My Employee Deleted 200,000 Emails. This Was My "Oh My Gosh" Moment

Sean Weisbrot: Travis Lindemon, the managing director of Nexus IT Group, an IT recruiting firm that specializes in federal services.

Sean Weisbrot: Why don't you tell everyone a little bit more about your company, nexus IT Group and we'll go from there.

Travis Lindemoen: We have an IT recruiting firm that specializes in a handful of different practice areas. So a big focus for us is around, really the cloud services. So your AWS Azure, Google Cloud. We do a ton in the cybersecurity space.

Travis Lindemoen: And then I would say really the last two that are, are. Really big for us is digital marketing, so your SEO is a kind of paid media, growth marketers. And then lastly, really the data science side of it. So we do a ton within, certain locations, within New York and Canada and San Fran around, you know.

Travis Lindemoen: Data, science, skillset, data engineers. And so those are really kinda rounding up our core areas that we do from an IT staffing standpoint here in the United States.

Sean Weisbrot: Which of these has been the fastest growing of them all?

Travis Lindemoen: Yeah, so I think it's probably a tie between the data science side and also cybersecurity to have been pretty close as far as growth for us, which is the most profitable.

Sean Weisbrot: Andbecause you're, you're a recruiting firm, so obviously you make money getting people jobs, so. Which of those is the most profitable on a per employee basis in terms of recruiting?

Travis Lindemoen: So I think probably the data science side is the clear winner there mainly because how we're paid is a percentage of that person's salaries. So, the data science salaries are, are, fairly competitive. so, our margins are just better, in, in those skill sets. Also, we do a lot in, in the San Fran, kind of New York markets for those.

Travis Lindemoen: And so obviously wages are higher in those markets, where cybersecurity, we could. Do stuff in different parts throughout Virginia or DC or, think about Chicago, Kansas City, where maybe that salary just isn't as high. So definitely data science is a more profitable business.

Sean Weisbrot: So when you're hiring people for these companies or you're recruiting people for these companies, I assume you're looking at the job descriptions. You have to figure out specifically who has the skills that are needed. What do you see there being a trend in terms of what companies are looking for within these sectors?

Travis Lindemoen: So let's say data science is the biggest change, if I just think about it holistically and, what we've seen from a tech perspective, from when I started in 2005 to where we're at now. In the early days, it was really just somebody that could, whether it's a developer that could keep their heads down and bang out code, ora network engineer that could just keep the network up and running.

Travis Lindemoen: Where we're at now really requires both the technical skills but also the soft skills. So, our hiring managers want people that can sit in front of the customer or stakeholders and have those conversations. Take those conversations back to the development team and, and develop, right?

Travis Lindemoen: So everything's so focused on agile and, and, and collaboration that, that heads down, kind of leaves me alone, don't talk to me, type of developer, really isn't as in demand or they've had to evolve and grow that skill set. So, I really just think the social kind of soft skills that, it may not be natural. For some individuals in the, the tech side is really kind of the biggest change over the years.

Sean Weisbrot: What kinds of hard skills are they looking for today? What kinds of projects are these companies trying to work on that they're hiring these people for?

Travis Lindemoen: Over the last five years, it's really been around transformations and so, what that means is from.

Travis Lindemoen: on-prem, infrastructure to the cloud, and it doesn't always have to be a cloud provider, but those transformations are really, around, microservices. So I'm trying not to get too technical, but it is basically. taking a, an old way to, to develop, technology and that's whether you're on the software side, the infrastructure side of it, that whole and.

Travis Lindemoen: What we call DevOps in the industry. So really the DevOps skill set. again, whether you're a software engineer, you're a system admin, you're in the cloud space now, you're a project manager.

Travis Lindemoen: Companies are really looking for that exposure around, again. Containerization, microservices.

Sean Weisbrot: Okay. So I, I know you're trying to not be too technical, but I wanna push on that just a little because Sure. A few years ago, I had no idea what you were talking about. If you, if I was listening to this, I would've had no idea. But I think it's important, even for non-technical founders like myself, to get a little bit dirty and understand the technical aspects of their business. What is a microservice?

Travis Lindemoen: The simplest way to call it is automation. So, what microservices does is it takes the old, kind of mundane, very, labor heavy, part of the job and processes and it automates those tasks. So. there's different technologies, whether it's Chef Ansible, Jenkins, there's a ton, ton of different providers out there that will assist with that automation.

Travis Lindemoen: But, as an example, if you are a software engineer, you develop your code, usually that code you hand off to, what we would call, a QA analyst.

Travis Lindemoen: That person is really responsible for breaking that code right before it ships out to the customer. And so literally, when it comes to manual qa, you have somebody that is sitting there and pushing buttons, pushing different widgets to see if it breaks.

Travis Lindemoen: So, instead of actually having to have that person physically do that, you can automate that. Task. Right. And so, through microservices, it's really throughout the whole software development lifecycle that it allows for very quick changes, quick development, quick processes, while also kind of reducing the amount of labor that you need, from an IT development standpoint.

Sean Weisbrot: So you mentioned something really interesting that I wanna inquire about, which is the manual quality assurance testing. So I, I've done some manual QA for my own product, and we have another person who's an automation engineer, although she also was doing a good bit of the manual side as well. You're saying that it's possible to develop a microservice, which would allow you to basically automate a way the need for a manual qa.

Sean Weisbrot: However, I, I'm curious to know how you could do that and I'll, I'll explain why I'm, I'm asking. What I noticed when I was doing my own testing was sometimes if I clicked on this icon that closes the menu and opens the menu, and then I clicked on this other thing, then I could break something thatwas new to the platform.

Sean Weisbrot: But if I did it the opposite way, where I clicked on the button and then the menu thing, it didn't break. So is it possible to create the microservice in a way that it actually is. Randomizes the order of pressing things in order to try to break the system because if so, then I can see how it's useful in, in removing someone.

Sean Weisbrot: But only that person I think would intuitively understand from history. Button pressing, oh, this thing breaks in this order, but not in this order.

Travis Lindemoen: All testing starts off on a manual basis. so you're not a, you're not eliminating that manual, QA skill set per se. But as you're mentioning, once that happens on the manual side, go through it.

Travis Lindemoen: That is when automation can come into play. So whether you are using tools like Seleniweb Driver, TestNG, there's a number of different automation tools out there that you could use.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm glad you said that because I was taught that you should manually test things and then try to create automations for them.

Sean Weisbrot: we never got to a point, we haven't gotten to a point yet where we can automate things just because we have so many, so, so much of the platform that hasn't been uncovered yet. because we coded so much of it. so I'm glad you have this experience. I'd like to kind of talk about a little bit more, because I don't think I have an episode where we talk about really testing.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm not sure how excited you are about the subject.

Travis Lindemoen: It's, I mean, again, it's, it's a, it's something I've spent a good amount of time doing. I would say that, there's people in my firm right, that focus on this on a daily basis, but definitely have done, my good share of, QA testing.

Sean Weisbrot: Let's say you're talking to a non-technical founder who needs to hire someone for qa. Who would be the first person from a QA team that you would want them to hire?

Travis Lindemoen: There's so many different titles, but generally what you would think of as like a QA architect. but I would say with qa, a lot of times they're not titled architects, so you're really looking for that senior QA professional.

Travis Lindemoen: And the biggest thing that you're looking for is, have they set up, and created, I guess their own, test automation framework. These individuals that have the automation skills would've generally started their career on the manual side and been forced to do manual testing.

Travis Lindemoen: So they have that. but what happens is a lot of. automation professionals have not set up test automation frameworks from scratch.

Travis Lindemoen: And, and that is key. If you're diving into that, you want somebody that has had that experience or has the ability to do that. because what happens is so many of these individuals have great QA automation skills, but the frameworks were already set up, you know.

Travis Lindemoen: Once they joined the firm or a new company they actually have not had to set up that framework.

Sean Weisbrot: In our situation, we had hired someone to build it for us, and she was using Excel and it was ridiculous. I mean, an impossible and massive waste of time. So we tried to force her to.

Sean Weisbrot: Use Jira and X-ray. I don't know if you're familiar with X-ray. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. So we wanted to set it up on Jira with x-ray, and she was like, yeah, no problem. But she continued to build it out on her excel anyways and basically ignored us. So after a few months, we just got mad at her and fired her for just ignoring what we asked for.

Sean Weisbrot: Then we hired another guy and he started building it on x-ray and, and we started to move so much faster, but we also found that. There were a lot of gaps in the Feature documentation so that the testing side was lacking information and causing tests to fail because the images were wrong based on what our Figma said it should be versus what the documentation said.

Sean Weisbrot: So many problems, and it took us a very long time to sort it all out, but it required our product manager. Well, it required hiring a product manager and a new QA manager to work together with me to make sure that everything was right and, yeah, just an absolute, absolute mess. What's the, what's the worst situation you ever kind of walked into and you're like, oh my God, how am I supposed to fix this?

Travis Lindemoen: I don't know if it's something we walked into. I think it's something that happened as part of a project that we were on. So we were working with, and I, I can't use names unfortunately, but, we were working with a, a very high profile, managed services provider. So they provide consulting services to, to massive, fortune size companies.

Travis Lindemoen: And so, we had a couple employees out on, on staff, supporting a very large migration project. from, an old email system to a new, a new email system and, and part of their job is to automate. that task, unfortunately, one of them. QA individuals had deleted over 200,000 email boxes for this client, as they were getting ready to go live less than like a week out.

Travis Lindemoen: So, that's not something we walked into unfortunately, it was. We were part of the project, along with other IT professionals. So that was, a fun, several days and, and trying to get through that and bring in new talent to help fix the issues.

Sean Weisbrot: They had a backup or?

Travis Lindemoen: In this situation, it wasn't a backup scenario, a little bit of older technology, so things weren't quite in the cloud yet. there was some backup from, old, tape perspective, right? but it was more of. All the work was kind of already pretty much completed and they were trying to test it, from a beta perspective.

Travis Lindemoen: so it wasn't like, oh my gosh, they're all gone. But it was, I mean it wasn't oh my gosh moment because there was a ton of work that just kind of went by, by, and. The go live date was quickly approaching, so, that was really for us and from our perspective, that was, and for the client was just a huge nightmare dealing with.

Travis Lindemoen: We've walked on, onto and taken on new, new projects where, and it's kind of what you described where, what they were hoping for, what they wanted from a QA perspective. It just wasn't syncing up. So basically I have to start from scratch and makesure of that.

Travis Lindemoen: again, as you're setting up the automation that it is fulfilling, what the stakeholders want, right? So, there's a lot of those types of projects where, it's just kind of, it's not working or, somebody maybe went a little bit of a cheaper route. So you, somebody just, that was referred to them that maybe doesn't have as much experience or they use, different like in,

Travis Lindemoen: Upwork or you just kind of outsource it overseas. And so sometimes, those projects can be just a little messy and we've had to come in, and help with those. So

Sean Weisbrot: When your team member caused the email inboxes to disappear, how did you handle that with the client? To like, save. The whole thing from falling apart.

Travis Lindemoen: I mean, the first thing is right, you wanna understand and make a discovery, like how did this happen? But unfortunately there wasn't a ton of time to like point fingers. because obviously when we spoke to our employee, he said that somebody from the other team had told him to push this.

Travis Lindemoen: You push it out basically. So again, you don't want to do a lot of finger pointing. So for us it was really like, okay, how, what needs to happen for us to get this back online as quickly as possible? Right. And so, really that meant just staffing up, you know. Not only more people, but even at a higher level, from a knowledge standpoint, so that they can get in and, and quickly, diagnose and, and hopefully, resolve the issue.

Travis Lindemoen: So, obviously they're screaming, upset, maybe a few not nice words, but you just have to be, unfortunately things happen in, in life, right? And, and it's not, it wasn't malicious. so it is just. Trying to understand where they're coming from, right? They're on a deadline, all this work is done.

Travis Lindemoen: obviously a huge nightmare for the client, but just how can we stay calm, work through this? What do we really need to do to, to, to get this back working? is, is really kind of the approach that we took. So. So, yeah, so we had about 24 hours to find about eight highly sought after, QA professionals to come in and, and help on a short term kind of basis.

Travis Lindemoen: So. So it was a costly mistake.

Sean Weisbrot: Did it make you go over the time period that you had, like, did, did it take longer to fix?

Travis Lindemoen: Yeah, so we did, they, they did have to, get an extension from the client. Obviously we had to have conversations on what happened, try to communicate on how it happened and.

Travis Lindemoen: Took blame for it. because they're the consulting partner that had the direct relationship with the client and, and obviously our client is the, the middle person there. but it was about a couple weeks late, unfortunately. So, they were understanding of it. I mean, they still had their existing providers and stuff.

Travis Lindemoen: So it wasn't like, oh my gosh, our staff, you know. Don't have any emails. It's, it, it was, yeah, so, well, I should say they didn't have any emails for a little bit there. because what happened? But from a backup standpoint, we were able to get back online.

Travis Lindemoen: I think it was 24 hours, but all the work to get the migration done was about a two week delay. So

Sean Weisbrot: Who took the biggest financial hit from that? Because obviously you had to bring on more people, so that was gonna cost more.

Travis Lindemoen: Yeah. I would say our firm, so obviously, that was, not a profitable, engagement. So yes. So, and, and at that point you get into, we have to start looking at, from an insurance standpoint, right?

Travis Lindemoen: Because we all, generally IT firms will carry e and o technology, insurances and so. Do we spend that time going down that route or do we just eat, kind of the, the cost to, to get this fixed? So, yeah, 100%. Like we, we were impacted the most financially.

Sean Weisbrot: So what do you think is the biggest thing you learned from that, besides thinking about insurance and, and these kinds of things?

Travis Lindemoen: Yeah, I think it's really just, the, the biggest kind of. Processes, I guess, that we've put in place, since some, an engagement like that is, really better. communication, but also documentation around if there's a big event like that, that's happening and, and one of our employees is tasked to do it, we do get at least one to two levels up, written approval that this is what you know is supposed to happen. So that way.

Travis Lindemoen: You know when they say, okay, yeah, we sign off on this, that it's ready to go, and we hit the go button and it doesn't work.

Travis Lindemoen: That we're not the only ones you know that are accountable for that. It's okay. So, two members from your upper level management team have also reviewed this and looked at it and said it's good to go. and, and so that's, the biggest thing that we put in place is just better documentation.

Travis Lindemoen: And not only just documentation, but from the, the, the individuals that would be, giving our, team of, professionals, guidance on, on what to do. So

Sean Weisbrot: has this helped you to anticipate problems in, in general in it for

Travis Lindemoen: sure. Creates a little bit more of a level of cautiousness.

Travis Lindemoen: So when we go onto engagements as an example, really understanding the lay of the land. Like why are, why are we needed? Where has the project failed? you. So there's, there's just a series of things there, because usually when we're called in to help out, it's a couple things, right?

Travis Lindemoen: It's their, They're behind schedule. maybe they don't have the internal skill sets or, yeah. Skill's, the right word there to, to fulfill the project, right? So they don't have the right technical skills to get it done. Or there's been somebody else on the project and it's not working out.

Travis Lindemoen: and so when it's that ladder, it's really trying to understand, where did they go wrong? Where were expectations not met? Are they over budget? where's they out on the schedule? just, all those things that we can look at and diagnose and say. Hey, we're confident this is something we can come in and help on.

Travis Lindemoen: Or are we just gonna be like the prior firm where the expectations are too high from a client perspective, and so we're gonna be set up for failure either way.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, I've, I've discovered talking to different companies is usually when problems happen. On a project, it's usually because the founder or the person who's responsible for handing over the information doesn't have all the information to hand over and more information comes along as the project is going and it changes the specifications of the project.

Sean Weisbrot: And I am a hundred million percent at fault for doing this internally with my own team. where they'd be, I'd be like, oh, this is the feature. And then. In the middle of like sprint planning, like, oh, actually I forgot there's this other little thing that needs to be a part of it too. And they're like, but that adds to the complexity by like another two points.

Sean Weisbrot: That means we can't do it this time. We have to push it back another week. You're messing with our schedule. So I, definitely, pissed my team off quite a bit. So eventually we had to hire someone to take me out of that role. She would be the one that planned it all. And, we had a much smoother ride from then on.

Travis Lindemoen: Well, and I think it's also good to point out just in today's like, changing landscape, and the way that people wanna work and the choices that they have is that we will also, it's so, it's not only what I described and what you described, but it's also like, Is there a certain person on the team, whether it's leadership or, maybe just a individual contributor that is very challenging to work with, and are they running people off the project?

Travis Lindemoen: Because that is a very, very real problem that we have, in, in at least, the IT space, where. People have choices. And so if, if that manager is very challenging to work with or, just, people will just leave. So, you, you have to look at like what is the, the turnover of the, the project.

Travis Lindemoen: and, and get a feel for that too because, unemployment is, obviously , at a low, really, across the nation. But, you know. T standpoint, we're basically at a 0% unemployment rate essentially. So. So yeah, it's, that's a whole new dynamic. The amount of ghosting that we've had with candidates that accept offers and don't show up is just unreal.

Travis Lindemoen: really, I would say since probably about 20. 2019 or so. it's really become a real problem. So, yeah. So you're not only evaluating, like is is it a good project financially, but, are there challenges within our customer's teams that, we're not able to solve those, if you have a, a, a cancer on your team, like, there's nothing that we can do about that because our people are just gonna.

Travis Lindemoen: You have that situation,

Sean Weisbrot: Have you ever gone to a client and been like, look, we wanna work with you, but you've just got this person on your team that's making it impossible?

Travis Lindemoen: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, it's, we have a client right now that's been a, a really good client for us for several years, and they have, an individual that it's, it's, it's not necessarily subsidiary, but it's a different side of the business that we really haven't worked with too much.

Travis Lindemoen: We haven't even had people start, but just from an interview perspective, we've gotten to the final interview and they say, I love the company. I love what they're doing. I love the role, but I cannot work for that manager. And I think that's probably about 12. 12 or so people have provided that feedback this year from that manager.

Travis Lindemoen: And so that is kind of that tough conversation that we have to go to, whether it's a top HR professional or A CTO or CIO and, and have that conversation. because you're not wanted, you don't wanna get that person in trouble, but it is good feedback for them to have.

Travis Lindemoen: And so it's been interesting. They still let him interview, but he's not allowed to really ask questions or respond. So he is more there visually. and it hasn't really helped. So we're still kind of working through, the person's been like a long-term employee too, so I think there's just some challenges with that.

Travis Lindemoen: But yes, that's a, an. We're dealing with at the moment on how we continue to coach this client that they're losing talent because of this one person. and it must be pretty bad if the people, that many people are giving that feedback just from like two interviews with this, this individual. So

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, I always try to give someone the benefit of the doubt and, and make an assumption that they may not be aware that they're doing what they're doing.

Sean Weisbrot: So there, there's character flaws and there's ignorance. And so I, I like to side on, on, I like to side with ignorance until someone proves to me that it's a character flaw and, Who knows how the company's handling it. Maybe they didn't even have the heart to explain to him that people were upset and maybe just like, oh, let's, let's try something different.

Sean Weisbrot: So, they may be handicapping him by not allowing him to learn why people aren't unhappy with him as a manager, and so he can't progress in his career and they're holding him back by coddling him. So, yeah, I, that sucks. I hate that. That's the situation. You've been running this company for over 10 years, right?

Travis Lindemoen: Yep. So, just over 12 years now. Okay. Yep.

Sean Weisbrot: What's the hardest decision you've had to make in running this company?

Travis Lindemoen: Hmm. I think the biggest challenge is really.

Travis Lindemoen: So when I look at our internal kind of sales and recruiting team, from that perspective, the biggest thing is you, you hire people, generally within the first month that they're not gonna work out, but I.

Travis Lindemoen: I have a soft spot for people. And so I hope that they change or I hope it's gonna get better. So big, and I know it may be cliche, but I guess the biggest part for me is just like hiring quickly. Fire quickly. I just am not good at that. So, because I just, I wanna hold on to like. I know they can get better.

Travis Lindemoen: Can I change them? Can I get them to work the way I want them to work? And so, I would say, 12 years, plus into this, I still struggle with that. You can tell within, I mean, maybe even a couple weeks, if they're gonna be long-term employees and yet you let 'em stay for six months or 12 months, or, whatever the case may be. So

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, that's exactly what I was talking about just now. Some people, it's a personality flaw and some people it's just ignorance. They need time to learn. And, I've made plenty of those mistakes where I was sold. I thought that they were gonna be a good employee and then they proved me wrong, but I took a little bit longer than I should have to fire them.

Sean Weisbrot: And then it took forever to fix the problems that I enabled them to create. And, so yeah, I've been learning how to be tougher on people because I just can't.

Travis Lindemoen: Yeah, and I think it's kind of like your ego, like you, if you made the decision to hire that person, you don't want to be wrong in that they're not a good fit.

Travis Lindemoen: I, it's probably a number of different things. It's being soft hearted. Right. And, and maybe a little bit ego driven too, where it's like, I know, I know there's something good in there, we just gotta find it. But, generally it ends up whether we either have to let 'em go down the road or, or they leave because it's not a good fit.

Sean Weisbrot: I have no problem admitting I'm wrong. I think it's just, I wanted to give them a chance to adapt to our system, but then, some people just can't. And, and when you start to see them, like actually breaking processes is when there's the flags co come up and you're like, okay, no, can't tolerate that anymore.

Sean Weisbrot: my, my COO had, they had like a flag system. He's like, this is a yellow flag. This is a red flag. You get 2, 2, 3, three red flags and we have to fire you. Something like that, like a red car, like with, with what's fuck the football, right? It's like some things are like it, I don't like it.

Sean Weisbrot: It's not a fireable offense, you know? We need to give them the opportunity to learn from this. If they don't learn from this, it's a red flag. Or if something they do is like, for example.

Sean Weisbrot: the person who on your team enabled or, or was part of the problem that allowed the email inboxes to get deleted?

Sean Weisbrot: During the investigation phase, we would discover is this a yellow flag or a red flag? If it's a red flag, you gotta go right now. Sorry if it's a yellow flag. Okay, well, how do we make sure you don't do that again? Because otherwise you're fine. But I. If you have a history of these things, then clearly we can't enable that.

Sean Weisbrot: So if that's something you've struggled with changing, what's something that you have successfully changed about yourself in the last 12 years? That, you feel has made you a better business owner?

Travis Lindemoen: Definitely. I used to be a hothead at work. And so just because I, it's so personal to me, right?

Travis Lindemoen: So I started the company on my own. we've. Grown it to be a multimillion dollar agency. And so I want people, I want people to work the way I want 'em to work. I wanted 'em to like care as much as I did. I wanted 'em to work as hard as I did. And so, I think just with the generational changes and how people wanna work changes.

Travis Lindemoen: And, just that whole, I don't go too much into what's mainstream, Articles right now online. But, but yeah, I just over the years have had to kind of like, take a step back, remind myself, nobody's gonna care as much as you do, and why should they, and, and really put people in place that can really, you know.

Travis Lindemoen: Kind of soften that blow or kind of be an arbitrator between me and, and other, staff as well, which has helped quite a bit as, not being so emotionally connected to, their success of the organization.

Sean Weisbrot: So I am still a hothead, unfortunately, and I've had to learn that I. Could very easily get angry.

Sean Weisbrot: And then I would show that anger to the team, which would obviously make the team angry. because they're like, whoa, what the hell's going on? Like, where did this come from? Because it's like when you scream at a baby, no, don't do that thing. Or like the baby's like, whoa, like. They don't have the ability to process why you're angry, because they don't understand.

Sean Weisbrot: It's the same with dogs, cats, whatever. You yell at something and they're like, ah, what do I do? and so by working with my COO, he was, he helped me to realize after this happened several times, that like, I can't keep doing this because it lowers morale. It makes me look like a bad leader. And instead, to allow the anger to subside and come back the next day curious with tons of questions.

Sean Weisbrot: And when you come with questions instead of anger, you actually enable a conversation to happen rather than accusations and, and fear and anxiety and stress and crying and, and all this stuff that you don't want people to feel. And so it was during this process that I felt like I was becoming a better leader because.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't know what's happening all day long. I shouldn't know what's happening all day long. It's not my responsibility to do that. It's my COO's responsibility to keep up with everything. And so if I see something in a Slack channel that angers me because like, oh, what the hell? Why? Why are they doing this?

Sean Weisbrot: It feels like they're going around some work that I was trying to do, but like actually. According to my COO, I'm not supposed to be doing that work, right? They're supposed to be doing that work and I should have just passed off the information, but I was trying to get in the middle of it and, and they were having a conversation without me about it.

Sean Weisbrot: And it was like, so oftentimes problems are because of, lack of understanding of expectations and, not hierarchy, but responsibility. Between different people. And so sometimes I would get mad because I'd felt like I was being cut out of something where in reality I shouldn't have been a part of it to begin with.

Travis Lindemoen: I think that that's definitely something that, again, over the years, just impacts your mental health, your stress levels, your relationships at, outside of work, whether it's your family, your spouse, kids, whatever.

Travis Lindemoen: that you really have to be able to, to take a step back. like you said, I, I don't necessarily use the 24 hour rule that that is a good one. My kids' coaches, soccer for the soccer team use that you can't talk to the coach for until after 24 hours to let things cool off a little bit, but yeah, that's been the biggest kind of growth area, I think it's good for everybody, whether it's employees, business partners, family, whoever else may be involved. So

Sean Weisbrot: How do you handle distractions?

Travis Lindemoen: I don't, I'm a distracted person, so, still working on that, that is a flaw that I think most my teammates would say I have.

Sean Weisbrot: Well, it's good to be honest with yourself then. I know I'm addicted to coffee and sugar and I keep trying to get off of them, but they enable each other.

Sean Weisbrot: It's like people who only smoke when they drink. Right? It's like, I usually only have a pastry if I'm having a coffee. because in Europe, that's just what people do.

Sean Weisbrot: You go to the cafe, you get a coffee and a pastry. You sit at the table, you have a chat, you sit there for an hour and, but if I don't drink the coffee, I won't have the pastry. So I get it. Yeah. Distractions are hard in that regard. Is there anything we haven't talked about that you wanted to kind of mention?

Travis Lindemoen: There's so much stuff out there. I mean, you could talk about just how the landscape has changed even in the last year, as it relates to hiring. We've seen slowdowns in the tech space and how people are handling that.

Travis Lindemoen: Obviously coming off of like, call it Q3 ish, Q4, 2020, the, I think the whole market was kind of booming.

Travis Lindemoen: Right? And, and, you know. Kind of the slowdown that we've seen here more recently, but then there's still like a ton of jobs out there and not enough people for 'em. and, and just, continued, issues with candidates that are, are ghosting.

Travis Lindemoen: And then there's a whole movement of. Quietly quitting, all that. So there's a ton of stuff that we deal with on a daily basis, whether it's coaching clients, or just our own candidates as well.