everybody's always upset. at usat me. It was my fault. And
yeah, similar to Katie story,most of the time is a user's
fault. I mean, yes, some of thatfeedback can be taken and we
could do things better make thebutton bigger. Yeah, people
(23:24):
would like if, if a listshuffled, like we maybe
reorganize things on a page andsomething wasn't in the exact
same spot where it used to be.
We can help desks to help desktickets about the website being
broken. I don't know whatthey're talking like. I'm
(23:44):
literally on it right now. Andit's working. Now like nope,
it's not there anymore. It'slike, Oh, you scroll down. You
scroll down a little bit. Yougot it. Yeah, it's always I
mean, it's always it is fall.
It's always a help desks fault.
And you can't
Katy Farmer (24:01):
just say thank you, you know what I mean? Like
there's they're always pretty,like decently irritated. And
then just like going from there.
Brandon Minnick (24:11):
Right? And and you just gotta take it. Like,
once you get off the call, thenyou can vent to your co workers,
like a happened again, orsomebody thought the website was
broken, or was it but whenyou're on the call, it's like,
yeah, I'm so sorry. Yep, you'reabsolutely right. That button
used to be there and now it'snot Yes, it's just a little bit
lower. Look into it.
Katy Farmer (24:33):
I think my my, the years I put in in support, I
think probably attributed to mybeing able to like be successful
once I moved into tech justbecause I was used to like, I
worked on a lot of customerservice. I worked retail like
places where people are justlike, they're not that nice to
you because they don't have tobe or because the they're
(24:55):
already starting off with aproblem once they come find you
right like they're not coming tohang out with you, because they
already have everything theyneed. So I think that like when
I got into tech, and you like,again, the bar is like very low.
But, um,yeah, definitely, like, feel
like being able to like listenand bring people down from that
(25:19):
edge and like, you know, have afull conversation is z is
Chloe Condon (25:25):
my customer support experience, I think was
a unique one because I worked invideo game customer support. So
I was dealing with very angry,mostly men who were very upset
about not getting their gold,because like, that was the
reward system. This came. Andluckily, we only used email
customer support. This was likemaybe like 10 years ago. And all
(25:48):
of the subject lines would belike my gold, I need my gold
Bring me my gold. And I learneda lot about logs, not like
wooden logs, but like chat logswhen I worked in that role. And
I, I learned from a lot ofpeople who were like, why am I
banned? Why am I banned? Ididn't say anything bad that
people really try to cover thatthey have not said really
(26:11):
terrible things that theyactually have. So shout out to
moderation tools. Microsoftawesome content moderation tools
out there. But yeah, I feel likeit I it's interesting that you
guys actually worked in likephysical it customer support or
things that actually existedbecause doing customer support
for imaginary war commanderbases. And imaginary gold is a
(26:36):
whole thing to wrap your headaround when you're like I serve
these people like I help themwith their fake bases that
they've spent a lot of money oncreating in this, you know,
spotting the internet on aserver somewhere. But really
learn a lot about like how todeal with people how to
communicate with people, thecustomer is always right, as I
(26:59):
learned for retail and Trumpdoing video gave customer
support. And yeah, I love I seea lot of that in you, Katie,
because I feel like a lot ofyour tweets, which was I'm
really going to talk about todayare very positive and uplifting.
And when I'm going through myday, and I see your tweets and
my feed, it brings joy to mylife. I feel like I needed these
(27:19):
tweets when I would take breaksas customer support agent be
like, You know what? I can doit. So, okay, we chatted last
time, all about your journey toyour boot camp. And I think we
ended around talking about howyou chose we had a question in
the chat about how to chooseyour boot camp. We've talked
(27:41):
about this a little bit on theshow before of not all boot
camps are created equally justlike any university or school,
you're going to want to bet theinformation about the program,
see what stock they're using?
How did you end up choosing yourboot camp? Katie?
Katy Farmer (27:55):
Great question, Chloe. I think it's like I just
want to kind of make it clearthat it's really hard,
especially because you knownothing about the subject. And
yet you were trying to look fora place that is like,
theoretically, the expert,right, then you're like, well, I
don't really know what thecriteria is for being good. So I
(28:17):
guess, oh, and I was very luckythat I had programmers like in
my life who could weigh in, andthey did extensively about like,
the various boot camps. And sothey're there. I mean, now
there's a lot more options, evenat the time I lived in Denver.
(28:38):
And there's an in person school,they're called touring. And I
knew I needed to be in aclassroom setting like
physically because I knew thatif I could learn online, I would
have although I know that theylike they, you know, there's
differences with like curriculumand stuff, but online learning
is like, it's not for me, I needa teacher in front of me.
Chloe Condon (29:03):
I am the same way.
ej Metz, who was self taught,but I need accountability in my
life as well.
Katy Farmer (29:11):
Yeah. And honestly, like, I went to like, you know,
the schools usually have likeopen houses. And like, always go
to those. And honestly, like, ifno one tells you anything bad
about the school, don't go toit. Because that means there are
many secrets. Because everyone Iknow who's gone to a boot camp
has pretty complex opinionsabout them. Because that none of
(29:35):
them are perfect, right? Like,sometimes it's a cultural
sometimes the cost is like,enormous and I think, especially
when you're choosing one, likemake sure you understand what
the range of like tuition costsis because some of them are a
lot more than other ones like Ithink. I think a lot of them sit
(29:57):
right around 20,000
Chloe Condon (29:59):
which is There's an interesting trend of tuition
deferments, like not having topay until you get a job and
taking a certain percentage. So,thinking through those things
like where am I at financially?
I mean, I always say, no oneever just wakes up one morning
is like, you know what, I'mgonna go do that. I think we
said this on the last episode,right? But like, usually people
who are making a career change,either have had a huge
(30:21):
existential crisis about theirlife and career like me. They
have, they need to make moremoney, they want to have more
security in their life. It's abig, big financial, also life
decision. Most of these programsare full time. But truly, it's,
I always say, people, if youhear someone who's graduated
from a boot camp, just assumethat that they've seen it, they
(30:43):
can, they can live throughanything.
Katy Farmer (30:48):
And there's like, even more like, I mean, I didn't
grow up with any kind of likefinancial literacy. And so even
the idea of being like, adding,you know, getting another loan,
like, Well, I have these studentloans, and it's all just putting
this loan with these otherloans. Right, which like, in my
mind sounded fine. But then it'slike, well, actually, this is a
(31:10):
different type of loan. I can'tpay this private loan back like
I can my federal school loansand stuff like that. So just
like, the best thing to do is tojust ask as many people who've
gone to that school as you can,whoever will talk to you reach
out to absolutely everyone, someof them will get back to you
(31:32):
like this, just just reallythrow it all out there. Because
they'll all be able to tell you,like I said, and if they don't
have critiques, then like,honestly, I do find that a bit
suspicious, mostly either,because sometimes the schools
are, you know, might have waysto convince people that they
shouldn't be talking aboutwhatever it is like, I'm more
(31:55):
than happy to tell you thethings. I think were wrong with
the school that I went to whileI was there, but it's also like
been a few years and it'sunsure. It's different now.
They're really quickly evolving.
So there's a lot to payattention to.
Chloe Condon (32:08):
Yeah, I love this comment from crazy in the chat
that says nothing wrong with anexistential crisis or two before
you find your career.
Absolutely. Yeah, not, not allof us just wake up knowing what
we're good at what we want todo, for sure. And of course, you
did your boot camp, and it wentperfectly and you didn't have
any imposter syndrome. And younailed it, right?
Katy Farmer (32:31):
No, felt great, never cried. Um,
Chloe Condon (32:38):
see, I'm laughing because my boyfriend loves to
say that I powered through myboot camp hackbright with tears
and code, and coffee. How wasyour experience? Because I know,
for me, I felt quite a bit ofimposter syndrome. And I didn't
even know what imposter syndromewas until the first day of my
boot camp. So it was a it was abig weight on me. You know,
Katy Farmer (33:03):
I think it's interesting. Like, I definitely
didn't know about impostersyndrome. But I think it I think
as people, we tend to gravitatetowards things we're good at,
right? So I spent the first halfof my life really in like the
arts, things, I felt like I wasmore naturally inclined to do.
Whether or not that's true, Istill think there's a lot of
nature versus nurture here,like, I spent more time in the
(33:24):
arts, therefore, I was better atthem. Therefore, I felt more
comfortable there, you know,kind of rolling that way. But
like, when I got into boot camp,I started getting into it. I
don't know that I felt like animposter. But I, I felt like I
still wasn't sure it waspossible to start later. Like, I
(33:46):
felt like maybe you have to havebeen, maybe you have to have had
a computer your whole life. Likemaybe the only way to like, be
really good at this is to justhave been doing it. And you
cannot fast forward. And so inthat way it feels like it's a
little imposter. But it's almosta little bit more like age and
(34:06):
experience based. Because I knowa lot of people who like yeah,
they had you know, they werewriting basic. And I was like,
tell me what go in there a discyou say? And it's not because
I'm, like, so incredibly babyyoung that I don't know what
that is. I just didn't have it.
So I think there's thisfascinating edge of like, I
(34:27):
didn't really feel like Ibelonged. But I also felt like
it wasn't because like I thoughtmaybe this is just not how
you're made.
Chloe Condon (34:41):
There's a lot of vulnerability. I feel in
learning a new skill. And I wasrecently thinking about, I was
never a good dancer. I didmusicals, but I was terrible at
dancing. And I remember I triedto remember why didn't I just
keep at it, you know, and Ithink that I took a ballet class
and it was a beginner balletclass. I was in my probably mid
(35:01):
to late 20s. And I was theoldest person in there and it
was a bunch of kids. And then Inever, like, I don't belong
here. This isn't for me. But Ithink that's what the cool thing
about boot camps around thistime in 2016 was, that's what it
was. For me. I was like, Oh,these are people like me who are
making a career change later inlife. But yeah, it can feel very
(35:25):
jarring when, you know, I had toGoogle what stem was like, they
were like, Who here works inSTEM. And I was like, on my
phone, just like, like, I don'tknow what this acronym is. But
there were a lot of moments likethat, where I was just like, Oh,
do I belong here?
Katy Farmer (35:42):
And even like the number of people who switched
over from like, other sciences,that can be intimidating, right?
It was like, Oh, well, a lot ofmy classmates were like,
chemical engineers, or somethingthat sounded intimidating to me.
So I was like, Oh, I am anexpert in the Oxford comma.
Thank you. So in reality, itturns out that like, knowing
(36:04):
grammar really well actually isa is a pretty big skill when it
comes to code. Because everycoding language has its own
grammar and like lexicon that'sreally important. So being able
to remember those thingsactually really helped me be
able to just like straight up,type and write code a little
faster.
Brandon Minnick (36:21):
Nice, ever. I mean, I, I have a slightly
different origin story where Idid get a degree in Computer
Engineering. But yeah, I'venever even those first
programming classes. I had neverwritten a line of code before. I
knew I wanted to learn it. Butyeah, I just felt like I was
surrounded by everybody whoalready knew what they were
(36:42):
doing. And I had no clue whatwas going on. And you're like,
Oh, yeah, hello, world. Yeah, noproblem. Like, what
Katy Farmer (36:55):
are you thinking?
Like? I can, I can memorize alot, right? Like, that's how I
was always really good atschool, because I'm really good
at like memorizing things. AndI, so I could memorize code and
be like, Okay, I know, this ishow I make like a REST API. But
I, I think maybe almost until Iwas all the way done with
(37:17):
bootcamp didn't know why I wasdoing any of it. And I think
that's one of the really hardthings. Because this used to
happen to me in, in math inschool, too, is I would say,
like, Well, why, like, what isthe cosine? And they would be
like, you don't worry about thatright now. I am worried about it
right now. And there's just likethis brink of learning where
(37:42):
they're like, Okay, well, likeyour brain can't handle this
other information. So you justneed to do this. And I find that
a very frustrating experience,although I have yet to find a
solution for it. It's like,yeah, you just have to memorize
this for a bit. And then onceyou get going, you'll start to
pick up like, why it's happeningthat that that patience is
really important. But it's alsolike, yeah, it made me furious.
Chloe Condon (38:08):
I was person to I drove my boyfriend crazy during
my boot camps and be like, butwhy is everything zero index?
He's like, that's not important.
It just is I'm like, but
Katy Farmer (38:16):
why? Why would just tell me?
Brandon Minnick (38:20):
I mean, sometimes the answer is just
whoever made this said, so. Theyjust decided 20 years ago that
we'd start counting at zero. Andwe still do it. It's like, Okay,
moving on. Sometimes that's thatis the only reason it's just
like, yeah, whoever made C sharpjust decided that was going to
be the thing.
Chloe Condon (38:41):
Yeah, I will find a link for it and drop it in the
chat. But our coworkers MorganBell and Burke Holland
interviewed person who createdthe first hello world, you know,
that ever happened? And Ibelieve one of the questions
they asked them was like, Whyhello world? There was just
like, because I love hearingthose answers. Because, yeah,
(39:02):
truly, a lot of times when wemake decisions in our programs,
it's just like, because why didyou make a Shania Twain but
because we love Nightwing?
Sometimes we can make. So Katie,I think the biggest question
that I get, as a former bootcampgrad is about the job search
post bootcamp. Which is anothertime in my life when a lot of
(39:24):
tears, tears were expelled frommy face. I always like to say
that the highs are very high andthe lows are very low during the
job search. What was yourexperience, like as a junior
developer out of a boot camp?
You know, starting this newcareer, you probably had a
resume similar to mine that hada lot of arts and you know,
(39:45):
literature stuff on it. What wasit like being a candidate fresh
out of a boot camp?
Katy Farmer (39:51):
It's kind of a wild experience. I am. I have a hard
time sometimes saying very like,positive things. Myself, I am
really good at interviewing,okay, like, I'm good at talking
to people. It's a skill that Ihave. But then they were like,
actually don't talk, just justdo this exercise. And I'm like,
(40:11):
but if you talk to me, you wouldlike me though, for sure. You
want to try that.
Chloe Condon (40:16):
I don't want to conversations with PJ about
this. And he was interviewingthis year because we were right
there with you like, gettingyour foot in the door is part
one, getting past the recruitingsoftware past the hiring
manager, recruiter, whateverthat is. talking to them is
another thing. But a codingchallenges is very different
(40:36):
than the original informationalinterviews, as you know,
whatever it is we do teachersretail, things outside of
technology, interviewing as anengineer is so vastly different
than any other career. I think Isaw someone Emily Calgary think,
tweet like, oh, you're a doctor.
No, this is a tick tock. She waslike, Oh, you're a doctor do
surgery right now, like on thisthing that you usually don't do?
(40:59):
Like? We put it in context. It'slike, Wait, what? Why are we
Why?
Brandon Minnick (41:06):
You don't do surgery? in your free time on
nights and weekends? Yeah, no, Iam a doctor, I get paid to do
that. That's my job. My
Chloe Condon (41:17):
doing 10x surgeries. You're not a 10x.
Doctor, how dare you. But it'strue. Like this industry. I
think that was the biggestadjustment for me coming into it
was my whole life. I too amlike, Hi, I'm a nice person.
Here's my resume, I interviewreally well. But once I found
out about this whiteboard,anything, I was like, Oh, no, a
test.
Katy Farmer (41:38):
Yeah, a test in an area that I still felt very much
like, Okay, if we do thistogether, and I know you, I'm
going to get there, right? Like,that's where I was at, as when I
left the boot camp, I was like,okay, like, if I feel
comfortable with this person,then together, we'll get to a
solution. I know that. But witha stranger who doesn't always
(42:01):
feel like they're rooting foryour success. I'm not going to
get there. In fact, I am goingto actively work in the other
direction, whenever that islike, whatever, when one time, I
won't tell you the name of thecompany. But I'm sure they've
changed their interviewpractices, because at the time,
it was very small. And it wasjust the I think it was like the
(42:22):
director of engineering or theCTO. And I done a coding
challenge in go. And I hadlearned go just to do this. And
I was like, super interested init. I was like somebody like, I
don't know, I didn't really getit. But I was like fascinated by
go. And then we were doing like,you know, you turn in the
(42:42):
assignment. And then you havelike a review. And I remember
the interview or anything atall. Yeah, I remember the
interviewer asking me like,Okay, well, um, why did you use
this technique? And I was like,it's the only one I know. Good
answer. Yeah. And then and thenhe would say like, Okay, well,
(43:04):
what are some other options? AndI said, I don't know. He said,
just tell me. And I was like, Idon't know. Like, we just, this
interviewer just couldn't stopasking me to try to dig for
information. I'd already toldthem I didn't have. Yeah, and
like, it was so painful. I justthought like, clearly you're not
(43:27):
going to hire me. Right? Like,you are looking for things that
I don't currently have. But hewould not be graceful in the
interview about like, how doesthat be free? He was just, it
felt like he was just torturingme. He would just be like,
right, but why? And I'd be like,I don't know. I learned go for
this. I was just so excited tohave a working go anything. And,
(43:53):
and not only did he like herobbed me of that joy of like
having done the thing. But thenlike, I mean, still to this day,
it's one of my worst interviewsbecause because he made me feel
so bad for not knowing when itturns out is actually a thing
that people don't mind.
Brandon Minnick (44:10):
Yes, that's a great answer. That's what I try
to teach junior developers iswhen you don't know don't
pretend don't fake it. Don't tryto make it up. Be very upfront
and say, I don't know what theanswer is. But maybe maybe have
like an inkling you can saylike, yeah, I'm not really sure.
But maybe we could try this. Andthat that really just in my
(44:36):
experience I've noticed that'sthe big differentiator between
junior and senior I mean there'sa lot of things that
differentiate but yeah, seniordevs are Oh is very upfront with
like, oh, I've never done thatbefore. Hey, Chloe, how long do
you think this projects gonnatake? Oh, I have no idea. I've
never done it before.
Unknown (44:55):
No idea. We
Brandon Minnick (44:57):
figure it out.
Chloe Condon (45:00):
Yeah, gosh, Tales from the interview vault. I very
similarly had to learn Ruby. Myboot camp was Python and
JavaScript. And I had a codingchallenge that was Ruby. And I
was so scared because I got thisemail the night before I had
been studying Ruby up and down.
And the recruiter said, Hey, youknow, we're so excited to have
you come in tomorrow, we willbe, you know, testing you and
(45:21):
this, this and this, and Ididn't know, these additional
languages that they mentioned.
And I asked my boyfriend, like,What do I do? Like, I can't just
go in there and pretend that Iknow all these crazy languages.
And he said, let them know.
Like, they know you're abootcamp grad like set
expectation, you can givepushback here like this is they
are bringing you in. So I alwaysI totally agree read in like
(45:42):
honesty and beingstraightforward. I love that you
answered it, like, I do notknow. Because when you do Harry
Potter spell and suddenly
Katy Farmer (45:51):
know the syntax, I know. Phone, not screen sharing
or anything, we were on a phonecall, and we were just both
looking at my test. So Icouldn't. I literally have
nothing else to give you. Like,
Chloe Condon (46:08):
I think like, there's a tendency, especially
with Bootcamp, grads, andjuniors, that they feel that
they cannot be choosy with theirroles that they're like, I gotta
take whatever job I get first,which usually I emphasize
empathize with, becausefinancially, you're running out
of money, you need a job, youkind of don't even know if it's
possible for you to get a job.
But um, if you feel at anypoint, when you are
(46:30):
whiteboarding to aninformational interview, or even
a phone screen, any weird vibes,culturally from the company, or
just like Katie said, likeanything, where you're like,
this person kind of gave me anegative experience, I think
it's important to say that theseare things as an interview II
versus an interviewer that youcan make decisions on, I always
like to tell people that Imentor, it's much better to say
(46:52):
no to a job and keep jobsearching for another week or
month, then start a job and haveto do this all over again, in
two months, because you'reunhappy. So I think honesty is
best.
Katy Farmer (47:07):
Yeah, well, and that's the thing too, right? I
think, like, if you're honestwith them, maybe you don't get
that job. But like, I alwaystell people like you will get
one you will. Like, I firmlybelieve this, like, build your
build your networks keepreaching out to people, I got my
first job because of a fellowalumni. Right, like, and I
(47:29):
didn't know him, Well, I don'tthink I'd ever met him before
that. But he was just like, inthe, in the broad network of the
school. And just like, invitedme to come and chat with him.
And then he was like, Well, mycompany is hiring. So like, Why
don't you talk to this personand kind of set me up on that
path for success. You know? AndI think, like how you feel
(47:53):
during the interview, like ifyou are like maybe like
pretending a bit like oh, yeah,definitely. SQL I hear. Docker
Yes, yes. Yes, I, I havecontainers. That feeling. That's
how you're gonna feel every dayat that job, if you get it,
(48:13):
where you're like, Oh, Iactually don't know anything.
And I'm pretending here. Like,that's how you're gonna feel at
work. And that's, it's not good.
And it's not sustainable. Right?
It feels terrible to work likethat. And I'm not saying that I
haven't. Because maybe we alllearn. But it's, um, I think it
is really important to know thatlike, there, there are people
(48:34):
who are already in the biz thatwill like that we want to help
you. Right? Like, I want to helpyou. I always open my dm so like
underrepresented folks like youwant to resume review, whatever,
because, you know, we have towork within the system that
currently exists, while itexists while we burn it down.
(48:56):
But, um, you know, while it isand we need these, like jobs to
survive, and like we have to dowhat we can to make sure that
there's room for for new people.
Absolutely. And if y'all arefollowing Katie on Twitter, get
out your phone or computer right
Chloe Condon (49:11):
now. And follow the cater taught on Twitter.
Mostly because all of thesepositive tweets seriously are
talking about being a positiveforce for motivation in the
community. I would love to talkat about we talked about you
talked a little bit about kindof networking, like so to speak
(49:32):
and how you got this first jobthrough someone through your
boot camp. I think I got mysecond job in tech from my
network of boot camp andTwitter. I have seen a lot of
folks who've gotten jobs onTwitter recently. You're very
active on Twitter, as am I but Ireally love these positive
tweets tell us like how thisstarted, why you do it. And that
(49:54):
I'll bring up some examples ofthe joy that Katie
Katy Farmer (49:59):
I mean That's a good question, I think. So I
have an anxiety disorder, whichmeans if you're not super
familiar with it, it's kind ofit's the difference between
worrying and anxiety is theamount of control that you have.
So I might worry, I'm going tobe late. But I know that like,
(50:20):
I, you know, can leave my houseearlier or whatever, but I have
anxiety about things I cannotchange, I have anxiety that
like, my dogs will get sick whenI'm not home. Or that, you know,
some friend, somewhere I haven'ttalked to you in 10 years is
like, mad at me. Or, or a lot oflike more serious things, too,
(50:44):
you know, like, I justfundamentally am anxious about
my existence. And it got reallybad during my boot camp. Because
it's a very high pressuresituation. And once I got into
like a working schedule,especially because I was
traveling, going to conferences,I just saw a lot of people who
(51:07):
maybe didn't have anxietydisorders, but it was clear to
me that the people around mewere like, stressed out. And so
was I and like, there are a lotof like physical symptoms that
come if you have any kind oflike, anxiety or depression that
come with a lot of physicalsymptoms. And for me, one of
them is that I just get like, Iget like too hot, yet really hot
and like flushed. And I feel alittle bit like someone is like
(51:27):
crumpling me up like a piece ofpaper. And it's really hard to
escape that feeling. And the keyto not like the key that I've
learned through years of liketherapy and medication is that
like I have, I have to have sometool to stop the crumbling
before it reaches like criticalmass. And one day I got on
Twitter. And I just rememberbeing like, I just needed a
(51:52):
distraction. Like, I feel reallybad today. And I want to tell
you something nice about you.
Because what I really wanted wasfor someone to just say
something nice about me. Youknow, like, the secret to be my
positivity on Twitter is thatthey're all things that I'm not
good at saying to myself. Andwhen I put them out on Twitter,
(52:12):
I can kind of say them to myselfin this public way. Then I'm not
too good at in private.
Chloe Condon (52:21):
I love all of that. I find a lot of that very
relatable as a person withanxiety myself, I love this
tweet that you did the other daythat says I don't ask folks how
they're doing. I say, I'm gladyou're here. And then in the
thread, it says I care about howyou're doing too. But it's a lot
to ask right now, no matter howyou're doing. I'm glad you're
here. And I think especially nowasking someone like hey, how's
(52:44):
your year? Fred? How are youdoing? Especially? Good
question. I think I tweeted theother day, you know, people,
I'll be like, hey, so sorry, Ididn't respond to this text.
I've been having like anexistential crisis with the
pandemic. Like, I think we'reall really in this kind of
chaotic headspace. Um, but Ilove like you're tweeting out
(53:04):
tips and tricks for like, how tobetter interact with people lots
of like, hey, you're a positivemuffin of loveliness. And it's
it's needed. We have in the chathere crazy is saying to China
following the cater taught onTwitter. I have been encouraged
more than once by her tweets.
Same Aziz. Absolutely. The same.
(53:27):
Um, are there any that you arelike particular you think are
like the top one we should sharehere? I feel like there's so
many good ones, Katie. Oh, mygosh,
Katy Farmer (53:38):
I honestly can't remember. The as as someone who
again, was a writer for a lot ofmy life, they leave my head and
then they go away. Yes, I likethis one. What's your sign?
yield? Just make way.
Chloe Condon (53:56):
Yeah. And I think you know, mental health in tech
is an important topic that we donot talk about nearly enough in
this industry. So I think I lovethat you have not only just this
channel to talk about thisTwitter, but that we're talking
about it now. I know therapy hashelped me quite a bit as
especially as a
Katy Farmer (54:17):
new developer,
Chloe Condon (54:18):
you know, navigating the landscape of
corporate america and whatnot.
Also shout out to ariana grandede, who just donated I think a
million dollars worth of therapyto women this week. But yeah, I
love that work. There are morecandid conversations happening
out there about the importanceof mental health, the importance
of therapy and just gettingespecially during this chaotic
(54:42):
time making sure your head is ina good because can't write code.
If your head's not in a goodplace, at least not I can't. I
can't do much.
Katy Farmer (54:52):
If I'm not like taking care of myself and sort
of an interesting question thatI Tell people like. So I did a
conference talk about a littlebit about anxiety. It was called
accepting compliments and otheracts of bravery. It's a favorite
(55:13):
talk of mine, which is justlike, how do you accept things
you like about yourself orstories you tell about yourself
that you want to be true. Andthe conference had a situation
where they would set up liketables in the public areas for
like topics. So I'd be like, Oh,this table is gonna talk about
like, and DevOps. And this one'sgonna talk about this. And there
(55:33):
was one that just said, anxiety,and I was sitting at it by
myself, just like, and it waslike, you know, whatever. I was
just like, hanging out at thistable, like on my phone. And
then someone came and sat down.
And I just remember, I just likesaid, Hi. And then he said, How
do I know if I have anxiety? Andthen we had, like, a
conversation about it. And I wasjust like, you know, teardrop,
(55:55):
like, I don't know, could it beokay, you know, like, it was,
it's so rewarding to havesomeone have a moment of
reflection. Like, it means a lotto me when people reach out to
me on Twitter to tell me that,like I've said, anything that
resonates with them, justbecause, again, I'm often my
(56:15):
tweets are kind of a form oflike, my own anxiety. Like, I
got to get this out, I have toget this out and shout
Chloe Condon (56:24):
out to one of my favorite conferences. I think
this is in 2019, no 20 2019anxiety tech, it was a whole
technical conference aboutapplications and mental health
services and ways to deal withanxiety in tech. Some videos
online, I think of you know, Ithink I built the Azure
(56:44):
Functions ADHD, medicationreminder app. So just very
practical things that you cantalk about. And, you know, that
we struggle with and deal withas developers, because we're all
humans, I think. I mean, I don'tthink we're androids. I think
Brandon Minnick (57:00):
there's that new, what's a new GitHub thing
called? Have you seen that?
GitHub just announced this newthing that will basically write
code for you? Oh, so watch outworld.
Chloe Condon (57:16):
Goodbye, world.
I'm Katie. It is so lovely tohave you back for part two.
What? Of course people can findyou on Twitter. Are there other
places where people can followyou on your all your awesome
positive tweets and beeps andboops out there? No, most of
Katy Farmer (57:32):
it happens on Twitter. If you're a circle ci
user? I am I spend a lot of timeon our community site answering
questions helping people there.
But I'm always happy to see youhowever you choose to engage. I
put up educational materialabout circle ci on their YouTube
channel. So you can find somelike technical resources from me
there. But Twitter is the placeIt's fine. It's my jam.
Chloe Condon (57:56):
And if you ever get the chance to see a live
talk with Katie, Katie oftendoes her own illustrations and
talks. So definitely make sureyou check out any opportunity
that Katie is speaking. Brandon.
Gosh, I almost want to bringKane back for part three. Like
it just seems like we're endingthis too soon. As a trilogy,
right? Yes. Yeah. A New Hope.
(58:20):
cater dot the new hope. Um,before we close out the session,
we've got about two minuteshere. Any words of advice to
anybody out there? Who's who'ssimilarly struggling with
anxiety and wants to be aparticipant in the community?
Because I know even for myself,that can be hard sometimes.
Katy Farmer (58:40):
Yeah, I think that I'm going to be Nike about it,
just to do it. I think that wasthe thing I wish I could have
told myself a million times islike, just click Send sooner.
Because like, and as a techniquethat I use that I doesn't work
(59:00):
for everyone. So keep in mindeveryone is you know,
individual, but um, sometimes Ichase an anxiety to the end. So
you say like, Okay, well, whathappens if I send this email?
And like, what's the worst thingthat happens? They say no, the
end. So like, really justremember that, like, people who
are interviewing you want you tosucceed, your coworkers want you
(59:21):
to succeed. at best. You haveone enemy out here.
Chloe Condon (59:24):
We want you to succeed.
Katy Farmer (59:26):
We want you to succeed.
Chloe Condon (59:29):
Amazing. That is a great advice. Thank you, Katie
for coming back. And Brandon. Westill don't know how to end the
show after eight days out,Brandon.
Brandon Minnick (59:42):
Well, thanks, everybody for joining us. We'll
see you back here this week.
Don't forget to check out eightbits.tv where you can find the
podcast subscribe to all theepisodes. You can catch Katie's
episode from last week and allof our other amazing guests. But
until then, we'll see you onWednesday.
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