Yesterday I gave you the first part of the story about Chelsea’s job quest.  The mouse was duly delivered and it was time for the second animal – a chameleon.

We had chosen the chameleon because of its ability to adapt rapidly to its environment.  The copy that would match this would reflect this.

The morning started well.  Mother and daughter were bonding.  Chelsea printed out the Chameleon template and set about making it.

Then something changed.

To this day I don’t know what the trigger was.  All I remember was darling daughter being incredibly rude to me. My response:

“I do not expect to be spoken to like that.  I am giving up my time to help you.”

No apology was forthcoming (Chelsea and I are not too good at the ‘sorry’ word ha ha – she actually is very much like me), so I said “I’m out of here” and promptly left the house to meet a friend for coffee and then lunch – as you do.

Here is where I am incredibly proud of Chelsea.  Abandoned as she felt, she continued making up the Chameleon.  She then wrote the copy to go with it (I can’t show you this because I never actually saw it).  She then went to her dad and asked him how she could courier it in to the General Manager at Cutting Edge.  All sorted.

Next morning, when we were to be doing the next animal (I cannot for the life of me now remember now what this one was to be),  Chelsea again snapped at me.  Again I again said:

“Enough! I’m not going to help you”.

This time though she had lost her confidence to continue and no more animals were forth coming.

This was Thursday.  On the weekend as I passed her in the hallway I said “Never leave things unfinished.  You need to directly contact the General Manager on Monday.”

On Monday she sent an email with her website address. On Tuesday she rang.  The response was fantastic.  Kylie (the General Manager) had received her animal models and was blown away.  She explained to Chelsea that although there were no animation jobs available there was a ‘coffee making’ position, was she interested.

Chelsea jumped at the opportunity – this was her foot in the door.

She started work the very next day in position of Star Service Person looking after clients (worth big money) and key management people at Cutting Edge.  It was actually a barista type position – learning to operate a full coffee machine.  She also took lunch orders (Cutting Edge has its own chef).  Her journey had begun and she took every opportunity to become a Cutting Edge advocate.

What is also interesting was that Kylie, the General Manager had started at Cutting Edge as a Star Service person.

In two weeks Chelsea learned the names of all the key people – clients and the Cutting Edge team members.  She also discovered that Cutting Edge used an special effects program called Houdini.

This was not one she had learned at Uni so she set about finding an animator that would be prepared to teach her.  Luckily, there are many who work all day and night at their computers and of course there was one at Cutting Edge called Chris.  Chris, apparently, was quite shy and not overly social.  It didn’t take Chelsea long however to bring him out of his shell.  Very soon he was teaching her the ins and outs of the program.

Chelsea worked her star service position from 6am to 6pm.  She then stayed back until midnight most nights to learn Houdini.  Then an hours drive back home.  Luckily youth has the ability to bounce back quickly.  For me personally it was torture.  I waited up every night for her to arrive home.  Naturally worried – like us mother’s are that she would fall asleep at the wheel or be mugged or something bad.

Finally she was given one day off Star Service to work on special effects.  Then two. Finally full time.  She had been six months in star service.  Chelsea now works on some terrific projects, loves what she does and feels her experience has helped her no end. I just hope Cutting Edge appreciates her and looks after her long term.

If they don’t – well, she now has enough under her belt to walk into any job in this industry.