What We ACTUALLY Do at Work Everyday

By Phil Bruckbauer

• Podcasts
• Music
• Trivia
• Activities
• Banter/Argue

I have to preface this by stating that I am only talking about Pat and myself throughout this entire post, because we are the ones doing all the shop work while Blain and Grant are holed up in the office doing God knows what. (Maybe one of them could let us all know in a future blog post.)

I guess you could say I’ve always been this way, but especially since I started working at Grain Designs, I need something to listen to constantly.  If the shop is quiet, my phone is plugged into the speakers and we’re listening. If the shop is loud, my headphones are in and I’m listening.  Most of my life it’s been finding and obsessing over new music, but with the addition of age, has come the addition of talk radio and podcasts.

Podcasts

in general, we(I) have 4 podcasts that we listen to most episodes of each week. The Joe Rogan Experience, and WTF with Marc Maron– Both uniquely different in their own ways, but nevertheless similar in the fact that they feature standup comedians interviewing their guests one on one discussing a variety of topics.  The Meateater Podcast with Steven Rinella– insights and discussions on topics that interest me specifically including hunting, fishing and conservation.  The Power Trip morning show – a morning radio show out of Minneapolis that discusses sports events of the previous day, hilarious conversations about everything under the sun, and fun play along trivia games. We can agree that I enjoy listening to all 4 podcasts each week. I’ll discuss the ones we can’t agree on in a later category.

Music

I have to say I’m typically the one choosing the music, but probably only because I’m the one who actually cares what is playing.  Most of the time when you walk into the shop you’d hear some sort of indie rock, rap, or singer songwriter/folk rock. Pat thinks I listen to overly hipster music, but in reality it’s fairly mainstream stuff. (he just doesn’t know that much about music.) Hah! Actually, I think for the most part I’m beginning to convert Pat into liking my type of music, so here are 3 artists that I think we both can agree that we currently like- Father John Misty, Kanye West, and the Avett Brothers. I’ll discuss the ones we can’t agree on in a later category.

Trivia

Pat and I come from the same overly competitive family, which means that includes not only sports, but also games of wit. Most often the trivia games played at the shop are play along games that are aired on the Power Trip morning show. Our favorite is “Initials” which is played every Friday morning. I know that it aggravates Blain to no end, as we pretty much shut down production  every week to play this game, but you need to be focused and able to hear well, and I’m not about to lose to Pat.  I wont go into all the rules but I’d definitely recommend looking it up and playing along.  Our other trivia game is that we simply ask random trivia questions and see if the other knows the answers. We can agree that Pat is the expert on random animal facts, movies (unless they are directed by Wes Anderson), and 1980’s hair metal bands. I sometimes get the geography ones right. I’ll discuss the ones we can’t agree on in a later category.

Activities

When we find a few free minutes around the shop, you’ll often find us doing some sporting activity around the shop yard. If you ask the UPS driver or stop by the shop sometime, you might discover that we find free minutes quite often.  Our most common activity has to be tossing around “the pink football”. Pat has had this football for over 20 years, its been involved in thousands of games of catch, and has been on 7 trips out of the country. If anyone knows how to get another one, let us know, Pat will pay big bucks for another one. Pat is also obsessed about and talented at a little sport called wiffle ball. (but I’m sure you’re gonna hear about that in an upcoming blog about the wiffle ball world series.) My favorite activity has to be shooting clay pigeons with shotguns out in the yard. Ive spent my whole life shooting shotguns and I’ve gotten pretty good over the years, so we can agree that im the best shot.  We can also agree that Pat is the best overall athlete of the group. I’ll discuss what we can’t agree on in the next category.

Banter/Argue

I know it sounds crazy, but If there’s no music, podcast, trivia, or activity going on, I guess we end up having to chat with each other. If you don’t know Pat, he can be quite opinionated and tends to think he is right on most topics. If you don’t know me, I can be kind of a pain in the ass to be around day after day at work. Combine the two and add random competitions, different music preferences, a 100+ degree shop and you’re gonna get a whole shit storm of disputes. Examples of such  intense debates have included the correct way to put mayonnaise on a sandwich,  who knows less about fixing a car, and the most recent “how fast will Mcgregor lose this fight?” debate.

In all honesty there isn’t much of anything to discuss in this category! I think we can both agree that we are lucky to be able to work together every day and get along as well as we do. And If I can speak for both of us, there is nobody I’d rather work alongside everyday…except Emily Ratajkowski, I’d drop him in a heartbeat for her.