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So welcome to the podcast.

I Agra.

Thank you.

Hey, to kick us off, then where are you from and where do you live?

That's such a loaded question.

Where am I?

Well, I'll say I'm from New Jersey because that's where I went to school.

Um, so yes, I'm from New Jersey in the United States, obviously.

And I currently live in North Carolina.

Most catalyze so that, eh, my, my limit at American knowledge.

So the temperature is going to be up at Walmart.

The New Jersey is that, is that kid egg.

It's going to be a lot warmer than New Jersey.

I think our heat index yesterday was 103.

I didn't enjoy that.

I have to be honest with you.

I don't know.

I live in the South, but I don't like hate.

Yeah, I, cause I suppose a lot of places in the States, it's the air-con

rather than the heating system into.

Yeah.

Yes.

So Sam closed the door to, because you don't want to let there.

He N rather than he, so does that whole thing, I guess.

But nowadays we're all staying inside all the time.

Anyway, so yeah, this is true.

These are the times outside twice a day though.

Cause I had a grocery delivery, but besides that, yes, I

keep all the doors close.

So you still, you still like able, you've learned these times to go, Oh, you walk

and stuff like that or where do you add.

Huh.

I see people doing that.

I have, um, it's so funny.

I have really bad allergies, so I wouldn't have been outside anyway.

Like I would get in my car and go somewhere, but I just wouldn't be

like out walking around in the grass.

That would be problematic.

So, um, yeah, I haven't been out that often, but yeah.

Everything I have needed.

Somebody has brought it to me.

So yeah, the, um, a lot of cardboard then everyone's house

now from all the Amazon deliveries.

Yes.

Every two weeks I have to break them all down and get them out of my dining

room to get them out of my head.

I'm just planting a huge fire that will work too.

So am I like, when did you actually join the company then?

January 10th of this year.

Yeah.

So how did that all come about then?

I saw an ad probably a year ago now.

So like July or so of last year.

Um, and I'm trying to think of where I saw the ad.

One of those podcasts newsletters I was talking about earlier and, um,

Collin, I started talking in July and then we kind of lost touch and then we

reconnected around November, I guess.

And, um, Started working through how I would be able to support

his team and split my time and help, um, Mark's team as well.

And then in January I came on board.

So are you, uh, are you doing your work for captivate as well?

Is that night?

I do.

I'm here.

Part-time and they're part time.

So how long have you been working with captivate says January 6th of this year?

Yes.

Oh yes.

I started both this year.

Has that a lot of like overlaps in what you do for both companies?

Well, Um, I guess so in that I'm in a support role at both organizations,

but the work is very different.

So, uh, yes and no,

a blue light on a shorter daily or weekly basis.

Yeah, here.

Yeah.

I'm cruising through and trying to, um, Stay on top of the chat box.

So all of the support requests that come in, so that, um, varies pretty

broadly between, um, some of the more administrative stuff like, Oh,

I can't find my password doesn't work or, um, I want to upgrade my account.

That type of thing, too.

I'm working very closely with brand and the rest of the developer

team when something isn't working exactly the way we would hope.

Um, and then also I do, um, onboarding calls.

So what kind of turned that off or on, depending on volume on, uh, in

the inbox for other types of support.

But, um, I offer 15 minute calls to people who have just started to

help them get over the hump, or if someone's really having problems,

I'll do a retention call as well.

So it's pretty broad.

Yeah.

So that's like a new altitude customer.

Do you just spend a bit of time on the phone with someone

just talking about that?

Exactly.

We get fascinating insights into how people are actually using it

and, um, It's always fascinating.

So I talked with someone the other day who was brand new to podcasting, and most

of his questions weren't about altitude.

They were like, do I have to have a podcast host?

And I was like, Oh, that's kind of unusual.

I wouldn't have thought that that would be our customer base, but

there's a couple of people out there.

Who are in that box.

Um, so yeah, it's pretty fascinating.

Um, I have talked with a couple of people who have been customers longer than that.

Um, and done a couple of case studies, you know, just to figure

out how people are using it to get testimonials and that type of thing.

What say you don't lay, obviously I'll not probably be in touch with as many

and common customers as you are, but certainly like over the years, what

I've found is there's a big difference between late text-based communication.

And when you actually.

Are you able to get somebody on the phone?

Because I've had a few situations maybe in the past for some of these got in

touch and have been like, yo play, play Ray, all the boats on, and then

when you speak to them in person, it's funny how we changed the way, you know,

everything seems to come down a bit.

It doesn't that just because I think there's that empathy

actually having a conversation.

I think, um, that is so true.

You should put that on a t-shirt.

That is so true.

That is so true.

I think everybody wants to be heard and it's more difficult to tell someone, well,

I would never say this, but as an example, it's difficult to tell someone in writing.

This is your foolish mistake.

Basically, this is your fault, right?

Even if that's true, you would never say that.

But if you're on a zoom, a call with them, which is what I do, I can easily,

you know, while they're watching me in their dashboard and then they'll

say, Oh, so I was doing that wrong.

And I never say, yes, you were.

I'm just like, Oh, well how about we try it this way?

So is much easier to deliver tougher communication.

Uh, when it's one-on-one versus written, cause people, I just, I wait for the, the,

um, languishing English language, right.

Everything is like emojis or abbreviations.

I'm like, Hey, remember when we used to talk to each other

and reading entire books.

Remember that?

So,

yes.

So what a, well, I love job sort of curious, have you

had throughout your life?

Wow.

Um, Wow.

Okay.

So, um, prior to working in a technical school support,

I worked in communications.

So, um, marketing communications, public relations, media relations

for different companies.

So a couple of health organizations, a big consumer products company here

in the States and a technical company.

So, um, I was a communicator before I moved to the kind of support

and training and development side.

And so how long have you sort of been in this lane or what then,

like this podcast specific stuff for that, that all started in January?

Or did you sort of have another couple of years before then?

So I was providing technical support for a couple of different software companies

for 10 years leading up to coming here.

And I have been a podcaster for eight or nine years, but this is the first time

that I'm providing podcasts specific.

Support what age?

What's your podcast or podcasts?

What do you, what do you put a podcast about?

Um, one is about being more confident.

So it's called your confidence self.

And I have another one that I haven't pushed the button on because I

keep going back and forth, whether it's going to stay private or be

public, but two other girlfriends.

And I, um, provide what we call black commentary on star Trek, series, star

Trek, discovery, and star Trek Picard.

Good, good.

Because we just felt like we had to, there were things that were not

being said, so we say them, hi Matt.

I've always entrusted with like the.

TV podcast side of things.

Would you, would you do that at a court?

No.

Like, would you watch an episode and then would you immediately

all get together after that?

Or would you try and recall the end between watch that?

Or how would that work?

Well, so far since, um, the two seasons of discovery and the first

season of Picard were already done before I discovered them.

So we schedule a time and we all rewatch it and then we talk about it.

And then we schedule a time to rewatch episode two, right?

So we're going through recording our thoughts immediately after

rewatching it, because we have all watched the entire series.

And is it just a, you know, here's what they should have done different

and maybe a bit of a, a humorous take on certain things, just that like

you'd run through of it that way.

Um, I don't know if we tell them what they should have done differently,

but we have lots of opinions about what it is that they did.

Um, so no, I don't, we go into what they should have done differently, but we

are, um, quite adept at finding little things that we think other people didn't

notice that we notice from episode to episode to see if there's a through-line

or, um, I love finding hints from like episode one that didn't actually come

to fruition until like episode 12.

Yeah.

That's a really good time.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Yeah.

Um, I'm bad for that watching TV with my wife, because like, I'm not gonna

see 'em late a proper radio lab.

I've done a wee bit of affection rating.

So late.

We'll be watching TV and some there'll be some we sang and I'm

like, that's a checkoff gone.

That's going to come back.

That's when he pay off.

I think it's just really annoying to be honest.

So if you got any family members or pet, you should like to tell us about.

Wow, no pets.

Absolutely no pets thought person in a row with a pet, really both allergies.

I'd talked about.

If someone looks at me with a cat, it's a really bad day.

I tease my sister all the time.

I have a sister who lives in Arizona and she got two cats this year.

And I told her that she was afraid I might move there.

This is pre pandemic.

I told her she, she lived with me.

Up until three years ago.

And I told her she was afraid I was going to move out there and live

with her because she bought two cats, which I'm very allergic to.

So yes, no pets.

I think you can get, I am, I'm not saying do this, but I think you can get liquor.

It's a labradoodle or, or one of that.

Take the dogs out.

It's like a hypo allergenic, I think.

And you can get one, then it will not finally give allergies, but no obligation.

You are so generous.

I won't be doing that.

So thank you.

Go ahead then and get yourself adult now.

No, I have a virtual fish.

Does that count?

Good.

Yeah, no, it's um, I used to test casual computer games for a company

called last day of work and they have a game called fish tycoon.

So I have fish in there.

Yes, you don't have to keep them alive and, you know, earn money

to upgrade the water and the feed.

Yeah.

So let's see, I have a virtual pet, but yeah, no real life pets.

I'll give you a pass or not.

It was just good to see.

I think Lindsey had enough for all of us.

Anyway.

She's got like 40 cars and $7.

Oh my goodness.

I'm tired.

Just thinking about that.

And what, what sort of things do you like to do outside the photic team?

I'm such a nerd.

I am not sure how much, how honest I should be right here.

But, um, what I think is really fun is like breaking a WordPress

site and then fixing it.

I'm kind of a nerd ball.

Um, so I love playing with WordPress sites, um, and building sites for

all my friends, for their businesses.

Um, what else do I do?

I love to read, I.

I'm convinced that there's a series of books in me where I'm a former concert

pianist is sounding crime solving crimes that all have musical names.

I'm not reading or playing with websites.

What am I doing?

Oh, I'm coaching.

So I'm also certified life coach.

So I also find that fun in my spare time, helping people break down barriers in

their life into little bite sized chunks.

Good stuff.

Um, the favorite question are the episodes for me, the, um, tell us a joke question.

Oh, mercy.

You want me to tell you a joke?

Wow.

Um, Oh man.

Really?

I okay.

Is that the last question?

Cause we have to come back to that.

I can not think of a joke.

Um Hmm.

Well, we've got one more thing to cover.

And if you think before the end.

Yeah.

All right.

Ah, man, it's your favorite question?

And I'm letting you down on that one, but I can't think of funny things from

TV shows, but I can't think of a joke.

Well, if you, as ans natal, you want to share it or promote with us,

uh, your podcast and where we might find out or anything else like that.

Okay.

So my sassy comment is my podcast can be fine wherever you listen to podcasts.

I tell people to say that all day long in the chat box, I'm like,

what do I have to tell them?

Exactly which platforms know, tell them that your podcasts can be found

wherever they are already listening.

Um, Do I have anything I want to promote?

No, not particularly.

Um, it's just, first of all, I'm just delighted that you're doing this.

Cause I think it's fun to get like snapshots into the people you work with.

So I appreciate that.

And I also appreciate everybody's willingness to just

go across time zones, right?

Cause I'm so American centric, right?

As you discovered by my dismal performance in the pub quizzes, pretty much

nothing outside of the United States.

So, um, that is a thing that I'll share that I really

appreciate how time zone diverse.

Everyone tries to be and accommodate each others in different places in the world.

I have worked remote for, I don't know, 12 years and everybody

doesn't do it as well as we do.

Yeah.

It's good to hear.

And, and yeah, I suppose, yeah.

When you look at the, I mean, I'm staring at the map of the bottle.

No, one's squad cast.

We do have a, we do a Fox pretty much.

Um, From the right of the screen to the left of the screen, I realized how

much this is very off topic, but at the top of America, it looks a little

bit like a squat or eaten or not.

Yeah.

Um, no, I see something that looks like a dog trying to bite the neck of a seal.

I suppose.

Yeah, very top see, like on the right, in that middle section,

if you look at that little thing, that's like jutting out to the left.

Doesn't that look like it could be like a dog or a Wolf mouth.

It does actually I know on the left that looks like some sort of seal or something.

That's neck is exposed.

I'm also seeing a rabbit came to cuddle in a tree branch and the trees got lit.

I see that like right at the tip of Canada, I see that, which we

could, we could make a podcast.

I see that as well.

It's kind of fascinating.

So you don't have I'll let you let you off for that.

Not late the collarbone speeding.

Fantastic.

So, so you're telling me that the bar is set really low, but I

couldn't even think about, yeah.

I just couldn't think, not feeling like I'm not funny or I'm not entertaining.

Cause I can't think of a single joke.

When we launch her, what does the things on the map podcast

look like at that night?

Yes, I will step up my game for that.

I really appreciate you chatting with us AE and enjoy the rest of your day.

You as well.