I made a sort-of living in the beginning of my acting career as a reporter. I think my very first job was 'Early Edition' as reporter no. 1, and for 'Light It Up,' I was reporter no. 2.
I had to have a lot of jobs until I was supporting myself through music, but I knew that those jobs were all leading me to something. It was all, again, about taking things one step at a time, one day at a time.
While in high school, I worked part time at Subway, then at the front desk of the local YMCA, then at a tennis club, until I landed an unpaid internship at 'The Mountain View Voice,' my hometown newspaper.
I got a job at Metro and went in to see Louis Mayer, who told me he wanted me to be a producer. I said I wanted to write and direct. He said, "No, you have to produce first, you have to crawl before you can walk." Which is as good a definition of producing as I ever heard.
Every time a new CEO came, I got a promotion till I was made CEO myself.
I want to create an economy where minimum wage is a very brief stepping stone to higher-paying jobs so people can realize their dreams.
I just fell into the job as a fashion editor at a teen magazine. I was there for two years, and I left there as a senior fashion editor at the age of 25.
As I was growing up and learning this business, I don't think there's a job I didn't do. I started at the bottom and worked my way up. No matter what the job, I always looked for ways we could create value.
It's really quite a situation. It's ridiculous. I make $200,000, $300,000 a night. For years I was working little dives, and if I got $700 a week, I'd say, "Wow, I'm really cooking.
When I was 13, I had my first job with my dad carrying shingles up to the roof. And then I got a job washing dishes at a restaurant. And then I got a job in a grocery store deli. And then I got a job in a factory sweeping Cheerio dust off the ground.
I got that experience through dating dozens of men for six years after college, getting an entry level magazine job at 21, working in the fiction department at Good Housekeeping and then working as a fashion editor there as well as writing many articles for the magazine.
The different parts of my career seemed to take part in different rooms, albeit in the same house. It was just the way things were and I didn't actually think much about it at the time.
Career is a mindset. The wrong mindset. Career is linear. Especially when you are trapped in the TV or film world. The next thing you do has always got to be bigger, or it is perceived as a failure.
As you get older, I think everyone feels that, no matter what the job: to try a hand at running the business as opposed to simply being an employee.
I never felt my career was going backwards.
Any good job is a good job. This whole concept of a dead-end job? It's not true. I've heard it my whole life. Jobs lead to dignity. If you're good at the first, then you can get the second. Jobs lead to household formation. Jobs are a better solution for society.
Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
Our political class obsesses over social mobility from one generation to the next - whether or not people are doing better than their parents did - but we rarely talk about those who are already in work and want to progress.
I worked as a production assistant on a couple of films, and finally, I got a job at an animation studio as an editor. After that, work begat work. I got into directing music videos and commercials.
Somehow in the public sector, if you start in the mailroom and spend your life getting promoted, it's unseemly.
Our career had a sort of funny shape.
In the beginning of any career, in every job, people are always forcing you to the middle.
I started when I was 21, and it was always about getting the next job - like most actors, that's all it's ever been for me.
A fast food job, for most people, should be an entry level position. If you see no path for advancement beyond that, it's time to take a real fast look at your human capital and learn a skill that will make you more money.
When people talk about careers, I always feel like the connotation of a career is that you're actually choosing things.
