The Happy Jōb Records

Time stretches and distorts across the astral plane as one grows and matures. Perception morphs from baby days to adulthood, as awareness of time is taught and learned, then weaponized. Fight back against…something?...by accepting that some of the time you’ll be doing nothing. Teasing at tips and tricks for time management.

0m 17s Nuggets and catch phrases.

3m 29s Riding in cars with curious children. Who would win a fight between a hyena and an anaconda?

5m 15s Time management techniques for the young of mind. Dating for the attractiveness-challenged. Running from dread.

14m 27s “Do you feel like you're getting compensated handsomely for eating a crap sandwich every day?”

20m 6s Shortcutting the corporate ladder by accident, good fortune, and dumb luck.

Terry can’t stop thinking about “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and Russ can’t stop thinking about whether to take the song literally, figuratively, or both. Come with us on a journey deep into the psyche, where we unlock hangover fantasies and fried chicken nostalgia. Also, helicopters.

0m 45s Written by Kris Kristofferson, popularized by Johnny Cash. How Kris convinced John.

1m 31s There’s something in a Sunday. And one of those things is Terry’s nostalgia.

4m 45s What is God? Could be an omnipotent being, or could be a convenient one-syllable space filler in this song.

6m 43s Hyperbole and literalism are in a battle to the death with these lyrics, or maybe that’s just all in Russ’s head.

11m 5s When one is raised on country music, one does not “discover” Johnny Cash. He was just always there. Also, discovering Johnny Cash prison albums on beat up loaner vinyl.

15m 25s Did Kurt Cobain narrowly avoid putting out a Christmas record? And other dark comedy.

17m 39s “Some of Johnny Cash’s Christmas songs are good”

18m 15s Middle school recommendations from guitar kids who didn’t have an older sibling but seemed like they should have an older sibling.

20m 42s Detailed takes on several popular alt-rock albums of 1995. Deep-diving grunge from 30+ years ago may be detrimental to your opinion of novelty and innovation in current music.

30m 14s Edward Vedder, CEO, Pearl Jam.

32m 7s What is Russ’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” equivalent song?

Surgeon Tim Dawson returns to deeply ponder surgery and its place in public health in response to difficult questions from Terry. An existential collapse is avoided, but only barely. The gang uncover the universal desire to do something that works. Terry can’t stop thinking about how America has turned into Thiccmerica while Dr. Dawson declines to surgically remove twenty pounds of Russ’s middle aged gains.

1m 57s Difficult topics for difficult people. Being earnestly inauthentic. Re-recording the show intro.

3m 7s Ep-pee-dee-mee-ology and other lesser know -ologies. It’s all Greek to me!

4m 37s Terry wants to know how to manage modern noncommunicable diseases that all have complex, interwoven causes. Realizing that dirty truth partly through med school.

10m 11s High blood pressure (hypertension) itself is not acutely dangerous on its own. Because that would be too simple. Contrast that with the simple satisfaction of cutting stuff out of people’s bodies.

14m 5s Talking through the mental flowchart of when it’s time to chop stuff out of people’s bodies. “When did medicine become a carwash for you?” -Terry Miller

17m 14s Wondering out loud about a kinder, gentler emotional and mental load for doctors and healthcare professionals.

20m 34s Underthinking obesity.

23m 30s Strategizing on how to (hypothetically) reverse Russ’s middle aged weight gain. Disagreements over what constitutes “sacrifices.”

Applied researcher, statistician, and friend-of-Terry John Lipinski joins to talk about job prospects for psychology PhDs, numbers and figures, modern (and old-fashioned) brain science, Iron Maiden, iron rods through the skull, and much more.

2m 45s Terry finds his friends on Upwork.

6m 26s Psychology as a fuzzy discipline. “People are messy. Societies are messy.”

8m 15s Pressure, incentives, and results in the ivory towers of soft science.

14m 17s Anyone can be a labor economist as long as they have a mouth and an opinion.

20m 24s Why graduate school stops people from having babies.

24m 15s Shortcomings with measuring intelligence. New, interdisciplinary insights into systems approaches.

33m 10s Phineas Gage is a great test of whether you read a Psych 101 textbook. Logic and emotion going hand-in-hand. What’s the appendix of the brain?

38m 40s Should linear metrics be banned from social science studies? No.

Air travel. Faster than driving, but you’re confined to a metal tube tens of thousands of feet above the earth. Terry explains what he does on planes and Russ shares the one trick to turn a plane ride into a time travel machine.

0m 37s Identifying the worst plane and deeply observing airline operations.

5m 58s Drowning out the rabble is worth increasing your odds of being pickpocketed.

7m 4s You haven’t truly lived until you’ve crossed an ocean overnight listening to the lavatory door slam over and over. Bold assertions about back-of-plane sitters.

9m 30s Terry’s baggage.

14m 28s “I’m complaining about it nearly 20 years later and I was neither the parent nor the baby.”

19m 5s When the wing falls off while you’re on a plane (but the plane is on the ground).

20m 9s Flyin’ Bryan

21m 32s Secrets to fueling the body for a happy commercial passenger trip.

Sometimes when you know something, it’s okay not to share it. Other times, it’s not much use to know it and not share it. Still other times, everything we know is an abstraction in which we place blind faith and confidence until an inevitable shattering of our tenuous reality. Also, germs vs. feral pigs.

0m 30s Clarifying whether or not Terry actually knows anything.

2m 34s Publishing results doesn’t make you a know-it-all. Sharing what you know without showing off may be a constant tension.

4m 21s When your motto is “Say less” but you go on the internet so everyone can hear you talk.

8m 17s Serious investigations are still getting done online. Such as, why are there chicken bones on the sidewalks?

13m 3s When Russ thinks about going toe to toe in a battle to survive against dangerous creatures, he pictures crocodiles and feral hogs. Terry pictures bacteria and viruses.

20m 23s Worrying that everything we know will change in the future in 300 years when we are all long dead.

Terry takes the day off to deep clean his passwords while Larry Grate returns to coach Russ through his ongoing cybersecurity existential crisis. Robots, robot safety, and password managers are addressed (inadequately). Attempts are made to put good cyber hygiene practices into plain language.

0m 45s How cybersecurity is like safety.

3m 10s Waking up in the middle of the night realizing your robot might be set to “kill.”

4m 17s Waiting for a painful cyber reckoning to change corporate culture.

8m 49s At a minimum, it’s important to bring up cybersecurity regularly instead of burying it.

9m 35s Password hygiene is like changing your underpants. Consider it at least daily.

14m 15s Specialized skills turning into everyday skills over time.

17m 12s Putting password managers into story mode.

20m 31s What happens when you are, in fact, responsible for cybersecurity and bad things happen anyway.

Against his better judgment, Terry agrees to rank various jobs people do. They guys invent a ranking system, then test it out on a handful of different occupations. Judgment is passed, aggressively, mostly on finance bros and streamers. Upon further reflection, no apologies are made but perhaps strongly-held opinions begin to temper.

0m 50s Nothing worse than having to learn as an adult.

1m 45s Binge watching standup is more respectable than binge watching Netflix.

7m 3s Introducing Terry’s Arbitrary Hierarchy of Vocational Respect or TAHVR for short.

8m 30s Why strippers outrank financial professionals and other strained rationalizations.

11m 15s Handing out ranks on the TAHVR scale to: cat groomers, sommeliers, video game programmers, classical guitarists, electric guitarists, session musicians, and field laborers.

25m 20s A podcaster ranks streamers: “I don’t even know what a streamer does.”

30m 21s Quiet self-reflection on making judgements based on peoples’ occupations.

In the name of polite conflict, Pat McGuire (Attorney at Law, video game enthusiast) returns at Russ’s request to try and show Terry that gamers are people too. Learn useless trivia about iconic characters like Mario and Donkey Kong and Mr. Wonder. Are video games art? Are they pop-art? Does that even matter? There are only two types of people in this world: Those who know what a Nintendo Switch game tastes like, and those who don’t.

0m 38s Building credibility as an expert by way of basic video game trivia.

3m 50s A brief history of the invention of Mario.

9m 31s Describing virtual reality in vivid, wildly inaccurate detail.

10m 29s Reasons to play games.

12m 19s One could conservatively estimate it has been several million minutes since Terry touched a video game. For Russ, it’s 60 minutes. For Pat it’s 30 and also it was in his mouth.

18m 36s Referential clothing to perpetually pop quiz strangers.

24m 43s The modern history of video games is arguably following the same arc as the music industry and it’s fascinating to watch and live through.

32m 32s Has Terry’s skepticism on gaming lifted or will he remain a hard-hearted critic?

This is a fun one! Russ probes Terry about his leisure pursuits and lack thereof. Amusement Parks get thrown under the bus. The coast of Spain comes out on top. Cheering for yourself. Jumping over park benches. Being jaded with playing live shows, or at least with loading gear in and out.

2m 9s Band practice is for children. Adults go to band rehearsal.

7m 40s “Lobsters used to be peasant food and now they’re a delicacy.” -Terry Miller

10m 15s Life is a seven day weekend if you are always working. When working out is leisure, you’ll never be a fat lazy slob.

14m 40s Kids consider pizza parties fun, but at some point that gets beaten out of a lot of adults.

17m 50s Quietly introspective touchdown celebrations for yourself.

21m 47s The slow burn of new experiences yields satisfaction, being fulfilled, and contentedness. The kind that a million pizza parties could never bring.