Burn Your Portfolio: Stuff they don’t teach you in design school, but should

11. Be a Wall Painter

In the early days of my business, after hiring a new employee we would all go out to lunch together to celebrate the new addition to our team. This tradition included the “telling of our worst jobs ever.” The new employee would tell us their worst job and then the current reigning champion of the “worst job ever stories” would tell their story.

Nate, one of our first hires, is still the reigning champion. Nobody has knocked him off the worst job pedestal. What is his claim to “worst job” fame? It was his time making dog jerky. He would put on a rubber suit and spend all day in a freezer room pouring frozen meat by-products into a giant blender. At the start of the day, the meat by-products would be frozen. But as the day ...