9 to 5: Kim-Anh Nguyen, Tattoo Apprentice

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This week I am featuring one of the loveliest ladies on the internet- Ms. Kim-Anh!  She is no stranger to this blog - check out her Tattoo Tuesday- and I'm so happy to have her back.  Be sure to check out her blog and shop for some great posts and gorgeous art!

 

Tell us about yourself. 

My name is Kim-Anh Nguyen, I'm a Swiss girl from Vietnamese descent. I'm 22 years old and right now I'm working as a tattoo apprentice, since January 2011, at Inkvaders Tattoo (Carouge, Geneva, Switzerland.

Before beginning my apprenticeship I had a blog where I posted some of my drawings and paintings. After some months of having the blog people started asking me for commissioned works, so most of my time was dedicated to drawing or painting.   I don't have any formal studies in art... I succeeded at the admission tests for art school when I was 15 but my parents convinced me not to follow that path. 

So before having my blog and begin my tattoo apprenticeship I did some business related studies and worked a little bit for the city administration, but never felt happy doing that.

I live in Carouge with my boyfriend... :)

Describe a typical day at work.

I wake up at 7am, shower, coffee, breakfast, geeking, etc...
8am, first attempts at sketching some drawings or I try to finish or progress some others...
at 9am I begin my work day at Inkvaders Tattoo shop: various housework chores before the first clients arrival. Tubes cleansing. Daily shopping (supermarket, drugstore, etc)... Tattoo stations set-up...
Lunch time around 12pm and back to the shop at 1pm...

Afternoon: I just started tattooing some days ago, so I set-up my working space, draw the stencil, etc...
If I don't have any tattoos scheduled I work on some paintings or tattoos projects for future customers.

Thus said, some afternoons will only be about cleaning tubes!
Also a lot of phone answering and appointment setting (so funny how the telephone rings a thousand times a day on a rainy afternoon but just once or twice if it's a sunny day! ;)
A lot of email answering too...

End of the afternoon: tattoo stations cleansing once the tattoo sessions are over and prepare the next day stuff as much as I can!
Discussing some tattoo projects and ideas with some customers...
Back at home at around 7:30pm on a lucky day, most of time it's way later (except for summertime). :p

Back at home: Food, food, food! Tv... internet... drawing and painting with the TV as background noise...

Go to sleep at around 12am extremely tired... then, LOUD SNORING!!! 

Did you always want to be a tattoo artist? How did you get into this field? 

A Tattooer? Not really... thus said, I've always been into drawing and painting, since my childhood. I've always dreamed of an art related job. Then I began to get tattoos at around 15 y.o. and the idea (dream) of becoming a tattooist began to make its way on my head at around 18 y.o. It began to seem "logic" at some point as I was passionate by drawing and tattoos.

Is this what you hope to do for the rest of your life? 

I hope to become a tattooer someday soon (in the next years) and be able to do it for a living. I really don't know about that "for the rest of my life" part, it's still too far away right now, but I surely want to do this for the next years to come!

If you could tell your 17-year old self anything about your life today, what would you tell her? 

Well, I'm not so far away from the girl I was when I was 17 y.o. I'm still a lazy person a lot of times, procrastination is definitively in my blood... So, in a way, I'm still in that phase where I'm fighting against those bad habits... The main difference would be that I've become aware of it and I'm trying, as much as I can, to change for better. 

9 to 5: Molly McAleer

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When I was younger, if you asked me "what do you want to be when you grow up?" the answer would have changed on any given day. From President, astronaut, fashion designer, horse trainer, writer, PE teacher, cruise director, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, it was always different. And even now, I find myself being completely engrossed whenever I meet someone who happens to have an interesting career.

The more people I meet in this wide world the more I realize just how many amazing things there are to do with your life.  So a couple months ago I asked my Twitter friends if anyone had an extra-interesting career.  I also contacted a few of my friends.  And here's the result - an 8-week series showcasing fabulous women and what they do for a living.

Today's super special lady is one of my favorite internet people. Can I actually just say my most favorite? She's hilarious. Adorable. And a whole lotta wonderful. I kinda, sorta live for her "5 Faves" she posts each week (seriously, check them out), and she also happens to be a founder of Hello Giggles and a writer for CBS. Awesome, right? Meet Molly McAleer, aka Molls.

Tell us about yourself. 

I'm Molly McAleer, I'm from Lexington, Massachusetts, but I currently live in Los Angeles with my chihuahua Wagandstuff and awesome roomie, Sara. I run the blog MollsSheWrote.com, am a co-founder of HelloGiggles.com and write on the upcoming CBS sitcom, "2 Broke Girls."

Describe a typical day at work.

Basically my "typical" day is a lot more routine than it used to be. I used to wake up, walk a dog, grab a coffee, read the news, figure out what kind of stories I was writing for the day and then write them. I used to go out at night a lot. These days I'm on a staff schedule, so I wake up, walk the dog, head to Burbank and work in the room all day. It's a lot of bouncing around ideas and figuring out the outlines for each episode. By the time I get home, I'm pretty exhausted, so I just eat some dinner, watch TV, walk the dog again and pass out.

Did you always want to be a writer? How did you get into this field? What kind of schooling or background did it entail?

I joined a sketch comedy group my first week of college and was always much more into the writing end of things than performing. Once I graduated, I took a series of jobs at places that produced original material (mainly websites) and then, over time, convinced them to give me a shot writing. After I worked at Gawker/Defamer for about a year, freelance jobs started coming to me and that's basically how I've supported myself the last few years. The idea to start HelloGiggles came shortly before I decided that it was time to take the leap into TV writing, so I wrote a sample and wound up getting hired on 2BG.

Is this what you hope to do for the rest of your life? Where do you see yourself in 10 years, career-wise?

I'm honestly just focused on the present. I absolutely have big dreams, but right now I want to focus on maintaining and watching HelloGiggles grow and helping make 2 Broke Girls a hit.

If you could tell your 17-year old self (fresh out of high school and ready to face the world!) anything about your life today, what would you tell her?  Is there anything you wish you would have known back then? Was there anything you would have done differently as far as your career, setting yourself up for success, etc. etc.?

I would just tell my 17-year old self not to sell myself short and to be ready when opportunities arise no matter how daunting they seemed or how unworthy I may have felt. Dream big. I really think a younger me didn't understand that I could actually see anything good ever happen to myself. I was ready to find a way in through the backdoor or settling for something adjacent to my actual dream. Obviously there's been a lot of hard work on my end, but I've also kind of mastered the art of taking advantage of everything in front of me. I should have known that that was in my DNA and just kept my chin up this whole time.