Austin Webb Talks about Mental Health

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Welcome to Classes of Mail. Before you listen, you should know that Alan Giegax is not in any sense an official spokesman for the Post Office, the NALC, or anybody else. His opinions are inherently his own, and should probably be disregarded. Same for his guests.

Any information you hear on this podcast could be wrong, and should not be relied upon for any reason. Enjoy the show.

Alan Gegax (0:46)

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Classes of Mail. I am here today with Austin Webb, host of his own podcast, and fellow recent guest on 613 with me.

And because Austin has his own podcast and his own topics, we have an additional disclaimer that I'm going to turn it over to Austin right now before we get into the episode.

Austin Webb (1:08)

What's going on, guys? It is your boy Austin Webb from the 763 Podcast. We want to start off with a little bit of this disclaimer, just to simply say, like the topics that we're going to discuss today revolve around the mental health and specifically more around the suicide and depression aspects as well as anxiety. So if you are sensitive to that, we will encourage you to go ahead and skip over this, just so that way you can not trigger yourself or end up potentially reliving some memories of your own, especially if you're on the route, because that would be terrible.

Alan Gegax (1:44)

As if the dogs weren't enough.

Austin Webb (1:45)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, or postal management. Oh yeah. So yeah, we just want to make sure we throw that in there just to make you all aware early on, so.

Alan Gegax (1:54)

Right on. All right, so I am as much, the topic is incredibly important. I shouldn't say that I'm looking forward to this discussion, but I think it's an incredibly important discussion, especially male mental health.

I go to counseling regularly. I came to counseling right before I came to the convention, which is where we are now at the NALC National Convention, and I think it's incredibly important. So we'll get into that. First, I want you to tell my listeners a little bit about what your podcast is about, and like, I know you just said that you cover mental health issues, but that's in terms of the disclaimer. Now talk about how you would tell your coworker what the podcast is all about.

Austin Webb (2:37)

Gotcha, gotcha. So my podcast that I officially host is a 763 from the 573 Podcast. It started off as one of those numbers. So 763 is my branch number. So we're out of Columbia, Missouri, by the way, for those that are curious, out of Region 5, while we are here at National Convention recording this. So 763 is the name of the branch. 573 is the area code that we're under. So it was a mixture of both, three with three.

It was a play on word, double entendre, whatever you want it to be. So it started off as a way to connect the membership and really educate them, because we have branches that are two, two and a half hours away.

It was something that was completely necessary for us to evolve into the next generation of educating and teaching our members. We wanted to make sure that they had proper representation, especially me. And it was just something that I actually took on on my own, without even getting any sort of approval, because I really just want to test the waters of being a creative that I am. I mean, I am over here, like people can't see it, but I am in a shirt that I designed myself for the branch. No kidding. You do that?

Alan Gegax (3:48)

Dude, it looks great.

Austin Webb (3:49)

Hey, I appreciate it. I mean, yours looks great as well.

I wish mine was in pink. I really thought about doing it in pink, because I'm, you know, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, all that other stuff. So, but we've got that. It really kind of started off with like, I also had a separate podcast, also called Shit House Coaching, where that's more of a personal diary. Like I would tell my narrative, my story, but I ended up kind of, felt like that had run its course.

Alan Gegax (4:17)

Okay.

Austin Webb (4:17)

So now the 763 podcast is the blending of the two, where I get to educate as well as encourage and use my story to help others.

Alan Gegax (4:25)

Right on. This is a very common theme for postal podcasters. You know, I needed to reach my members. I knew people were being underserved by the union or underserved by postal management. And so you just do it yourself. And you go out there and you give people what they need. And thank you for that. That's important. And I know that that's an effort to put all that stuff out.