RobbieTheWagner 
Charles William Carpenter III 
Adam Argyle [00:00:00]
[00:00:00] Chuck: Welcome to another edition of Whiskey Web and whatnot. With your hosts, Robert William Wagner and Charles William Carpenter the third. You’re welcome, Robbie.
[00:00:13] Robbie: Indeed. Sorry, Chuck was saying funny things, trying to get me to laugh as we came into that episode and it worked. Um, this is advent of whiskey number eight, so it is probably December something right now. And you were listening to this, uh, Let’s just jump right in cause we always have a ton of whiskeys to do.
[00:00:33] Chuck: Yep.
[00:00:34] Robbie: 17 Ireland
[00:00:36] Chuck: product of Ireland. Aye, proper Ireland Whiskey. Let’s see what we got here. Um, number 17 looks like it’s called the Writer’s Tears. I’m crying now usually most nights this season. Uh, , it’s an Irish whiskey by Walsh Whiskey. Not telling us
[00:00:59] Robbie: gonna have to [00:01:00] stop.
[00:01:01] Chuck: Okay. Sorry. There’s no age statement here. It’s blended Irish whiskey and bourbon barrels, um, only in 80 proof.
[00:01:10] Chuck: I think we complained about that somewhat recently. Given the amount of whiskey that we’ve had in recent days, I would say that we are thankful for the lack of proof in this one.
[00:01:22] Robbie: Yes. Um, I’m. Can say that an A whiskey advent calendar seems like a great idea until you have to drink all of the whiskeys because it is time boxed, especially when you’re doing as many episodes as we are and drinking them all in a short amount of time, it is just not as fun. It’s like a chore and it gets you drunk.
[00:01:46] Robbie: So
[00:01:47] Chuck: Turns out so, uh, I think I want to amend the name of this particular whiskey. It’s called Writer’s Tears, and in this case it’s called the Code Writer’s Tears.
[00:01:59] Robbie: Hmm.[00:02:00]
[00:02:00] Chuck: Hmm. I get a little orange.
[00:02:04] Robbie: Yeah, there’s a lot of something fruity.
[00:02:06] Chuck: Yeah.
[00:02:10] Robbie: I’m gonna say orange creme.
[00:02:15] Chuck: Yes. I was actually thinking something. A little vanilla, E crank. Creamy, sugary. Yeah, I’m definitely getting that. That makes sense.
[00:02:25] Robbie: makes me want some of that.
[00:02:26] Chuck: Yeah. Is that a thing? Have you ever had an orange creme?
[00:02:30] Robbie: Yeah. Had it in Italy actually
[00:02:33] Chuck: good. Are you,
[00:02:34] Robbie: i Santo Beto.
[00:02:36] Chuck: you made that up.
[00:02:37] Robbie: No, that’s a real place. It’s in Florence. I Santo Beto.
[00:02:44] Chuck: Okay. I’ve been to ze, so I know. Um, but I, yeah, not heard of that. Uh, all my kids say, and they’ve been saying for months now from when we were there last year or earlier this year, is, uh, [00:03:00] VO un carmel. I want a candy.
[00:03:05] Robbie: Yeah.
[00:03:06] Chuck: That’s all he need to know.
[00:03:08] Robbie: Yep.
[00:03:09] Chuck: Hmm.
[00:03:10] Robbie: is nice that all the things you would want to order are like the same words. That they just are as the foods, cuz they all came from Italy.
[00:03:20] Chuck: Hmm. Okay. So taste wise, I still get a little of that orange, very light, little vanilla. So that’s probably more around the, uh, creme thing. But I’m not really getting the burnt or like, crusted sugar aspect of it, more vanilla, and then on the finish. Hmm. What do you think?
[00:03:46] Robbie: To me, hold on one more sip To me it is very refreshing. It’s like a
[00:03:57] Chuck: Hmm?
[00:03:58] Robbie: orange, [00:04:00] rosemary, uh,
[00:04:01] Chuck: Rosemary. There you go. I was
[00:04:04] Robbie: it’s very
[00:04:04] Chuck: little herb.
[00:04:05] Robbie: Um,
[00:04:06] Chuck: Yeah.
[00:04:07] Robbie: I like it a lot. It’s not what I was expecting from an Irish whiskey.
[00:04:11] Chuck: Yeah, it’s refreshing, but it actually lingers. Actually, that’s the other side of it. At 80 proof, which has been my complaint for many of these, which just dissipate very quickly. This one hangs around, which I like. So that is fun and interesting.
[00:04:28] Chuck: Um, what was this one called? You know, writer’s tier, coders tier Make sense.
[00:04:36] Robbie: React. Writers tears.
[00:04:37] Chuck: writer tears. React is the future, but also the past, depending upon if you have a DeLorean or not. Um, yeah, this is interesting. So, so Robbie, what do you think your rate is at?
[00:04:52] Robbie: um, I’m was gonna try to do an accent, but I don’t, I can’t do Irish very well.
[00:04:57] Chuck: I mean, who’s to say that I can do a proper Irish [00:05:00] accent? I feel like I sound more like a lecha than I do an actual Irish person. Yeah.
[00:05:05] Robbie: Yeah.
[00:05:06] Chuck: Someone
[00:05:07] Robbie: is actually Irish
[00:05:08] Chuck: Yeah, they’re always after me. Lucky Charms. Sorry,
[00:05:13] Robbie: but anyway, I would give it a 7.18.
[00:05:19] Chuck: Mm. Yes.
[00:05:20] Robbie: pretty good.
[00:05:23] Chuck: I feel like the Irish whiskey that I would a hundred percent reach for and say is delicious and constantly delivering is the Jameson.
[00:05:34] Robbie: I.
[00:05:34] Chuck: That one has always impressed me and so I’m trying to,
[00:05:38] Robbie: with that?
[00:05:39] Chuck: I feel like I agree with you in that this doesn’t replace that for me, but it’s a pretty good, probably much lower price alternative, and so I would give it a solid seven.
[00:05:50] Chuck: I don’t know about these like whole, are we on like, uh, what was that, like star search or whatever, where they be like three and a quarter stars. Like what is that? Is it three? Is it four?[00:06:00]
[00:06:00] Robbie: We’ll say seven then I just, I’m just indicating that like, I feel very good about it. It’s not an eight. Um, yeah, so we’ll say seven.
[00:06:09] Chuck: whatever. I’ll go seven and a half. I’ll just refute everything I just said. Seven and a half. It’s pretty tasty. Would recommend. Thank you.
[00:06:19] Robbie: just took us 17 whiskeys in to get one that we would recommend. No, actually the first, was it two That was like the, um,
[00:06:28] Chuck: and five. We had two really stellar like standouts in our first couple of episodes. We had like number two was pretty good and I think we had five that really blew us away
[00:06:39] Robbie: Yeah. There was one that was like a rye and it was like a vanilla coke kind of
[00:06:44] Chuck: and I feel like it was like redemption rye, but they made a bourbon.
[00:06:48] Robbie: No, that was a bourbon. Yeah, so that was different. The one that was
[00:06:51] Chuck: redemption company.
[00:06:53] Robbie: was the, the, uh, vanilla Coke one,
[00:06:56] Chuck: All right. On 18, it’s been six minutes. You just [00:07:00] can’t shut up about this. You love it that much
[00:07:03] Robbie: Oh, I gotta rate it. All right.
[00:07:04] Chuck: yeah. Rate it. Well, I talk about the next one. Number 18 is a product of the USA and it is laws whiskey house and it is the laws San Louise Valley straight. We rye whiskey. It is. did we have this actual one?
[00:07:22] Chuck: Okay. We liked it, I think, but we’ll find out.
[00:07:24] Robbie: yeah, it’s the heirloom one.
[00:07:26] Chuck: Heirloom green. I thought we did their wheat or something anyway. I know we had
[00:07:30] Robbie: did, we’ve done both. We’ve had two. The first laws was with urac. A was the rye. The second was, uh,
[00:07:37] Chuck: Well
[00:07:38] Robbie: who
[00:07:38] Chuck: takes a younger
[00:07:39] Robbie: mark Steadman? I’m not sure.
[00:07:44] Chuck: Okay. Seven years straight, white rye whiskey. Um, 47.5% alcohol. It’s from Colorado. Um, let’s see here is a beautiful, uh, [00:08:00] grain to glass whiskey. They source sweet winter rye. Y Yeah, this is definitely the one. Okay, well I think we liked this and it’s seven years instead of. A four year.
[00:08:13] Robbie: I think this one also was the one that had like their own limestone water or whatever.
[00:08:23] Robbie: I don’t know. I guess if it was, they’d probably say that in a description because people think
[00:08:28] Chuck: seeing it, but I believe you. Okay. I like that. We’re doing another rye. Rye per episode, I feel like is. Useful. Okay.
[00:08:44] Robbie: Yeah, I’m gonna say it now. Rye is the new bourbon and it’s gonna be on top for the next like five years.
[00:08:52] Chuck: Rye is the new scotch I say. How about that?
[00:08:55] Robbie: Oh, that too, cuz scotch is hard to get these days. [00:09:00] This smells weird.
[00:09:03] Chuck: I was gonna say it has a musty smell to me. Does it have a musty smell to you? . I don’t recall that from
[00:09:08] Robbie: it was like this before, I would not have liked it. So maybe this is different than the one we had.
[00:09:13] Chuck: Yeah, it has a little must there. It has a fresh cut grass and a little must. Oh, come on. It doesn’t smell like
[00:09:20] Robbie: try it.
[00:09:27] Chuck: Oh, that’s weird. Okay.
[00:09:30] Robbie: like pickle juice to me.
[00:09:32] Chuck: Okay. This tastes like.
[00:09:33] Robbie: you get that?
[00:09:34] Chuck: No, this tastes like used, um, frying grease to me.
[00:09:41] Robbie: Yeah.
[00:09:42] Chuck: you fried something deep, fried something and then somehow tasted that grease, they used grease. And if somebody doesn’t like dry off like the things they fried enough, you’ll
[00:09:51] Robbie: so deep fried pickles, then.
[00:09:53] Chuck: maybe, which I like, but not this.
[00:09:56] Chuck: And it also tastes like
[00:09:57] Robbie: Yeah,
[00:09:58] Chuck: it has a little corn to it too. [00:10:00] For a rye. Throws me off
[00:10:02] Robbie: one’s getting poured out. This was, there is no way. This was the same one we tried because that one was good.
[00:10:10] Chuck: Yeah, I feel like we liked it. So I don’t know if this is a batch issue or this is just somehow different than what we had before. But yeah, I don’t like it either. I don’t, I don’t dislike it as much as I disliked the Cabbage Indian whiskey that we have, but I do dislike
[00:10:28] Robbie: pretty low on the list for me.
[00:10:30] Chuck: in Rise.
[00:10:31] Chuck: I’m gonna put it at a. One. Yeah. I don’t want this anymore.
[00:10:36] Robbie: actually gonna rate the, uh, the Indian one better than this.
[00:10:39] Chuck: O. Which is rough because that gave us a real I. Yeah. I don’t want,
[00:10:44] Robbie: anyone that’s been listening laws makes good stuff. So this is a one off. Something happened here like, don’t, don’t not buy laws because of this. They’re good usually,
[00:10:54] Chuck: yeah. Previous was good. This is weird. Okay, well,
[00:10:59] Robbie: oh, I’m gonna [00:11:00] have to rinse this cup.
[00:11:01] Chuck: Yeah. How are you gonna do that? Oh, I got a little water left. So gonna do the same since there’s no video. I’m gonna give a little, little something. So he went over to like a wash sink that you wash like trash or dishes
[00:11:21] Robbie: A utility sink. Yeah.
[00:11:23] Chuck: Yeah, that should.
[00:11:26] Robbie: Yeah. It gives it a nice bacteria a.
[00:11:30] Chuck: Ooh, I’m gonna finish the small smidge of number 17 that I have, just to take that also out of my mouth.
[00:11:37] Robbie: Yeah, so the first one of these episodes is that we did, I was rinsing my cup between them with the Tochi, uh, Japanese one we had, um,
[00:11:48] Chuck: okay.
[00:11:49] Robbie: because it was very watery, if you remember. So I was like, oh, this is basically nothing. Let me just rinse it with that, like, dump that
[00:11:55] Chuck: Wow. Okay. I can’t wait to talk about this next one. Speaking of Blake, [00:12:00] you’ve, you’ve definitely given me a leader into Kara Yohi from Japan. It is also another 80 proof. Yep. And the about the first line is, we call it the God of Japanese whiskey. Rice Whiskey, rice whiskey. Let’s be
[00:12:17] Robbie: Hmm? So it’s sake.
[00:12:21] Chuck: No. Um,
[00:12:23] Robbie: distilled. Yeah. I’m guessing.
[00:12:25] Chuck: Yeah. That would be a starter probably. Yeah. Um, their first product was a Sochu beverage. Um, then in 1989, they began to age their sochu beverage in oak casts, creating a rice based whiskey. So I guess, Cas gaging, increased proofing is part of it. Um, so yeah, Japanese rice, whiskey, I don’t get to know much about it.
[00:12:52] Chuck: It starts as sochu and then gets, um, aged in barrels. Let’s
[00:12:58] Robbie: Yeah, this,[00:13:00]
[00:13:02] Robbie: it smells a tiny bit like soy sauce,
[00:13:07] Chuck: Hmm.
[00:13:08] Robbie: like, I don’t know. I don’t know how to compare it to soy sauce cause it’s not soy sauce obviously, but like I get some of that.
[00:13:19] Chuck: Oh yeah, I actually do quite get that.
[00:13:22] Robbie: fermented a bit perhaps?
[00:13:26] Chuck: Yeah. A little bit of vinegar, kind of salty
[00:13:31] Robbie: Yeah.
[00:13:32] Chuck: but not in, yeah, not in an unpleasant way. I feel like it’s balanced, which is interesting. So,
[00:13:39] Robbie: like maybe, um, sauteed mushrooms.
[00:13:42] Chuck: Oh. Yeah, I get a little bit of mushroom meatiness in
[00:13:52] Robbie: it’s definitely mushroom me,
[00:13:54] Chuck: Yeah. Yeah. Very much.
[00:13:57] Robbie: which I don’t know that I want that in my whiskey, but that is one of [00:14:00] my favorite flavors. Like
[00:14:01] Chuck: Hmm.
[00:14:02] Robbie: just take a whole thing of portobello mushrooms and like do some soy sauce and stuff and just eat all of those. So good.
[00:14:07] Chuck: I’ll take them down and mix them with some rice or UAN noodle or something.
[00:14:13] Robbie: Oh, yeah. I like uan.
[00:14:14] Chuck: Who done the thicker the noodle the better for me.
[00:14:18] Robbie: Yeah.
[00:14:20] Chuck: Hmm.
[00:14:21] Robbie: The, the more egg the better.
[00:14:24] Chuck: Yeah. That’s the meat of the meal, pun intended. Huh? So it’s interesting, it’s earthy. Let’s say that it’s earthy.
[00:14:35] Robbie: Yeah. It tastes weirdly just like sauteed mushrooms.
[00:14:38] Chuck: Hmm. Yeah, weirdly
[00:14:43] Robbie: yeah, so it’s not,
[00:14:44] Chuck: not
[00:14:45] Robbie: me, but it’s not bad. Yeah,
[00:14:48] Chuck: It’s a little in that realm of things. So in terms of Japanese whiskey,
[00:14:56] Robbie: this is much different. This is not scotchy at
[00:14:58] Chuck: no, no, it’s not [00:15:00] smooth necessarily. It’s not like rough, but it’s earthy and then a little burn and at 80 proof that I don’t. Makes me wonder about like the barrels you’re aging in, they’re used so it’s not getting a smoothness outta the wood There may be psychedelics. So let’s see, uh, where the show goes in the next five minutes. Um, I’m just gonna give it a four. It’s unique.
[00:15:26] Robbie: Yeah.
[00:15:27] Chuck: It’s interesting. I don’t turn it away. I don’t come back to it. It just kind of had its place. I’d rather have sochu you.
[00:15:38] Robbie: Yeah. Yep. Not, not overly pleased. Four. Sounds fine with me as well. All
[00:15:46] Chuck: it is forest is
[00:15:49] Robbie: Everyone’s favorite thing? Some holiday trivia.
[00:15:52] Chuck: boom, boom,
[00:15:54] Robbie: What is the highest grossing Christmas movie?
[00:15:58] Chuck: die.[00:16:00]
[00:16:02] Robbie: No. Do you wanna have another guess?
[00:16:05] Chuck: Um, Christmas story.
[00:16:08] Robbie: No, that’s better. Home alone?
[00:16:11] Chuck: Me. It’s okay. They have an interesting Lego set. That’s about it for me.
[00:16:18] Robbie: Yeah. We have that one. Do you have it too?
[00:16:21] Chuck: Did you send it to me
[00:16:23] Robbie: No. Do you not buy your own Legos?
[00:16:25] Chuck: Nope.
[00:16:26] Robbie: Okay.
[00:16:27] Chuck: I buy my own Legos for my kids. I don’t buy my own personal Legos because I do find a lot of satisfaction in the completion of a Lego set. I then don’t know what to do with it.
[00:16:38] Robbie: Yeah, same.
[00:16:40] Chuck: Yeah. That’s a problem. Okay.
[00:16:42] Robbie: Yeah, we started like if you get it, you disassemble it again and put it back in the box and like it could be like a puzzle later, like you just build it again. Um,
[00:16:54] Chuck: I’m on. I’m contemplating just passing it on to my son. My, my wife doesn’t want me to do that [00:17:00] cuz she’s like, oh, that’s a $300 Lego set. I’m like, right. But there’s a lot of brown pieces he could use. It doesn’t matter to me. What are you gonna do with it? You know? And I have the instructions and I could seek out the pieces if I really want to go down that path again.
[00:17:16] Chuck: So we are at a point where like he has so much Lego stuff that like we have three of those like rolling drawer plastic setups and then we’re just like, oh, by color we just start to separate and or Hugh and he can get back in and create things or get his past instructions. Find this part and recreate.
[00:17:36] Robbie: Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, I frequently didn’t want instructions until I was a little bit older. Like by the time I was maybe 10 or 12 or something was when I was really into doing it the right way. Before then, I made stuff that I thought was cool, that was really lame, but like if you looked back at it,
[00:17:57] Chuck: I remember making a lot of things like [00:18:00] Star Wars ships and Star Wars space stations, and, oh, I had roadways and stuff, so I’d make up my own cars and stuff for the roadways, like things like that. And I think that that spawns creativity. So I don’t really care to keep the pieces together forever. And one day I’ll probably just, uh, subvert my wife’s, uh, wishes and just give him, big pieces, break it up, make something new that will make me happy.
[00:18:29] Robbie: I think that’s fine. Like the enjoyment for adults, in my opinion, is the process. So once it’s done the same as like a puzzle, you could disassemble it and you may never put it together again. Cause you’ve already done it once. So it’s not the need to keep the physical thing, it’s the activity.
[00:18:44] Chuck: Yeah, I mean, it’s the same reason why I don’t currently own a closed bottle of Pappy. I don’t care about trophies. Like acquisition, whatever is not the process for me. Like I [00:19:00] have, as you know, Porsche one and an old trad one for Manchester United. People know me, know I like those things. I don’t need to advertise it to them, so it’s fine.
[00:19:14] Robbie: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s similar to, um, I think we talked about this previously. I forget what we talk about personally or actually being recorded, but, um, like the guy. Who has like a $750,000 like car that he’s been fixing up forever. And it like, oh cool. Like you’re fixing it up to drive it around and enjoy it.
[00:19:34] Robbie: No, I’m fixing it up to park, park it in my garage and like dust it off occasionally. Um,
[00:19:40] Chuck: doesn’t work for.
[00:19:41] Robbie: the point? Yeah.
[00:19:42] Chuck: Yeah. Yeah. If I had, um, pardon the French, it’s not a French word. It’s actually what, uh, Saxon word or something. Anyway. Anyway, um, if I had fuck you money, I would buy [00:20:00] things that people have placed in museums and I would use them aside from art, right? Like, is. You know, is a car art, I mean, I appreciate the design of it, but like, it was designed to be used like, it’s like somebody hanging up a shirt saying like, this is the most beautiful shirt that blah, blah, blah designer ever designed.
[00:20:24] Chuck: Yeah, right. But they designed it for human bodies. And I just feel very much about that. What like, like the lines of art have been really obscured and I. I like, let’s buy the first Porsche off off the assembly line and let’s drive it for a hundred thousand miles because you know what? I fuck you money. I don’t care what it’s worth.
[00:20:47] Chuck: In the end, what I care about is that experience for that period of time.
[00:20:52] Robbie: Yeah, I mean I think it for things like that, it depends on if you actually want to keep it forever or if you’re kind of, you want [00:21:00] to own it a little while and see it appreciate in value and sell it, cuz that makes a difference. But
[00:21:05] Chuck: Sure, sure. I’m a passenger on this journey and I want to have experiences in that journey and uh, if I keep it perfect, I’m just keeping it for someone else who becomes me one day. That’s what I feel like. It’s like
[00:21:22] Robbie: Yeah.
[00:21:22] Chuck: letting it pass on, pass on, pass on until some guy decides, actually I’m taking a cross country road trip in this car.
[00:21:30] Chuck: Cause I want to feel like what it was like a hundred years ago, or.
[00:21:34] Robbie: Yeah, yeah. That’s fair. Uh, let’s see. Couple more trivia. When was Christmas declared a national holiday?
[00:21:48] Chuck: Mm. 1918 in the us, right? Yeah.
[00:21:54] Robbie: Hmm, yeah. 1870.
[00:21:58] Chuck: Is this, you know, [00:22:00] is that enough to be post-Civil War?
[00:22:03] Robbie: I think so. I’m not a history buff, but I wanna say Civil War was like 1840.
[00:22:10] Chuck: Hmm. Yeah. I was thinking a little later, but maybe, I’m not sure. And I was wondering if that was a tactic to sort of like bring things together.
[00:22:23] Robbie: Let’s see. My computer is slow. Oh, 1861 to 1865. So it was shortly after that. Yeah,
[00:22:35] Chuck: So I feel like there was a tactic to sort of like heal the nation is my thought.
[00:22:41] Robbie: yeah, yeah. That, that could be.
[00:22:46] Chuck: I’m a political expert. I would take my advice for sure. For pay. Alrighty. What else? You got?
[00:22:55] Robbie: I’m trying to, how much money do Americans spend on average on holiday gifts? [00:23:00] Per person?
[00:23:02] Chuck: $400?
[00:23:04] Robbie: Per person?
[00:23:05] Chuck: Yeah. Not how much you spend your egregious bullshit.
[00:23:12] Robbie: No. This is an unclear question. Do they mean how much is the one gift for like another person, or are they saying, how much do I spend on gifts for everyone? I get gifts for?
[00:23:26] Chuck: No, I think it’s how much you spend for your wife. Not per gift, but total and how much you spend for your children. Total and how much you spend for your parents total and then that average. Cause I think it’s higher in
[00:23:44] Robbie: but it’s average for everyone in America. So I’m gonna say it’s lower. I’m gonna say 200.
[00:23:50] Chuck: Okay.
[00:23:51] Robbie: Let’s see.
[00:23:54] Chuck: I think people overspend and that’s why I’m going that
[00:23:57] Robbie: oh. A thousand dollars per [00:24:00] person.
[00:24:00] Chuck: Yep.
[00:24:01] Robbie: I think. I think the question meant. Like how much do I as one person spend on gifts for everyone I’m buying gifts for?
[00:24:11] Chuck: I don’t think that’s true per person. I thought you said per person.
[00:24:15] Robbie: Yeah, but the per person is like me. Like per people in the US What does that single person spend on gifts for
[00:24:23] Chuck: Let’s agree to.
[00:24:25] Robbie: Okay. Well, if it’s per person, you’re buying for a thousand dollars for every one of the people is high.
[00:24:33] Chuck: So I take it as the average because I don’t really believe in buying for adults that much. Most adults just buy what they want. And aside from like doing some sort of like draw of a hat and that’s the person you buy for like, you know, that kind of circumstance and that ends up being like way lower. And I end up buying for my immediate family much higher.
[00:24:56] Robbie: Right.
[00:24:57] Chuck: feels like, oh, okay, [00:25:00] I’m buying 400 and I’m, you know, but hey, maybe that’s me.
[00:25:07] Robbie: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I, I agree that definitely spending a lot on like the immediate family, but, um, I don’t know. It’s unclear.
[00:25:17] Chuck: You bought your wife a house, second house.
[00:25:21] Robbie: Well, the problem is, like you had said, adults buy the stuff when they want it, so like, Caitlin, like several times a year will be like, this thing’s expensive. Uh, can this just be part of my Christmas present?
[00:25:31] Robbie: And I’m like, sure. So like, yeah, if you include all of that, it’s, it’s very high.
[00:25:36] Chuck: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:41] Robbie: Uh, let’s see. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. One more. No, screw it. No more
[00:25:47] Chuck: Why is interviewing broken and should not include algorithms? I feel like this is close to home, so let’s just talk about.
[00:25:55] Robbie: Yeah. Um, the interview process at most companies is dumb, [00:26:00] and that’s putting it nicely. Uh, they want you to come in and do all these arbitrary things like. , all these people are gonna watch you and you’re gonna have this prompt and you’re gonna code a solution for it. And you must do it in 30 minutes or less.
[00:26:14] Robbie: And if you don’t, and, and like, even if you do, even if you do it right, we’re gonna go, oh, you didn’t spend enough time up front, like planning how you might implement it and like writing it out and talking to us about it. So like, that’s wrong. Or then. Even if you did do that and then like got the right solution, it’s like, oh well, like this is not the optimal solution cuz there’s this other way and then, Memorizing algorithms and what is perfect win or like making sure that within this tiny 30 minute time window I have said the exact words you want to hear is not a good assessment of whether or not I am a good engineer or leader, or whatever you may be interviewing me for.
[00:26:57] Robbie: So it’s like, you know, why do [00:27:00] we do this to developers? Why don’t we have something that’s more real world where we could kind. Either work on real problems like, alright, I need to build this feature for this webpage, so like let’s just talk it out and work through that together. Or, You know, some kind of take home thing, which I know people hate that too, because it’s like, oh, I gotta take time out of my time to do it.
[00:27:24] Robbie: But it is more correct then like, you know, one developer might know off the top of his head how to do a thing, whereas another one might be like, oh well, , uh, I’m gonna spend eight hours researching it and trying to get the optimal thing and whatever, and it’s not apples to apples. So it’s like that then gives you the time to work in your work style and make sure you get to the result you are happy with.
[00:27:49] Chuck: Well, I think the paradigm is pretty challenging to look. Across the board anyway. Because if you look at like many [00:28:00] other, uh, skilled, um, workplaces, right? Like you’re not, oh, I’m a Mason and I’m looking for a new job to build walls with bricks. And they’re like, great. So build us a couple walls with bricks and talk us through how you do that. I, I, I often wonder if we’re just missing some kind of like, I don’t know, basic skill assessment thing at a different level outside of company specific paradigms that could just say like, okay, you know how to do these code things cuz you’ve, oh, here you are, you’re in, um, Uh, I don’t know, like, uh, you’re a part of a React group and you’ve shown that you can do the things there, and that’s what we need.
[00:28:53] Chuck: So we’ll just take you out of there because you’ve already proven yourself, not specific to us, and are [00:29:00] like really arbitrary. Probably very flawed, very much made. like hiring process. And that’s the thing I can say because I’ve conversely been on the other side of things and we’re just fucking making it up and figuring it out and refining it to say, well, this is what we think works for us, but we’re not saying what we think works for this job description that exists across all of this. You know, this work experience. You’re a JavaScript developer, you’re a React developer, you’re a whatever. Those paradigms are completely made up in every single company, and then they start to just really embrace that and dig in and they say, well, we pay you enough money, so you have to do it.
[00:29:53] Robbie: Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, the thing that made the most sense, uh, Was [00:30:00] talking to Eric Brin many years ago and he was looking to hire some people and basically his criteria was like, I shouldn’t have to interview you at all. Like the interview process should be proved to me that you are you and you’re done.
[00:30:14] Robbie: Because like if you’ve been doing it right, you do have that like, oh, I worked at X company for a few years and they do the technology you want me to do, or like, you know, here’s my open source work. You can see it all. In the wild, like if you can just prove, like jump on a call and be like, look, you see it’s me, I exist, let’s proceed.
[00:30:36] Robbie: Should kind of be the, the thing like doesn’t work for everyone, especially newer developers who maybe haven’t had a long job history or, or whatever. But at a certain point, especially for like senior staff or. Managers or people that theoretically have been in the field for 10 years or more. It’s kind of like, well, why do I need to [00:31:00] prove myself if like I clearly wasn’t fired like a million times and whatever, and have been successful at these other companies, then what’s the point of you being like, oh, well I need to make sure you do this algorithm correct within this 30 minutes, you know?
[00:31:15] Chuck: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. No, I agree. Like trying to basically across the board u ridiculously. Uh, tests a what you think are fundamentals in your context. Doesn’t necess necessarily like translate to all job functions? So
[00:31:35] Robbie: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, we don’t have a great solution here. It’s just, uh, more of. The things you’re accustomed to where I rant about everything cuz I want to, but, um,
[00:31:49] Chuck: yeah, I think it’s a continued conversation.
[00:31:53] Robbie: Yeah. Yeah. Like if anyone is working in this space on um, you know, any kind of things that are. [00:32:00] Maybe a standardized assessment for web developers or like, that’s a thing we’re missing in this space is like if you’re an electrical engineer, you go get your like professional engineering license. Take this grueling test that says like, I can do these things.
[00:32:16] Robbie: There should be something similar for web developers, and it’s just like, oh, if you’ve got that, I don’t need to put you through six rounds of algorithms. I just need to go like, oh, you’ve got that.
[00:32:30] Chuck: Great. It’s nice to meet you. You work nice with people. Let’s go.
[00:32:34] Robbie: Here’s a bag of cash. All right. Yeah. We’re, uh, we’re done here. This is, uh, the eighth. Yeah, eighth one. We’ll see you tomorrow for the ninth one. We got one more after that, and we’re almost done with this whiskey finally, which I am excited about. So we will see you then.