Aerospace Engineer Named Lego Czar 132
24-year-old Cal Walsh has put his aerospace engineering degree to good use by becoming the Lego Czar at The Legoland Discovery Center in Texas. Walsh beat out over 100 other Lego lovers for the $37,500 starting salary, and the chance to play with blocks for a living. From the article: "The 15 finalists were given an hour to design something that defined them and their interests. Walsh applied his engineering skills to build a spaceship, a unicycle and a running shoe that spelled out his first name. He gave credit to the children spectators at the event, who offered suggestions on what pieces to add to make the designs more interesting."
For building that? (Score:1)
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Re:For building that? (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, maybe I was too harsh. He only had an hour.
The article notes that it wasn't so much about what he built as how he did it; by interacting with the kids and incorporating their suggestions into his design.
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Mine too, initially, but I get it now. Firstly he had only an hour, so there's not much time for polish. And secondly, the reason he won was his interaction with kids that were offering suggestions on what to add. Personally I think that's an awesome criterium for this job.
I think this news is excellent news for everybody involved: him, Lego, and the kids. I wish him the best of luck with his cool new job.
Pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
$37,500 starting salary... (Stupid new Slashdot layout breaks italics.)
With an engineering degree and experience. Pathetic.
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Still, it is going to take him forever to pay off his likely expensive tuition on that salary. However it would make a great 2nd job to have on the side.
Depends -- do we know which school he went to? It's still possible to pay your own way... or was a decade ago, anyhow.
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37,500 is pretty decent to have fun and play with legos for a few years, rather than work at some soul crushing corporate job.
True, but there's a fair chance he won't get his $37,500 if he refers to them as legos.
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Lol..
You probably still think that coders and testers in the video game field get to 'have fun and play video games' all day!
Or that janitors at Disney world get to 'have fun and hang out with Mickey mouse' all day!
It's a shit job, shit pay, and at any given time there's 100 more naive college grads willing to yank the rug from under you.
Pro tip: nonsense titles like 'czar' and 'cast member' are a hint they're hiding something.
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Not so much considering he gets to play with Lego bricks all day long. It may be a waste of his talent, but hell, who cares if he enjoys it.
How much do you earn and is your job as entertaining as his will be?
I'd quit my (better payed) job not thinking twice if I get offered that position.
Re:Pathetic (Score:4, Insightful)
Not so much considering he gets to play with Lego bricks all day long. It may be a waste of his talent, but hell, who cares if he enjoys it.
How much do you earn and is your job as entertaining as his will be?
I'd quit my (better payed) job not thinking twice if I get offered that position.
Here's a thought: get an engineering job, make three times that much in one year, and then take the next two years off to play with Legos.
Re:Pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting. except doing that gets you exactly the same amount of money and only 2 years of lego play instead of 3. It also does not account for the fact that you would have to buy your own lego's.
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It also does not account for the fact that you would have to buy your own lego's.
And the fact that you now have a two-year gap in your resume when you apply to get a job again.
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I'd quit my (better payed) job not thinking twice if I get offered that position.
I wouldn't, but only because I've got a mortgage and a kid.
And I don't want to move to the US, of course.
Re:Pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
He graduated a year ago, so his experience was looking for a job for a year, unsuccessfully I might add. You might have noticed that the economy is blowing steaming stinky glowing green monkey chunks at the moment.
He might have garnered his degree into something with a starting wage somewhat higher, or he could have languished in the job market for another year or two and decided to give up and step out in front of a bus some day.
Instead, he found something that he thought he'd love doing that covers his expenses and went for it.
It's not all about the money for all of us, you know.
don't be an idiot (Score:4, Funny)
It's not all about the money for all of us, you know.
How else are we to measure how favored one is by God ?
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By how many of your enemies he smites, of course.
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You don't think part of the unsuccessfully bit might have been:
Because Disney World and the Lego Company don't spring to the top of my list of companies with which to find empoyment based upon a freshly m
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That's quite possible. Maybe his dad is in aerospace and pushed really hard for him to get a degree in it. Maybe he just changed his mind. Maybe he was gunning for NASA then decided that all the cool projects were dead and wanted to see how he could leverage engineering into something that didn't end him up as a suicidal pencil-pusher by middle age.
The number of people who have gone to the trouble of earning a degree then deciding that their chosen degree isn't really what they wanted to do with their li
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There's nothing wrong with the winner for taking the job if he couldn't find anything better, or if it's his dream so he doesn't care about money.
What does worry me is that the situation exists at all - somebody graduates with an engineering degree and failed to find a job in his field, despite trying to do so. On the one hand, we are hearing every day how China will crush us because they are graduating technically skilled pe
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No, what's even more worrying is that our stupid government and industries are still telling kids they need to go into engineering and science, when this is what awaits them: no jobs in their field, crushing student loans expenses (which cannot be avoided by bankruptcy), and having to settle for low-paying jobs that don't help them with their career that they've trained for.
It wouldn't be so bad if the President, in his State of the Union address, instead of saying more people need to learn science and engi
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This is a problem in more western countries. Everybody keeps complaining we need more science, tech, innovation and education, companies complain about the level of education of recent grads, yet nobody actually wants to invest in it. Companies don't want to pay decent salaries, politics don't want to invest in education and innovation, and students who chose science or technology end up either unemployed, or making less money than if they'd chosen something management-oriented.
If you care about science and
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And if you simply let the market decide, everyone will go into finance and in a few more years time no-one in the (current) Industrialized Western world will actually be making anything at all.
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Agreed, here in Maine ~$40K would probably get you ostracized as "that rich guy" by most of your neighbors.
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Agreed, here in Maine ~$40K would probably get you ostracized as "that rich guy" by most of your neighbors.
Or alternatively, $40K would get you ear-marked as "that rich guy" by all the hot but poor girls. Just saying.
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Seriously, 3% are EXCELLENT results in and of itself, and if compared to pretty much all of Europe, they are INTERGALATICALLY good.
That's just a number, and what it means depends entirely on what your role in that economy is. It's nice if investors are making a profit, but if you're unemployed, that doesn't help you a bit. I live in Netherland, and while our economy is probably not growing all that fast at the moment, it's easy for programmers to find a job. Not one that pays as well as a job in Silicon Valley, but it pays well enough (unless you want to be able to pay a mortgage for a house in Amsterdam on a single income; that just d
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For that price I hope he at least gets a crown and a scepter to go along with the wicked-ass title
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For that price I hope he at least gets a crown and a scepter to go along with the wicked-ass title
Well, yes, if he builds them out of Lego. (:-)
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That's US Dollars, not Great Brittan Pounds. Starting salaries for engineers in the US are in the $50k-$70k range, and my understanding is that things are similar in the UK.
In most cities, one could make $37k without any education or degree simply by waiting tables full-time.
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Say the average table has four people, the average meal lasts an hour, the average bill is $15/person, and the average tip is 15%, and you serve 4 tables, on average, at a time. That's $36/hour in tips. If you work eight hour days five days a week you're earning $75k right there! If anything, $37k is an underestimate for a waitress position.
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All the time? No. I said "on average." There is a difference. They may have 12 tables at lunch/dinner and 2 tables in between.
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In most cities, one could make $37k without any education or degree simply by waiting tables full-time.
It depends on your city and state. In Texas minimum wage is ~$7.25, but minimum wage for wait staff is $2.13. Tips are considered part of your compensation, so if you report honestly to the restaurant and government, you get hosed. To pull $37.5k working 40 hours/week as a waiter in Texas would require $33k in tips. The same job in California is minimum wage regardless, and would require only $20k in tips. Source: http://www.paywizard.org/main/Minimumwageandovertime/MinimumWageTIPRecevers [paywizard.org]
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You think it's pathetic now, wait till you see his resume when he decides to move on.
"So... your last position, what exactly did you do at... Lego Land, was it?"
"I, uh, Built things. Out of little bricks. Every day."
"so, how do you think that qualifies you for a job in the aerospace industry?"
"Ummm.. well, some of the things were shaped like rockets? and airplanes?"
"I see... fortunately you're willing to work for a pathetic salary. Welcome to the space program!"
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"I, uh, Built things. Out of little bricks. Every day."
"Ah, so a Shuttle thermal tile engineer, then? Welcome to the team."
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the may choose to live where cost of living is low and commute in. We don't know.
I think a Lego Czar should live in the middle of Legoland in a castle made of Lego bricks....
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I like your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I subscribe to the newsletter, it doesn't come out very often. Something about "writer's block" apparently.
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(That line is a quote but the italic tag no longer seems to italic it...)
And he should bathe in a Lego bathtub, and sleep in a Lego bed, and eat from utensils made entirely of Lego bricks, so that he can legitimately tell the cook for his breakfast in the morning "Eggo my Lego...".
And he should marry a young woman made entirely of plastic bricks so he can have the "Lord of the Rings" fantasy life of living with
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I'd assume the job is in a major city (which means higher cost of living), but he may choose to live where cost of living is low and commute in.
Sort of. Grapevine is a suburb of Dallas and Ft. Worth, right next to DFW Int'l Airport, and the standard of living is a bit higher than many of the surrounding suburbs. According to Wikipedia, median income is around 76k. I've lived in the area and a decent apartment is going to set you back the better part of 1k/month, if not more.
however, there are other places in DFW within commuting range that have a much, MUCH lower standard of living.
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According to Wikipedia, median income is around 76k.
Median, not average? That's pretty high, then. Median income is often about half of the average income (because the top 1% make so much). A median of 76k is staggering.
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Re:Pathetic (Score:5, Interesting)
Salary means nothing without knowing what cost of living is wherever he will be living. Where I live (northeastern Wisconsin), I make $37,000, but that is a pretty good salary given the low cost of living.
Hi neighbor. I went to a Cisco router BGP class about a decade ago in Chicago. I live in suburban WI, lab partner lives in downtown Chicago. Compared salaries and he makes twice as much as I made. Later on, compared lifestyles and he was a small step above a homeless person and I lived like a king:
WI: $60K yr, wife and two kids in a medium size house on an acre of land in a very good area (low crime/great schools/great location), two brand new cars, no significant loans except the (small pre housing bubble) mortgage.
IL: $120K yr, tiny one bedroom apartment with wife and kid "want to get a two bedroom but can't afford it", he drove me around town in his princely 15 year old rusty pickup truck, commented about still having hefty student loans and maybe after they're paid off he could afford the rent on a two bdrm apt.
Now of course job opportunities being what they are, ten years later he's probably making $240K, and I'm still making, you guessed it, $60K, but...
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To be fair,there could well be two people in the same city, with identical salaries and home situations, with a similarly disparate result.
Some people are good with money while others aren't. If you spend much of your money on transient or disposable items, you simply end up with nothing to show for it. Pretty soon all those diners, movies, new tvs, etc., add up.
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The article says Grapevine which is part of the Dallas metroplex. $37,500 isn't terrible for a single 24 year old out of college, but it's hardly good.
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So I suggest you not take it.
For this guy it may be a dream come true. He maybe unemployed. Maybe he is married and his wife has a year or too left in college and he wants to stay in the area. Maybe he really wants to work for Lego.
I had a friend that had a degree in communications and worked at Disney World for a low salary. He is now a news director at NBC in New York. Sometimes you start at the bottom of what you love and keep at it.
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I did but I wanted to show other reasons. I agree for him it may actually be a dream come true.
Re:Pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ditto. I started a first salary job with fringe benefits with 30K per year during dotcom days. That was with a CS major. :)
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Of course back then, $30k was still worth something.
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It wasn't too long ago that I was hired for my first real job out of college for $37,500/yr with benefits. The video game studio position was lower salaried than other jobs I could have had. (I even turned down one.) I didn't make the wrong choice, despite holding multiple college level degrees. I had a blast, I learned skills I didn't expect, and I'm better for it. The only things pathetic in this story are reactions like yours revealing how money is the only thing to chase in so many peoples' eyes.
You'll change your tune if you get sick, or if you have a family and your wife or children are sick. You'll find no one cares how much fun you're having at work.
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$37,500 starting salary...
(Stupid new Slashdot layout breaks italics.)
With an engineering degree and experience. Pathetic.
My first job straight out of school paid considerably less than that, and unemployment was nowhere near as high as today's level.
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$37,500 starting salary...
(Stupid new Slashdot layout breaks italics.)
With an engineering degree and experience. Pathetic.
I was making considerably less than that at my last job... So it doesn't sound that bad to me.
Especially considering that he gets to play with LEGO all day long.
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What do you suggest would be a reasonable starting salary for playing with lego?
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No, YOU'RE pathetic. Happiness>expectations of society.
If he can rent out a apartment, eat full meals every day, buy gas for his car, pay his bills AND go to work happy every morning and come home without several layers of stress on top of his clothes... then he's someone to be looked up to.
But of course, by your logic, money>happiness. Right? ....so sad.
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My first job out of University with an Engineering degree and with experience from co-op and working through school paid $38,500, and that was the only benefit. At the time, houses started at about 8.5x that. I graduated in 2004 and prospects were pretty good.
I took that job for several reasons. One, it looked really interesting. Two, the commute was very short. Three, the atmosphere was really casual and friendly. Four, I'd have a serious impact on the company. Five, I could have held out for anothe
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$37,500 starting salary
Monarchy is so under-appreciated these days!
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There's more to a job than salary.
I am Director of Information Technology for a small biotech start up; I have had the job for 7 years. I get paid approximately half what most people in this position make and have only had a raise once - but I live above the office and have no commute - they buy me lunch every day, and I can come and go as I please, with no asshole boss watching my back and can pick my days off.
So - most people in this position with my experience are making $130k - $180k annually.
Could I g
More important things than money (was Re:Pathetic) (Score:2)
Given what Lego bricks cost --- if his working w/ them during the day reduces what would otherwise be a significant buying habit, he could easily make up that difference.
Moreover, your evaluation of the job merely on the basis of a single number says far more about your character (or lack thereof) than anything else. There's also the question of what the other benefits and perquisites are --- and of course, being able to work at a job which one loves and which helps to bring children educational toys which
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Guess that pretty much says everything about your childhood. ;-P
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hmmm, lets just say you're probably not the employee they were after.
to call something "boring" is pretty subjective. To call lego "boring" just means you have no imagination.
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More money then most with an _engineering degree_ and probably some serious student debt? Although if he's been unemployed for a year then maybe he wasn't very good/not employable.. or the job market for engineers has taken an even bigger nose dive then I thought.
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My little sister has a degree in architecture, mechanical engineering and drafting. after she graduated 3 years ago she has had 2 part time barely above minimum wage jobs, but has been mostly unemployed. So yes, things are really bad in the field.
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Preferably ones willing to work for $37.5K.
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More money then most with an _engineering degree_ and probably some serious student debt? Although if he's been unemployed for a year then maybe he wasn't very good/not employable.. or the job market for engineers has taken an even bigger nose dive then I thought.
Sometimes it really takes someone to give you a chance to get your foot in the door in any particular industry. I have heard of people graduated from good schools and takes them more than a year to find decent paying jobs that is related to his field in the lean years (that was 2003, which was lean in engineering field, especially electrical).
I hope this job will give him the leg up to another better paying job. A job that will actually use some of what he has learned. Knowing how lean the aerospace in
For the children (Score:1)
He gave credit to the children spectators at the event, who offered suggestions on what pieces to add to make the designs more interesting.
Also, to those who scoff at the salary: If he's doing something he enjoys, and can afford to live on that, then so what?
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Iain Scouller, general manager of the Grapevine Legoland Discovery Center, said Walsh's skill with the Lego blocks impressed him and the other judges, but it was his positive interaction with the children who came to see the competition that gave him the winning edge. "The master builder has to be able to interact with the children in a friendly and approachable manner," Scouller said.
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Where are the lasers and guns? (Score:3)
Yay! (Score:3)
And I've just been named Emperor of the Wazoo! Bring on the weird, pointless titles! King of Underarm Deodorants... Duke of Aged Cheeses... Chief Technical Adviser to Nails and Screws!
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Chief Technical Adviser to Nails and Screws!
Well, to be fair, that one would actually be a pretty honorable position to hold, as well as being one with much responsibility. Think about it, nails and screws, quite literally, hold up our entire civilization. We wouldn't be anywhere if it weren't for those two simple machines. Being a chief adviser regarding all things involving nails and screws would, indeed, be one hell of a job.
AolNews? (Score:1)
Lego Czar? (Score:2)
Another Czar?
Huh... I must have missed this announcement in the State of the Union address...
Aerospace Engineer Named Lego Czar (Score:2)
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Ha! Take That China! (Score:3)
Your stealth fighter airplanes are no match for ours produced out of Lego by our aerospace engineering Lego Czar!
Lego Czar? (Score:4, Funny)
And then came the Lego food riots, the Lego Revolution, the Lego Five Year Plans, the Great Lego Patriotic War... From Lego With Love... the fall of the Lego Wall... the rise of the Legoligarchs...
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And then came the Lego food riots, the Lego Revolution, the Lego Five Year Plans, the Great Lego Patriotic War... From Lego With Love... the fall of the Lego Wall... the rise of the Legoligarchs...
You mean the rise of the Legemon.
Another contestant... (Score:1)
No. Stop. (Score:2)
Note to everybody: Please stop using the term "czar". This isn't Romanov-era Russia. I hate how people are using this word to be synonymous with "management".
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Company new motto (Score:2)
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Where no Lego has gone before.
Walsh applied his engineering skills to build a spaceship.
Are we falling behind in Lego too.
That picture... (Score:2)
...As many other have pointed out, the lego sculpture is quite lame.
But what I find hilarious are the children's faces staring at his creation: they look confused. I mean what the hell did he build? I am just pissed I cannot buy bulk lego bags of identical bricks for a reasonable price: hell I would still play with them as an adult!
Lego Czar (Score:2)
I am happy to read about Lego (Score:3)
Kudos (Score:3)
I say, "Congratulations!" to this man. He'll be making a little more money than your average Part 135 Lear Jet captain east of the Mississippi. Now is a particularly bad time to be looking for work and it'd be nice to do something fun and get paid for it.
Mis-reading (Score:2)
Am I the only one who read "Lego lover" as "legover"?