One Day, One Job » collections

Chicago History Museum

Willy Franzen — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:20:57 +0000

I’m starting to get settled in my new place. After living in two moderately new high-rises in downtown Chicago, I’ve moved into a more historic building–it was built in 1921 and served as a Chinese consulate at some point. Now that I’m starting my fourth year living in the city, I feel that it’s only appropriate for me to start learning a little more about the city’s history. That’s why I should probably make a visit to the Chicago History Museum, which is just a mile down the street from me. Ironically, the museum, having been founded in 1856, “is the city’s oldest cultural institution,” though they pretty much had to start over after the Great Fire destroyed their building and most of their collection in 1871. Three years later there was another fire that destroyed most of what remained. Luckily, there haven’t been any more fires, so the Chicago History Museum has had a decent amount of time to build a new collection.

Make Your Job Search History

The Chicago History Museum’s collection focuses on eight specific areas: Architecture, Archives and Manuscripts (including Audio), Books and other Published Materials, Costumes and Textiles, Decorative and Industrial Arts, Fine Arts, and Prints and Photographs. The scope of these collections is limited to items related to Living in the Metropolitan Area, Working in the Metropolitan Area, Governing the Metropolitan Area, The Built Environment, and Individuals and Ideas. Apparently it all adds up to more than 22 million documents and artifacts. If you want to learn more about the specific collections, you should start here. And if you find that Chicago history speaks to you, then you’ll want to take a look at the Chicago History Museum’s Jobs page. Right now they’re looking for a Computer Support Technician and a Collection Manager – Costume and Textile (requires M. A. in Costume History, Museum Studies (Costume/Textile), or related field). If neither of those positions interest you, you could also consider volunteering.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you into your city’s history?

Weight Watchers

Willy Franzen — Wed, 11 May 2011 14:53:50 +0000

A little known fact about me is that I earned “The Speed Limit” as a nickname during my Senior year of high school. It wasn’t because I drove slowly; it was because I somehow managed to lose 55 pounds between the end of Junior year and the beginning of Senior year. I still don’t know how it happened–I wasn’t even trying to lose weight–but it did (I’ve since gained much of it back, but part of that is because I don’t have the body of a scrawny 17-year old anymore). Apparently, there’s some mysterious weight loss secret out there that I used, but don’t know about. Unfortunately, weight loss isn’t usually that easy, and for most people it’s a huge struggle. I’m a big proponent of “the slow-carb diet” and other methods from Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Body, but it’s all about finding what works for you. For many it’s Weight Watchers. The New York, NY based company was started in Queens during the early 1960s by Jean Nidetch who “began inviting friends into her Queens home once a week to discuss how best to lose weight.” Now more than a million people across the world go to Weight Watchers meetings every week.

Jobs to Watch Out For

The Weight Watchers business is based on providing “information, knowledge, tools and motivation to help you make the decisions that are right for you about nutrition and exercise.” Everybody knows that the science of weight loss is easy. If you’re burning more calories that you take in (or at least absorb), you will lose weight. Putting that scientific fact to work is what’s so difficult. Weight Watchers is really about overcoming the psychological obstacles that prevent people from losing weight. The meetings are one way that they help people achieve this, and their Points systems is another. By simplifying healthy eating into an almost game-like system, Weight Watchers makes it easier for people to make the right decisions. In a way, weight loss is a lot like the job search in that you almost have to trick people into doing the right things because they’ll rarely do what you tell them to do. Anyway, the weight loss industry is about as competitive as it gets, but Weight Watchers seems to continue to do well. They’re expanding their online presence, and they also seem to be hiring some new people. You can learn more on their Jobs page, where you’ll see positions like Administrative Assistant (Jericho, NY), CHAMP Reconciliation Specialist (Jericho, NY), Part-Time Collections Clerk, Corporate Sales Operations Coordinator, Field Coordinator, Program Innovation Developer, and Tally Clerk.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever tried Weight Watchers?

Deckers Outdoor Corporation

Willy Franzen — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:55:06 +0000

At some point during my Junior year in college (by the way I’m back at Cornell for the weekend), I got the bright idea that I could wear slippers as shoes. These weren’t flimsy slippers, these were sturdy leather ones with shearling lining. They were made by Orvis (where I interned and had an awesome 50% employee discount), and they were great. I loved sitting in class knowing that my feet were more comfortable than everybody else’s. Then I came back from Thanksgiving break. I was admiring the Christmas lights that my roommates had adorned our otherwise aesthetically unpleasing house with, and I slipped. See, my slippers had flat rubber soles. My feet came out from under me as I fell down a muddy slope. My right hand came down hard on the sidewalk, and I had a broken wrist. I gave up wearing slippers for a while, but when my Mom bought me a pair of UGG slippers with proper soles, I reverted. Now UGG slippers are my go to shoes during the winter, and I’m a huge fan of Deckers Outdoor Corporation. They’re the company behind UGG, Simple, Teva (is it Tee-va or Tevv-a?), Tsubo, and Deckers, and they’re headquartered in Goleta, CA with a location in Flagstaff, AZ as well.

Hit the Deckers

I had no idea until today that Outside Magazine has a Best Places to Work list. Now I know about it, and I know that Deckers Outdoor Corporation is on the list (ranked 7th). While Deckers’ Careers page doesn’t say much more than generic stuff like “We are looking for energetic, hard working, success oriented individuals to join our dynamic team” and “All candidates must be team players, have high energy, good organization and excellent communication skills,” it’s pretty obvious that Deckers has a unique employment brand that is well aligned with their product brands. If Deckers sounds like the kind of place that you’d want to work, you should check out their current job openings. Their job descriptions don’t have a ton of detail, so it’s hard to tell which jobs are best suited for new and recent college grads. My guess is that your best bet is to take a look at the following positions: Administrative Assistant – UGG, Collections Analyst, Product Coordinator – UGG, and Programmer at their Goleta, CA headquarters and Search Engine (SEO/SEM) Marketing Coordinator and Web Developer at their Flagstaff, AZ location. You can apply for any of these jobs by sending a cover letter and résumé to hr@deckers.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you wear UGGs?