Thanks for inviting me to Career Day at school!
I spent the morning combining three of my most important jobs: being your Dad, supporting Mom (who may have nudged me), and working at REI to support our family and people wanting to get outside.
To prepare for Career Day, I took time thinking about how I’d explain what I do as a marketer to kids your age. Marketing doesn’t crest with youthful career aspirations like becoming an astronaut or video game designer. If you look at my work calendar, my job is basically meeting and managing people. The more fun and important stuff is the outcomes of those meetings and working with those people: advertisements, videos, podcasts, parties and events, etc., for REI. So I focused on that.
Aunt Nina joked that we need a family presentation night where we all take turns presenting what we actually do for work. That’s not a bad idea.
Overall, I’d say things went well. I asked students about their favorite outdoor activities and where they like to do them. I showed them some videos we’ve made at REI, and we listened to a spooky Camp Monsters podcast together. I was intrigued to see the students’ imaginations spin when they listened to the podcast compared to when they watched videos. There’s something about audio stories, like reading, that gets the mind going differently.
Of course, the highlight was presenting to YOUR class — despite that session having the most technical difficulties with my computer crashing. Sorry about that. You gave me a big hug when you saw me and told a lot of kids, “That’s my Dad!” That was worth the whole morning.
Students also dressed up for a Career Day, and I saw a big range across professional athletes to doctors, lawyers and many students imitating their parents’ careers (more doctors and lawyers than professional athletes). Of course, you did not dress up as a marketer. You dressed up as a “designer,” a fashion designer, to be specific. I love how you are so set on your artistic direction. You rocked the look with the beret, too.
Don’t jump too fast into a career. It can end up being a lot of meetings. Maybe yours will be about presenting your sketches and designs for the new season. We’ll see.
Love,
Dad