Keiran: Hey everyone, how’s it going? Welcome to the uncensored English podcast for Wednesday March the 1st, and today I am happy to have Max back on the podcast. How’s it going Max?
Max: Very good. How are you Keiran?
Keiran: Oh shit! Max’s got his guitar going. So, how are the lessons going man?
Max: I had one lesson. It was pretty good. I learned 6 notes on the C scale.
Keiran: Alright.
Max: It’s not a lot.
Keiran: Well what happened? How come you only did one lesson? The last time we had a podcast, it was two weeks ago.
Max: Yeah, I was supposed to have a couple more but I was peeling a potato, and a sweet potato. It turns out, it’s not that sweet, peeled my finger. I had to get a lot of stitches cause I peeled off a piece of my finger.
Keiran: Ouch, yeah!
Max: Yeah! Don’t do that. Be careful everyone.
Keiran: Okay. That might stop you from playing the guitar a bit, I guess.
Max: Well, I can do with three fingers. That’s what you are hearing now. So, (01:02)
Keiran: Oh well, cool. Well, keep going man! Are you going to incorporate that to the Yellow Door comedy shows at all or?
Max: Fuck yah, all the time.
Keiran: Nice
Max: We’re gonna always talk about my finger.
Keiran: You’re gonna be the musical comedian that everybody hates.
Max: oh, perfect! I’ll be unique finally!
Keiran: ha ha ha ha!
Max: A reason to book me.
Keiran: So Max, I’ve been having this dilemma in my life, recently, that I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve been trying to create more content for the podcast and for people out there learning English.
Max: Wow!
Keiran: Which involves filming a bunch of videos. I’m gonna reproduce like Youtube and Facebook videos. Some of them are gonna be like teaching people how to use Language. They are gonna be just more like video logs for like entertainment purposes. But I don’t have enough time, so I’m trying to hire an editor in the Philippines.
Max: Oh!
Keiran: And there’s a ton of them, and you kinda have to choose one that works for you, I guess, which is a process, learning how people work, and you gotta learn to work with them.
Max: yeah yeah yeah!
Keiran: But the problem is that they’re over there and I’m over here, and there’s kinda like the feeling of insecurity of not knowing that they are actually working.
Max: Right, but can’t you just agree on how long the contract is in terms of manhours, like, you get like 10 hours to do it.
Keiran: Well, that’s the thing, is that you don’t know how fast they work and sometimes you know, you all send them a video and he’ll edit it and he’ll do some things wrong. Then I’ll have to give him more instructions, then he’ll do it again. I mean I can’t really, I mean, I don’t know this area, so I don’t really know how long it takes.
Max: Right!
Keiran: So, there is this program called Time Doctor that they can out on their computer and basically it screen captures while they are working.
Max: Oh, SHIT! Okay!
Keiran: So, you know that they are working, which is a good solution. I mean, I can pay for it. I don’t really want to pay for it, but the video editor who I found who I really want to work with, he absolutely refuses to use it.
Max: It’s like a breach of security pretty much. That’s what you feel, it’s like. It feels like It’s an invasion of privacy. That’s probably what it feels like.
Keiran: Right and I agree with him. You know, like I totally agree with him.
Max: But at the same time, you’re paying somebody. I mean, it’s your terms, it’s your money, you know.
Keiran: Well, that’s the thing, if you work for a company, you gotta go work in your office. I mean, a lot of people, a lot of companies will put software on their computer to monitor their employees, right?
Max: No Kidding!
Keiran: Or their employees the person could check on, check up on you anytime they want to make you sure they are not in Facebook or delete it around.
Max: Right!
Keiran: And I don’t even want to do that, but, at the same time, you know, I’m not rich and I want to move forward with these projects and it’s kind of a dilemma, you know.
Max: Well, I mean, yeah, at the same time, it should be your terms, cause you are the one paying the bills. That stinks.
Keiran: Right, so what would you do? I don’t know. I mean.
Max: I would, I would ask, I would ask why, why the person doesn’t want to install it, why he or she doesn’t want to install it. Because it’s like, why not, just while you’re working. I mean who cares, right?
Keiran: Yeah, well they are just like, well, my privacy, and I don’t want it on my computer. I feel like my privacy has been invaded, and it is. Here I get it right! But here’s the thing.
Max: But it is your job.
Keiran: The program has a button that you can click off, you know. So, if you’re working and then you want to go check your email and do your online banking for a few minutes, you can just pause the program then it stops taking pictures.
Max: Yeah, but we live in an era where the NSA is collecting all of our messages, and this podcast, and everything. So, it’s like, when is that stuff really off? Who knows right?
Keiran: Right, I don’t know. Man, I don’t know.
Max: Ahhhh, it’s a crappy grey area. But at the same time, I gotta say, if I am using this computer for work, and I don’t want that to be monitored, cause it is personal, that is my fault. If it is my personal computer and I’m doing work on it for other people, I should get another computer if I am worried about my privacy. Cause, it’s like, it is gonna probably be more and more common that people work remotely and people get checked up remotely.
Keiran: Right! Yah, it’s tough. I don’t know what to do with it. I’m just gonna let it go. Anyways, before we start with the podcast, we are struggling with the audio equipment for about ten minutes, but even before that we had a brief discussion about this interesting quote you found.
Max: Yeah, I had a quote in this book called Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. You want me to go ahead and read it out?
Keiran: Well, who is Marcus Aurelius?
Max: He is a Roman Philosopher and I think he was a general as well. He is a Stoic Philosopher. S-T-O-I-C, if anybody is interested in that.
Keiran: And yeah, what is the quote? What did he say?
Max: Yeah, alright, alright, It’s a quote about, about waking up. Alright, here we go. At break of day when you are reluctant to get up, have this thought ready to mind, I am giving up for a man’s work, do I still resent it if I am going out to do what I was born for, the purpose for which I was brought into the world, or was I created to wrap myself in blankets and keep warm. The end.
Keiran: Okay. So basically what he’s saying when you’re feeling lazy and when you don’t want to get out of bed, ask yourself are you capable of, you know, living up to the challenges of your life or you’re gonna stay, stay at home and hide inside of your bed like a little baby, who doesn’t want to come out of his mother’s womb.
Max: Exactly. It’s literally was I born to be wrapped in my blankets or was I born to work hard, and earn, and be awesome?
Keiran: So what are your thoughts on that?
Max: I totally love blankets. I don’t know. I have trouble waking up. Same thing as you do. I can wake up and stay in bed for a while.
Keiran: Yeah, I am a big fan of blankets. I am a big fan of sleeping in. I do not like alarm clocks. I do not like to have anyone else.
Max: I do not like alarm clocks.
Keiran: Yeah, I do not have someone dictate my schedule and push me out of bed, you know. I want to make that choice on my own. I also don’t believe in hardwork. I mean work, if, I mean, at some point, we all have to do some job we don’t we don’t like.
Max: But you’re working. I mean, you are working pretty hard. I mean, what, you get to say you don’t like working hard, you just told me you are having trouble getting someone to edit a video. You’re working hard.
Keiran: Yeah, but this is new, you know, when I started the podcast, there was a lot of things, it was hard for me, like getting a transcript done and uploading it and editing it and now it’s simple cause I have learned how to do it. But this is the thing, I choose to do this. I want to do the podcast. I want to make these videos. Pass
Max: How do you define hard work? Explain it for me.
Keiran: Ugh, Hardwork is maybe work that I just don’t feel like I wanna do, but I have to do.
Max: That doesn’t give you a lot?
Keiran: Yeah, you don’t get, like, I’m learning. There’s that old expressions, you don’t learn, you don’t work for money, you work to learn.
Max: Yeah for sure.
Keiran: Cause when you work for money, after you spend your money, you have nothing. If I wasn’t learning in what I’m doing then I would have to, you know, just be. It is a really dark, it is a very dark way to live your life to just work for a paycheck. You have no soul essentially.
Max: Yeah, and I guess it does count as work to learn something new, like learning the guitar or to learn English. It is work, but you are working to learn. And eventually, you get new skills. I would be able to play a song eventually.
Keiran: Yeah and that’s kind of what something I remind a lot of people. Oh like they say, that’s expensive to take private language lessons, and I don’t have that kind of money. And, It is always expensive to take one on one language lessons but you’re investing in yourself.
Max: yeah
Keiran: It is different from buying a chocolate bar. When you eat the chocolate bar, it is gone. When you invest in yourself, when you learn a skill, you have that.
Max: Yeah, exactly, and it stays with you, it’s like. It’s like I can, I don’t know man. the guitar is something I always wanted to do it. Teaching myself alone is too slow. So, you know what, I’ll just sacrifice a few beers for a lesson. I’ll do that. I like that trade. The next time I have a beer I can play the guitar.
Keiran: You know, another thing that comes into my mind while we are talking about waking up early, is that we live in this life where we were never really permitted to sleep in.
Max: Yeah, Yeah!
Keiran: Starting at, you know, my daughter is 2, she went to day care at 2.
Max: Holy Shit!
Keiran: Starting at 2 you gotta wake up because daycare starts at a certain time, and then, you know, and you go through high school. And then, at highschool, maybe university gets a little easier but I think people just resent, never getting to have the chance to sleep in you know.
Max: Never get to choose what time their fucking what time their morning is gonna be at.
Keiran: Right.
Max: I was never a morning person. I missed so many morning classes after high school ended. I was just like, It’s fine. At university, I missed some math classes, I failed some tests. That was my choice, I don’t care.
Keiran: And you were happy in bed I’m pretty sure.
Max: Oh, I was warm. It was minus 40 outside, I was skipping math class. It was the best.
Keiran: Okay, what runs through your mind now, when you wake up in the morning and you have to get out of bed?
Max: Oh, it’s like dread. I’m going to the office again. Oh, I don’t want to get out. That’s what’s through.
Keiran: Yeah, I had that feeling when I worked in a call center. Even the night before. I’m just like man I just don’t want to do to sleep because you know, if I sleep, then I’m gonna wake up soon. And then when I wake up, I’m gotta go to work.
Max: I end up reading, I read a lot, I end up reading really late, until 2 or 3 in the morning, and then I’m like, ah shoot. I’m gonna be so tired at 8 tomorrow. And that’s out of not wanting to wake up and go to tomorrow.
Keiran: And that’s the thing when I started working online, and as an English tutor, I started at 10, originally, and I kinda built on it slowly, and it’s it’s… There is an aspect of it that I really like is I’m always meeting new people, or I meet maybe one person max like twice a week. It’s cool. I’m being paid to be their assistant and to help them improve. But, at the same time, there is an aspect of, this is a one to one relationship, and I’m not being treated poorly, like in 90% of the other jobs I had. Right
Max: Right, cause this is a personal relationship, managing one person for who is, for the duration a lesson, pretty much like your boss, but you’re still teaching them, you’re still the teacher. It’s pretty straightforward, right? If they need something to learn, they ask you, and you teach, you teach it. It’s like, okay. It’s not too complicated.
Keiran: Right, and it’s cool. I can crack jokes I mean and I have heart to hearts. I think that quote’s kind of, there’s a little bit of insight there, cause if you think about it, if you can’t get out of bed, or you dread it so much, then maybe, you are just not doing something you really want to do.
Max: Yes, that’s something, but not everyone has that choice. You know what I mean. You got a family, you know what I mean.
Keiran: Yeah, I mean, I mean, two years ago I had a way worse choice, I hated the job, now I don’t hate the job. There’s always , you know, where once in a while I just feel like I wish like I could take the day off.
Max: Right.
Keiran: But, it’s not the dread I used to have. It’s just the normal. Any job will get after a long enough period, will become a job right?
Max: Right, Cause it becomes a repetitive task.
Keiran: Right, but this is the best job I’ve ever had.
Max: So, you’re take away was, If you’re waking up with that kind of dread, maybe you should find something new to do.
Keiran: Maybe YOU should find something new to do man!
Max: OH I KNOW MAN! I’m, you know, I know man. That’s why I take guitar lessons, drink a beer.
Keiran: ha ha ha ha! Alright, max.
Max: You trying to have a heart to heart with me on the radio.
Keiran: Yeah it’s fun. We are gonna wrap this one up, so why don’t you play us out a little 14:20 music or something?
Max: Goodbye Keiran. We learned philosophy. These chords are easy to play. Thank you
Keiran: Alright, thanks, Max and we’ll catch in the next podcast. UNNNNCCCEEENNNNSSOOOORRREEDDDD ENGLISH.
