Editing The Pen Addict 655/transcript (section)

== Transition to Dan's day job and Enigma's business status ==

* Absolutely. Yeah. These days, I mean, ever since I entered as an adult, like the, the proper workforce, um, and, uh, and for those who don't realize, I do definitely still have a day job. Uh, Enigma is, uh, still, uh, I like to say flirting with profitability. Yeah. Um, you know, we, it is, it is very much, uh, still in the labor of love, uh, category from a, from a profit standpoint. But, uh, yeah, I've been bringing my own office supplies to every job I've had for the last 20 years for sure. Yeah. So that's actually what I want to ask you a little bit about is like these days, like, you know, in your regular day job, what are you using stationery wise? And are you the stationery guy in the office?
* I'm absolutely like, I will frequently connect with like a new colleague. Uh, we have the, the company I work for now, we have a, a, a tendency to when people join, they'll go around and they'll schedule a series of meet and greet meetings with a lot of different folks. And since I lead a department, um, I'm usually on that list for anybody that starts in the, in the human resources area. And so, um, what I find in those meetings is you're trying to kind of search for commonality with a, with a new colleague. Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm delighted sometimes when I find out that somebody I'll notice what like notepad they bring in and they're taking notes. I'm like, aha, I see like, this is a person that has a specific opinion as well. Yeah. Um, and so I, I definitely latch onto that, but for, for me, it's, um, and, and I promise, uh, to the listeners, this is not a plant. Brad doesn't know this, but the number one pen on my, on my, uh, like, what do I use every day is, um, it's actually the Kickstarter spoke, uh, the original spoke pen. Oh, nice. Yeah. I'm, I'm definitely going to get emails about this episode. For sure. It's going to, this is like a love fest. It's a, it's, you know, that's a mutual admiration society, but, uh, which color do you have? Red. Oh, it was, it was always red. Like the moment the Kickstarter launched, I was like, I must have this. And, and I don't know how well I even, I guess I was, I was a podcast listener at the time. So I definitely knew you and your affiliation with it. But, uh, I went back and found the Kickstarter last night to confirm like, this is where I got this pen. Right. Um, but yeah, still, uh, still carrying it today. And the, the built in fidget aspect of it with the magnet, like that's, that's been a common thing for me at the office ever since. And, uh, and I'm not a big clip pen person, but it's one that I'm glad it has the clip because the, uh, notebook cover that I use every day at work is, uh, has kind of loose pen pockets on the front. And if you put a pen that doesn't have a clip in it, it will fly directly out of it. The moment you, uh, pick it up off the desk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know exactly what you mean, where it's just kind of like floating around in there and you're just throwing things. Yeah. I, I'm, as I like to say, I'm clip agnostic. Like I, you know, some pens need a clip, some pens don't, it doesn't bother me if one does or one doesn't. It depends on the situation that I'm in and in your situation. Well, I don't want to throw the pen around the room every time I pick up the notebook. So maybe we'll have a clip on this one. Yeah. I mean, it's a little embarrassing if you're in like your boss's office or you're in like a big meeting room with some very, like you're the lowest ranked person in the room by far. You don't want to pick up your notebook and have your metal pen flying across the glass top conference room table, uh, you know, toward like the COO of the company or something. That's, uh, that's a little embarrassing. It's hard to recover from that. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um, it might be hard to recover from what I'm about to do, but we're about to have an ad from your business on this episode right now. So another sponsor of this episode of the pen addict is Enigma stationery. Enigma stationery offers unique items made from in-house designs along with top brands and hard to find imports. And this week, Pen's desk select is back as the resident teenager of the Enigma family. 13 year old Pen is always looking for new and exciting items to share with fellow stationery lovers. Pen's desk select is their curated box of new items inspired by a theme. Pen's theme for volume two is bookish bliss, and it features items at the intersection of reading and stationery. Each box includes 20 items with a total value of over $160, but is yours for only $99. 15 boxes are available for pre-order now shipping in April. So head over to enigma stationery.com slash pen addict and use the promo code pen addict two five. That's pen addict and the number two five at checkout to receive a free gift, free U.S. shipping or discount on international shipping on orders of $50 or more. We thank Enigma stationery and Dan and the entire Enigma family for sponsoring us here at the Pen Act. How weird was that for you?
* It's definitely weird to hear it live. I certainly, since I'm a listener to the show, I always hear our ads, but it is weird to sit here and try to be quiet while you read it. So I did, you know, I talked to Dan about this. So I've always wanted Dan on the show, just to give you all a little bit of background on how this all works. And, you know, I'm comfortable having, you know, people who sponsor the show, people who send us products, whatever on the show, because I feel like we have built a very independent voice in this and we, you know, we have sponsors on this show that we believe in what they do. And to me, there's no conflict in having, you know, anyone who sponsors the show on because Dan and I are going to talk about stuff and, you know, I'm going to ask you Enigma questions and there's going to be cool stuff. But separately, Dan's also running a business and you love stationery and you found a really cool environment, hopefully in the pen act and the listenership and all the things that Enigma has brought. So I hope that's okay for everyone. And I think I feel like it is. And it's only going to get better because now I get to pick Dan's brain about Enigma. Is there anything you want to say about the ad? Like, do you want to do your Squarespace part for your own ad here and give us the good feedback? Yeah, well, I'll say this. Well, first of all, if you, Brad, have not gone to the landing page from the last time I updated it, and if you've not seen the pickleball ghost sticker, No. Okay. I'm going to bring that to your personal attention. Okay. Nice. But at any rate, about Pensdesk Select, and I know, Brad, you probably want to talk about how we figure out what items to carry and all that, so we can talk more about that later. Oh, look at the ghost. All right, I found the ghost. But inside the, I left the ad copy the same from our last read a couple of weeks ago because, one, we haven't sold out of the preorder yet, so it's still out there. But, two, we've started receiving the items for this one because that's kind of how we do it. We put the preorder out there while the items are inbound when we've figured out how many we can manage to do in a particular one. And I've got to tell you, there's some cool stuff in here. I've literally got a box under the table where we segregated out when it started arriving this past week, the items that Pen picked for this box. And they've picked some fun stuff. I think it's definitely going to be a good one for those who decide to jump in. And we love the secrecy aspect of it. That's kind of a fun part of, because you're getting stuff that we haven't listed on the store before.
* And we certainly will if there are extras or if it really resonates with people. We'll see if we can order more of it. But there's a decent chance that a good chunk of the stuff in this box will maybe never be on the store. So it might be the only way to get it. And we love that fun part. I love it. I love it. So last call on the ad, y'all head over to enigmastationery.com slash Pen Addict and use the code Pen Addict 25. All right. So let's talk business here for a second.