What Were Your #FirstSevenJobs?

#firstsevenjobs
photography sales
pot washer
bartender
urban planner
professor
author
architect

— Vishaan Chakrabarti (@VishaanNYC) August 10, 2016

Last week, the latest craze to hit the Twittersphere was #FirstSevenJobs. An interesting mix of nostalgia and self-congratulatory posturing, the hashtag had seemingly everybody on the social media site sharing how they took their first seven steps to where they are now. For architects though, whose path to their ideal job is often long and torturous, the hashtag may have offered a little solace: with notable and successful architects, educators and critics sharing how they took their first tentative steps into the profession, those still working towards their goals can be reassured that, no matter where they are now, success could be on the horizon.

With that in mind, we wanted to extend the hashtag to our users: what were your first seven jobs, and what did you learn while doing them? What was your experience like in getting to where you are now? And do the jobs that many architects have in their early years reveal anything about the architecture profession?

janitor
fast food
Art T.A.
US AirForce (Contracts Officer)
Arch Gallery Assistant
Arch Design/Research
Now (#6 + teaching)#firstsevenjobs

— Quilian Riano (@quilian) August 7, 2016

The best responses will be featured in a forthcoming article. Please share your experience in the comments below - even if you can't claim to be as upwardly mobile as The Architectural Review's former Editor-in-Chief:

#firstsevenjobs urine sample collector; pork pie factory worker; train cleaner; semi-architect; architect; hack; grand dame.

— Catherine Slessor (@cath_slessor) August 7, 2016