skateboard industry jobs

[Mcidraque]

Just because you get a job in the skate industry doesn't mean you'll like what you're doing.  I love beer and I don't always like my job selling it.

I love beer to death.

[skate_bored]

sometimes i wonder myself if my job is making me lose my drive to skate, or if its just that im at work too much to skate. working full time helping run a busy store with a pretty constant workload isn't exactly what i thought would happen when i got a part time job at the skate shop almost 4 years ago. the shop grew, now its always busy. this is great for the business and even though my pay is far from what a college degree should yield, i do it because i love skateboarding and i love the shop. but man, the fact that i stare at skateboards every day for 8-9 hours might actually be why i just go home and relax after work, instead of trying to go have a quick session if its not dark yet. working in skateboarding has all the perks you would expect, free stuff, meeting cool people, meeting people you looked up to, etc...but it also shows you the other side of the skate industry, and for me, the world of retail.

edit: thats basically just a bunch of rambling. what i was trying to say is that working in skating does take away the excitement sometimes (although i still and skate every single chance i get). also, its really REALLY about who you know. as soon as a rep job opens up, somebody fills it. if you can get in with those guys you're in.

[alittleethnicsong]

sometimes i wonder myself if my job is making me lose my drive to skate, or if its just that im at work too much to skate. working full time helping run a busy store with a pretty constant workload isn't exactly what i thought would happen when i got a part time job at the skate shop almost 4 years ago. the shop grew, now its always busy. this is great for the business and even though my pay is far from what a college degree should yield, i do it because i love skateboarding and i love the shop. but man, the fact that i stare at skateboards every day for 8-9 hours might actually be why i just go home and relax after work, instead of trying to go have a quick session if its not dark yet. working in skateboarding has all the perks you would expect, free stuff, meeting cool people, meeting people you looked up to, etc...but it also shows you the other side of the skate industry, and for me, the world of retail.

edit: thats basically just a bunch of rambling. what i was trying to say is that working in skating does take away the excitement sometimes (although i still and skate every single chance i get). also, its really REALLY about who you know. as soon as a rep job opens up, somebody fills it. if you can get in with those guys you're in.

A lot of wisdom in this.

First, to the original poster who started this thread: get your fucking degree, and finish what you start. This for the essential and invaluable reward of seeing formidable life endeavors through to their conclusion. The blood, sweat, and tears (perhaps figuratively speaking) that result in a degree has a value that can not have a dollar amount put on it. It is a shame that academic institutions are being debased into mere "career" factories, because genuine academic inquiry and engagement are essential parts of the formula that make a civilization genuinely enlightened.

With that said, the above post highlights a division in even what may be considered "industry" jobs. I've worked at a number of shops, in different parts of the country, and I worked at an "industry" job out west. Shop jobs can be tough for many of the reasons mentioned above. Many people come to a skateshop to be in an environment that is utterly everything skateboarding (perhaps for a bit of escapism), which gets really fucking monotonous when you are the skater who is there all day, five to six days a week. It will also glaringly illuminate the occasionally unnerving, obsessive-compulsive fanaticism that skateboarding engenders in all of us who love and commit ourselves to it, and by the end of each day, you will not want to hear a single conversation about--for instance--the nuances of Rueben's kickflip 5-0 because, you've had no choice but to hear 60 different opinions about it over the past eight hours. On the other hand, little things like having the young shop "power-lurkers"--for instance--want you to do their grip, so you will do something sick and unique to it, never gets old.

With regards to actual industry jobs--mostly out west--like people have said, get ready to be stunned by how many non-skating kooks (and I do mean kooks) are running (and thus influencing) the day-to-day affairs of the world of skateboarding. You will be expected to treat these people like superiors and everything (which is why some of us don't last long in the industry). And in this regard, and in general, from my experience, most of the actual skaters working at a company or magazine (who are often young and hungry heads on the come-up), are generally relegated to the manual labor warehouse gigs. Fuck, Jake Phelps came from the warehouse.

Get your degree brother, and don't allow miserable jaded people, and/or social inertia to pin you down about what you are supposed to have done or what you should own by a certain age...it is never too late to do whatever the fuck you feel like doing.

[alittleethnicsong]

i hate the tech school I am at

Actually, considering the above, most of what I said in my last post regarding the personal rewards inherent in academic endeavors, is probably negated--"tech schools" are basically nothing more than "career" factories...

...which is fine, I guess, but I am not surprised that someone who has the kind of things going on in them to compel them to skate, finds a "tech school" hollow and unrewarding.

I know that that is a generalization.

[carl johnson]

FINISH SCHOOL.

Jobs in "the industry" are still jobs and have their ups and downs just like every other industry. You will be sadly disappointed when you see how few of people running skateboarding actually skate or even give a fuck about skateboarding.

Point being, finish school and allow yourself more options in life.

This is very true. besides the rad people that most know and like, there are countless others who look at what we love no differently than they look at kitty litter. How so many shitty people get in leadership roles is amazing and sad. The grass is always greener...

[ROFLCOCKTOR]

the fuck is a tech school, im in canada and dont understand it

[sweatercuff]

I'll explain it for your drunk, tooke wearin mapleleaf ass.

take university, add more single mothers and guys that were forced to get their GED's out of highschool because they stabbed a teacher, but subtract the house parties and half or more of the tuition costs.

[BriDen]

I'll explain it for your drunk, tooke wearin mapleleaf ass.

take university, add more single mothers and guys that were forced to get their GED's out of highschool because they stabbed a teacher, but subtract the house parties and half or more of the tuition costs.

You forgot the whole "graduate with a degree that means shit compared to a real degree" part.

[Inbred Jed]

Technical school will promise that you can make good money and they will help with job placement, but in reality, you'll be competeing with all the other graduates for the same $12 an hour job.

[floop]

Just because you get a job in the skate industry doesn't mean you'll like what you're doing.  I love beer and I don't always like my job selling it.

what if your job was drinking beer though?   that would be awesome

[FrenchFriedClownFingers]

shit I'd leave it all to go sleep and work in a warehouse/skatepark. working within skating would make it a million times better for me. I am a indecisive ass at times, I cannot figure out what I should do, my friends say join americorp, airforce, etc but I just cannot do those things, I want a job like working in the skate industry doing anything from art, filming, editing/writing, promoting, anything, I salivate all over my keyboard now at the mere thought of it, being stuck in a shitty town where nobody knows your name doesn't help, it absolutely crushes my confidence at times

[Lake]

I like to hear more from team manager.

[Lake]

In The Field - Ty Evans

[brokenheadphone]

Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents...

A college degree may not be the ticket out for everyone. In fact, today a 4 year degree is arguably worth less than it was ever before.

Me = first generation college graduate. Since I was living in a state with one of the worst economies in the nation, my first job out of college paid $5.15/hr. That was minimum wage at the time. After working crap jobs for a year, I moved on to a better job but the pay was still terrible. Did that for a couple years and walked away with some good experience and 10K in tuition benefits.

I wanted to have a real career, so I went back to school for a graduate degree. I have two degrees now, and one of them is a freaking doctorate from a world class university but I'm still unemployed and unable to find work. A lot of my classmates are in the same boat because of the downturn but many of them came from well-off and well-connected families so they can ride out the bad economy. Not to mention many of them aren't carrying a truckload of debt in student loans like me.

Right now, I'm applying to jobs that pay barely livable salaries for the area I'm in but I can't get hired because I'm "overqualified". Not sure what I'm going to do if I don't find a job in the next couple months...

[alittleethnicsong]

Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents...

A college degree may not be the ticket out for everyone. In fact, today a 4 year degree is arguably worth less than it was ever before.

Me = first generation college graduate. Since I was living in a state with one of the worst economies in the nation, my first job out of college paid $5.15/hr. That was minimum wage at the time. After working crap jobs for a year, I moved on to a better job but the pay was still terrible. Did that for a couple years and walked away with some good experience and 10K in tuition benefits.

I wanted to have a real career, so I went back to school for a graduate degree. I have two degrees now, and one of them is a freaking doctorate from a world class university but I'm still unemployed and unable to find work. A lot of my classmates are in the same boat because of the downturn but many of them came from well-off and well-connected families so they can ride out the bad economy. Not to mention many of them aren't carrying a truckload of debt in student loans like me.

Right now, I'm applying to jobs that pay barely livable salaries for the area I'm in but I can't get hired because I'm "overqualified". Not sure what I'm going to do if I don't find a job in the next couple months...

Not sure what your field is (or fields are), nor is it my business, but that makes every bit of difference. If it is to teach, I do know that "the casualization of academic labor" is a bit of a problem these days. But if you love the work, you love the work.

The PhD that I am pursuing will qualify me for one thing--to teach and research at the university level. In other words, work really hard to make just enough to live. But, I love the work, and I love the continuous engagement in academia--which is an environment I would be happy to stay within the rest of my life--and as an old hessian, I have been living hand to mouth most of my adult life...so no big deal with the just-getting-by lifestyle.

Dedicated, incessant research, can always result in new books and publishable material, and the professors who have written letters of rec. for me, guided me on my statement of purpose, and have in general been mentors, make a tolerable living teaching, researching, and publishing--in addition to loving what they do.

I know one thing, despite what might appear to the contrary, those in skating who make any kind of money, are still indeed few.

Anyway, congrats on the doctorate--don't let all of the petty shit detract from what a monumental accomplishment that is. If you are in a field that a doctorate means a tenure track position, I hope you find it.

[earlygrab]

 Seems like we have some industry insiders here. So I'm hoping someone can give me some insight into the video process. Being an animator and designer I always cringe when I see things like flips claymation titles, but it sends a message that these videos budgets must be less than zero. Which I kinda find surprising and sad. When you have an epic filmer like say fat bill living on peoples couches at almost 40 yet producing some of the most iconic images of our industry I get even sadder.

 Is that business structure still how it works, even now that the industry is so fucking huge? Will I ever find an animation job in the skate industry that allows me to support my family?
 

[ticklefingers]

http://www.thrashermagazine.com/user-help/thrashermagazine-com-is-hiring/

[penguin meat]

Just because you get a job in the skate industry doesn't mean you'll like what you're doing.  I love beer and I don't always like my job selling it.

what if your job was drinking beer though?   that would be awesome

well that would be relative to being a pro skateboarder, not just working in the industry. Awesome indeed