Mark Servais is a Senior Applications Architect at Humana and a Sitecore MVP. Mark talks about Caregiving, family, automation, effects of COVID-19, and much more.
Akshay Sura
Welcome to the Konaverse podcast. This is Akshay Sura, and this is Matt McQueeny. And with us today is Mark Servais. I've known Mark for a really, really long time. When I when we meet at these conferences, I have to take a break because my ab muscles get a lot of exercise when I'm around him because he's witty, he's smart. And he makes people around him laugh like crazy. So welcome to the show, Mark.
Mark Servais
Thank you for having me. And Thanks for clarifying why you have to take a break because most people just need a break from me once in a while.
Akshay Sura
So not because I get tired of it just because you make me laugh way too much with the flaps and the adapters and sweat
Matthew McQueeny
Well does that put him on the, I'm sorry, does that put him on the spot too much? Because now he has to really make people laugh, right? No, he naturally does so it doesn't matter.
Mark Servais
I'm not going to make anybody laugh today. This is going to be purely serious. We're going to go forward, I'm going to be all bidness.
Matthew McQueeny
So Mark, how long have you been in? Why don't we start serious? How long? Have you been working in tech and maybe even like what? what sparked the interest in tech? You know, for most of us It goes back to when we were little kids, right?
Mark Servais
Yeah, um, God, I probably been in tech more than I've been alive. I think, it feels like sometimes. Um, so definitely 30 plus years, right? And I'm not going to go into the exact years because then we start getting close to the four years, we start dating about how back how many rings I have on the inside, if you were to cut me in half. So what's the safe 30 plus years to be safe? what triggered me? You know, it was an old Apple 2E, and Conan the Barbarian. Really. A game. And at that point, I started messing around with it with an Apple 2E. I played this game I thought it was the coolest thing ever, right? Just, you know, snot nosed kid in front of a computer. And I started making things like fake programs to freak out my friends. Right? Like, if you ever saw the movie? Oh, what was it where the the play the game nuclear hobby? You know, bombs are going off kind of thing. I can't remember the name of it at the point. Is it like Battlefield? Or no, no, no, it was this the super Cray computer? Would you like to play a game? It's old man. And not many people are gonna remember this cuz I'm ancient. But anyway, so I saw that movie, everything that had with computer side mess of people by you know, like, pretending that I was hacking things, we're gonna shut that speaker up and go from there. Um, did a lot with computers, Apple 2E, played Conan the Barbarian. And that's what got me triggered into tech. And I would write little basic programs to fool my friends that the computer was about to blow up or somebody was talking to them or whatever. So it went from being in that kind of twisted individual child writing programs for malicious fun to, you know, doing big marketing, ecosystems and leading teams and all sorts of other good stuff. So and we'll see where it takes I'm still I still feel I'm a baby in this industry after after 30 plus years. So
Akshay Sura
goodness, I didn't I know that old I might wait to where did you grow up? Where did Where did the Mark Servais journey start?
Mark Servais
Where Where was I created is really probably the better phrase of that question. Right? Well, how do you not repeat this? Um, so unilateral city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, right? I was just born there. lived outside in a little town of about 13,000 people cut deep here, Wisconsin. And people butcher that name. And there's a million origins of how that got its name. Somebody peeing off of a dock or something? I don't know. I haven't stepped foot there for quite a long time. My parents live a little south of that now. But yeah, that's where I was born and raised and did things like jumping BMX bikes off the hills and, you know, go to the pharmacy, candy store and all those little good things you do. And Mayberry Rfd I didn't deep here, Wisconsin.
Matthew McQueeny
Did you have to like football on the Green Bay Packers?
Mark Servais
It's injected In your blood, right? You can't You can't be born without that love of the game. And it's amazing. It's the one thing that probably unifies everybody, right? We're in a time of people just having differing opinions. You know, they're, they're more about self the group right now, right? And so we get into this whole Green Bay Packers thing, especially recent events, people can actually up there, just dissect the games. You want to talk about a fan base that's crazy. That would be it right? And it sticks with you. Good or bad. I was I grew up in a Packers era where everybody was wearing bags over their head, and were embarrassed. Right? So definitely different today than then back then. But yeah, it kind of sticks with you.
Akshay Sura
Like throughout your career in your life not to be purely in Wisconsin, or did you travel elsewhere, work elsewhere study elsewhere.
Mark Servais
I did a brief, brief relocation outside of Wisconsin to a place called Quincy, Illinois, another major metropolis of about maybe, I don't know, 10,000 people, right, the county seat, if you will, it was a big deal. It was right along the Mississippi River. I work for a truck body company called knapheide. And I was doing AS 400 RPG programming at the time. spent about two years there, but I've been in Wisconsin, sadly or greatly however you want to look at it. The rest of the time I've been really focused on here now most of the companies I work with are national, North American. But I've always kind of planted my roots here, oddly enough.
Matthew McQueeny
So my interest is music a lot as well growing up, and I do see on your Twitter feed there you're a punk music enthusiast. So I grew up in the scene here in New Jersey with a nice scene. What uh, what era are we talking about? What's your favorite punk music?
Mark Servais
Oh, wow. Oh, right now I'm listening to a lot of Bomb Pots a lot of Versus You. Boy it goes all over the place. But you know the staples are always things you know, like the Kinks. I always go back to a little bit of Pennywise a little bit of Bad Religion and there's a lot of crossover there right and of course there's always the staples of the Ramones we could go on and on yeah it's it's it my whole past is gone from like this punk to metal thrash to metal to you know a little bit of a little bit of hairband in there right, you know, the mullet stage and then coming back to to metal and then and then again punk rock. So it's been kind of a journey with that it's I like all music except for a few certain genres and a few certain styles. But yeah, right now I'm just really listening a lot to livestock spring album versus you bomb pops. You know, I'm trying to check out some new sounds from what the kids are doing. No longer that kid are no longer in the pit anymore, man. I'm in the back of the venue against the wall going "yeah, I like that" Right? versus being in it and you know, throwing my body around. I can't do that anymore.
Matthew McQueeny
Yeah. So growing up in in Wisconsin, where would you go? Where would these bands play? What they come up to Green Bay? Would they be in Milwaukee? Would you have to go to Chicago.
Mark Servais
Now you know, it's kind of funny because Green Bay had its own little music scene. Right. And I don't know, you check out bars. The sprinkler was one of the the better known bands coming out of there, but there is a lot of good local music. Then coming down to the Milwaukee area, Milwaukee had a really great music scene for some time. And so it was really like these little dive bars. There's this place I remember The Unicorn in Milwaukee, it's no longer there. But I remember a guy got shot there trying to steal a TV. We would go and eat at Guses, these big burritos, right to get ready for a night of drinking and use this basically this cave setting. I remember one particular band. I don't remember the name of the band. But they had a short in the microphone. So every time he's saying into the mic, you would get a shock. And that was the most enjoyable show I've ever seen because he kept swearing and cussing all throughout the show. You know, it's like Pavlov's dogs. Yeah, exactly. kept doing it too. It's like going all the salivate. And ultimately, you know, he's yelling at the at the sound guy give me some juice and he's just zapping himself over and over again. It's like, Where else can you be entertained like that? Right in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Akshay Sura
Mark, Star Wars I know it runs thick and deep. How far does it go? I know you love Star Wars. I know one of your kid is named Lucas. I don't know what the other kid's name is. But I just want To know like how far and deep Star Wars runs
Mark Servais
My god it's it's embedded so behind me that you know if you're going to be doing the video for this bad boy, you see a bunch of boxes over my shoulder. Those are all my Star Wars toys as a kid, like the 1970s Star Wars. Right? Wow. And this is the last room that I'm sitting in that has to be done in the house. This is my office, I always put myself last everybody else gets to go first. Right? I'm getting display cases, Akshay. Like, like real display cases that you can go to the store and see jewelry and set all this stuff up along the back wall. It's about time. It's only been like, what 40 years? Yeah, it's about time. I can't wait to see it. Man. I can't wait to do it. Um, you know, and revamping this room? Lucas, I did not get the name Lucas that was that was Irma's choice, my wife's choice I named and that's a story within itself that we could take up a whole podcast. So I now have a daughter and I say now have a daughter. I have a transgender daughter. Sis name was Horatio. Right? And so when I named Horatio, Horatio, pretty much everybody looked at me like, would you do that for and people were trying to place it like they're trying to replace it with the comedian from Saturday Night Live. And it's really it comes down to Hamlet's best friend. Right. And you know, people that don't read like, you know, so they have no clue. Um, so Horatio. Right was was my son's name. And I wasn't allowed to name any more children after that. So, Irma, Irma got the the next name, I got the middle name. And I got Dylan it right back to the whole music thing. So I got a little bit of Dylan in the family. But no, I was no longer allowed to name children after the Horatio incident, and so she would like Lucas. And I'm like, yeah, that works. So there we went.
Matthew McQueeny
I'm more of a I never really watched Star Wars until I sort of got the last year with the pandemic. And then Disney plus coming out. And my wife and I were like, well, we're paying for the Disney plus everyone is saying to do it. I mean, it's an obvious thing to say everyone's saying to watch Star Wars, but we finally watched them all, I guess in the original order that you know, that they came out in I don't know what you think the right order is. But I also Akshay, are you a big star wars guy?
Akshay Sura
Yeah, I'm not as crazy as he is. But I love Star Wars movies. I watched them so many times that
Mark Servais
how do you get a better villain? You know what I mean? Than, Darth Vader, and then that whole chronology as far as like the ordering and stuff, man, I leave that to people that you know, need something to do. I just, I dig all the movies, I even dig the crappy ones, right? The crappy prequels.
Akshay Sura
Because they maintain the theme, that's the thing, like you watched the one from last year to the one in 1980s, they look very, very similar. Yeah, you can see some differences in the animation. But like, if you look at the boards, on the panels, for all the controls, they look alike, like they've maintained the same theme.
Mark Servais
And that's really hard to do. And you're seeing a Starbucks cup and Game of Thrones sitting on the table, right? I mean, it's really hard to keep that consistency in film, especially, you know, long shooting days and coming back and reshooting scenes. So, you know, kudos to them to have that kind of control to be able to put that together because you're right it is it completely separate eras of filming, but it does feel very story like and consecutive.
Akshay Sura
Yep. So, Lucas. You know, I asked about Lucas quite a bit because I don't think I've ever asked you directly but you're a very open sharing kind of person. And you you know, mentioned to me a couple of times, I don't know how many people do care about listening to other people, but it struck a chord in my my heart right about Lucas. So then I started asking, you know, hey, how's Lucas? I still don't know much about Lucas. But I do know, being a parent myself. Dealing with two children. It's hard enough and then I know of someone who had twins at the same time were one of the both the twins actually were affected during birth in the sense just a saline drip, burnt their faces as babies like premature babies. And they had to go through a lot of things at the first end of the birth of the children. And I knew from him how hard it was like one of the best advices he gave me is, you know, babies don't cry. Don't die from crying. You will have a moment in time when you want to shake Baby as hard as you can, but the best thing you can do is put the baby in the crib walk away, nothing's gonna happen, I promise. There is no documented case of the baby dying from crying, right? So that when I kinda am exposed to like some trouble, but you're the first person who I know personally, where Lucas was born in a different way, I don't know many details, but I could you share a little bit about Lucas when you guys found out. What is his condition?
Mark Servais
Oh, yeah. And I'll kind of go from the beginning of the whole caregiving thing, because I didn't even realize I was caregiving the first time around until the second time around, right. So when Horatio my oldest was was born, he had transposition of the great arteries. That was a helicopter ride and emergency surgery, right? I've never driven on the freeway so fast, right? And so everything's good. plumbings rewired? Basically, what that is, is your oxygenated blood doesn't really get through your heart, the heart kind of pumps, the same, deoxygenated blood, he turned blue. Had surgery in the NICU unit, came home, had lasix had to take care of him a little bit. And that was my first stint. And I just consider that being a parent, right? It's like, hey, my kid's got this thing. And this is what I need to do. As a parent, you never get a manual to begin with, right? And so it's just kind of like, Alright, go with the flow. And I was a young 25, 26 young dad. So you know, it was just kind of like, Alright, this is what I got to do. Lucas, at four years old, we noticed some problems and development wise, right. So he wasn't really walking, you know, he wasn't doing cartwheels. He wasn't running as fast. We finally got a diagnosis for him at four and it was the Shen muscular dystrophy. Now what Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is, it's basically a degradation of all muscle, right? smooth muscle, skeletal muscle, the whole bet, man, really, there's this there's component in muscles, to kind of water it down here a little bit, called Dystrophy. And the body isn't able to produce this, this fiber, this protein, and so muscles basically just kind of fall apart. Right? So you know, the the key there, and there's really no manual on that. There's organizations but you know, it was kind of a wild ride, because we had to figure this thing out and are still figuring this thing out as we go along. So, at that point though, I remember and this is going to be the dark side of things a little bit. So when he was diagnosed, I was at work, I got the call, just broke down, right, just broke down and went home. And I had some extra vikatan from a vasectomy surgery. And so for a week I was I was basically lying in bed, just high as a kite on these leftover pills, right. And by the end of the week, unshaven, unkempt, you know, I got myself up and I'm like going, Okay, life's got to be a little bit different now. You know, so the depression kind of came, went, subsided. You know, my, my era of being Bret Favre was over for a little bit. And I just I went back to work. So I'll be back Monday. And everybody kind of looked at me, and you could tell I was looking really, really rough right. Are you sure? Yeah. I'll be here. And at that point, it's been about what do I have to do to make this young man's life better? Hmm. Right. Because I wasn't going to get any help. I wasn't going to get any instruction book. It was going to be a hard ride. I knew though at that point. It wasn't about me anymore. Right? I have everybody has their individual wants desires. But this was about now, this kid got kind of a crap deal, right? And it wasn't this thing that you know, chromosomes. It's basically a chromosomal if thats even a word. deal where most women are carriers. Well Irma's not a carrier, this was just the one in 1000 chance, right? Or 10,000 chance or whatever the odds are nowadays. So it was just like, well, this is a crap blow. It's gonna be hard. Even the first doctor appointment I got the doctor mad, which isn't surprising to you Akshay. Because you know I am. But you know, right away. I'm like going well, what kind? What am I looking at here, man? Is this going to be a financial burden? I mean, am I gonna have to quit my job? What am I going to have to do to take care of this? Oh, you won't have a problem. You won't have a problem. He was completely and utterly wrong across the board. And you just have to learn how to pivot. It's a different type of efficiency. And you just cruise through it and you're going to get hit all the time, right? I mean, I take punches from the left almost every single day nowadays, right? Because he's in a later stage of this. And you just got to go, Okay, I'll let you get that one in, but you're not hitting me again, let's get this fixed. And that's really the mentality and going through it, it takes a toll. It's definitely not your, well, I have my five year plan, and I'm gonna go in there, and here's what I'm gonna I'm gonna get promoted, and I'm gonna buy this house, and I'm gonna have these nice cars. And yeah, that that craps out the door, right,
Akshay Sura
It affects everything I would imagine. And the thing which I hate the most, and I try not to do it to you, when I speak to you is, I cannot understand that a doctor who doesn't have a child with the similar disability cannot understand what you and your family are going through are going to be going through, right. So when someone says, or I can empathize with you, I cannot know you freaking cant because unless you're in it every single day, it's a different different aspect to it.
Mark Servais
Yeah, you can sympathize, right, but you definitely can't empathize unless you're living through it, even when I get together and when we did get together because we don't do it too much anymore. With other Duchenne parents, right, because everybody kind of goes through these investigative stages, I'll call it. Um, and nobody's the same. I mean, we're all different. You know, some, like Lucas has a learning disability had dyslexia as a result of this. Medically, you can't tie it to it. But there's been studies, yes, this is where he is until we got him dyslexia training, so he could read and do things. And he's one of he's a lot like me in the fact that he'll read something, pick it up, and then use it to his advantage, either to make people laugh or to create a snide comment or a point, right? To prove somebody wrong. And he's very much like that. And I think the day that he was able to unlock that scrambled up code, I created a real smart alec, right. And he's, he's probably the most enjoyable young man. And we're so much alike, where we're always bouncing things off. We do crazy crap all the time. And that's, I'm glad he's got that personality. I would like to think it's all from me, but I don' think it's completely from me. But you know, he's a little bit of this odd duck in this world. And he's got this great sense of humor. And it's completely twisted and dark, you know? And I mean, you almost have to have a little bit of twist and turn to you to kind of go through this unscathed. A little bit. Right? And yeah, so works out we can talk about butt wiping and joke about butt wiping, we will say things to our voice assistants in the house, because I got everything automated, right? I read the story. Yeah, it will say crazy crap to that. And I swear to God, if Amazon is looking at everything that said, we're flagged, in some system, we got an FBI file, it's probably pretty, pretty intense, but some of the crap that comes out of our mouth, and what it says back is even weirder. And I really wish we would be more. I could really just open up in an X rated way. But I promised you, I would behave. So I have to but it is something I even thought about putting on YouTube. This the song roulette thing that we do every night when I put them to bed. And I'll throw an artist out like we listen to Aerosmith the other day, and he's like, how many guitar solos Do you need in a song? and How long must they be? And I'm like you are the brightest young man in the world. Or he listened to Kiss the other day. And he's like, who wrote this crap? This is terrible. And he's absolutely right. The lyrics are absolutely atrocious to Kiss. Well, love band could be huge kiss fan, but let's let's face it, when you listen to it, it's very rapey and creepy. You know, it'd be it It shouldn't even be on the radio at any point. But we all loved it. Right? So it's it's kind of odd, but we have these little relationship gain type of things that we go through and it just builds up his knowledge base in a weird way. And it it kind of forget that you're putting you know somebody in a medical sling moving them from a wheelchair to a bed in a careful sort of way and then applying whatever cares you need to before bed. It kind of kind of alleviates what you're doing. You know what I mean?
Matthew McQueeny
Yeah, no, absolutely. Mark its interesting on your LinkedIn that you have, as you know, in the resume that you're a caregiver, right. And I thought, oh nine, nine years going and the one thing I can't imagine hitting on Akshay is point not only, you know, having the inter-dynamics of a family working through this, I have two children as well six and two. But you know, the caregiver aspect, the job, the day job aspect, like what's a day in the life like for you and how do you kind of work through these things.
Mark Servais
So that caregiver thats in my LinkedIn to step back to that, that was I saw somebody tweet out and it I can only guess their background cause I didn't even know I was just kind of putting something out there. Not so much to be a smart alec. But to prove a point. There should be no shame in being a caregiver, we're all gonna have to do it most likely, right? Some of us are gonna have to do it twice or three times in our lifetime, whether that's remote caregiving or whatever, we could go into that whole caregiving thing. But, um, this this young, young lady, I'm assuming Young lady, maybe maybe not so young, I don't know, was like, I'm tempted to put this on because they were getting back into the workforce, right, from from kind of full time caregiving. And that's a scary thing. And new moms go through this too, right? Where it's like going, I've been a mom, I've taken these five years off, and I want to get back into the workforce. And let's face it, corporate America is not very nice, without some experience, typically, right? If you got a gap, that's unless you're a CEO, that gap is like, you know, a death call, like, what were you doing for these five years? Well, I was eating bonbons and watching a lot of soups, you know. And, you know, and she was really, really, I think, really thinking, should I put this on? And I'm like, screw it. I'm putting mine on. And I just went out there at that minute I threw caregiver on I tossed everything in there, put it on published it. And I replied back to her. And I said, there done. Or I said something to the fact there I did it. You know, not a big deal. Just do it. You know, and I hope that inspired some people to throw it on there. But yeah, and I kept it there. And I it came up in another conversation too. I think people were congratulating me on the thing for nine years, nine years, nine years, you've been in this position, congratulations. I'm like, oh, man, I should have probably figured out how to turn that off or something. But so that's what it came. And then as far as day to day, it's tough, right? I knew early on. And I was already in tech at that point. But I knew that, though. And there's a joke, Midwest, cheap, Milwaukee cheap, right. And a lot of companies in the area, they don't like to pay like the coasts or you know, up to a market value. They try to get everyone cheap. And it was this point where it's like, well, I can't do what I need to do for him. And this goes back to thinking about somebody else, if I don't do these other things. And so that started a journey that ultimately led, you know, Akshay and I knowing each other. So I was finding that niche in the tech industry of how I could work less, right? Not Not, not work hard, but work a little bit less control my day. Make money, right? Because anybody that tells you is caregiving, especially if you're caregiving for somebody that you're financially responsible for. Yeah, there's not enough money, right? So you have to find a way to to be, I don't want to say a high earner, let's, let's let's not be ridiculous about it. But you need to be able to really support your own and be able to get the things that you need. Back when I started. And to give you an example, a hoyer lift, right, a powered hoyer lift maybe is about $2,000 for a good one, right? When I first started, there's no way i was i was i was forking out $2,000 as part of a easily budget, right? I mean, that would be something that I would have to charge pay off over time, whatever, through what I've done with my career, knowing what I had to do, now I can write the check because I'm prepared for it. Right? It's a different different efficiency, that, you know, I know, I'm gonna need things so you prepare a little bit better. Most people are preparing, you know, this, that and the other thing I prepared for these little moments at this point,
you know, so it's a lot easier. Working from home has been a blessing and I was an at home work guy for like the last decade, right? A lot of the companies especially the consulting companies, that is their model, right? They're not going to just shove everybody into to regional offices unless you're directly with with clients and stuff like that, but so that definitely helped and with that. There's lunch hours, I can go and help out. Pre mornings I can go and help out with warming up muscles or doing whatever. But my wife is probably the primary caregiver while I'm working. And then there comes Saturday and Sunday, which she's actually did it this morning, but it's me, right. And there's the handoff of the showering and the bathing and now Lucas is at the point that we have to feed him he's been at that point for a while but we literally have to bring the food up to his mouth. So I'm eating a burger and feeding him a burger right? So I'm getting a lot better with my crap hand and doing things than I ever had. In my entire life, but it is a balance, it is something that you have to put family first you have to put the caree first. But you also have to understand, in order to be able to write that check for a hoyer, I got to do this thing, right? And that's key. And keeping that prioritization in that perspective. It all just kind of fills in, but it takes a lot of work for that orchestration.
Akshay Sura
Yeah, I often, I think I give you props, and you're too modest to accept my. My comments, but yeah, because, you know, all parents do. And you guys probably feel more than anyone else that, you know, we didn't do enough, right. Like, it's always that nagging feeling like, Oh, I could have done better maybe I wasn't so nice to my child. As I could have been, because, you know, I was frustrated with work. I was just cleaning up this and something else came up, like you said it yourself. It's punches after punches. But I often wonder, and you know, just with things, normalized, you know, people go through it, but how do you and Irma deal with it, like in terms of personal relationships, having time for yourself? I mean, one good thing is that it's your child. So there's a commonality there. So you work as a team, but I, I mean, it must be hard. I can't even imagine the amount of work you guys have to put in on top of the work you put in for Lucas. ,
Mark Servais
We, when I go to bed, there's there's no relax. There's no fade into sleep time, man, my head hits the pillow and I'm done. And I'm up to do it. And Irma Foster, but man, there's no doubt about it. She is exhausted and brain fried at the end of the day. The The hardest part, you know, for us, we're on the same page. We've been a rock solid team for a long time. And every marriage has its thing, right? Where you know, there's a whole compromise, marriage is hard enough man, throw throw caregiving into that mix, and it's becomes even harder. And I I appreciate every day, the things that we've done together, that is my, my war, buddy. Right? That is the person who's got my six and I got hers. And even if we're disagreeing about, I think patio furniture was the last thing we disagreed about, right? Like "no, I want red. No, i want I blue" whatever the hell it was, it doesn't even matter anymore. Um, you know, we know at the end of it, it's like on whatever. But you know, it's just, I got your six, whatever you want to do. It's it's not that important. Part of it is picking your battles too right. And then the venting, you got to let each other vent and, and we do that pretty well. I mean, I mean, I let her lay into me once in a while. I know it's not me. But it's the situation. Right? And so it's a different type of relationship than I ever thought I would have in a marriage. With that, we don't have a lot of friends outside of this house, we really don't get out that much. We don't do too much. We're in fact, I just poured like this huge patio, we're gonna create space for people to come over. How come it was that? I said? Yeah, anytime you always know, you're welcome here. Anytime you if just jump out of the plane or the parachute, as you're flying over and drop it know, anytime you're here. You're always welcome here, everybody, that pretty much we've associated with it as well. We don't pretty much hold people out. But it is hard for us to engage. Because, you know, it's it's like this thing. Even when I travel, it's her. It's her all day all night. She's doing that job plus mine. And when she does something much, you know, she goes to visit her mom or she does whatever. It's my job plus her job. And, you know, if God forbid anything happened, either one of us the replacement value on each of us is astronomical. It's like, oh, man, I can never keep that pace. Right. So it definitely helps. I think about a lot of the parents, a lot of the families like the Deshen especially, there's not a lot of dads sticking around. And I noticed that early on. And I noticed that today and the dads that do stick around are pretty gold, right? You know, but I see grandparents taking care of kids and I see single moms taking care of these kids. And it's like going crap, man, I know what it's like with two of us. How do you do it with one? And you know, because you know, for whatever reason dad split. And it's it's it's heartbreaking to see you feel for people and you just you find a way to make your system work. And I think that's what we've done in our marriage and we drink every Saturday night. Right? It's the one thing that we get to do we relax, we don't get hit hammered. And you've all seen me hammered. I mean, God, I couldn't really function. So, you know, you know, dancing, telling jokes, puking, you know, this is no need for that on a Saturday night, and I still have to put Lucas to bed. So it's never gonna happen. But you know, we have, we have a couple of drinks we unwind. We try out, we're coming mixologist, which is weird, I don't want to be that person that, you know, is like that, you know, with a curly mustache, apron and stuff, I don't need that. But it gives us a chance to kind of wind down at the end of a hard week. And so we have those moments, and we just kind of keep cycling it through. And at one point, we know this is not going to be life. And I think that's the whole thing. And we're always like, how much longer right? And it's a terrible thing to think when you're taking care of somebody. But it's a very natural thing to think. And, you know, we know at some point, that when the lifestyle that we live now changes, it's going to be a hard change. And so we're you know, that's the next stage that we're getting prepared for and talking about what we want to do and getting on the same page because of won't be that partnership anymore. It'll be a different kind of partnership. And you know, that'll be a whole new challenge, whole new relationship of sorts in a way.
Matthew McQueeny
So Mark makes any sense. No, this all makes a lot of sense. And I did want to say before asking the next serious question. I didn't want to let go by your Brett Farve vikatan thing. I thought that was a phenomenal I thought that was a phenomenal reference. And was it around the same time?
Mark Servais
It actually was I actually went to a game at Lambeau and I saw Favre throw up on the field of Pittsburgh Steeler game, right? I don't think anybody on TV saw it. But I got to see him throw up on the field, go, you know, swish some water and go back out. I don't know if they took a shovel or whatever, who cares? But, um, yeah, it was about that same time, I think vikatan was the the, you know, it's like, yesterday's oxy cotton. Um, you know, so is this what they happen to give me when I when I had a vasectomy, right. And it's like going, I never used them. And then all of a sudden, here I am in this place, it's like going I kind of need to forget about things for a while, but I kind of needed to clear the attic a little bit. There's a lot out there. And it's scary. Not not anything, I would advise anyone to take that path. But I've, I've I've kind of felt I knew what I was doing. I think I did a man, I felt that was the best thing for me to do. It's just take a week, just not be me, get it all out, and then come back to it and reset. I think people find other healthier ways to do that. At that time, that made a lot of sense where I needed to be so I don't take anything back from that.
Matthew McQueeny
No, sometimes things are just so overwhelming that you just you have to have something that gets you out of that for a little bit. But the the piece I wanted to ask, as it relates to kind of the compartmentalization of professional and personal caregiving and work, you know, again, I, I have a six and two year old normal times take them to school this and I'm at times like how am I keeping up? How do I even get to these projects, and all this and, and plus the world we work in, tend to be very high value projects, too. So you feel like there's an even higher expectation, I think on them. Like, how, how do you actually compartmentalize so that, you know, if you're dealing with a project and a client, that you're kind of maintaining, and then also that you have to break off after a certain time and you're like, oh, there's still so much more to that has to be done on that, right?
Mark Servais
It's kind of like the Nike slogan, you just do it. Um, I got a I got a whacked out brain to begin with. And what I mean by that is there's a lot going on up here right now there's things cooking in the back burner. We're having this conversation frontal lobe thought and dialogue, but I'm, I'm designing what my backyard is going to look like I'm thinking about two years from now when I have to replace my roof, right? I'm thinking about what we're gonna have for dinner on the back, that that is just kind of going on its own and we'll pop when it's ready. And it's weird. I don't think everyone's brain works like that. I hope not. Oh, my God. It's I feel sorry for all the rest of you. But it's really about I have these things to do I have to find a way to do it. Is it perfect all the time? No. Do I screw up? Yeah, right. Do I learn from those? Yeah, just like everybody else. We all make mistakes. I think the big thing is just realizing what matters right now. Right? You take care of that what matters what's going to matter and in kind of getting ahead of things. The hardest thing about compartmentalizing, I can talk is really kind of getting ahead of things before they happen. So you have a bit of a crystal ball going on. And it's really one of those things that if you can't make that off to the side about how you're going to handle something before it happens, and our profession, we're kind of groomed to that a little bit. Right? When you're working in tech, you know, I had a supervisor who had a mantra "work to no surprises", right. And and a lot of that is with the risk adversement that we have to do on these major things. Yeah, that's what we do, we have to predict what may happen and mitigate it. I think that kind of carried over a little bit with with this life, right. I kind of know what's going to progress with this condition. I knew at some point, I was going to need a hoyer, I knew well back that the financials, the way we were going weren't, it wasn't going to work to be able to do that. I knew the insurance companies weren't going to cover the certain things. Risk Management, and the you know, a scary as all that thinking is so far right. And like nine years we talked about, that's how you do it. And it's really about just putting everything aside and going to and a lot of people, they want their coffee, they want their ice cream, sometimes you just got to say screw it, either you get it, and you don't think about doing it. And don't take the time to enjoy it so you can get everything else done. Or you just bypass it completely and go You know what, I gotta I gotta slam this stuff out. I'll come back to this later. Yeah, no, I don't. I don't think there's any magic to it. You know, it just has to happen.
Matthew McQueeny
On a very literal, literal level. I'm thinking I think Akshay actually had a post yesterday about how to organize. Yeah, it's just your personal and professional. And I would ask you, what do you use to use a Trello? do use paper and pen?
Mark Servais
All of it and it all works like crap, right? No, yeah, I could, I could try to automate thing. And then that's the key, right? It's automating what's predictable. I'm still pen and paper, I have a stack of paper and to do lists, you know, that I end up having to go through and redo the to do lists, right? Of the backlog. I use notepad plus plus, I use Trello. I use Evernote, I use all sorts of things. And there's no one real way it if, if the stuff is important, it will bubble up. Right. I've just found that no matter what, yeah, forget about doing this. I forgotten people's birthdays. I forgotten people's names, which is terrible, right. But, and I'm not talking about like, Oh, I just met you last week. I'm talking about people I've interacted with not going basement and I look at them and I go Oh, crap. Yeah, yeah. Hey, guy. Hey, buddy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, I don't think there's a great way I think you do have to get it down. For some people kinetically writing something is gonna stick better. Um, I think it's visualization and keeping it in front of you. Right? And understanding, you know, hey, if the house is falling down on the East End, forget about the West, right? Take care of the East End. The important things definitely use a calendar definitely is your list, have your objectives for the day, for sure. Understand that you may not do any of them. That's just how life works, right? You're not going to get everything you want. And that includes your to do list. So you just you do your best with all the tools that you have. I think as long as they're in front of you, I think that's what matters. And I think as long as you think through what needs to be done and why and how important it is, it just comes to you. There's not much else you can do with it.
Akshay Sura
And the other one I wanted to ask you mark is about health insurance I would bet that you know a lot more about health insurance than the two of us on this call because you deal with things for you know is discovered is that covered every time you've changed a job that is the primary goal right like your goal is to make sure all the medical needs are taken care of. Yeah, how do you go about it? Like do you know how are the, you know, right now you work for a health company so I'm assuming that the plans are good but a lot of the job decisions would be based on the health insurance how do you go about like researching like, how difficult it is to have a child you need to care for so much other insurance companies nine. Could you give us some insight on that?
Mark Servais
Yeah, I mean, I like insurance so much. I decided to work for one of the companies. Wow, it was a lot there. Let's Let's I'll try to peel it that's not ramble on too much. But ultimately Yeah, I as part of any job change I have to look at the benefits deep and it freaks some of the HR people and some of the the the business people out right depending on what level how big the organization? There's some organizations I don't have to worry about, including the one that I'm at now, I got pretty Primo insurance, right? I don't worry about too much. Early on, I figured out insurance isn't going to do everything for you. At least North America, right? Um, U.S specifically, right? We have a very awkward healthcare system, love it or hate, it doesn't matter. It's awkward. No matter how you look at it, I think we can all hopefully agree to that. The key here is I have to actually go into things like contract of carriage, I have to really deep dive on what's covered, I kind of know what Lucas needs. And so I go look for those trigger points to see, okay, is this going to be good enough? And then always there has to be a plan when insurance fails? How do you do it? Um, it's hard. Every company is different. They all have a different process, they go through for approvals and denials. And, you know, to fight those denials. Sometimes it's not worth fighting. And you just work around them. And it was it was I believe it was Bruce Lee, that said, you know, be like water, right? go across everything. I think that's that's a overused quote from from our good friend, Bruce. But there's so much truth to that, right? If something's holding you back, just relax, find your way around it, come back to center, right. Insurance is that big game. And it is a big deal. Because if you think about changing jobs, I can make an extra five grand on a job, right? Oh, I got a $5,000 raise? Well, if the insurance is going to cost me $15,000, to do what I need to do. No, I'm not I'm not going anywhere. And I know all of us that have you know, living in America right now, that have to deal with insurance, you are one event away from being bankrupt. I don't care. Right? How much money you have, how good everything is you're one event away. Now that event may have to be significant. But that's the honest truth. And like I said, you know, take take everything out of it. From a Dr. perspective and industry perspective. You know, I'm in the industry of providing health insurance. And without health insurance, we'd all be just in a world of hurt. So there's, there's definitely a need in that ecosystem. But what it really comes down to is figuring out your specifics, which is very hard to do if you're not in tune in figuring out how you're going to get around that and how everything comes into play and the cause and effect getting ahead of the problem before it happens. Right.
Akshay Sura
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And one of the other things you manage to do, and I think it's, it's got to help people, but how did you get into so I know you, you've tried to make life easier for yourselves, wherever you can with Lucas as well to automate things to even redoing the house right to make it simpler and not so rigid in terms of getting things done. But you were able to recently in the last couple of years, take this get on the stage with the caregivers convention, and tried to share that, and I'm sure it helped a lot of people, but how did you a) you know, approach the automation? b) Get into the caregivers convention? And think I can? This is how I do it. I hope it helps you.
Mark Servais
Yeah, um, you know, us working in Sitecore, right. And sharing, sharing is caring. I think we used to joke about right. And that is a lot of it. Right? It's, it's, you have a certain extent, and right now, it seems like I've gone back to this dark matter, developer architect type of thing where I'm not community driven. That's because I had to pull back for responsibilities right a priority thing. I felt that what I was doing was unique enough, but not super unique, where if you kind of think about people who caregive and you take a look at that one of the there's a couple of things that that statistically are just we should all be ashamed that even happens. But one of the things is a lot of these caregivers have are financially strapped. Time is is killing the family caregiver. You talk about, you know, compartmentalize. If I didn't have this brain, I would really really have a hard time keeping track of everything, right. That is a true reality for a lot of people providing care. Even with this crazy brain that I have, right of everything going on, I needed a way that I just wanted things kind of done. There were so many simple tasks, so many things that you do in a daily caregiving scenario that you even that little short snip really helps out, right? It's, it's the efficiency equation of living life daily. For instance, if Lucas kind of eats in bed, if there was no way, if your hands are full, you're carrying like a tray of food tray and medicine, whatever. And you're trying to get into a door, turn on a light and reposition, you're not going to, you know, big boy, which, you know, you have everything on one hand and come walking in like a waiter. It's like, Hey, how you doing? You know, it comes down to I need to be able to do that. A lot of the things that we did in home automation was an accident. It's like, Oh, I like playing with tech. Okay, well, look, I can make this light turn on. Yay. And that's how it all starts. Right? I think that's the gateway addiction into home tech. Look, I can automate my life, well, it goes beyond that I can automate light my light to do certain things, when when Lucas needs help, a great thing is he's got voice controls button. So if like, Hey, I'm not sleeping good. Or I need to turn, I can just reach out, I can hit this button, all the lights in the house turned on, right, everyone's awake. Um, you know, and to be able to do that. I know what care giver imprisonment feels like. And you really need to be able to have that distance from your caree when you can. And so this was able to provide, I wouldn't call it full independence, but at least decoupling to a certain extent. And when I'm out mowing the grass, he can hit a button, he can tell the voice assistant, hey, I need help. He can literally say I need help and lights would go on, it freaks the neighbors out when I'm testing the system, because I have things flash. So our house looks like you know, it's on steroids of Christmas vacation, right. And I was gonna add speakers around the house and and just blare out the neighborhood. But that kind of stuff is important, though, too. And I think getting on the stage, I had the opportunities, I just started looking for places to talk, when I decided that I was kind of done being a Sitecore MVP. You know, it wasn't that, I just didn't want to do what I was doing anymore. And I still needed to share, I still needed to talk I still need to get in front of people. So it was the best way that I knew to fulfill that selfish little need in me. But to provide this value to everyone that's going through kind of the same things and being able to take an approach. And that's really what the the main discussion that I've been giving the main presentation before COVID struck and kind of cancelled a lot of this stuff. People can think about what they can do. Home tech isn't easy for somebody who's just not technical. They make it very difficult. In fact, the industry right now I think at this this fork in the road, they need to really think about their consumer product divisions and security, and usability, which it's all a mess right now. Which makes it even more hard when somebody is like going I'm at the end of my rope. I always feel I have to be overtop my carry, how do I get my distance? How do I make these little tasks easier? And I'm like, Yeah, I can do this, I can help people do this.
I think there's a longer road for me to do this, right. I think this is a direction that I will continue to go in and expand that and do certain things in that in that genre to help people and I actually gave that same presentation adapted to a technical group. It basically chastise a bunch of whole IoT people about about ZigBee standardization and security for an hour and a half. in a nice way. Of course, I chastise them. But these are the things that you know, I think when you live it, you talk about it. Right? When you're doing something that you don't see everyone else doing. You share it with the hopes that other people can do it too, especially when you're talking about some that's going to help people there's no question of thought in not doing it.
Matthew McQueeny
Mark there's just one more from each of us, this has been really insightful. You brought up COVID we've all lived through COVID obviously the last year. What was COVID like for you and your family with you know with what you're working with. It sounds like it might have not been as different because you're kind of hidden inside with each other a lot but then Akshay told me there was some remodeling going on. So you have people in and out of the house. Just walk us through COVID and your situation.
Mark Servais
Yeah, the unfortunate thing, but you're absolutely right, first off, we didn't skip it. We had supply chain problems, right? Medical gloves are necessity but those are being held for frontline workers. There's a lot we didn't know about COVID you know, the Coronavirus when it came out everybody was kind of guessing, you know, how is it spread? You know, am I going to get it from my packages? Do I need to you have UV light everything? Should I eat UV light, and drink bleach? Don't guys, it's ridiculous. But there's a lot people didn't know. So I became a biologist at the same time, I'm doing all these other things, right. I also became a podiatrist, all sorts of things that we couldn't do anymore. So I had to pick up some new skills. That was the one big change, but supply chain was a big thing going out and getting what we needed finding new sourcing. That was the most challenging, but everything else kind of stayed the same. Now, we had planned this remodeling for a while. And it was one of these things we went back and forth about, you know, we got this pandemic, should we do this and it's like going if we don't, you know, we're gonna have a problem this needs to get done. So we bit the bullet. And we ended up getting COVID in early January of this year, all of us, including Lucas, which that was scary, but not as scary as I thought it would be. And we did get it, we do believe we got it from the sub contractors in the remodeling process. So, we got lucky. So I don't want to discount anything about COVID with what I'm about to say. But it's a very dangerous thing. You need to take it seriously. But we were very, very fortunate in the fact that I probably I think my wife got it the worst Irma got it the worst. I was probably there where I was definitely bedridden. But Lucas, for the guy who was the one that was we were worried about the pulmonology issues and everything else. Um, little fever, little body aches the first day, and after that he was fine. And thank goodness, because that could have went south the other way and effect as, as that caregiver, freaked out parent, I'm calling doctors, I'm like, hey, I need to probably try to do something preventative here to keep him out of the ER, because if he goes to the ER, we ain't gonna see him again. And luckily, it didn't have to go to that. But, man, it was I found out how broken our health system was during the process. I think a lot of people did as well. Again, we were fortunate, there's a lot of families, a lot of people that got this man that just just weren't as lucky. So I don't want to discount this in any way. But we were able to get through it and move on, you know, fairly clockwork. He didn't really need anything, I was able to procure some steroids for him. Light steroids, I actually had the good stuff. You know, seeing a doctor online and seeing a specialist. There's definitely a difference. I got all the drugs I needed. I was struggling to get drugs for him just in case. But he had a basically a very light steroid to get him through anything. You're hoping for the best, we didn't really need to even use any of the stuff. We were able to work through it and move through it. Um, that stunk though, right? I mean, that really changed everything. For the year, I thought 2020 was bad. 2021 started out much worse for us. I'm glad people are getting vaccinated. I'm glad we're looking at the future of this. I would hope that people still caution themselves and think about themselves a little bit. Think about everyone else. Regardless if they want to be vaccinated or not, I think I think we need to, you know, be a little bit better at looking out for each other. But yeah, that was scary. And I would still not make a change in what we did, as ironic as that sounds, I look at it now, uh, where we are at, where we're heading from an ability to be able to provide these things. And I think it's much tougher now from a supply chain standpoint, to get what we need to do to get done than it was back then. So I even though we did get COVID I think it was the right decision to make. I would do it again. I think I'd probably pick other people to do it. Because that the the violation of what we had expected from a safety and standards standpoint was definitely not performed. And that's, you know, unfortunate, but upsetting.
Akshay Sura
Yeah. All right, final question to wrap it up. So, knowing all the things you know, now, all the things you've gone through now. Yeah. 25 seems to be a pivotal year for you. In your age. What would you guide your 25 year self.
Mark Servais
Oh, um that's a great question. And and I don't think I would change anything from a mindset. It honestly hasn't changed. maturity hasn't changed from 5 to 25. But um, you know, I would just say, you know, stay the course. Right? I mean, just hang in there, stay the course. Keep your objective straight, and you'll be fine. And have fun. Oh, my God, we're all too serious, right? I mean, there are people that just get bent out of shape out of the littlest things, we have to start, we have to have a little bit of fun, we have to laugh, we have to enjoy each other, we have to think absurdly to understand the reality of what we're in. I mentioned before Lucas and I, this twisted dark sense of humor that we have gets us through a lot of this stuff. You know, my wife is the nicest person in the world, the sweetest person in the world. And now she has this dark twisted side to her as well with us. It comes with the territory. I think if you're able to laugh at yourself and not take yourself seriously, I think it's just a lot easier to get through things right? And not laugh at somebody but laugh with them. Right. And there's, there's a fine line. And it's okay to be the clown. I live that life, you know that? Yeah. Um, but if I can get all the you guys to just have to go and you know, run to the bathroom because you're laughing so hard. You know, how do you not take that experience with you? Right? How do you not just enjoy that moment, even if somebody doesn't make it? And you can laugh about them afterwards? But ultimately, no, we get together we have a good time. That's how life should be not just at those moments, but try to make it as consistent, but you know, and then live and do what you need to do. On top of that. It's okay to be silly and laugh about the stuff right? So do it. Now that's that's awesome advice. Matt, you got something?
Matthew McQueeny
No, I love the advice. I think we've we've probably stretched mark as far as he was hoping to go. Yeah, we did.
Mark Servais
We'd like days we could do this for days there's so much here to peel back. Um, you know, I mean, there's, there's enough for a book, intention, nudge nudge, wink, wink. But, um, definitely, you know, it's everyone's got their own journey. Everyone's got their own story. I just happen to have a lot of things going on in mine. Right? It definitely has not been a boring tried. I remember. My wife and I when we got married. I told her I can. I can't guarantee you to be perfect, but it won't be boring. Yeah, I'm pretty much held up that it's not always pleasant, but it's definitely never boring. Absolutely. Now, this was phenomenal.
Akshay Sura
So thank you. Thank you, Mark, for spending your time with us. You're leaving me with a little bit of guilt that I'm taking you away from Lucas and it probably fell on Irma while you were doing this. But
Mark Servais
actually, um, no. I mean, she she took care of him this morning. But you know what I had to like 10 minutes before we got on, right? I'm trying to get the mic set up. Right, everything going? And he's like, he comes up to me because I'm ready to play on my computer. I'm like, 10 minutes, right? Because I have to do this orchestration of setup, right. And I did it. I got him going he he's probably still sitting there. He that's what he wants to do. Right? He just wants to play video games. He wants to watch movies, and he wants to stock his two dogs. That's his life. And that's what we upkeep. Right? But yeah, it Trust me. As soon as I get off of here, it'll be like boom, boom, boom, boom, and, and off doing something else. So But no, this is this is great. You're definitely not taking me away. I think if your listeners get something out of this conversation today, other than, you know, Mark's crazy, and he talks about flaps a lot and stuff. If they actually can take something away and apply and think about something a little bit differently. I think it's a win win, right?
Akshay Sura
Yeah, no, I think we achieved that I can't imagine. Because this is, this is interesting. I've never gotten into the mind of a caregiver. And this gave us a good insight. And like you said, we could be talking for hours and hours on this. But, thanks again for joining us. Yep, absolutely. Thanks for having me. All right. Have a good rest of your day. Perfect. Thanks, guys. Thank you for entering the Konaverse.
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