Usually I would write what I should probably say, then edit it down to a cover letter with a black shoes and matching socks formal perfection. But since I like my mismatched socks, and prefer not to wear shoes, I'll hand off the real deal. Here goes:
On Sunday morning, I decided I wanted a new job. I was working three jobs & part-time school, but I wanted something different. On the weekends I sell trailers, in the evenings, I coordinate referees and, when I want some fun, I do renderings for a design firm. Those are all amazing jobs, but not what I am looking for.
I recently designed an app for mental healthcare. In the four days that followed, a lot of doctors, business people, and the guys at BitHeads wanted to help out or see it built. One woman even offered $100,000 to get it off the ground if I designed an app for addictions too . I was going to ride with it, but I decided to put that project in my back pocket.
It’s because a week later I did another app design. This one was in architecture school. My goal was to design and an app that linked with a component based building system, which I developed, that would allow anyone with an iPad to design their own unique home. The components were created with connection logic, so that it would be structural in every configuration - no architect/engineer necessary. But then I got in trouble, because my teacher said I was designing myself out of a job again.
When I get back from school, I spend all my time looking out the window or on my Mac fuelling the Interest Library that I keep in my brain. It’s packed with the interests I daydream about - anything from moving parts, to psychology, to ultra-light fonts. My parents say I’m not putting enough school hours in because I’m always doing computer things. Yes, school happens somewhere in there, but projects for school have recently just been offcuts of bigger ideas that I've been working on. I still work very hard in school, but it seems like my classes right now are just about meeting requirements, studying the past, and pretending the future and present isn't happening, which I don’t exactly categorize as inspiring. Carleton still has us do our final drawings on paper - in 2014. It’s a constant struggle.
Back to Sunday morning: I decided that I want a cool hobby-job. I want to work somewhere that makes me have to set an alarm again to remind me that I've been working too long, and should probably get some sleep. So, my friend Google Chrome and I took a hike through the internet. I found a marketing and web design studio that seemed upbeat, and decided to build a resume for it. I styled my online resume as though I was a firm called Umbrella, and I was offering them a marketing project. I used a start-up company's platform, and built strikingly.com/quayce. The idea was just to use an ad that I did one night as a hand out resume (http://goo.gl/J2FHib), and see how many clicks deep I could get them into a website through call-to-action buttons. The payout on the website was a form called the "Quayce Customizer," which allowed them to build the perfect Quayce for their team, and place an order. I would then contact them if I liked their order.
As I was doing that, I decided to try and up it a level by using an e-commerce platform. I knew of Shopify from Entrepreneur.com and the other various tech start-up websites that I keep my tabs on. I signed up on Monday night with the goal of just making a little shop box that I could embed into a Strikingly call-to-action button.
An hour later after I registered…
I got seriously Shopified. This whole time I've been setting up Wordpress sites, making app-flows, leading product walk-throughs, selling products, and doing design work for fun. And I love it, 120 percent. And Shopify is all that and more, and it's wrapped up in one stellar package that’s hiring!
After some time playing around in the product section, I found myself looking at the wonderful world of coding in the Shopify Template Editor. I'm no code expert- I may have Dreamweaved up a few simple creations in middle school, but that's about it. I got so interested in reading the liquid files and learning to understand it by playing around, that I thought: "Hmm, yes I like this. I like this alot!" :)
So, since Monday, I’ve been incredibly eager for an opportunity to work at Shopify. It’s probably because the platform has that “Oh no, it’s 5:00 AM!” effect I am looking for (oops), and the atmosphere of the Shopify community seems to always be in a good mood. I checked the jobs page in Shopify and saw some positions that I could do: a guru, a recruiter, or maybe a designer. All these seem like I could have my brain running in full color, and having the time of my life doing them!
Anyways, you’re the recruiter, and I’m the guy that wants to get recruited, (My name is Quayce, by the way, if you haven’t seen the site already!) so give me a shout if you know of a position that I could start out in!
And if you can access this Shopify account, I'd love it if you could extend my trial for roughly a million years. That way I can play around in the Template Editor without having to make a new account and email every 14 days.
Thanks a billion,
Q
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