How to Find a Job Worth Dancing About

Last week Team Switchboard was honored by a visit from Aaron Epperson, a veteran member of the Portland Startups Switchboard and all around awesome guy. 

Aaron recently landed a job as the Technology Association of Oregon's (TAO) new Membership Coordinator through Switchboard and came by to say thanks and meet the team. We got pretty excited when he offered to write about how his success went down. In fact, we'll just let him take it from here:

Dear Mr. Epperson,

Thanks so much for applying to ACMETech. We’re really happy you took the hour and a half to sit on your couch and fill out our insane, random online application.  However, we regret to inform you that we’ve gone with another candidate. His name is Todd.

Todd has no less than seven Ph.D.’s, is a championship sailboat racer, and his girlfriend, Tammy, has promised to bake the office cookies every Thursday. We found out that you’re single and have a tendency to burn cakes. Honestly, who’s inept enough to burn cakes?

Thanks,
Don

It was probably after the seventh rejection letter that I started to panic. I had just moved back from the Bay Area after a five-year absence in my beloved Oregon. No one from the old days was left and I had just signed a lease.

I started in on the traditional job hunting tactics. LinkedIn, Craigslist, watching Netflix, thinking about going back to school, deciding I was moving to Thailand, then more LinkedIn. I kept telling myself that this should all be viewed as a surprise vacation and that the screams of my bank account could be ignored.

“Hey! I’m empty!” my bank account would yell.

“No,” I would explain, “You’re on a diet…It’s good for you…”

Eventually, I ended up going to one of the many MeetUp’s Portland has. Nothing's like good old fashioned networking. I milled around the room and shook hands with strangers. I smiled at their jokes as I shoved my business card at them. I mentioned my job hunt to a slender, older man in a gray hoodie.

“Oh, just go to the Portland StartUps Switchboard.”

“Switch what?” I asked through a mouthful of coffee.

“Switchboard,” he said, “It’s this thing where people put asks and offers. Everyone here uses it. It’s a thing.”

“Oh thanks, I’ll check it out.”

It took a week, but I finally did look it up. What greeted me was a really nice community that was active. It had recent posts with actual descriptions of what people wanted or had to offer. I also saw the names and pictures of who posted. The UI didn’t suck!

After LinkedIn and Craigslist, it all seemed so personal. It was also more than just jobs. Doug from ExtreamXCompany needed a Project Manager. Joan had advice on how to start a business. John wanted to give away a desk!

And then I found it! TAO needed a Membership Coordinator!

I read the post twice. Hey, we have a job that magically combines your interests and skill set while helping to promote and support the tech community in the whole state of Oregon. Also, we’ll do that thing where we pay you. I emailed them right away and applied. I held my breath until they called and asked for an interview. I danced!

To make this long story longer, I have found myself in one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. I spend my day solving problems, helping people, and learning a bunch of new things. What could be better?

Without the Portland StartUp Switchboard, none of it would have happened!

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Aaron Epperson is the Membership Coordinator for the Technology Association of Oregon. He's an Oregon native who's excited about seeing the tech industry thrive in the state. He enjoys nature, reading, and in no way wrote this bio. Nor does he wish for you to email him awesome suggestions on places to eat. Don't do that. aaron@techoregon.org

Wanted: A house

We just had one of the most delightful posts I’d like to share. It was an ask for a house.

Some background.

Elly was interviewing DeMarcus Preston about a bike ride that he organized against gang violence. Here’s a photo: 

During the interview Elly discovered some unintended consequences of Portland’s gentrification (thanks, in some part, to the many tech jobs created in the city). “’As people get displaced from inner and North Portland, [the gangs] moving east,’ DeMarcus said. It used to be that everyone had their territories pretty well sorted out, but now it’s common to have people from three different gangs living in the same block and running into each other at the convenience store.” DeMarcus says the gang violence he’s seeing is as bad as it was in the 1980s. 

Here’s the problem: “There is no safe house where people who want to leave their gang (apparently that’s a whole lot of people, some with regrets, others who were forced to join in the first place) can go to get on a new path.”

Clearly, what is needed is a house. “So, who’s in?,” writes Elly. “Got a house? Got money? Got part of the money? There are a lot of amazing things happening in Portland right now and the price of those things does not have to be violence. We can all succeed together.” 

Now it happened that that day I had a meeting at City Hall with Jillian Detweiler, the policy director for Mayor Charlie Hales.

I showed Jillian the post. I’ll admit that it felt kind of Pollyanna-ish…to hope that a government official would care or take the time to respond. She read it over, paused, and said, “Well, you can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket.” And this, really, is the essence of Switchboard, and what Jillian pick up on immediately. It is impossible to know what is possible until you ask. Jillian then created an account…

…and forwarded Elly’s post to Antoinette Edwards, the Director of Youth Violence Prevention, and then took the time to comment and reply to Elly. 

Here’s her comment:

And Elly’s response: 

@marazepeda @MayorPDX jawdrop

— Elly Blue (@ellyblue)

November 7, 2014

There was another response from Chris over at the Portland Development Commission. 

Look: I know what you’re thinking. There are probably three ways this could go. Maybe, through some act of grace, charity, or bureaucratic wrangling, DeMarcus will get the house he dreams of to rehabilitate former gang members. Elly will report a success, and this post will embody what is possible when are vulnerable and courageous enough to ask for what we need and have our community respond. Perhaps it will be determined that there simply isn’t the capacity, or the necessary paperwork isn’t up to snuff, and it will die as so many things do, when minutiae overwhelm any possibility of the miraculous. Or maybe nothing will happen at all. Just another citizen with good intentions.

I don’t know what the outcome is, but I promise we’ll keep you updated. But DeMarcus telling Elly telling Jillian telling Antoinette, in under 24 hours, is, as far as I can tell, evidence that something on Switchboard is working. Quite simply: the connecting cables are in motion, and the right connections were made.

A Visit to the American Museum of Natural History

Greetings from New York! I had an awesome success recently and I wanted to share.

A few days ago on the Switchboard for Reed College, Nisa (a 2014 grad) posted this offer: 

It turns out that employees of the AMNH get 20 free vouchers a month to give away. Crazy, right? I was in town for a conference and so my husband Andrew (2002) and I reached out to Nisa for tickets. Within minutes, they were waiting for us at the will call window.

Andrew had never been to one of my favorite exhibits, the Hall of North American Mammals. That was our first stop. (I am indebted to the influence of photographer Joseph O. Holmes whose 2005 series shot at the AMNH is delightful).

Nisa was a biology major. After graduation she learned of this job through another important network in her life: her rugby team. She works in the museum’s cryogenic lab. Her job involves cutting off very small pieces of frozen tissue (of, say, a lizard’s tail) and sending them in vials to researchers. She hopes to study neuroscience in the future. We got an insider’s view of the place. Nisa pointed out the fossils on the museum’s walls…

and we talked a lot about dinosaurs.

I was struck by how donors to the museum have doubled up on sponsoring certain dioramas. A thing can exist in the world that can be so awesome that people petition to recognize its awesomeness again. You can see what I mean here: the original donors, and then the 2011 donors tacked on.

We headed to Dive 75, quite possibly the only dive bar on the Upper West Side, where Nisa shared the story her remarkable Turkish immigrant family. I won’t go into it, but I bet if you stop by here and say you know Nisa, the proprietor will be very glad to serve you. And then I logged a success, only to realize that I was in fact the third person to do so in less than a week.

What never ceases to amaze me about Switchboard is how, every day, I’m surprised by people’s imagination. Who would have thought a simple “Offer” button would lead to such a memorable day, a new friendship, and such meaningful engagement for a new alumna wanting to stay connected to her community? It’s a success I won’t soon forget.  

(PS: Nisa posted an Ask of her own a while back looking for contacts in neuroscience. For our Reed community readers: if you know of someone, please lend a hand!)