Career Decision
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- bored2death0
Glad to hear it worked out for you.
I need to hear more stories like this right now...
- create your own story. leap toward your own future. risk is measured by those who have no balls. you can quote me I just made that one up.zenmasterfoo
- just made that one up.zenmasterfoo
- nice!kona
- hektor9110
Great story man, I'm glad everything worked well for you!
"If your heart is in the right place, your feet will arrive at the right place"
- whitewolf0
Just wanted to update this thread. 2 years ago (in January) I posted a story about trying to decide to quite my entry level design job at a local small shop I hated and move to Africa to document a friend's non profit.
Well I went to Sudan, lived there for 3 months, got some awesome footage, came home and had a rough time freelancing. I traveled a bunch, stayed in Vancouver for a while, but was pretty worried about getting a real job.
As of September i've been full time at CP+B in Boulder for about 3 months now. 2 years ago, I had never heard of CP+B, hell I the only big Ad Agency i knew about was RGA as i had friends there.
I'm definitely not and Ad person, but i feel like i'm in a real good spot. Crazy to think how things have worked out since 2 years ago.
If you get an opportunity to go on an adventure and are worried about your job/ future. TAKE IT. I did this in the heigh of the recession, and things seemed to work out fine.
original post:
Jan 19, 2009
"So hypothetically I know this kid who is an entry-level designer.
This guy interviewed for a graphic design position that included: photo studio work, print, illustration/logo, some web comps etc. He got the job offer and accepted. Three weeks into the job, he was given a web project. He was to take a pre-designed comp and develop/build the website. Keep in mind that in the interview process this kid explicitly expressed that all he had was a basic knowledge of web technology (flash animation, html, xhtml, basic css, tables etc) This person tackled the project the best that they knew how and upon completion was question of their ability.
A meeting was then held with the CEO and creative director: Bottom line, we need someone who can do web, and only web, either get up to par or get out. So, this person then consulted many a tutorial and fellow web personnel in the company. Now this person is up to par with company demands. They can build with css, div tags etc.
It has been three months since the meeting and this person has yet to see another non-web job. This person is thankful for the crash course and learning a bit of web development, but is creatively stifled.
So...
Should this person:
A) Stick with this company for one year, learning as much as they can and reaching the 1 year agency experience mark for the resume. Then apply elsewhere for a more fitting position.
or
B) Leave at the 8 month mark, and cash in on the opportunity to live in Southern Sudan/ Northern Uganda and work with a dear friend's humanitarian non-profit. Basically riding around in land rovers helping build schools and medical centers for refugees. This would be a total of 3 months and then this person would return to the states and start the job hunt over again.
So, is getting a full year under their belt at a place that they do not trust help them more? Or should this person cut the agency experience short by pursing a passion and going on the ultimate adventure?
Fire away.
"
- hektor9110
hey man.... were can I sign up for plan ( B ) take that option... Im sure it will be an eye opener..
- zaq0
hat's off. The best choice "B" you could choose
- brandelec0
i want a whitewolf tshirt
- whitewolf0
inspirational boost for the day:
- canuck0
Great stuff
- freitag0
^ wow, there's a man who worked a bit outside a cubicle....
- whitewolf0
Yeah, i'm working on updating my porfolio site now. I basically only have student work on there, I gotta put up the stuff from the Design firm I worked at and this non-profit stuff i'm working on
You guys are going to hate me for this...
did I ever tell you about when I went to Tibet 4 years ago?
- moth0
Fuck me wolf. That might be the most living you'll ever get to do.
You really want to intern? You don't want to go and do it again?
- joseprieto0
yeah best of luck dude... you have a portfolio website???
I can pass it around...
great bon iver song on that video... is that from a new album that I dont know about?- the track is "Babys" from Blood Bank EP. You should hear his "Bracket WI" from the Dark Was The Night compilationwhitewolf
- megE0
Best of luck finding a job - that's one hell of a trip! I'm jealous for sure.
- Nutter0
Awesome story, best of luck finding a job, hopefully things are better now than when you left.
- whitewolf0
Right now i'm on unemployment, remember I was "let go" by my firm before I put in a notice.
I'm working on going through all this media trying to get a good campaign going for this non-profit.
And i'm job hunting.
So who like this story enough to let me intern at their office?
Anyone?
Oh and maybe let me use their machine, hours of footage on this macbook pro is sloooowwwwwwwww
- whitewolf0
ok so I had a Canon Rebel XTI and some lenses. So I knew I was going to be shooting alot of photos. This was the 1st real group trip for this organization so documentation was everything. Our first project, basically making or breaking the future. If we get it done, it needs to be shown to the doners.
This is all we were prepared for--photography.
I had mentioned to the the founder/ leader that some video would be great so try to budget for a camera.
Last minute we got a huge donation that met all of our needs for the trip.
He called me up to go get a camera and learn how to use it, this was about 5 days before we left. So with very short time and very little research this is what I came up with for about $1500 which was our max budget for the cam.
Canon Vixia HF20 hd camcorder. 32gb Flash memory
Encinema35 depth-of-field adapter
(means I can use all the 35 mil lenses I have for my SLR with the camera for manual focusing/ making it look great)4 hour battery expansion
Everything turned out awesome. Only thing is when I ventured into Yei to dump the camera I would just drag all the raw .mts files to a hard drive. We just had a PC laptop over there, so there was nothing to edit with.
Now that i'm back I have about 40 hours of footage to go through, most of it i'm seeing for the first time. Had some trouble with the .mts files, had to buy VolaicHD to convert them all, a suuuuper long process.
This is me the day before I left.
the aspect ratio is off and I didn't upload it in HD, but hey I was flying to Sudan the next day.
I had just got the Encinema35 DOF adapter and was learning how to use it. Oh and they suggest being very careful about dust on the adapter and the focusing glass. Well damn it, Sudan= the dustiest place in the world.
www.thomas-schambach.com/.gnar/d…...
So the focusing glass is ruined, unless I want to make a horror film that is shot on a fermented super 8 cam.
Gotta get new focusing glass, probably about $50
- here is that bottom picture
http://www.thomas-sc…whitewolf - awesome dude!!lobstarr
- here is that bottom picture
- whitewolf0
big trick, to answer your question--
I honestly believe our safety was a result of Divine intervention, but i'm not a preacher so one could message me about that, or get a beer.
About a month into it I got comfortable. I wasn't scared, I was nervous around military personnel. It is widely known that "photography" is illegal in Sudan. So every checkpoint we went through I was the guy with a bag full of cameras. But the more you realized that these grown men in military garb were just that same as the little kids looking for attention. You took the time to ask the soldier how long they have been in service, what their name was, what's their story and they melt. They would get all excited to show you their weapons, tell you embellished stories of how they almost died.
Seriously. A white person is huge thing of interest, and from the United States? "Wow Geroge Bush! He killed everyone in Iraq and Iran! He went crazy! We thought he was great when he liberated Kuwait because that meant we are next, liberating innoncence from Islamic extremist wanting oil! Thats US! but then Bush snapped and Killed everyone in Iraq"
"But that was George Senior.."
But yes, we saw very little violence. Most violence is inter-tribal conflict. As far as the political stuff Southern Sudan in under a cease-fire until 2011. The SPLM is an organized rebel movement, not a real government, but they are for the most part peaceful. Had once instance where the disabled soldiers shut down roads to Yei because they weren't given their pension in over six months, but that was right before we arrived.
The only real scary thing to worry about was the rebel groups, specifically the Lord Resistance Army, and land mines in some of the remote roads.
We didn't run into either, but heard many stories about people running into the LRA.
"They ask you two questions: Do you want to be Loved or Annyoed?
You say Loved, they let you go, but they cut your lips off so everyone knows who we are and that you are always smiling--spreading the love
You say Annoyed, and they drill a hole in your gums above and below your teeth, put a pad lock on your jaw and pack your nose with mud until you suffocate."
"Whoa! what about if we ran into them, what would they do to us?"
"You are white so they would want money and thats about it, but you are American so they probably wouldn't even bother with you, b/c they fear George Bush so much because he has killed everyone in Iraq they wouldn't want to chance messing with political stuff"
So yeah, George Bush was a friend to us over there, fancy that.
As soon I was on the plane ride home it hit me at how crazy this whole thing was. How stupid we "kids" were. I had an awesome emergency insurance plan and everything. But say if I had cut my leg real bad while working, it would be a good hour 1/2 for me to get to Yei, only to see if there is an available nurse on staff at one of the many NGO's stationed there, and hopefully they would have adequate supplies to prevent infection. Sure I had the coverage to send an emergency plane, but it would take alot of time.
- BIGGESTDOGINTHEWORLD0
_____
"Leave at the 8 month mark, and cash in on the opportunity to live in Southern Sudan/ Northern Uganda and work with a dear friend's humanitarian non-profit. "
In the current job climate this sounds like a dumb idea, at least you getting paid at the minute, there might not be a job you can come back to after that.- lol should read the whole thread, good luck with the job hunt I guessBIGGESTDOGINTHEWORLD
- hahajimzyk
- lobstarr0
also was it the group you were involved with that was shooting the video or was it yourself? either way, looks awesome.. also, what kind of camera were they/you using?