Transcript for S1E2

Pat McMahon [00:00:02] Thisis part two of a conversation between David Rios and myself, Pat McMahon. Partone is available to listen and can be found wherever you are now listening topart two.

David Rios [00:00:15] Idon't know, like I did when I first started making things. And so I started outdrawing like, you know, like as a kid, like I had a lot of comic books and Iwould try to draw Spider-Man or whatever. And then in high school, it kind ofpicked up the guitar and music. And it's like, music is interesting because,like, it can be this, like, total, like solitary activity and like it's just alot of practice and whatever. But like almost I would, I would venture to saylike a majority of musicians, like part of why you do it is because you want toshare it with people and you want to be in front of an audience or on a stageor maybe not like onstage in person, but like you want to get the recordingsout, you want you want some of that feedback and it's like. You know, I stilldon't know where I stand on that. Like, sometimes it's like it's, you know,it's that thing of, like, you don't want it to feel like pressure, but like.It's almost like when you find the people that vibe with you and you trust andlike kind of you can share that. Like you kind of realize that like, oh, likethere's, there is this like kind of community or like personal exchange that'slike another layer of it which, which can be, like, really scary or like reallynice. Right.

Pat McMahon [00:01:36] Buta lot of the stuff you're saying I'm relating to very heavily because my, myrelationship to music was really coming into it as this thing I could just domyself and like quietly kind of stow away. And also because I'm always sheepishabout like really putting myself out there and worrying if I'm going to be ableto play well enough to, like, present something to someone. It took me foreverto, like, even start to kick around the idea of playing music with friends. AndI've started to do that now. My house is like pretty well set up for it. I havea couple of guitars and a keyboard and just one on one in small situations,like friends of mine that I know are of a similar skill level, skill level, orlike of a similar interest level to just goof around like. I'm playing better.I know. And I think my my friends are playing better by having someone tobounce off of. You know, there's like, there's an aspect of my timing that's somuch better when I'm with someone else. Like, I can't. I can't keep a greatcount on rhythm unless someone is kind of there playing off of me, you knowwhat I mean? So it's like it really does unlock an enormous amount to be incollaboration, which is something that I think the pandemic probably put into aclearer light. That I am. I think it may be put into a clearer light for methat collaboration is more crucial to my life than I initially thought or thatI had been thinking for a while. I'm curious what you're like working style is.I mean, as a as a teacher, I would imagine that a lot of the work iscollaborative with the students, but also sort of solitary in that, like you'remaybe setting a lesson plan or setting a semester's goals by yourself. I'mcurious if you're able to, like, find collaborative opportunities with yourpeers in a work sense or do you do you tend to more kind of work independently?

David Rios [00:03:57] Andit's yeah, it's, it's these days it feels more independent. Like, especiallybecause I like the thing that I want to be doing requires equipment, you know,like, like at home I have like my soldering iron and, you know, electronics,you know, like thread boards and prototyping tools and stuff. But like, when Iwant to build something, like I really should be at work, like that's where wehave power tools and, you know, digital fabrication machines and all that andlike more specialized electronics tools, you know. And so, like, it can. It canget pretty solitary. And the other thing is like at work, like we're a pretty likediverse skill set. So like half the people I work with also don't know what thehell I'm doing because it's like, oh yeah, like, you do that thing over thereand I'm like, Yeah, you know what the Internet is made out of. Cool. Because Isure as hell don't. Right.

Pat McMahon [00:05:09] Right.It's like. It's like that thing of, like, the collective knowledge isexhaustive, but, like, there's not much overlap. Right. Like everybody alltogether, you guys have everything covered.

David Rios [00:05:20] Yeah.And, you know, that's fun because that that does have it lends for some likeneat kind of overlap. And and I shouldn't say there's no collaboration becausethere's, there's like a few people who I definitely like. I talk to them everyday. I bounce ideas off of them. And and, you know, we, you know, we sometimeswe'll talk very deeply about like sort of like our own work, but in the contextof, like how to, you know, how to how to give, um. How to provide our studentswith knowledge, but also like an experience that not just delivers knowledgebut allows them to kind of practice as well. You know, it's always a little bitwrapped up in like, you know, well, we're here, we're at this stage and like,how do we we can't just dump everything on them. So like, what's the right, youknow, what's the right mode or like, is what we're doing outdated and, youknow, that kind of shit.

Pat McMahon [00:06:21] Howquick would you say things become outdated in your field.

David Rios [00:06:25] Mhm.Pretty ehh, pretty quickly. There's a cycle. I mean since I was a studentthere's a few, there's a few like technology there, there's a few like codingframeworks I would say that were like real buzz, buzzy like kind of things thatI'm not seeing out in the wild anymore. And they've been replaced by otherframeworks. And you know, VR was around in the nineties, right? Like maybe evenearlier. I don't know. Now it's back. Now it's back because you can do it onyour laptop like, you know, it's it's a little bit cyclical in that sense.There's a few programing languages that I learned and I haven't seen them foryears. I don't know who's using them anymore. So now I don't know them anymore.

Pat McMahon [00:07:09] Yeah.

David Rios [00:07:10] Youknow, for me personally, that's kind of why I like electronics. Likeelectricity, still electricity. We haven't. I mean, obviously there's peoplebuilding like supercomputers and quantum computing and that kind of shit, whichagain, I'm not a scientist, so I don't understand that. But, you know,fundamentals and like day to day type stuff hasn't changed that much. So, youknow, I and that's actually like that's the other side of my research is like Ilike to I'm hesitant, I call it research because it sounds cool. It's just likewhat I do every day because it's already been done. So it's not reallyresearch. It's more like me rounding out my knowledge base of of I do this codestuff, I kind of know electricity, but like what if I just went deeper andactually learned it in my own way and formed my own path? Like that's probablygoing to be useful for a handful of students who also want to do the samething, you know?

Pat McMahon [00:08:07] Mhm.That's really interesting. Do you find it, do you find yourself carving pathslike is that sort of your practice? That's something I only ask because I'mreally I'm really bad at visualizing sort of a path forward unless there's aleader. So I'm curious what your relationship to, to carving out a path ifyou're able to see it or if you kind of need to just start chopping first andthen, you know, then you realize you're on a path. You know what I'm saying?

David Rios [00:08:38] Yeah.Yeah. It's I mean, my my workflow is flounder. And I'm like, hold on for dearlife.

Pat McMahon [00:08:48] Fuckin'amazing dude, that's great. But I love the confidence to flounder. I love the Ilove the willingness to to know that you're floundering. You know what I mean?

David Rios [00:08:59] Yeah,well, you know, again, it's like it's all by kind of happenstance and pure lucklike that, that I've done it enough that it's kind of worked out for me, youknow, like. I don't know. Like, I've been at this job for a little while,right? And spent the majority of my time here feeling, like, superuncomfortable because I didn't have a path, and. Or maybe I did, and I justdidn't see it or I didn't value it or other people didn't quite value it or,you know, like not knowing who values what, right? Like, you know, like inacademia, it's pretty and I shouldn't say it's in academia. Academia ingeneral, like stereotypically is like super cutthroat. And people backstab eachother and like, you've got to get tenure and all this kind of stuff.

Pat McMahon [00:09:48] Yeah,I. I only recently realized how cutthroat it was. A few people in my life weregoing through grad school and were kind of giving me an inside look at, like,just how I liked. Just. Just things that I maybe didn't realize as anundergrad, but in, like, a grad sense, you're a little bit more. Aware than youmight otherwise be as a 19, 20 year old, you know?

David Rios [00:10:17] Yeah.Yeah. And, you know, a lot of you know, for the majority of the universities,too, it's like it's it's a business still. Right. Like part of that turnover isyou gotta. You gotta. What your you know, your your students are clientseffectively. Some of them actually treat you like their clients. Right. Andit's like, I don't I kind of, you know, I don't enjoy it at the moment, but Ifully understand it, especially if you, you know, had to work to get to theuniversity level or you're taking out loans or whatever. Right. Like, you know,it's it's a very weird system to be in. And and the only thing I was going tosay about it is like, I'm I do feel pretty good about this particulardepartment in that the flexibility and the, you know, like we're still in theuniversity, so, you know, whatever. But like I do feel at least that I've beengiven sort of like. Yeah, like, like sort of been given that like time to develop,you know? I don't know. It's a weird duality. Like there's, there's definitelylike the still like we got to do the classes to do this, we got to do that. Butalso, like my day to day is like I think this could be a class. I think, Ithink this is a thread, oh, like this, this framework is really interesting andit looks like it's gaining popularity. Let me spend some time with that. Youknow, there's a little bit of strategic decision making, but also like I stillthink it's fun and it's like if I were a student, I would be doing this. Whydon't I just do that then?

Pat McMahon [00:11:56] That'sa wonderful mindset to take into it, like the freedom. I don't know. It's justit's really refreshing to hear your take on academia. You know, I've only everbeen a student in that world, so like to hear that there are, you know,departments and professors that are like thinking about it as though they'restudents. It's really like it's a fresh approach. I, I studied business inundergrad, so it was like very, it was very like I was studying business at atime when it was starting to change. There were like digital marketing coursesbecause there was like the recognition that like some of these worlds arechanging, but in another way, like it was like the oldest, slowest moving shipat the school was that was the the business arm of it was like there's nothingchanging. Some of the some of the folks that were teaching courses had beenteaching those same courses without a lot of change to the to the agenda in like25 years, because they don't think that there's any change to the way thatbusiness needs to be working. So it was there were like it was a strangeenvironment to be in because it was like a. Almost a rejection of the veryclear shifting change that was like coming. You know, trying to adapt. I don'tknow. I really regret having studied business in school. I've been thinkingabout that quite a bit lately. You know, in terms of a sort of thespecialization you were talking about earlier, it really feels to me like Ispecialized in something that I, like I picked something when I was a kid thatfelt like it was a sound decision that now I'm just like, I'm a specialist insomething I really don't give a shit about.

David Rios [00:13:53] It'sso useful though.

Pat McMahon [00:13:54] Idea,isn't it? It's just I guess you could. You can find a job right out of school.Go figure. Go figure. Yeah, I know. And that's like the other piece of it, too,is that I've been, like, very gainfully employed for a long time and justunfulfilled. So, like, there is a tradeoff there between like, you know, I wasI was making that tradeoff passively for a really long time, not kind ofunpacking the fact that I didn't like the company or the environment or theclient or the job itself. And so, you know, the trade now to exploring more ofthose creative passions working on this project. I mean, working with Amy hasbeen tremendous as a part of Converge like. The initial conversations I hadwith her really opened my eyes to the fact that you can kind of carve outsomething different you can like. And while I don't see myself as the personcarving it like, I can recognize that Amy's carving is what I want to follow. Idon't know. I feel like I took that all over the place, but, um yeah.

David Rios [00:15:03] No,I mean, it resonates like, like was like, you know, a couple of things, right?Like, like with Converge. It's like part of part of the reason why I find thisso exciting is because, like, even though, like I, I tried to actively, like,force myself to speak positively about my work and labor, like it's not withoutthe deep, deep, you know, anxieties of, of all capitalists environments, right?Like, you know, the shit gets fucked up and and it's fine because, like, thegood parts are actually really good. And I do actually care and I do actuallyenjoy it. But like, it's not without all the other shit that we hate about ourjobs.

Pat McMahon [00:15:45] Yeah.

David Rios [00:15:46] Anybody,right?

Pat McMahon [00:15:47] Yeah.Yeah. And. And for me. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't mean to cut you off now.

David Rios [00:15:51] Nogo ahead.

Pat McMahon [00:15:52] Forme, just the acknowledgment of the fact that capitalism is like bearing down onus all the time. The acknowledgment in conversations with Amy, in conversationswith you, in conversation with everyone that's a part of our group so far ismore transparent dialog about it than I have had in eight years working inagencies. It's just so part of the baseline that it doesn't get talked about.And that got more and more alarming over time. I don't know how it feels in auniversity. I don't know. Do you feel like those conversations aroundcapitalism are happening more often in your work spaces than they were maybefive years ago?

David Rios [00:16:38] Yeah,definitely. I mean, you know, I mean, I worked for a long time. Like doing crapthat I hated, like my first job. I guess my first full time job out of collegewas like, I was like, you know, an executive assistant for, for a startup,which literally meant like book the flights and schedule lunch and like, walkthe dog and, you know, like all this, all this fucking bullshit that I waslike, how did I end up here? Like, I went to college, this shouldn't happen, right?And it was like, you know, it paid enough that I was like, Yeah, I can't walkaway from this just yet. You know, I have to I have to do it. And, like, youknow, the idea that anyone in that company, when it eventually grew, would talkabout like, who's doing the same work for this for more or less money. Right?Like, will never happen. Right. And, you know, even even here, which is afairly open environment, you know, like I still hesitate sometimes. Like it's athing I have to proactively try to, like, get over that hurdle of like, youknow, like I've had some, like, pretty, like, perceptive and open students whohave asked me like, Hey, but how did you get here? Are like, wait a minute,you're a teacher here? Like, don't you make like blah, blah, blah. And I haveto, like, fight the urge to recoil and be like, well, actually, like, this ishow much I make. And, you know, it's probably less than like someone who's beenhere for ten years or five years, but like, it works for me and I'm happy and,you know, like, that could be you. But honestly, like, if you finish thisprogram and go to one of these other fields, you could make twice as much, youknow, like and you know, and also like telling them, like, you know, part ofthe reason why I'm here in the first place is because, like, I made nothing fora long time and got lucky. You know, again, like, it's such a crazy, selectiveprocess that's like, you know, you can toil away doing something else so, like,the whole time. Like, I was just trying to figure out how to make any of thiswork and still be happy. And so what I was doing before I was, I was working ina shop for a different university as like the shop technician. And that paidlike not very well. But I, what I realized is like I enjoy teaching, I enjoybeing in like the shop environment. I like students, you know, like, you know,young, young people with weird ideas is a nice way to spend 8 hours a day.Right. You know, when I was applying to grad school, actually, I realized thatI didn't know how to code, and I had I had given up on any sort of upwardmobility. So I would just, like, hide in my open office and, like, try to putdifferent, like, structures around my desk so they wouldn't see that I wasjust, like, teaching myself how to code on the job and not doing any of thestuff I was supposed to actually be doing.

Pat McMahon [00:19:43] You'rejust like staying one lesson. You're like, Wait, I actually need a little bitmore than.

David Rios [00:19:48] Okay.Speaking of job, I should probably do my actual job. I'm supposed to meet withstudents for, like, know they're cool. They understand when I go over, but timeto debug some machine learning, I guess. I think that's what I'm doing rightnow. All right.

Pat McMahon [00:20:06] Perfect,man. Well, yeah, good luck with the students. Rios, it was great chatting withyou, man. We should do another one of these. Just a just a nice, long chat. Ithink it'd be real fun.

David Rios [00:20:16] Yeah.No, this is awesome. I mean, I guess I'll. I guess I'll hit the X.

Pat McMahon [00:20:21] Yeah.Yeah. Wait, hang on. Let me stop before.

David Rios [00:20:25] I'mactually real bad at that. I don't know how to stop that and think so.

Pat McMahon [00:20:43] Idon't know. Sorry. I just. I also. I'm noticing it's getting darker and darkeron my screen. Like, it doesn't look like it's gotten that much darker outside.But then I keep looking at myself here, and it's like I'm disappearing.

David Rios [00:20:55] Yeah,that's usually me actually.

Amy Yoshitsu [00:21:08] ...we were busy doing that. And then every night that I came home, I was so tired.So last night I binge the whole new Kevin Hart series.

Pat McMahon [00:21:16] Idon't know it.

Amy Yoshitsu [00:21:16] Itit's it was actually very riveting. It was Kevin Hart and Wesley Snipes in thisseries called True Story. And it's basically like I was telling Vi about it. Itwas like, better call Saul because she's watching Better call Saul right now.So I was like, it's kind of like, better call Saul. But about being black andfamous in Philadelphia, it's really like a murder mystery, kind of.

Pat McMahon [00:21:40] OhI like that.

Amy Yoshitsu [00:21:41] Yeah,it was, like, very engaging, even though I don't really like Kevin Hart. So,like, whatever. I don't care about him, but I'm like, this is interesting.