← All Episodes ← Prev Next →
EPISODE 0109 - DEC 22, 2020 Basecamp Behind the Scenes, Customer Support

Send A Little Delight

with Merissa Dawson
Listen now

Comfort and joy were in short supply this year, but we’re doing our best to end 2020 on a cozy note. Merissa of Basecamp support talks about surprising customers with gifts throughout the year, whether it’s to thank them for their fandom or apologize for a disappointing experience. Then Wailin shares a few items from her 2020 gift guide, and Joan of Basecamp customer support reviews a scented candle. Wishing all of our listeners a restful holiday season, and we’ll see you in 2021!

Transcript

Wailin: (00:00:01) It’s not gonna stay. Okay, it’s falling down. I have to come up with a better way to hang it up on the acoustic panels. But I bought this new art quilt. It’s the size of… it’s just a little bit bigger than a standard piece of paper. And it is black, mostly black. And in yellow letters on this little quilt. It just says, “Oh no.”

Shaun: (00:00:25) Where did you get it?

Wailin: (00:00:26) Okay, so her name is Carly. And her business is called Fabric In Flames. She specializes in fiber arts. It’s fabricinflames.etsy.com. And when I saw this on her store, I was like, that’s perfect. This is very much my mood all the time. And I want this “Oh, no” quilt to hang in the background of all my Zoom calls.

(00:00:54) It reminds me of a story that I want to tell you to open today’s episode.

(00:01:00) [Jingle bells ring]

(00:01:03) So a few years ago, it was probably more than a few years ago. I would say this is about… maybe 10 years ago or so. Probably more, actually, because I was not married at the time. For Christmas that year, I ended up completely… I’m not going to say alone. But my parents took a trip to Hong Kong. And I can’t remember why they decided to go over Christmas. But I’m pretty sure I was dating my now husband at the time, but we were long distance and so we were somehow unable to spend Christmas together.

(00:01:35) And I remember whining about this to my mom, being like, I can’t believe you’re leaving the country. I’ve no one to spend Christmas with.

Shaun: (00:01:39) Aww.

Wailin: (00:01:40) And she said well just go to your brother’s in laws with your brother and his wife. And I was like, oh, I don’t just want to like crash their family Christmas. It’s kind of weird. I am this appendage off of you know, the Wong side here. And I don’t want to crash the Christmas.

Shaun: (00:02:00) The Wong side of the tracks.

Wailin: (00:02:01) Yeah, exactly. I come from the Wong side of the tracks. And it didn’t occur to me to get Christmas presents for all of these relatives. Do you know what I mean?

Shaun: (00:02:09) Right. Yeah, yeah.

Wailin: (00:02:10) Christmas morning, I was thinking my plan is just to kind of sit in the background here and not make a peep and let them enjoy their Christmas because I’m an interloper in this Christmas. And instead I get there and they’re opening presents. And my brother’s extremely sweet mother-in-law hands me an absolutely enormous wrapped box.

Shaun: (00:02:34) Oh goodness.

Wailin: (00:02:35) And the first words out of my mouth were, “Oh, no.” That’s literally what I said. I think that moment might have started me on a bit of a journey, where I got really into giving gifts. But I wasn’t always like this and I think it was that feeling of, “Oh, shoot. I came really unprepared to this Christmas and I did everything all wrong.”

Shaun: (00:03:01) Never again says Wailin Wong. Yeah.

Wailin: (00:03:03) Not on my watch. Never again, will I be caught unaware.

Shaun: (00:03:07) I’m so glad people like you exist because I cannot stand giving or receiving gifts.

Wailin: (00:03:13) This is so interesting. This is… it’s like it’s not your love language, you know what I mean?

Shaun: (00:03:17) Not even close. Nothing triggers my anxiety like that.

(00:03:21) Broken By Design by Clip Art plays. [With added jingling bells]

Shaun: (00:03:22) Welcome to REWORK, a podcast by Basecamp about the better way to work and run your business. I’m Shaun Hildner.

Wailin: (00:03:27) And I’m Wailin Wong. Today in the spirit of the holidays and rampant consumerism, we’re devoting our episode to gift giving of all kinds. First up, we talked to our colleague Merissa on Basecamp’s support team. She heads up an ongoing project that sends surprise gifts to our customers and she is really good at it.

Shaun: (00:03:45) And then Wailin will share her favorite items for 2020. This is one of my favorite parts of the year is seeing Wailin’s very meticulously crafted gift guide. When does this episode come out?

Wailin: (00:03:56) The 22nd.

Shaun: (00:03:59) Okay, so if you’re doing some extremely last minute holiday shopping, this may be helpful.

Wailin: (00:04:05) And finally, we’ll have an installment of our podcast within a podcast Shaun Wick where Shaun reviews candles and we talk about cozy things. Today we have a special guest.

Shaun: (00:04:16) It’s a genuine holiday extravaganza. So here’s Wailin’s conversation with Merissa of Basecamp’s customer support.

Wailin: (00:04:28) I actually looked up when you first pitched an ongoing project about delighting customers and it looked like it was July 2016. So about four years ago, four and a half years ago.

Merissa: (00:04:40) Okay.

Wailin: (00:04:40) Do you remember how that all started? Like how you got the idea and how you pitched it?

Merissa: (00:04:45) I had actually started doing it on my own prior to 2016. I mean, I joined the company almost 10 years ago. And I feel like shortly even after I started I always wanted to do stuff for customers and we were allowed to just send a gift, or delight a customer in some way whenever we wanted. And I think in 2016, I pitched what I did, because our team was much larger, or even some folks on different teams, like mobile designers, or somebody, might catch something on Twitter that somebody said, and think, “Hey, you know, it’s a good idea to reach out to this person.”

(00:05:19) So I kind of wanted it to be more company-wide. Just let me know which person I should send something to and I’ll handle it for you. I just wanted to kind of make it easy on everyone, whether you were on the support team, or you were on a different team, and you wanted us to acknowledge somebody. It could be a customer said something really nice about us on Twitter, maybe they’ve been using Basecamp for a long time and they’re just like, “Hey, you know, Basecamp has really saved my bacon.”

(00:05:48) And it also might be somebody that is upset. We don’t have a feature that they want, we’re probably not going to add it and they seem like, you know, like, this is not their day.

Wailin: (00:05:58) Reading back in that project that you started in 2016. It started with a big batch of handwritten cards. But then I feel like Basecamp really upped its swag game, right? I feel like that opened up the kinds of things you could send customers pretty easily.

Merissa: (00:06:13) Yeah, some folks really just kind of want Basecamp swag, which is awesome. I kind of like to send out different things unless somebody has a request and I see somebody that’s like, “Hey, I really wish I could sport a Basecamp shirt.” We’ll send it out. Our swag made it easier for some other folks on our team to kind of send that stuff out too.

Wailin: (00:06:30) So then after you started this official project, and you set up a workflow where your colleagues on the support team could send you the information on a customer that they wanted to send a gift to. Can you describe how that got set up and what the workflow is that you are working with today.

Merissa: (00:06:47) So I would just have somebody create a to do with the person’s name, their physical address, if they had it, and then their interaction, whether that was a customer support ticket or something they saw on Twitter, or maybe a designer received a personal email from someone. When I obviously send a message to them, I can either thank them for their help in helping us solve a bug, or we’re so sorry you’re bummed that we don’t have recurring to dos. Or some other little message so that I know what I’m talking about for the customer. Then I would do some research on the customer and think about what kind of way I wanted to delight them.

Wailin: (00:07:27) Let’s talk about that because I feel like as a gift giver myself, I love giving gifts, this is like the best part of it.

Merissa: (00:07:33) Yes.

Wailin: (00:07:34) In the case of our customers, if you like you have a really interesting challenge, because this is not someone you really know, right? You only know a very tiny slice about them, which is how they’ve interacted with us based on something they use for work, right? So what is your process for determining what someone might like?

Merissa: (00:07:55) Yeah, so that definitely is the fun part for me, because I, too, love giving gifts. Most of the time, you can find out something on the internet about somebody. I don’t want to sound like I’m stalking into someone’s life or whatever, because I don’t have a huge digital footprint myself. So most of the time, maybe they have a Twitter account, maybe they have an Instagram account that’s public, maybe there’s a Facebook account that’s public, maybe they’ve been interviewed for a magazine before, maybe there’s just something on the internet that I can find by kind of typing in their name and their city. So the first thing I do is just kind of see if I can find the person. If I can, great. Then I’m looking, Oh, okay, they have pets. They have a dog.” Or “Oh, this person really loves baseball.” Maybe they even have a profile picture of themselves wearing an Atlanta Braves hat, or maybe they mentioned taking their partner or their kids to a certain restaurant.

(00:08:51) And I’d say 90% of the time, I am able to find enough about someone to kind of think of a good option to send. Like, I mentioned the Atlanta Braves person, I’ve definitely sent out baseball tickets to somebody before. We’ve also sent out a restaurant voucher before. Somebody was like, “Oh, my favorite restaurant is so and so. I love going to this restaurant.” So that was an easy one there. I really like to surprise the customer completely and not even let them know that they might receive something from us just because I personally think that’s the most fun. And maybe they’re writing to us from an email address that I can tell is like a business address. So in that case, I might send something to the business, attention their name, that way, which is an easy way to surprise.

Wailin: (00:09:35) I love that. But it’s not always possible to do that, right? Sometimes you do have to ask for an address.

Merissa: (00:09:40) There definitely are occasions where I can’t find an address and I don’t have a good one to make sure it gets to. So in that case, I might go ahead and reply to whatever type of interaction it was, if it was an email like hey, you know, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind sending a good physical address. We’d love to send you something. Like I said, it’s not my favorite way to do it because I just love for it to be a surprise. But in some cases, you have to do that.

(00:10:06) International gifts are also harder as well, because of postage. And you know how… are they going to get charged for customs if we send them something? So a lot of times with those, I try to find companies that sell gifts that are based in the country that they live.

(00:10:22) For example, I just had somebody who was living in Bali, in Ubud. I did have to ask his address. And he was like, “Oh, you know, you can send something to my sister who lives in the States, if you want, I’m not sure you’ll be able to get something to where I am.” And I was like, “No, no, let me let me see what I can do.” And I actually found this really neat company called a Elami and they are a woman-owned company that put together these really creative different types of boxes each month. They’re really creative, specialized boxes, usually kind of all made by people in Indonesia. And that specific company was able to send him a box, the box that they offered that month and get that to him.

Wailin: (00:11:03) The customs thing is so tricky, too. I remember… I have a really good friend from college who used to work at like a big financial firm, and she had the kind of thankless admin job of coordinating the customer gifts, the client gifts they would send out every holiday.

Merissa: (00:11:19) Yeah.

Wailin: (00:11:19) And one year… this is like this infamous story. One year, they sent out really expensive heavy poker sets.

Merissa: (00:11:28) Oh, gosh.

Wailin: (00:11:28) And everyone got this expensive briefcase of poker chips, and all the accoutrements. And something went wrong with the international shipping. And so it was a combination of all of these terribly expensive, heavy boxes being returned. But then also, clients getting charged for customs. I mean, I don’t think she ever lived it down.

Merissa: (00:11:50) Yeah, that’s such a bummer. And I feel like that is actually a learning experience. I mean, it was for me at one point, too. At one point, we started using a company that would send out some of our swag, but we didn’t know that that company was actually charging folks customs, until one person kind of like, at least a year later or so, was like, hey, do I have to pay this for this. And I was like, what?

(00:12:15) That was a learning experience for me, too. Luckily, it was just more of stickers and a shirt, so not as heavy.

Wailin: (00:12:23) In the cases where you’ve Googled the person and maybe their company or their city, and you’re just not getting very much. Do you have certain go tos, like reliable places for gifts, where this is something more general that you think like a lot of people would enjoy, and it’s like a reliable source of gifts for you.

Merissa: (00:12:45) I mean, it kind of depends on what the customer was interacting to us about. If it was a customer who was super excited about Basecamp, in that case, my go to just might be some sort of swag. If it’s a customer who may be bummed out that we don’t offer a feature, then I’m thinking okay, a couple of things. Are they the owner of the account? If they are, I’m able to see how long have they been a customer? If they’ve been a customer since like 2010? And we’re talking a 10 year customer, then I think, if I was this customer, would I maybe like us to comp a month of service? They’ve never had that done before in 10 years, maybe they’d like a free month. Or does it look like this customer, when we could go to movie theaters, it might be like maybe they’d like to go see a couple movies on us and order some popcorn and do whatever. I might send like a movie e-gift card because that’s easier, maybe I don’t have their address.

(00:13:38) I try to stay away from food type things just because people have so many food allergies or food sensitivities. I don’t want to send something that someone really can’t enjoy. I might consider sending some flowers. Flowers aren’t my favorite gift in the world just because I’m like, “Oh flowers die.” But I have a lot of friends who love flowers. My mom loves flowers. So depending upon the case, I might maybe send a really pretty bouquet of flowers that says we’re really sorry that we don’t have the feature but we hope these brighten your day at your desk or whatever.

(00:14:09) Maybe I might send a candle depending upon the person. Again, those are a little… I’m kind of iffy on those because people are sensitive to scents, so if I send something I try to candle I try to make it a really neutral one.

Wailin: (00:14:23) What’s your go to neutral candle?

Merissa: (00:14:24) I really like some of the neutral, I don’t know if they say it like Volussa or Valuspa, or whatever. [Valupsa]

Wailin: (00:14:29) Oh, yeah, I’ve seen that brand.

Merissa: (00:14:31) I think those candles are really nice. And they have a couple that aren’t like too too smelly. I find that, actually, some Etsy sellers make some really nice ones that are more natural, soy based and they’re using essential oils so they’re not so heavy and so strong. But yeah, I’d say that those are probably… if I can’t find anything, anything at all about a customer, those are kind of my main choices. The swag and the movies and flowers, basic things. I might actually just send a spa gift card, as well. Like one of the ones from spa finder that is pretty generic.

Wailin: (00:15:05) Have you had to adapt any of your strategies in the last nine months, given that a lot of these experience type gifts are not really options right now?

Merissa: (00:15:14) Yeah, I’ve actually been looking for more of the curated gift box type things. I mentioned that Elami one, which is a cool company in Indonesia that makes those little boxes. There’s also some other companies out there. I know, at Basecamp, we receive some cool little boxes from Packed With Purpose. I’ve kind of just switched to that. I’ve also switched to them, because most of these companies are doing good things for the environment. Or maybe it’s a women-owned business, something special that’s kind of giving back in other ways.

Wailin: (00:15:47) Yeah. Or it’s like local. Like you mentioned that company—

Merissa: (00:15:48) Yes.

Wailin: (00:15:48) –you found in Bali, so it’s supporting a small local business.

Merissa: (00:15:54) Yeah, I sent actually a cool box to somebody in Australia recently. I think the company was called Gift Boss, or something. And they had kind of fun, I think they call them gift hampers, not boxes. I don’t know if that’s specific to Australia or just their company.

Wailin: (00:16:06) A whole hamper, my God.

Merissa: (00:16:08) It’s like a hamper… yeah, it’s not really. It’s just a box size thing, but they call it a hamper. I don’t know. Greetabl is a company I’ve used in the past, which is really cool, super small square size boxes. And you actually walk through a little customization thing with them where you can choose photos to go on the outside of the box. And then the box closes up really cute with all your photos, the way that you open it. So those have been fun to customize with Basecamp icons or photos so that they see right when they open it, it’s a Basecamp related item.

Wailin: (00:16:38) You know, my last question is like what kind of gifts do you like receiving?

Merissa: (00:16:44) So I enjoy just receiving a card that’s handwritten by someone. Words are great. Outside of that. I love anything having to do with my dog. Give me the ambience and the lights, love restaurants. I mean, basically, I guess what I’m saying is I love all gifts. I love cozy things. I’m a Taurus. Taurus loves cozy. I’d love if somebody sent me a Minky Couture blanket, which I used to think Barefoot Dreams blankets. That’s it. Those are other gifts that I’ve sent out.

Wailin: (00:17:11) You’ve sent a Barefoot Dreams blanket?

Merissa: (00:17:14) Yeah.

Wailin: (00:17:14) The luxury!

Merissa: (00:17:15) Yeah. Right. So I used to think those were my favorite. But now I’m convinced that that’s Minky Couture. And I feel like it’s only a matter of time before these blankets kind of blow up bigger than Barefoot Dreams.

Wailin: (00:17:26) I’m really excited that you found a blanket you like even more than Barefoot Dreams because I think Oprah put Barefoot Dreams on her favorite things list. So you’re like ahead of Oprah.

Merissa: (00:17:37) Yeah, and Oprah is definitely wrong. I’m sorry. I love Oprah. But apparently she doesn’t have a Minky Couture blanket. It’s my go to gift for almost everything now. By sending a gift, I mean, more like towards personal life.

Wailin: (00:17:49) I am Googling this immediately after we get off the phone.

Merissa: (00:17:53) Yeah, good. Good. As you should. They also always have promos on their Instagram. It’s like I’m a rep now for Minky Couture. But if they’re your first time, they do a Welcome 30. 30% off your first time. Go by a Minky.

Wailin: (00:18:05) No kidding. Okay, I’m just gonna get one for myself because I’m actually all done holiday shopping for people, so I’ll just get one for myself.

(00:18:12) Well, Merissa, this is such a pleasure. Thank you for doing this.

Merissa: (00:18:16) You’re welcome. I hope it inspires people to give gifts. Send a little delight. And if anybody wants to reach out to me, they can at delight@hey.com.

(00:18:26) [Jingle bells]

Shaun: (00:18:28) Well, you heard Merissa talk about this Barefoot Dreams blanket right? Even though she has now moved on to the Minky Couture.

Wailin: (00:18:35) That’s right.

Shaun: (00:18:36) And that brings us to the first item on Wailin Wong’s Famous Holiday Gift Guide which, what is it? What is your gift guide called this year?

Wailin: (00:18:45) This year it is called Quarantine MVPs, subheading, Anxiety Fueled Purchases That I Actually Find Useful.

Shaun: (00:18:54) Fantastic. We’re gonna start with this Barefoot Dreams CozyChic Lite Circle Cardigan. And actually on your recommendation, I bought this for my mother for Christmas this year.

Wailin: (00:19:03) It is an amazing sweater. It is so soft. It is so cozy. And it’s got a little bit of stretch to it so I can kind of wrap it around myself.

Shaun: (00:19:11) Just a little Wailin burrito.

Wailin: (00:19:12) A little burrito. And any photo of me from this time period, I am wearing this sweater.

Shaun: (00:19:17) So you’ve broken up this gift guide into sections and the sweater is obviously under the subheading of Puttering Around the House. What else do you have under here?

Wailin: (00:19:25) The next item on my list is Glerups slippers which I actually learned about from you.

Shaun: (00:19:31) And I actually learned about them from Jason Fried, our boss.

Wailin: (00:19:34) So he has a pair, then he influenced you to get a pair and then you influenced me to get a pair for my husband at the beginning of lockdown. My husband’s are dark brown. What color are yours?

Shaun: (00:19:46) Mine are bright red. And we should say these are like a felted wool, very simple, very thick, and very warm house shoe.

Wailin: (00:19:55) Yes. I gotta say bright red, that’s like big gnome energy you got going on there.

Shaun: (00:19:59) I am a big gnome. Let’s move outdoors. Next on your list is the Solo Stove.

Wailin: (00:20:05) The Solo Stove is a fire pit. It’s like a trendy fire pit.

Shaun: (00:20:10) Uh huh. Yep. Instagram keeps trying to sell me one.

Wailin: (00:20:14) I think they have probably spent a billion dollars on Instagram ads because I own one and I’m still getting Instagram ads for them.

Shaun: (00:20:21) Okay, next on the list, the Corksicle classic stemless wine tumbler.

Wailin: (00:20:26) Yeah, so as part of extending our outdoor time, I thought it would be really nice to enjoy a warm beverage around the fire. It is an insulated tumbler. It has a little lid but the slot on the top… and it just looks like a stemless wine glass.

Shaun: (00:20:42) Fantastic. All right, let’s move on to the… Oh, I love this one. This is the Parks Project Rumpl Sherpa blanket.

Wailin: (00:20:49) Okay, I don’t actually own this but I would like to. I think it’s been sold out all season. It’s just a big blanket made out of durable material that you could have outdoors. And…

Shaun: (00:21:00) That you can also just toss in the wash real quick, too, I believe.

Wailin: (00:21:02) Exactly. And really warm. And I think the product description said that it came with straps or something so you could kind of wear it around you like a big cloak, which is right up your alley.

Shaun: (00:21:11) Perfect. Perfect. What I need is more cloaks.

Wailin: (00:21:15) How many do you have?

Shaun: (00:21:16) I have four. Let’s move on to the next section of your gift guide, Stuffing your Face. So the first one is just a Spindrift subscription, which I don’t think needs to be plugged too hard. But as a Lacroix fan myself, give me the quick pitch on why Spindrift.

Wailin: (00:21:33) For some reason it’s always sold out at my local grocery store. They don’t really seem to have that many flavors. Then I discovered that you can get Spindrift just delivered to your house every month.

Shaun: (00:21:44) Let’s move on to the Mason Cash cane mixing bowls. These are pretty cute, but only the bright red ones.

Wailin: (00:21:50) Oh no. I like the pastel colors as well. They come in a lot of kind of Easter egg colors.

Shaun: (00:21:55) I like my mixing bowls to match my slippers.

Wailin: (00:21:56) Of course, of course you do. I don’t actually own these bowls, but I aspire to. They are the same ones that are used on Great British Bake Off.

Shaun: (00:22:04) And finally, this is some really important stuff for 2020. We’re gonna move on to your your final section of the gift guide, Spiffing Up Your Zoom Calls. Do you want to start with the ring light you’re using?

Wailin: (00:22:16) I am on all these zoom calls now, not for work because we continue to loathe meetings at Basecamp. But I’m doing a bunch of volunteer things and we just have so many… so many meetings, so many meetings. And a lot of evenings, I’m just down here on these Zoom calls. And so I realized that because my basement recording studio is so dark, I was just constantly shrouded in darkness. And I thought that looked silly. So I was like, I should get a ring light. They make these now.

Shaun: (00:22:45) One of the problems with having another light source pointing directly at your face is that it can kind of show some flaws. How would you fix that?

Wailin: (00:22:54) Well, I have been using zit patches for a while now these are these clear stickers that you can put on top of your zits.

Shaun: (00:23:03) The Neogen A-Clear Soothing Clear Spot Patch.

Wailin: (00:23:07) Goodness gracious, that’s a long name. But these really work and I had one on my nose with my ring light on, on a Zoom call, and you could not tell. You could not tell at all. That’s how invisible they are.

Shaun: (00:23:21) And finally, the last item on Wailin Wong’s 2020 Gift Guide is another drinking container. Because you have a problem.

Wailin: (00:23:30) It’s important to stay hydrated is what I’m saying and I think that, as I’m sitting on all these Zoom calls, I want to have something next to me, right? And I found it a little bit awkward and probably unsightly, too, for my fellow Zoomers to bang my head back and drinking from a can of Spindrift. And so, I was like, I think I need a kind of like a straw cup. Sounds like I’m buying something for a toddler. But I needed like an adult straw cup.

Shaun: (00:23:56) This is the Ello Tidal 20-ounce Glass Tumbler with Lid.

Wailin: (00:24:01) Yeah, and so, 20 ounces, so it holds quite a bit, and it’s glass, but there is this grippy rubber part on the top so it doesn’t feel too slippery. And it’s got a little straw. It’s great.

Shaun: (00:24:14) Well, Wailin, thank you for sharing this year’s Gift Guide. There is one more recommendation we have though. On a very special edition of our podcast within a podcast Shaun Wick, we’re joined by our colleague Joan Stewart from Basecamp’s customer support team to review another scented candle from the poorly named Boy Smells line.

(00:24:31) [Jingle bells]

(00:24:35) Joan, welcome to REWORK, and welcome specifically to Shaun Wick our podcast within a podcast where we talk about cozy things including, and especially, scented candles. And last week on Shaun Wick, I reviewed the Polyamberous candle from Boy Smells. But Wailin had mentioned that you had been talking about Boy Smells as well. How did you find out about this company?

Joan: (00:24:59) Yes. Well thank you for having me. Longtime listener, first time caller. I actually… okay this is bad, but this is the first thing I think that I’ve seen on advertisement Instagram that I bought. I’m—

Shaun: (00:25:17) Congratulations.

Joan: (00:25:18) I think. I think. I mean, unless you count. Oh, that’s not true. There’s people that I follow that have things that I guess they’re sponsored by that I will follow. But this was an ad.

Shaun: (00:25:29) This was an ad, yeah, got it.

Joan: (00:25:29) This was an ad for the Boy Smells. Again, questionable name, but I guess it’s working for them.

Shaun: (00:25:39) They’ve sold at least two candles.

Joan: (00:25:40) Yeah.

Shaun: (00:25:40) To people on this podcast right now.

Joan: (00:25:43) Yeah.

Wailin: (00:25:43) Pretty high success rate.

Joan: (00:25:44) Their collab with a country music slash pop recording artist, Kasey Musgraves. The candle is called Slow Burn off of the first single on her Grammy-winning album, Golden Hour.

Wailin: (00:26:01) It’s a good name.

Joan: (00:26:01) Yeah. So that’s how I I found out about them. Is that an Instagram ad. I don’t know exactly how it came up. But I’m not a candle person. Necessarily. I did buy the IKEA candles.

Wailin: (00:26:18) Oh, yeah.

Joan: (00:26:19) Two of them.

Shaun: (00:26:21) I found those to be too sweet for me. I don’t know if we’ll review them on the show. What did you think of the IKEA candles?

Joan: (00:26:25) They’re fine. I got the little ones. The tobacco one seemed to be the very popular one. But I couldn’t get it because all they had was the enormous one. And I don’t even have a surface in my home that would accommodate a candle of that size. Like, I mean, I will admit when I light the Kasey Musgraves candle, I imagined myself as the kind of person who has a surface that can accommodate enormous candles.

Shaun: (00:26:54) What does it smell like?

Joan: (00:26:57) It just smells good. I’m not like a person who can identify smells. I’m not…

Shaun: (00:27:03) Oh God, me neither.

Joan: (00:27:05) A wax sommelier. I am not. That is not what I would call myself. I can tell you what they say it smells like.

Shaun: (00:27:13) Oh yeah, please. What does Kasey say it smells like?

Joan: (00:27:18) So according to the candle itself, and also their website, it smells like incense, black pepper, elemi…

Wailin: (00:27:28) What’s that?

Joan: (00:27:30) Guaiac.

Wailin: (00:27:31) What’s that?

Joan: (00:27:32) Right?

Wailin: (00:27:35) Wait…

Joan: (00:27:35) There’s more things.

Wailin: (00:27:35) Okay, read the rest of the list.

Joan: (00:27:37) Raspberry.

Wailin: (00:27:37) Okay, okay.

Shaun: (00:27:37) I know that one.

Joan: (00:27:39) Right? Got one. Tonka.

Wailin: (00:27:43) What?

Joan: (00:27:43) Amber, which is a color, I thought?

Shaun: (00:27:45) It’s the color of your energy, I think.

Joan: (00:27:56) Oh, gosh. And smoked papyrus. Now, whether they’re referring to paper or the typeface, I am not sure. They don’t elaborate.

Wailin: (00:28:10) Well, does the candle smell earthy or herbaceous? Like does it smell of the earth?

Joan: (00:28:14) Yeah, it just smells nice. I have to say it smells nice. Because I think my my previous candle experience comes from the late ‘90s when candles were all the rage. You were constantly giving candles to your friends as gifts, but they were all like, they basically smelled like a Bath and Bodyworks. They were like a blueberry. You know, a strong blueberry.

Wailin: (00:28:39) Or sunripened raspberry?

Joan: (00:28:42) Yeah.

Wailin: (00:28:43) How many ‘90s Bath and Bodyworks scents can you name right now?

Joan: (00:28:47) Oh… you know… what was combined with cucumber? It would be like…

Wailin: (00:28:53) Melon, cucumber melon.

Joan: (00:28:54) Melon. Cucumber melon.

Shaun: (00:28:57) Well, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on to the greatest show ever produced, Shaun Wick.

Joan: (00:29:04) Thank you so much for having me.

Wailin: (00:29:09) This was so fun.

Shaun: (00:29:10) We’ll have you back on next time you find a new candle. I’m assuming we’re continuing Shaun Wick throughout the winter, right?

Wailin: (00:29:17) Oh yeah. I mean, it’s gonna be a long winter. We’re gonna need a lot of content.

(00:29:24) Broken By Design by Clip Art plays

Wailin: (00:29:26) REWORK is produced by Shaun Hildner and me, Wailin Wong. Music for the show is my Clip Art. Show Notes and transcripts for our episodes are available rework.fm and we’re on twitter at @reworkpodcast.

Shaun: (00:29:38) This is our last regular episode of 2020. We made it, Wailin.

Wailin: (00:29:42) Yay.

Shaun: (00:29:43) The year is finally over. And we’re actually going to take a little bit longer break and be back in early 2021. So, thank you, everyone, for sticking with us during this year. We hope you continue staying safe and healthy and we’ll see you next year.

[Jingle bells]

This is an episode title

00:00 / 00:00