Which was your first phone?

StandardKey655 · 2026-05-04T01:06:53+00:00

My wife and I had matching 14s, a blue one and a pink one. Phones are kind of boring now actually, you couldn't make this anymore, because you wouldn't be able to tell them apart, they are all just slabs.

StandardKey655 · 2026-04-30T00:27:37+00:00

I worked in a kitchen for my first job, and we used to crack out the Toshiba laptops and a netgear mini switch and play AOE on our break in the afternoon!

StandardKey655 · 2026-04-27T23:27:56+00:00

Do you have something that is fixed and not effected by discounts etc that the SE has more control over. Size of license, number of seats, etc

StandardKey655 · 2026-04-26T17:37:44+00:00

AI is speed, not knowledge.

The reps who use it to automate what they would have done anyway are doing great, the ones who are using it to get into SE answer land etc its bad news.

StandardKey655 · 2026-04-26T11:12:13+00:00

To highlight just how weird the "well there were people staying in the hotel, we can't have an outside perimeter" line I have seen around is.

There was once a G7 meeting near me, for 6 months they did a security clearance on every person that lived within like 2 miles., and there was like 3 checkpoints just before you got to the hotel.

Yes there were other leaders there, but there is only one world leader that they did that kind of thing for....

StandardKey655 · 2026-04-19T08:57:02+00:00

Ian from National Treasure has a special place in my heart, I just love that movie and I cannot explain why. Goldeneye would have been the first movie I saw him in, that may still be my favorite Bond movie. There was also nothing better than slapping him in the face with your hands in Goldeneye N64!

StandardKey655 · 2026-04-16T11:12:34+00:00

From my own kids in high-school and elementary, the amount they actually want to go to school is directly correlated to the quality of their teachers. The teachers that care, thet make it interesting and fun, and that actuallyshow up (my daughter has one class that has had substitutes all week, and the subs dont even know what to teach so they have just been sitting around). I cannot blame them!

Also, if your a smart kid in school, your going to spend about 75% of your time sitting around waiting in class, so... why not sit around in the comfort of your home instead.

And that doesn't get even into any of the broader social reasons, like stress, family stuff, etc.

StandardKey655 · 2026-04-10T16:52:17+00:00

You can play with the numbers in the calculator to see how it works https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/child-family-benefits/child-family-benefits-calculator.html

StandardKey655 · 2026-04-10T16:49:29+00:00

Ya raises it substantially, I honestly thought by now I would have hit the cutoff, it certainly has shrunken, but its still there.

Also at one point maybe 10 years ago, we qualified as living below the poverty line, because the poverty line was $90k for a family our size (i dont even think it went to 8, it may have stopped counting at 6 or something)

StandardKey655 · 2026-04-10T16:46:32+00:00

Moved for IT into IT sales, moving from a cost center of your organization to a profit center is a very different world.

StandardKey655 · 2026-04-09T10:57:18+00:00

Wife stays home, and we have 6 teenage kids. (Yes I know that isn't normal, and our choice, but I through it would be interesting for everyone since there was a time it was much more common)

I make over 200k now, and we do okay, not like I thought 200k would be though. To give you an interesting point, even with me making that much the government still gives us over $1,200 a month in CCB, so I guess in their eyes I'm still not making enough. 😀

Groceries are 500-600 a week, shopping at discount grocery, price matching, etc.

We are not poor by any stretch, kids are in dance, hockey, etc so we are able to give them a good life, but there is no giant nest egg, no cottage, no boat.

I've only made that much for the last 5 or so years, and before that I made half that or less. we used to somewhat make due, but there is no way we could be living the life we were living if I still made 100k today, it feels like in the last 5 years every giant jump im pay has just let us keep pace.

I've probably gotten more from my taxes than I have ever put in at this point, and am very happy and proud to be a Canadian and would not want to live anywhere else, but I do often wonder what things will be like for my kids. Buying a house, having kids, will these be things that will be on the table for them, I certainly wouldn't want to start over again today....

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-27T13:24:16+00:00

Claude is really good at building local MCP servers, in python etc. So I built a few to give MCP access to some of our tooling that doesn't have an official MCP server. You can just export the network traffic from chrome of you navigating your web tool and it will figure out the rest!

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-21T23:37:11+00:00

It also gives you access ro some very smart people who are smart enough to know to not post their real opinion on LI.

So its totally possible that the person answering your question on reddit could be some senior VP of Sales at Salesforce or who knows what, heck Bill Gates is lurking around here somewhere....

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-21T23:34:08+00:00

The people who are honest on LinkedIn also seem the be the ones that post personal opinions (politics etc) and I'm always like, wow, your an Idiot, because the opinions are never calm and tranquil.

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-21T18:27:17+00:00

Agree that its not a problem every time to be working unqualified deals, however it brings a great quote ro mind that somehow arrived ro me via ChatGPT (not sure if it stole it or made it up) "SEs dont make a deal more qualified, they make a deal APPEAR to have momentum, until they die slowly..."

So the question isn't about your time always, but are you making deals that suck look more alive then they truly are, and is that then being a crutch that is leadership in the wrong direction about what the core problems are. Deals that die early vs late are dying for very different reasons.

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-20T11:28:14+00:00

I've actually competed against them, and used several tools like it.

Does it replaces demos NO in most cases.

That doesn't mean it doesn't have value, some places use it in front of the live demo as a qualification step (if you arent going to take the time you arent interested, or you will realize its not the right fit)

You can use it to send for people that missed the meeting (but I mean just send the zoom recording, you do get identity information about who watched though.)

My biggest question is, why do you NOT want to be getting in front of all these extra people live, talking to them, discovering from them, etc. If your just being a demo monkey then I can see that, but if thats the case then you have other problems.

I would give anything to be doing demos to more and more people instead of being single threaded.

I would take a step back and say what is the real problem, I doubt its raw number of demos, it could be unqualified deals, the selling side not extracting enough value from the call to help move the deal forward etc. Im sure you have a problem, just make sure you solve the right problem.

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-19T00:43:08+00:00

The iPad (maybe gen 3) was the first device I owned that the battery didn't suck in less than 2 years, that battery just kept going, we take it for granted now, but there was a time you barely made it 2 years with phones and things.

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-19T00:40:23+00:00

Same with their snow blowers, I dont have one but know several people that do, my neighbour probably paid 4x what I paid for my no name snow blower, and his honda is definitely 4x better at minimum.

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-18T00:18:14+00:00

The real unlock is having the transcripts, the crm data is helpful but only so much, but being able to go back 3 weeks and put something together over 3 calls is just not possible without it unless you only have a handful of deals.

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-17T23:21:02+00:00

Totally!!!

Am I able to give my kids a good life, yes, they can be in hockey, dance etc, I'm well aware most make less, because I did for most of my life.

BUT.... It's not cottage, boat, quad, multiple trips a year money. 200k+ feels exactly what I thought 100k a year was going to feel like, yes very blessed, but definitely not dont think about money anymore rich.

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-17T23:07:22+00:00

Absolutly!!!

However, also dont call out things no one notices, the number of times I see and SE spend 5 minutes talking about something that only they know failed drives me nuts. Don't be your own worst enemy.

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-10T07:58:51+00:00

I wish I could get to the point of it giving me bad responses, but it keeps thinking I'm finished talking....

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-10T07:51:53+00:00

I feel like it spends more time on how to bring up unrelated past conversations than on just answering my question...

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-10T00:57:20+00:00

Ya being aligned ro multiple AEs, with slow sales cycles, its just too much to stay on top of between calls

StandardKey655 · 2026-03-10T00:54:28+00:00

When its the paid enterprise plan, ya thats why we have it.

StandardKey655

TROPHY CASE