For those of you who have worked at a card company..

What's it like? Does working at a card company add to your love of cards or does it ruin it? Also what jobs are there. Obviously there's the business aspect of it all with Excel and finance and everything and there's also marketing, product development, etc. But what is there that collector's don't know about and would you suggest a job in the industry to a young collector?

juddy should chime in here

go to law school.

beauty school drop out, go back to high school

cgilmo said:

beauty school drop out, go back to high school

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The sudafed and nyquil must be kicking in, I started laughing hystericaly at this post. I better call it a night.

emarc27 said:

What's it like? Does working at a card company add to your love of cards or does it ruin it? Also what jobs are there. Obviously there's the business aspect of it all with Excel and finance and everything and there's also marketing, product development, etc. But what is there that collector's don't know about and would you suggest a job in the industry to a young collector?

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Two of the places I worked at added to my love of cards, but for different reasons. One of the places I worked at made it tough to like cards at times. A card company is like any other manufacturing company with various departments, i.e. finance, legal, accounting, design, product develepment, etc..

Working in the industry was fantastic. It changed my life in more positive ways than I could count.

That being said, the industry is still shrinking and jobs in *fun* areas such as product development are in very short supply and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

I'd suggest to anyone wants to have a career in cards (making a full-time living while not living in your mom's basement) to go to college, maybe get a grad degree if you're up for that, build a nice bankroll and looking at the buy/sell side of the business. I'm not saying working at one of the companies is not possible, but it is not probable.

While I'm talking about this, I'd like to point something out for those of you that have read my blog either in its past format or in its current format. I know at times I can come across as very bitter towards the industry and those that work in it. While I might be upset over particular incidents or bad products, I have always been and always will be a hobbyist and will always be involved in the industry in some shape or form. I love it now as much as I ever have and frankly I don't know how to do anything else and I don't want to know how to do anything else.

I've been out of college for close to 16 years now. I have a BBA in Accounting and I've used it for 1 year for employment (I was an Excel jockey/financial analyst). All but that one year I've either been employeed by Beckett Media, a card company or I have bought and sold cards full-time. I'm only at the mid-life stage, but I have lived every dream that I have ever had when it pertains to my career. I've been extremely fortunate. I've had some great opportunities and I've worked hard to maximize those opportunities.

Sorry for the long post.

SJ

While I never worked in the card business I once worked in a Printing plant where they used to print comic books. I never collected comics and could care les about them but there was one time which was particulry cool. One well know artist recently died and one of his wishes was to be printed as a comic. The took his ashes and mixed it in withthe black ink and printed a special comic. It was so long ago I forgot the comic and the artist as well but it was pretty weird to see this guy's ashes spread out on a table getting the chips of bone out so that we could mix it in with the ink. guresome but cool.

72skywalker said:

While I never worked in the card business I once worked in a Printing plant where they used to print comic books. I never collected comics and could care les about them but there was one time which was particulry cool. One well know artist recently died and one of his wishes was to be printed as a comic. The took his ashes and mixed it in withthe black ink and printed a special comic. It was so long ago I forgot the comic and the artist as well but it was pretty weird to see this guy's ashes spread out on a table getting the chips of bone out so that we could mix it in with the ink. guresome but cool.

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Mark Gruenwald, comic book writer, died in 1997 and, in accordance with his will, his ashes were mixed with the ink to publish to trade paperback of Squadron Supreme. Was this the one? I always thought that was so cool.

It's just like any other office job, only with better content. Working at Topps actually got me back into collecting, but made me never want to sit in an effin cubicle ever or work for multiple managers again. Seriously, many days felt like I was living in Office Space.