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Check out episode #533 of This American Life, “It’s Not the Product, It’s the Person”

“Starting a business is not for the self-doubting. Or even usually the self-deprecating. The first thing you have to sell is yourself —like dating, but with a greater chance of landing in debt. We have a new story from Mike Birbiglia, and Alex Blumberg tells the incredible, sweat-stains-and-all saga of a man fumbling through starting a new business, and the man is: himself.”

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/533/its-not-the-product-its-the-person-0

https://blog.rememberlenny.com/2014/09/10/check-out-episode-533-of-this-american-life/

Two weeks after my 25th birthday, I give you a list all my paid jobs

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My father has held a number of jobs through his life, but he has a knack for sales. My mother moved to the US when she was 19 years old, after saving an amount of money that I have yet to be able to save myself (at 25).

Inspired by blog posts from Jason Shen and Rick Webb, I decided to list the paid jobs I remember having to date.

At 25 years old, I count 35.

including internships.

  • busboy at a Cazadero music camp (first 40 hour a week job at 14)
  • house painter
  • roof and gutter cleaner
  • retail associate / cashier at Michaels Arts and Crafts
  • retail associate / cashier at Target
  • film producer at Santa Rosa high school (won first monetary prize for creative work)
  • bank teller at a Exchange Bank (private Sonoma county chain)
  • sales representative for Cutco knife distributor (first cold call sales job)
  • ebay seller (through buying broken xboxs to repair and resell)
  • it staff at Soka University of America IT department (first official tech job)
  • printed clothing producer with LKBG (my first invoicing company-produced all the printed clothing gear for clubs and residential services at college. established ein number to get wholesale prices and found cheapest printers)
  • respite care worker for the Institute for Applied Behavior Analysis (home care service for families with autistic children)
  • office intern at medical service NGO (this is where I learned how much I hate busy work)
  • graveyard shift retail associate / cashier at CVS pharmacy (this job sucked)
  • street canvaser for Green Peace (first job in L.A., walking up to people in the street and convincing them to give you money)
  • telefundraiser for Obama campaign
  • retail associate / cashier at college bookstore
  • waiter at sushi bar (first job where my tips were more than my wage)
  • marketing intern for Laguna Canyon Foundation (produced films to be used for PSA’s on public cable TV)
  • graphic designer for college bookstore products (first time I saw something my design produced in bulk)
  • construction work for a summer, remodeling a professor’s home
  • attorney general in university student government (not paid – learned to navigate bureaucracy)
  • web developer for freelance clients (got paid to learn how to code)
  • concert hall staff (first employee for newly opened Performing Arts Center)
  • outsourced web developer over oDesk (made 20$ an hour from Americans, while living and traveling in China)
  • art gallery intern at stage候台BACK (first and last art gallery related job)
  • bartender at Franck Shanghai (first bar-tending job)
  • startup event organizer with Techyizu (not paid – hosted and fund-raised for lean startup machine, hackathon, and barcamp events)
  • web developer for italki (first startup job – in Shanghai.)
  • digital marketer for Kenas Home
  • ux developer for converse asia pacific(first corporate job)
  • recruiter technology trainer at Vitamin T (taught 60 recruiters the basics of web development)
  • front-end web development temp worker at Acquinity Interactive (first job in New York and later found they were shutdown by FCC)
  • consultant with A Triangle inc, my first registered corporation (first major contracts with universities (Columbia Medical School, New York University, and Pace University) and media publications (Bullett Magazine, CableVision) – fulfilled contracts traveling to Europe and Latin America)
  • senior software engineer at Conde Nast (longest job to date – started as lead developer of [W Magazine (90k MAU)](http://wmagazine.com, followed by lead develop at Bon Appetit (5m MAU), and currently on the New Yorker (12m MAU))