Mondays suck. Especially if you hate your job. But the day doesn’t have to be a total waste. You can now look forward to reading about ReadyMakers who have worked their way into f*&%ing awesome jobs—and maybe find a little inspiration to jumpstart your own career in the process.
Andrew Schechter of Animal Planet talks about the glory part of his job—that’d be being the referee in the Superbowl’s cutest competitor, the Puppy Bowl—and the workaday aspects of being a production assistant, which frankly sound pretty cool, too. And he disabuses us of some of our fondest illusions: there are no roosters answering phones at the Animal Planet offices, nor chimps making copies.
VITAL STATS
Occupation: Puppy Bowl Referee/Associate Producer for Animal Planet
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Age: 25
First Job: Production Assistant for Discovery Kids
Best Job: Puppy Bowl Referee
Greatest Professional Challenge: Cleaning up puppy “fouls” of all shapes, sizes, and colors
Salary During 20s: Mid 50s
1. Hi, Andrew Schechter. How did you get that f*&%ing awesome job?
I’d like to think it was my calling to ref adorable little puppies pretending to play football but, in reality, I happened to be in the right place at the right time. Three years ago, I was at a production meeting for Puppy Bowl IV, and when the topic of “talent” came up, I jumped at the opportunity. I have a background in acting and improv, so I thought it could be fun and volunteered. At first, the room erupted in laughter (who would want to pick up dog “fouls” for 12 hours?), but once everyone thought about it, they were like, “why not?” It’s been a match made in heaven ever since!
2. Can you tell those of us who may not know, what exactly is the Puppy Bowl?
Well, of course Super Bowl Sunday is known for the NFL game, but at Animal Planet, we recognized that some people might want another option—and so Puppy Bowl was born. Puppy Bowl is two hours of puppies pretending to play football in a miniature football stadium. Puppy players take the field every year to entertain millions of viewers with terrier tackles, fido-first downs, puppy puns and all the cuteness you can possible handle. We have a lot of elements that mimic the big game, including a starting line-up for the best puppy players, a Most Valuable Puppy award and a kitten halftime show that rivals the best Super Bowl performers. New features for this year include the Twizzlers® Blimp, which provides aerial shots of all the action thanks to its hamster pilots, and bunny rabbit cheerleaders. It’s ridiculously tongue-in-cheek, but the real message of Puppy Bowl is that pets need to be adopted. All the puppies, as well as the kittens, hamsters and rabbits, are adoptable and from no-kill shelters. There is a perfect pet for everyone at your local shelter.
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