Michele Hansen 0:00
Hey, Callie morning, Michelle.

Colleen Schnettler 0:01
Chase.

Michele Hansen 0:03
Well, we didn't even say the same shank. I have a question for you.

Colleen Schnettler 0:07
It's very Yes.

Michele Hansen 0:07
Very top of mind for me. This week. As you can probably hear from my voice. I have been sick this week. Testing negative. But I at this point I'm like doubting the tests. Um, when was the last time you took like a legit Sick Day?

Colleen Schnettler 0:33
A real sick like, do you Well, I

Michele Hansen 0:34
you work.

Colleen Schnettler 0:37
The last sick day I took was when I had COVID Because I was so sick. I like could not move. Like I couldn't have done work if I wanted to. And that was a year and a half ago. And before

Michele Hansen 0:49
that, okay, so last time you took a full sick day was a year and a half ago. When was the last time before that you took a sick day?

Colleen Schnettler 0:59
I don't know never. I'd like to tell you I don't get sick that I am superhuman. But that's a bit of probably a lie. I just tell myself that, you know, I manifest never getting sick.

Michele Hansen 1:11
I was thinking about this because, you know, so, like on Sunday, I was kind of feeling sniffly. But I was like, I felt fine. Monday, feeling way more sniffily took a test. It was negative, by the way. Okay, I just gonna pause. Do you I feel like now, with an I don't know if it's different than us, but like rapid tests are so easily available, like, like, at home rapid tests, like, you know that. I'm kind of like, well, if my little chemistry set says that I'm sick, then I'm sick. And then I'm going to you know, let myself sleep and like rest and watch TV and whatever. But if the little chemistry set says, um, I'm negative, then like, Screw it, you know, we're just, we're just going pedal to the metal like every day. And just like, let's get some extra caffeine like, do you like? Like, is this just looking for external like that like looks for looking

Colleen Schnettler 2:02
for justification

Michele Hansen 2:04
from the the COVID test to be sick? Of course, you can be sick and like other ways, but like, is it like, am I the only one?

Colleen Schnettler 2:12
I think that's pretty normal, right? Because that's gotta be like, Okay, I am actually sick. This look like you said, this little chemistry test tells me I'm actually sick. So now I can give myself permission to rest,

Michele Hansen 2:23
right? It feels like you have to you're like, I mean, here you're kind of like legally mandated to rest for like four days, which is way less than it used to be, but it's still there. Like, you're, you're still in isolation for that amount of time.

Colleen Schnettler 2:37
So where are you resting?

Michele Hansen 2:39
Um, so Monday, I was like, I was not feeling great. And I was like, You know what, it's a holiday in the US anyway, it's not a holiday here. So like kiddo was still in school. So I was like, I can at least kind of take it easy for a couple of hours. But I don't for

Colleen Schnettler 2:59
a couple hours, only two hours. Don't get crazy. Michelle did

Michele Hansen 3:03
like some house stuff. And like, like, I didn't actually rest. Like, there was no resting going on. And then the follow up, I didn't I didn't go to language school. And then the following day, I was like, Okay, I took one day off, like, you know, back at it. So I was like, working all day, Tuesday, Wednesday. And then felt like I got hit by a train last night. And, you know, again, testing every day today feeling like, oh, man, maybe this like not taking a sick day thing is like catching up with me. So at like, 7am Today, I was like, I'm going to take a sick day, I'm going to do it. Like I need to model good behavior, like healthy sick, leave policy. Taking God that was a mess of a sentence. But you know what I mean? Like, you know, because we have, you know, somebody working with us now and like, he has sick leave. And it's actually like, I think we just had unlimited sick leave just like, don't work when you're sick. But like, a totally doesn't apply to me, right? Like, it's not hypocritical of me. Anyway, so at 7am Today, I was like, I'm taking a sick day. I'm doing it. And then you know what I was doing? Like, 815 this morning? My email you didn't even know Oh, I know. I like that. I like ate some breakfast sitting on the couch and was reading a book and then I was like, I'm bored and then started working. I

Colleen Schnettler 4:30
feel like we have some other onion layers. We need to unpeel here because that sounds like you have issues

Michele Hansen 4:36
probably. But I got me thinking you know if you're gonna say I have issues like I bet that you've gotten the sniffles at some point in the last year and a half and did not take a sick day.

Colleen Schnettler 4:48
I never get the sniffles right. We already established that you are a super super

Michele Hansen 4:52
human golden retriever real human who

Colleen Schnettler 4:57
know so this is an interesting concept because I think Before COVID, there was no room for sick days ever. But I think after we as a society are more accepting of sick days, because if you showed up if we did this podcast together, and you showed up to my house like you are right now I'd be like GTFO man does not want you to it is less socially, I will take you out sick in public. But we all work from home. Right? So, no, I think that very, very few of us, especially people who are founders or aspiring founders, eat not even every actually all software developers I know, show up since a remote show up to work sick. I almost never hear someone say, Oh, I have a cold. I'm taking the day off, like ever. Yeah, because you can have a cold and still work.

Michele Hansen 5:43
But you don't. I mean, so Matias also hasn't been feeling feeling well this week. But better than me, and he just looked at me a minute ago and was like, Yeah, I think not taking any time off this week. Like, just caught up with me like right now. Like, I just like, because it catches up with us, right? Because it's easy when you work from home. And like, you know, I mean, even like, you know, most of my laptop lives in the headquarters. But in my house, I have the iPad, I can do email and Stripe and intercom and everything else from my iPad. In slack, and you know, like, there's a lot of work I can do from my iPad. Actually, that's the reason I got an iPad. Right, but like, I mean, I spent like the butt like, think back to when you were a consultant. I mean, you're like, you still have sort of a client right now. But like, I feel like for you, especially when you were a consultant, like if you took sick time, like you were straight up not getting paid.

Colleen Schnettler 6:50
You don't get paid. Yeah, you literally do not get paid if you're sick. Has a rough rough incentive structure like structure. Yeah, I don't Okay, so besides it unless I am like death cannot get out of bed, which is how I was when I had COVID A year and a half ago. I do not take the time off. So I cannot preach a moral high ground here and joke that I don't get sick. Like no, I don't take time off.

Michele Hansen 7:16
Well, I think for sick No, neither one of us tries to like I think we're both very anti preaching a moral high ground, right. And like, I'm just saying, I think it's just more kind of like to talk about this. And it's like, are these attitudes we have towards letting ourselves whereas like, is, is that unhealthy? Like, I mean, I'm standing here doing this podcast right now. sounding like a frog. Like this podcast today is hosted by Colleen Shetler and Kermit the Frog.

Colleen Schnettler 7:49
Used to sound like

Michele Hansen 7:51
But meanwhile, I tell you know, the folks who work with us whether it's you know, by VA, or Cory, like, you know, if you're sick, like sick, I don't want to hear from you. Like just whatever, I'll deal with it. But but maybe is that also me kind of being like, I can take care of everybody else, right? Like, I can take care of their work for a day if I have to not a big deal. But then it's like, who is going to take care of my work for a day if I don't do it? Right. There's like, getting hit by a bus.

Colleen Schnettler 8:25
I Michelle, I've known you for a while now. I wager that when you did not have a full time business and you worked a kind of a more traditional job, you still worked when you were sick.

Michele Hansen 8:36
I checked my email, right? So like I was more likely to like think it's let myself watch Netflix for an entire day and not feel bad about it. And just, you know, yeah, cuddle up with Netflix and a box of tissues and just sneeze. Which I probably should have done today.

Colleen Schnettler 8:54
Yeah, you clearly. I think it's more of a personality thing. And okay, so I have a I have like a, an interesting take on this an unpopular opinion, as they say, because there's been this pushback in our community where take your rest days, take your mental health days, take sick days. I don't really believe that. Because I think the people who are preaching that are the people who have already reached a certain level of success and they should do that for their employees, but they didn't get to where they are by working four days a week.

Michele Hansen 9:30
I think there's a difference between working four days a week and letting yourself take a break when you're sick. I feel like there's some nuance there I hear there's nuance I hear you on people who have you know already climbed the mountain and then are telling people to relax when they themselves did not relaxed climbing the mountain and how I don't know what the word I'm looking for here is what why don't you fill it in for me? How do you feel

Colleen Schnettler 9:58
brain fog? Uh, yeah, I know you're right. There's a difference. There is a difference. You're right. So,

Michele Hansen 10:05
because it's kind of right, it's for you. It's like infuriating. And I totally feel that. Okay, I'll say, because I feel like you weren't gonna say that. It is infuriating when successful people tell people who look up to them to relax. Now, I'm a big advocate of mental health. Like, I feel like it's important to be open about that, and to take time for that. So I'm not going to like I think they're coming from a good place. But I feel like what, what I feel like what you're saying is, you know, people who worked a nine to five job and then three to four hours every night on their side projects at night on the weekends, should not be telling other people to only work four days a week, right? Like, and I guess my like, my perspective on that is like, Yes, I did that side project and full time job thing. That is how I got here. I don't think it should have to be like that, though. Like, so I'm not necessarily going to. I'm not going to tell somebody to do that. I'm also not going to sugarcoat that that's how I did things. But like, you know what I mean? Like, I don't I don't feel responsible, like perpetuating that. Right, which I think is part of why we invest in stuff like tiny seed and conference. So people don't have to do that.

Colleen Schnettler 11:25
But back to your point. You're right, you're gonna change it unintentionally. Yeah, I guess. So I unintentionally changed the topic. Because you are right, these are two I kind of rolled that whole you don't have to work on sick days thing into you don't have to work too hard. You're right. These are two different things. sick days. All is it just like America, I just feel like we're all like no,

Michele Hansen 11:47
I mean, so like, of

Colleen Schnettler 11:47
course we work if we have a cold.

Michele Hansen 11:49
I guess there is there is definitely an ethos. And I think this very much comes out of the Silicon Valley side of things, which is very, like, you know, if you have a company like startup is your life and you work 20 hours a day, and if you're not you like you have to crush it, bro. Like kind of ethos that leaves. It's brah I'm sorry. I'm sorry, is this it's no longer bro. It's okay. Is this is this like a Colorado Colorado of pronunciations? I don't know if you live in California. No, it's brah. But if you don't, it's bro. Right from Okay. Bruh anyway. That there's yeah, there's the you know, the like hustle until you die, right? Like kindness culture. And you know, I haven't lived in that. So I can't. I'm only speaking from an outsider's perspective here that I've heard enough people talk about how toxic hustle culture is to feel like I can say that that's definitely a culture, right? Yeah, I think we can make a choice of like, do we want to first I mean, we don't have to participate in that culture. But then it's like, how much of this do we want to perpetuate? I guess for me now I'm thinking about like, what kind of example am I setting? Right? Because like, if you work in a company where there's say, unlimited vacation, leave, and the leadership says take it, and then the leadership never takes vacation? Right? Do you actually have permission to take unlimited vacation? No. And so this is where I'm like, trying to be really conscious of is like, Okay, I have said it's important to say toxic leave. But I'm actually not giving myself that permission, which means that I am setting a poor example.

Colleen Schnettler 13:31
Yes, you are, especially now that you're you have an employee. So you literally have someone to set an example for 100% agree with you. I mean, it's like so I just company I worked for great company love them. But like the leadership told us, we don't have to work on weekends, but then the leadership is sending slack messages on the weekends. And I'm like, so I technically don't have to respond to this. That's fine. But also it made me a little uncomfortable. not uncomfortable, but it made me be like, but should I be responding to this? Was that a trick? I guess? So to your point, I think what leadership in a company does makes a difference. It absolutely sets an example.

Michele Hansen 14:07
Yeah, yeah. I'm a big fan of the the schedule and send. That is my my favorite trick that the devil has ever invented.

Colleen Schnettler 14:17
Oh, no, I don't. Yeah.

Michele Hansen 14:19
You know, but or was it No, actually, I think it was originally superhuman. No schedule is sent is is I do that a lot when I'm like catching up on email on the weekend. Especially now because I'm language school on Mondays like I keep like those like Mondays are just like shot for me.

Colleen Schnettler 14:37
So I feel like what we just talked around but decided was you should be taking a sick day. Correct. I mean, I did

Michele Hansen 14:44
attempt to watch TV today and then I got bored. So

Colleen Schnettler 14:49
and so you checked your email instead? There was nothing else that would have entertained you. Besides I was

Michele Hansen 14:54
so bored like and Amy This is the funny thing, right? Like because I'm a parent too. So I mean as a parent Like you never get a day off. And as a founder, you kind of never get a day off. And so I feel like it's just really hard to fit like sickness into that, especially when you're just so used to not being allowed to rest, right? Because, right, like, even if I weren't a founder, I have a family like, dinner still has to be on the table, you know, like, I still have to either, like bedtime has to happen that time has to happen, like, you gotta be up at the crack of dawn to get him to school like that. Does that doesn't care whether you're sick or not, right? You know, like, yeah, having a company to like, there's always customers to respond to and servers to, you know, herd and whatever, you know, got it gotta keep the cows happy. I think it's just I and I think it's hard to find that space. But at the same time, it's like, wow, I'm really feeling. Okay, the fact that I didn't truly take a break on Monday, and then I just tried to act like I wasn't sick. Tuesday, Wednesday, means I got hit by a train. And it right, it catches

Colleen Schnettler 16:05
up with you.

Michele Hansen 16:08
And I don't know if I've ever really heard a lot of other indie hacker, like, indie founder, people really talk about this. And I talk about it not to come at it from a position of like, here's what I do, and everyone should, should do that. No, I think we've already established that I am a terrible role model. But that I think we maybe should talk about this. Right? Like, like, Should we make it socially acceptable or expected for West to take a break? Or from your perspective, like, if the fact that like, you know, I just like, shut up and bear it through being sick? And that is, you know, point 000 1% of what got me here today, and you want to be where I am? Is that disingenuous one of you know, me to support something that might actually make it harder for you to get to where you want to be? Right, like,

Colleen Schnettler 17:10
okay, so I think what's the worst about you right now, is it feels so honest with me, and I treasure you for that. It's way worse to me, because now it feels really hypocritical. Like, at least like the my first million guys, they're like, we're a hustle culture, man. That's what we do grind, grind, grind. Whereas then there's this group of kind of like, I don't, I don't want to use my words here. But there's this group of people who are objectively successful in their businesses who are like, we need to focus on rest, and we should take sick days. And it's important to have all these things, yet they don't do it themselves. But they say that they are the kind of people that want their employees to do it. So they're even worse than hustle culture, because they pretend that they're not hustle culture. But they are. So they're like, I want my employees to learn that they can take sick days, and they can take vacation. Yet the person who's saying that does none of those things. So to me, that's even worse.

Michele Hansen 18:07
The pronoun they was doing a lot of work there to not be you what you just said.

Colleen Schnettler 18:15
I mean, I don't mean that way. But when I have someone tell me, oh, you should you can take if I work for you. And you're like, Yeah, I we totally support unlimited PTO, and we support you taking sick days, yet, you literally never do that. Now, you have this, like, this tension. Whereas if you were just like, hey, we never take breaks, at least I know that going in,

Michele Hansen 18:40
you know what I mean? That's true. I mean, and this is really, I mean, that's part of why it was important to me that we actually spelled out a vacation policy. It was like, we expect you to take all federal holidays, plus a certain number of vacation days, at a minimum, like this is what we expect at a minimum. And then if you end up needing more, like, you know, I mean, being in your, you know, 20s 30s 40s It's like people get married every other weekend, you have to go to and like people are running out of vacation time, right, especially after COVID. So, you know, for whatever reason, people might might leave, need more leave. And so it was a minimum expectedly rather than a like, unlimited whatever, because it turns out that most places don't actually believe that. But yeah, on the I, I think there's there's this hypocritical tension there, and I guess any guests, we're talking about it in two different levels, right, because there's the tension of founders to the people who work with us whether those are full time employees or contractors. And the example we're setting of what what goes on in the organization and and how we expect that to be handled. And then also other founders right. And I think this is all the more I'm more in focus for us, because most of us indie founders don't have co workers or maybe have one or two people that we work with, or we have contractors, right? Like, we don't have, like, we're not working in a company of like 500 people, like our community is other founders. And so that's the example we're seeing. And those other founders are, you know, all at different stages, right? And no, it's not fair for the people at the top of the mountain, I guess that's the euphemism we're using for that. To say that everybody should do one thing when they themselves did not do that. And I intentionally don't we're not doing

Colleen Schnettler 20:41
it right. This is not you, but you can change your behavior at any time. You This is an internal tension within you like you can change your behavior today, right now.

Michele Hansen 20:51
Are you a drill sergeant? Like are you a drill sergeant and up past life, like

Colleen Schnettler 20:58
feeling aggressive this morning?

Michele Hansen 20:59
Jet, you can take care of yourself. You will take sick leave and watch Netflix.

Colleen Schnettler 21:06
Okay, so here's how I think we have to frame it. I think you have to think of it though. Like

Michele Hansen 21:13
you ever been upgraded or downgraded from a golden retriever to a drill sergeant. How do you feel about that?

Colleen Schnettler 21:21
But But I think I think you're right, no one does. But I also think like maybe if you had taken Monday off properly, you wouldn't be hitting a wall today, Thursday. So you had three average days of work, whereas you could have had one day off? And then Ben back to normal?

Michele Hansen 21:36
Yeah. Right. And that's, that's the the math of it. That is sometimes a little bit hard to do. Yeah, rather than, you know, I mean, it's the equivalent of, you know, when you recognize there is a problem, do you pivot? Or do you keep digging? And I like that, I think I definitely I enthusiastically picked up that shovel and just kept digging.

Colleen Schnettler 22:01
Yeah. But you know, this is making me think I have, you know, three contractors now and a business partner. And I treat them like I expect them to get back to me right away. Like, I don't give them any room. I don't give them any room to not be available. So this is kind of making me think of the way that I am treating the people that that work with. And for me, the way I treat them as I treat them very, I honestly think I treat them kind of hustle culture unintentionally, because I think I'm kind of that way. So just this conversation has been really good for me. Because it's made me think like, I sometimes say things to them, like, Yeah, it's fine. If you take, you know, XYZ offer, it's fine if you're sick, but I don't know if I'm actually making them feel that that is true. You know what I mean? Yeah. So that's, that's good for me to think about in terms of my own relationships.

Michele Hansen 22:59
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I mean, that's a more broader shift that I'm going through right now is thinking about the examples that I'm setting. Yeah. Which is Yeah, I mean, I guess we're, you know, we're as parents, right, that's something you think about all the time, but it feels different in a work setting. It's actually weird, because usually, like, work, things are easier for me than anything in personal life. But this one is actually kind of forcing me to chew on it a bit.

Colleen Schnettler 23:28
Yeah, it's tricky. Well,

Michele Hansen 23:30
what have we learned today? That I should say that I am a terrible role model.

Colleen Schnettler 23:38
And a hypocrite. Don't forget to hit

Michele Hansen 23:40
on that. Rate, disappointment. That is all for today. I love when I get to quote Jeremy Clarkson at the end of our podcast.

Colleen Schnettler 23:52
Do you watch isn't he the guy with a car show? Yeah. Do you not want to watch that show called the Oshkosh my husband? Yeah, it's so boring. My husband, his brother love it.

Michele Hansen 24:02
First of all, it's not called the car show. It was called Top Gear. And then there was like this whole thing blah, blah, blah. Now it's on Amazon. It's called Grand Tour. It's very good. And then also, though, if you don't like that watch Clarkson's farm, because it is like a guy life in a TV show. Like it is totally like, you know, people move from the city to the country, and hilarity ensues. Like, it is a fantastic thing. Yes. Clarkson's farm that is your recommendation for today. And by the way, got it speaking of recommendations, so there have been a whole bunch of new podcasts that have come out in the indie space in the past month or so. And I wanted to give a quick shout out to a couple of them because people listening to this podcast, presumably they like listening to podcasts. They like listening to podcasts with indie founders. Seems like there's a lot of overlap and we only come out once a week and you got to walk your dog you know, three times Today at least right? All of these are also under half an hour, usually, if not 20 minutes. So yeah, so friends of this pod who have launched their own shows recently, Simon Bennett and Vulcan Kaya have shipped Sass faster. Josh HO and Adrienne Barnes. Their show was called Marketing retro. That was only 20 minutes, where they talked about their marketing every week, and what they're working on. And then there's Marie from llama life and ADHD, Jesse and their show the weekly builds. Or they also talked about what they're working on Murray as a SaaS founder and Jesse as a more of a content type business. And there are links to those in the show notes and we suggest people give them a listen.

Colleen Schnettler 25:48
All right, check those out everyone. A huge thanks to all of our listeners who've become software socialites and support our show. You can become a supporter for $100 a year at software social dot dev slash supporters. Chris from chipper CI the daringly handsome Kevin Griffin and Mike from gently used domains who has a nice personality Dave from rekod max of online or not, Stefan from talk to Stefan. Brendan Andrade of bright bits team tuple Alex Hillman from the tiny MBA, Rami from hover code and rocket gems Jane and Benedick from user list, Kendall Morgan rumen gammas of sign Well, Corey Haynes of swipe Well, Mike Wade of crowds century Nate Ritter of room steals and a massive subscribe sense Jeff Roberts from out SATA, Justin Jackson mega maker, Jack Ellis and Paul Jarvis from Fathom analytics, Matthew from appointment reminder, Andrew Culver bullet train John Koster Alex of course Oh systems. Richard from stunning. Josh, the annoyingly pragmatic founder, Ben from consent kit John from credo and editor ninja cam Sloane. Michael Kapur of new see proposals. Chris from URL box Kayleigh of toplet Greg Park from trait lab, Adam from Rails auto scale. Lana and Alex from recap See, Joe mass allottee of rails devs.com proud mama from Opal net, LLC. Anna from cradle Moncef from Ruby on Mac Steve of be inclusive. Simon Bennett of SNAP shooter backups. Josh Smith of key hero.io Yes Bert Christiansen of form backend Matthew of Work Cited Chris of jet boost.io Darrell Shannon of DocQ ematic Laravel is the community for women non binary and trans Laravel developers Arvin call James sours from castaway.fm Jessica Melnik Damian, more of audio audit podcast checker Eldon from nodal studios Mitchell Davis from recruit kit. Thank you everyone for supporting the show.

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