The weirdest non-design related job I ever had was to clasify some nuts and bolts that somehow had gotten mixed up. I spent two days just putting the right pieces in the right boxes, made you lose your sanity pretty fast but was surprisingly well paid. My first design job was pretty weird too, just so you get some idea of the level of weirdness, I once worked there with an ostrich walking around the office... and that's not the strangest thing that happened there by far.

I was a bouncer for a while at a very popular nightclub/live-music venue in Atlanta Georgia. That was super not fun. Drunk people, some very very violent. Lots of bad attitudes. What made matters worse was I was working in motion graphics at the same time. Tired all the time

I was a mailman for a year. Good benefits, bad dogs.

I worked two summers in a soap factory whilst in college. This awful experience gave me a massive push to study hard to make sure I never had to work in that damn factory ever again. To this day the smell of lavender haunts me!

it's a performance art piece. no one actually works there O.o

Ha! yeah, they're really just staring at the distance between you and the art....once that drops below 1ft they go all ninja. ;)

Just got back from Dia: Beacon. Always feels like the guards are staring into your soul.

Hit up Ambrose Yu for sound: http://ambroseyu.com

I did yard work for one neighbor, ripped fabric off couches for another neighbor's upholstery business, worked at a print shop sweeping floors and packaging, and worked behind the counter of a bakery. I had an interview at Best Buy but didn't get the job. Maybe it's worth another shot.

That would be the most bad ass business card! lol

That's awesome! It was such a killer movie. Definitely a set I'll never forget lol.

The very first job I had was as a videographer / cameraman for weddings and such, in the mid-90s (so, VHS cams and the like). It was like this: every weekend, the guy I worked for went after the high roller clients (posh weddings, bar mitzvahs etc) and I covered the beer money crowd, so to speak. Oddly enough, it didn't make me crazy to follow through with video as a career, although I did learn a lot about using a camera and specially what not to do with it. :)

Cool thread! So like someone above, I was a film extra for a while! My top moments being in a scene on my own with Russell Crowe and shaking hands with Ridley Scott! Shame I ended up on the cutting
Room floor haha! After that, I worked with people with challenging behaviour (so basically getting beaten up daily for six years), I've spent last 8 years working as a 3D artist in the pharmaceutical sector! ::)

Best: I was a caricature artist at a boardwalk the first couple of years I was in college.

Worst: I made pizza at Chuck E Cheese's.

The Wrestler is probably tied for my all-time favorite movie, sitting right next to Iron Giant — stoked to hear you were in it!

I once had to make a comic strip for a couple's wedding in Macau. They had a faux newspaper printed for every day of their wedding celebrations (3-4 days) and my comic strip was in the centre fold.

The kicker: the comic strip was a four-part love story about how the bride and groom came together complete with their likenesses!

I totally forgot to mention my first “design related” job was working as a printer’s apprentice at the age of 14. I still get nostalgic of smelling fresh pressed ink on paper coming from the offset. So yestalgic for me.

Please point me to some sound guys. I can pay them in sweet sweet mentions on the podcast and buy them a beer if they come to Austin.

Nice cookie pun btw.

Yeah I keep it supes cazh now. I haven’t sat at a poker table in well over two years now. I miss it a little but also not really at all.

protector of paintings. add to bio!

After college (BA Painting) I worked for a big London art gallery, hanging shows and packing artworks. We used to slice up big 8' x 4' sheets of corrugated card as part of the wrapping of small, framed prints. One day I went to the basement, propped my sheet of card up, probably went to grab some bubble wrap, came back and started slicing my card right down the middle. I felt some more resistance than usual… took the card away and found I had just slashed a £25K canvas. Whoops.

Dang that sounds both awesome and awful at the same time. Hearing that makes me itch to play but glad I just keep it causal and friendly these days. I'm actually better at cash than tourney but I enjoy both.

Art museum guard.......protector of paintings.....that was my best.

Great! I lived on LaSalle in downtown for a while so know it well!

Yep, walked up and down the Joker versus Batman street every day for lunch.

Did you work in the Board of Trade building!? Love that building.

Oh cool, not much climbing round Nashville though right?

That's awesome! My wife and are climb at a local gym. Would love to do more climbing outside.

I did motion graphics for the short-lived This Week In podcast network (where we launched Talking Dead before Chris Hardwick and friends "appropriated" the concept for wealth and untold riches).

Eventually I produced a couple shows — not really an audio guy but I know some that I could ask around for a Q or two.

And yeah, I was playing James Bond for Nabisco while I was In Like Flynt with Keebler. It was fun until I got caught, but that's how the cookie crumbles.

That chocolate chip cookie double agent thing... that on the real real real real?

Podcast producer? This the new one you’ve mentioned or have you produced in the past? I ask because I got some feedback about improving sound quality and since I am not a sound guy I thought maybe I could ask you.

Started working as a cashier at Staples (office supplies). They promoted me to Customer Service soon after. They had just launched "EasyTech" (their competitor to BestBuy's Geek Squad). When that launched, they were repairing computers at the customer service counter. The store was in a small town so I had a lot of down time and ended up watching the techs go to work on these massive desktop machines.

After watching them work for a few weeks, I felt confident enough to go home and rip apart the family computer and attempt to put it back together. I was 15. This is how I got into computers. Fast forward eight years, and I get a call from Rob to help him and Dan set up a community for animators.

Besides that, I've worked as a bartender, waiter, and chef for a few different restaurants. Delivered hummus and pita for 6 months. I was a manager for a Barnes & Noble when I was in college too.

Good times.

Hey Jerry. Right on! I knew you dabbled in poker when you had the Rounders nod. I saw Rounders in the theater in 1998 as my friends and I were starting to play a regular game in college. The movie really fired us up and we started hosting a home game tournament circuit. I never did live in NY in those years. I was in LA.

By 2000 we have a rotating list of 100 players and had games up to 40 (4 tables) going at my buddy’s house. In 2002 we started up a point system and had a tournament of champions where the top 10 at the end of the year played for an accumulated prize pot and trophy. We also started a Super Bowl of Poker that was a big 100 person $100 buy in $50 rebuy tournament. I won the first 2 years and people started thinking I was cheating. In 2002 I also started playing on Poker Stars. By 2003 I had built up a bank roll of over $30K. I lost it all later that year. Ironically, it was 3 stacks of high society, just like Mike McD—who also lost it all. He lost it all in one night. I lost it over 2 weeks.

Fun fact during this time, I played in a backroom game with Sam Farha and other Houston high rollers who finished second to Moneymaker a year later in the WSOP. That game was brutal but taught me how to play cash tables as I was mostly a tournament player up to that point. Unfortunately I was a little out of my depth on the cash tables and that’s how I lost it all.

I almost got a job at Starbucks after college but I went to the day-long training session hungover or food poisoned and had to walk out. Best decision ever.

oh wait, I totally forgot hardware/appliance store and delivery, NYC bike messenger, and newsletter graphic designer

my first seven jobs were all on the twitter a while back, but then it goes:
dishwasher/prep cook, busboy, dockboy, mast scraper / varnisher for a wooden boat builder, typist, audio video department assistant, projectionist, camera rental sales, video editorial house runner ...

Chocolate chip cookie double agent (worked for Nabisco & Keebler at the same time)
Christian kids videos (not particularly religious)
Slot machines (don't gamble)
Chicago Board of Trade (healthy distrust for rich people)
Yoga videos (won't even think about downward dog)
Podcast producer.

I used to work at UPS in the warehouse from 4am to 9am loading trucks. Not very odd, but was actually one of the most fun jobs I ever had

First HS job was lifeguarding - I was on swim team, we all did it - the most fun shit job I had. I also worked in the dark arts of: pizza, sandwiches/coffee, telemarketing (college donations and later vitamins - basically it was being paid to get rejected repeatedly), being a teaching assistant (this was the best college job racket), other super random on-campus crap. I once lasted almost two weeks at a grocery store before quitting from insanity.

I also played poker... ALOT, no wonder you were feeling my Rounders movie pick. Didn't make enough to consider it a living based on my current financial needs, but enough to ball out as a teenager/college kid. When I first moved to NY I designed tattoos and was the only guy on the W4th St block that did Henna freehand. Those were some fun times actually.

Brian were you in NY around 2004-2006-ish and happen to play in Version 2's (no longer in business) big tourneys? During the Chris Moneymaker era when everyone thought they were good at poker haha.

Also totally random, I wonder if anyone in here was at Jose Fuentes and Morgan James's game when Eric brought me in to play that one winner take all tourney?

My favorite job before designing was background acting. I got to be in The Sopranos, Law & Order, The Wrestler, Gossip Girl lol, Fringe, played a Zombie on a pilot that never got picked up. I loved it, so much fun to nerd out on set and watch the crew. The Wrestler was amazing, they filmed during an actual local wrestling show in Rahway. The crowd was insanely rowdy, the wrestlers would get on mic and trash talk the movie being filmed haha almost got a little scared.Being on set never got old for me, always loved it!

I worked at a Picture People (one of those mall photo studios) selling pictures of people's children to them. Later I moved on to being a UPS delivery guy. Pro Tip: Be nice to your UPS guy, they know more than you know.

Ya know those fancy fancy Gulfstream jets? - I made animations for their sales dvd's and helped film jet interiors. Before that: stocker, busboy, and surf shop surf rat.

Just before the internet I worked as a football reporter. We used to record match reports onto a tape service so that people who were away from the wireless radio could call on the phone and hear how their team was doing.

£50 for two hours work whilst I was art college. Gold-dust that job.

I was a sushi chef at my mom's restaurant through out high school and whenever I'm visiting during the holidays.
If any of you are in Richmond, VA :)

https://www.yelp.com/biz/ichiban-japanese-cuisine-richmond

https://www.yelp.com/biz/umi-sushi-bistro-richmond

Started off as a paperboy when I was 13, busboy beer-stocker in a deli at 16, ice cream scooper at Baskin Robbins at 19, AmeriCorps tutor for high school kids and adults at 22 post film-studies degree. Ended up as a paid intern at a video production company in Pittsburgh before the first dot com crash. Looks like I had a nice 3 year cycle for a while :) Didn't get my first real industry job until I was 28, though I did do a bit of Flash work at a University setting in my mid 20s.

The high-school tutor gig as an AmeriCorps member was probably the most fun, but lowest paying gig. Lots of shake and bake chicken and cheap pasta.

RadioShack!

I got fired from Best Buy for saying “shit” in the warehouse at the volume the GM heard it on the floor. They called me in an hour after and told me. Upon hearing the news I took my shirt off and threw it at the GMs face and stormed out of the office shirtless, grabbed a twinkie and a Mountain Dew from the checkout line, got in my Ford Tempo and peeled out.

So what you’re saying Al is that when you visit Austin you can teach me how to scale some sweet sweet rocks? I am pretty sure the way I do it is all wrong.

I was a rock climbing & mountaineering instructor for a few years! :)

I worked at radioshack(RIP), splish splash (long island's water park) and I got fired from a local grocery store for calling in sick the one day I had work after requesting the whole week off.