For all the pros and cons of working in a startup studio like MVL, I can definitely say there's no shortage of odd days. When you're deep in the weeds of an idea, things make sense. But when you take a step back and look at what's happening out of context, you can't help but realize the unorthodox work environment. For memory safe keeping, I thought I'd record some of ones that have stood out so far.
Today at work, I went to buy live worms, cockroaches, and crickets in order to photograph them on raw bloody meat and produce with a $20,000 camera. The store didn't have any bags so I had to put the critters on the back of my motorcycle and hope a worm wouldn't fly 67mph onto some lady's windshield.
Today at work, I walked around town from funereal home to funereal home, trying to schmooze my way past receptionists to sell funeral directors an AI that would help grieving families. I got unpleasantly familiar with the smell of funeral home lobbies.
Today at work, my coworker and I walked into a beauty salon office holding matching motorcycle helmets looking like a biker gang. I proceeded to leave with a free bag of skin care creams and a sponge that promised me "the most nourished pores".
Today at work, I was sitting at my desk in an open office space, google image searching "toddler swim suits", resulting in a 32" monitor filled with HD pictures of very young children in bikinis and swim trunks. Any passing bystander would then witness me copying these photos and putting them into a folder titled "assets".
Today at work, I had to do an audit of my Facebook chat history and filter through many unsavory high school and college correspondences before giving it to a coworker to do natural language processing over the topics I talked about. Kids are crazy.
Today at work, my coworker put me in contact with a biltong (South African beef jerky) producer. Within a few hours, I was standing in this stranger's home, buying pounds of fresh uncut biltong while learning about how Shakespeare would've responded to the question "Who are you?" by the stranger's mother-in-law. I am now slinging biltong on the side. hmu.
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Often times, taking a moment to step back and see what's happening around you, things can get weird.