It's a nice way of companies saying people are leaving. Why? We can't do anything about this. Oh, well, we've got high attrition rates. Oh, poor us. You know, we. Unfortunately, we can't keep people because it's just the current climate. Everyone's leaving. Hello, and welcome to the Pibytes podcast, where we talk about Python career and mindset. We're your hosts. I'm Julian Sequeira. And I am Bob Valdebos. If you're looking to improve your python, your career, and learn the mindset for success, this is the podcast for you. Let's get started. Welcome back to another Pibytes podcast. This is Julian, and I'm here with Bob. How's it going, man? Hey, man. Doing well. Episode 61. Can you believe that we have recorded 60 episodes? Wow. I don't believe it. That's amazing. How's your week going? It's good. It's good. I won't complain. Things are pretty crazy up here in Sydney at the moment with the floods and this wet weather, and it's just been incredible, really. Haven't seen anything like it. But we're all safe, we're all happy, so we can't complain. What about you? Yeah, going well. Working on some interesting things. Um, which leads. Maybe leads us into the wins. So, before I go, well, do you have a win this week? Yeah. Yeah. So it's. It's a bit of a win for pie bytes that I have. We have those newbie bites. Well, obviously, you know about them, but for everyone listening, we have those newbie bytes on the platform, and one of the amazing wins is that one of the teachers from one of the schools that is currently using the platform started recording videos on walking you through those newbie bites, explaining them and. And the concepts. So it's like, a additional content. It's. It's really cool and something that I'm just super proud of and so happy to see. So, uh, to Russell, you know, a huge thank you for doing that. Those are super high quality, and they just. They make me happy. I'm really, really touched that these are being done. So there's my winner. Yeah. Big shout out to Russell for doing those. We're at 15 now on our YouTube. We have a dedicated playlist and ten more to come, but these are really well explained, and, yeah, they're a great addition to the original exercises. That's cool. That's cool. I love it. 15 already. It's. Wow. What about you? What's your win? Yeah, cranking them out really awesome. While we're on the platform, my win is starting a fast API SQL model learning path on the platform. So I did a little bit of research asking on Twitter and LinkedIn if people would be interested in that, and the response was quite overwhelming. So now I got to do it. No better accountability. Right? Money remapped this, buddy. Yeah. But if you think about it, we've been using this stack for quite a while ourselves and with our clients, and we can make this happen on the platform, and then we will have deliberate practice around learning that. So I'm really excited about that. So that should be definitely materialized in the coming weeks. Yeah, definitely. Can't wait to see it, man. Very awesome. Thank you for doing those. I appreciate it. Yeah, no, those are fun. And I think it's a very valuable skill now to learn. So, all right, onto the topic. What do you have for us today? All right, so this one's me, and that's because the past few weeks, you know, you've had a few amazing guests. So given it's back to the two of us, the OG Piebites podcast crew, I thought I'd take us to a bit of mindset, or rather bit of career. And I knew it. I knew it. You would come back. This is the Julian show. Double dose of all yours, man. I go on mute right now. Yeah, be quiet. No. So one of the things I've seen around the place, I've heard so many people mention it, I've seen on the Internet. It's just this concept of the great resignation, and I'm sure so many people have been burnt out hearing the term and probably groaning as they hear it, but it's something I wanted to just mention quickly. So this is, again, going to be a quick soapbox moment for me. But it's, my frustration with this term is it sort of takes the ownership of people staying at a company away from the companies. So the term, this phrase, the great resignation, you know, came from, I can't even remember now, but a professor in the US somewhere, whatever, so you can, you can figure it out, google it. But the point is, is that it's talking about the fact that with the pandemic, everyone has taken stock of their lives and realized there's more to their lives than just working nine to five in an office and is resigning in waves that they're now choosing to do other things that allow them to have better work life balance, that allow them to focus on their passions, allow them to spend more time with their families, to, you name it, whatever it is, right? There's this whole thing that people are resigning in waves and masses to go and pursue this other happiness part of life. Because when the pandemic was on, we were forced to work from home or, you know, unfortunately for many of, many people out there lost their jobs. Many people were forced to, you know, in that situation, be around their family. Twenty four seven and new relationships were formed and all sorts of things happened, right? But the, what it comes down to is so many people just wanted this balance. They didn't feel the need to be stuck in a physical office or on site or wherever it might be that they're just trapped to every day when they go to work now. And I apologize, I'm talking here and Bob's staying silent. It's actually quite, quite nice. You can take the next one as well, bro. Yeah, well, so, so far, what's wrong with that balance? That sounds good to me. So what's the. That's good, that's good. What my frustration with all of this is that you'll see if you google it and look around this whole thing that companies are now looking at saying the great resignation, you know, we have to deal with that. We have to deal with that. One of my challenges to this is, from a perspective standpoint, is that it's not about people leaving, it's about companies not creating environments that people would stay in, right? So if you feel you have zero choice, balance, ability to achieve balance in your job, that's not your fault, right? Whereas this whole great resignation thing really feels like it's saying, oh, people are choosing to leave and companies, oh, the poor companies are left without staff. All the poor companies are falling apart. Right? And the reality is it's the company's policies, it's their. And, you know, obviously over the past year, many companies have started to realize this and provide balanced options and work from home, work from anywhere, policies and stuff. But there are still countless companies out there that are still requiring people to go sit in the office every day. They force you to come back, they force you to work at the office. Nine to five, they're forcing you to go hybrid, where they get to choose which days you're at home and which days you're at the office. And it's not enough. Right? And there is almost no reason that many of these companies can't just say, you know, do whatever you want as long as the work gets done. And I know that's a very simplistic and hand wavy comment to make, but it's a great place to start. You know, build from there and work backwards. You know, there's no reason to say, let's start with the nine to five and see what we can chip away. No, start from the flexibility, the flexible part. Let's start from where people have choice in how they run their days. Because if anything this past year has proven to everyone is that you can control your day. If you are lucky enough to have a job that allows you to work remote, of course, you know, I have plenty of friends who, you know, tied to data centers and stuff, so you have to physically be there. I get it. But for the rest of the people out there who have these jobs where you can be at home, for the most part, they should be able to choose. There is no reason that they need to be in an office. And this great resignation thing, to me, and this is, again, why it's grinding my gears, is just that it's a nice way of companies saying, people are leaving. Why we can't do anything about this. Oh, well, we've got high attrition rates. Oh, poor us. Unfortunately, we can't keep people because it's just the current climate. Everyone's leaving. It's got nothing to do with us. We can't control that. And, you know, to get a bit fired up, I'm calling b's on that, because what it comes down to is that if you had an, you know, a nice, engaging, flexible environment where managers were willing to let their staff do that, where they're not even the managers, right? If the policy from the top down enforce that sort of an environment, then people would be saying, well, why would I leave? This is great. My company's fantastic. I'm happy to work here because they respect my time, they respect that. I want to switch off at 230 in the afternoon to go get my kids from school, and once they're done and dinner's sorted, then I'll switch back on, you know, and some might argue, oh, well, that's not a great balance because, you know, you're working after hours, but the reality is you've got that balance when you do that as opposed to being strapped to a desk, right. You have those three to 4 hours with the family. So it is a nice balance that people can achieve. It is something that is possible for these companies to offer. And, you know, there are people out there who want to work from an office, and that's fine, of course, but the second you start forcing people to do it is the second you're going to lose people, and then you're going to fall into that trap of saying it's the great resignation and it's just rubbish. So what I wanted to. I guess the point of all of this, of this tirade that I'm on, Bob, is. And for anyone listening, for all of you listening, I guess the point is, be picky. Demand better. Demand more. Ask for more. You know the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? So if you don't ask and tell them that this is what you want, this is what you need, this is what works for you and allows you to be more productive, you'll just end up leaving. And so will your teammates and companies will then again say the great resignation. Are you stuck in endless commutes? Have you ever dreamed about being able to work anywhere, control your schedule, give back to society, become an open source contributor? Or become a successful developer, doubling your salary? Well, it's time to look at the PDM program, and it's time to actually build something that's going to help you get the future that you're looking for. The people that we've worked with in the PDM program have achieved some incredible things, including starting their own SaaS business with their own application. Imagine that. That could be you building your own application, selling it, making your own income. We've had people more than double their salary. I'm not making that up. I'll say it again, double their salary. After completing our program and applying for developer jobs. These are the sorts of things that you can actually achieve through ten weeks of dedicated life coaching in the PDM program. So here's the challenge. If you are actually serious about taking your future into your own hands and not letting someone else control that for you, click the link below and get on a call with myself or Bob. That's right. We want to talk with you about your goals and how you can use Python to leverage your career. So book a call below and we cannot wait to talk with you soon. But at the end of the day, it's got nothing to do with people leaving because they're just flippant. It's got everything to do with companies not creating a solid culture that allows people to stay when things get a bit out of the ordinary like they are right now. And this is on the context of more like it jobs, right, where there's no difference doing the work in situ versus from home, right? Yeah, yeah, of course. And like I said, there are definitely outliers and there are plenty of roles out there. I imagine many people listening still don't have the luxury of working from home. Right. And that's perfectly fine. That's exactly how the world works. And there are people that are going to be strapped to things like hospitals and police stations and grocery stores and all that stuff. I'm not talking about those sorts of situations, talking about the corporate roles where you traditionally see people sitting at a desk from nine to five, going to have coffee in the lunchroom, those sorts of things. So basically what you're saying is, like after COVID or at the till end, I hope we have seen that there's another way of working and some companies are not just moving along with that new trend sufficiently. Right? Yeah, yeah. The ones that don't embrace it are the ones crying poor about this great resignation thing. It's all about being innovative and moving along with how the way of working or how the world is changing. Right? Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. This is one of those pivotal moments, right? It's just like when tech really started taking off and the companies that insisted on, and this is a very generalized comment, but companies that insisted on staying with pen and paper versus adopting digital trends fell behind. And same thing. I reckon the companies that don't embrace this, that don't allow their employees to choose and have that flexibility are going to really get hit pretty hard. You heard it here first. The predictions. Always hear it here first. No, that, and I like how your message is geared towards both the companies and also the employees. Right. Because as you always say, if you're interviewing the company is not only interviewing you, you're also interviewing the company. Right. And that's true. As she said, you can be picky, you can be choosy. The norm should be that there's more remote work these days. Right, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Right. But, yeah, look at that on that interview topic, actually, that's a good one. We should save that for another week because we could actually. That's what we should do. We should ramble off or rattle off, I should say, some interviewing tips. Would you reckon? Yeah, that's. That will be a juicy one. Dedicated one, for sure. Yeah, yeah. We can do that a couple of weeks. So a lot of people are actually requesting that as well, so that would be nice. Yeah, exactly. That's. That's why we have the tips ready to go. We get it from everyone who listens and works with us. I love it. So, yeah, that's pretty much it. I know it's probably a bit repetitive that I've. Half of the things I said, but it's just something that's been bothering me, and I wanted to get it out there from a, you know, demand better from the people that you work, work with and work for, you know, don't, don't accept it and feel you have to resign. Ask for more. There's no reason, in my opinion. So that's awesome. Cool. Yeah. Thanks for sharing. I was not really aware of this discussion, so thanks for bringing it on. Lastly, shall we share some reading, some good old books and study we're doing? Do you want to go first? Definitely. No, you go first. My throat's sore now. No, I'm kidding. You get some water. So I just finished reading, writing solid code. Steve McGuire. That was a good book. So it was pretty heavy on c and pointers and stuff, the code examples. But I read it more for the philosophy, and there were really some good insights, how to write more solid code. For example, one thing that really stood out, it was funny because last week on the code cleaning, I gave three practical examples how I used a debugger. And it was not actually to only debug or fix bugs, but it also was to write code and to write more effective code or actually catch bugs as you write code. And that exact same thing I saw confirmed in the book. A debugger is actually an extremely useful tool to step through your code as you're producing it, to make sure that it does what it does. And as was telling today to somebody, I don't read that many syntactical books anymore, but more like the philosophical ones, where you get ideas, and this was one of them. Oh, man, that's great. That's really, really great. You're talking PDB, right? Yeah, I use PDB. Of course you have PDB. Or IPDB, but usually the built in standard library PDB covers my needs. Yeah. Cool. Nice one. And you finished that or you're still reading it? No, I finished that one. Yeah, definitely. Good read. Yeah. Excellent. I love it. What about you? Okay, so my turn. So I'm not reading. I'm listening. So I started a book a while back called Search Inside yourself by. What was it? Who was it? Chade Meng tan, I think. Mm hmm. Yeah. So it's the Google mindfulness book, right? And I remember I was reading it, and I found it very difficult to read, as I do with some of these books, mainly because I was reading at night, and it's about meditation, mindfulness, and I kind of fall asleep. So not a. Not a great way to finish a book. So. So I'm currently listening to it instead. And I mean, just seeing it, hearing it through different eyes and ears now, and it's just great. I'm really getting a lot out of it. I haven't finished it yet. I'm about halfway through at the moment, and I'm just. It's shown me some really cool techniques for mindfulness in my day to day, and it's also taught me some of the mindfulness stuff that you and I do with. With each other without even realizing it, which is really cool. So, um, some great reflections from it. Um, I definitely recommend it for anyone. Um, I find these days it can be quite stressful with everything happening in the world. And, uh, uh, for me, this has been perfect timing that I've picked it back up, uh, because it's been quite relaxing to just, you know, switch off and just focus on my breathing and things like that, you know, find joy and. And enjoyment in things that otherwise. Otherwise would just take for granted. So. Yeah, yeah, you're getting me on to that. Seems like an important book, especially these days. Um, so, yeah, thanks for sharing that. I was reading the forward by Daniel Goldman, emotional intelligence guy, so probably should read. That's now two recommendations, right? And Blaze, one of our community blaze gets a mention in that as well, so that was. All right, well, that's it. Well, thank you, everyone, for listening. We appreciate it. I appreciate you putting up with me. This episode. Just waffling on, getting on my soapbox, as I sometimes do, we could get away with it. Last week was an interview, and the week before was all coding tips, so we had some room for mine. It's Julian's turn. It's Julian's turn to talk. How long have you been away? For, like, three episodes. Three episodes, man. Welcome back. This is what I get from moving houses and in laws, being here and stuff. Yeah, it's just been intense. Nice to be back recording from my living room instead of an office. Anyway. All right, well, thank you, everyone, again for listening. We'll be back next week. You all take care. And Bob, as always, thank you for sharing the mic with me. Yeah, thanks for listening. And as always, reach out to us through the platforms if you have any feedback or things you want us to talk about, developer mindset and Python related. And we're back next week. We hope you enjoyed this episode. To hear more from us, go to Pibyte friends, that is Pybit Evan, and receive a free gift just for being a friend of the show and to join our thriving slack community of Python programmers. Go to Pibytes community. That's Pibit es forward slash community. We hope to see you there and catch you in the next episode.