
Inside the Lego Master Builder Search 296
blackdefiance writes "As most self-respecting geeks know, Lego is currently searching for a new Master Builder to hold the enviable position of building with Lego all day and getting paid for the privilege. One applicant describes the nerve-wracking experience of going through the first-round interview."
Hrm (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hrm (Score:4, Funny)
I don't think The Reverend is a *real* Reverend though.
Re:Hrm (Score:2)
Re:Hrm (Score:2)
Re:Hrm (Score:2)
Is Lego even alive? (Score:5, Informative)
They also interviewed a bunch of little kids who were all very uninterested in Legos. What a shame...
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:5, Informative)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
advertising, and the future (Score:3, Insightful)
These new lines make me feel more secure for Lego's future -- for a while, they were very distracted by "action toys", instead of focusing on the one thing they do better than anything else: making supplies for *creative* building. It looks like someone insid
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:4, Interesting)
It really is a shame. Legos got me interested in a career in engineering, which in turn got me interested in the sciences at a rather young age. Hell I still consider Legos to be pretty cool especially the mindstorms [lego.com] kits and I am 19.
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ruby's a nifty language and is (I think, anyway) well suited to stuff like this.
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:2)
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:2)
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:2)
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:5, Insightful)
So I started thinking, "I wonder what happened to all that lego?", and it turns out that my mom still has all of it, in some big plastic boxes in the attic. A quick survey reveals that this is the fate of all lego - it's never thrown away! It just gets kept because everyone remembers how cool it was and wants to keep it for their kids. (Or in my case, my little sister got it as hand-me-downs.) I bet it's one of the few toys of which this can be said, although I don't plan to trawl through landfill sights comparing the frequencies of Barbie-parts and lego-bricks. Anyone?
So, that's my theory as to why it's not selling. Plus it all went downhill when they started cashing in on franchises. I had spaceships and castles and that was good enough for me, dammit!
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:3, Interesting)
When we were kids, really, Lego was one of the few ways kids had of making stuff in 3D...sort of like a physical CAD system. (Which is why I liked having space sets w/ lots of cool wings and engines and ain't one of those people longing for the days of basic bricks only...and I liked space because while we know things today and stuff in
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:2)
Also, is there any chance that they changed the formula to make it more durable? I remember seeing some super old lego bricks that didn't feel right, even taking age into account...
Or maybe not. But legos last at least throughout a childhood
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:2)
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:5, Funny)
I have a 5 year old at home... (Score:2, Interesting)
I have Jurassic Park legos strewn all over my office. My ofc has become a part time dinosaur preserve.
Last year it was Star Wars. Now it'd Dinosaurs.
My wife ONLY buys Legos when they're on clearance though. They drop to about 40% of their original price ($7 vs. $20, by waiting a few months).
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:5, Funny)
(a) Fire anyone who produces anything and dump your whole production line. (b) Hire a large team of lawyers to work on contingency. (c) Shore up your IP. (d) Sue anything that moves. (e) ??? (f) Profit.
OR
(a) Launch a branded online music store with excessive DRM and no price advantage. (b) Compete directly with Apple. (c) Hide under a pile of coats and hope everything works out for the best.
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:2)
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:3, Funny)
My kids are really into Legos and Bionicles! We spend a hefty amount of money on them!
My son says his goal someday is to work for Lego (or perhaps, Pixar). He'd absolutely LOVE to have this job! When he told me he wanted to work at Lego, I told him, "Well, you know, at Lego, they don't pay you to play with Legos all day long!"
I guess I was wrong!
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:3, Funny)
I know first hand that thats not entirely true. On christmas I "played lego" with a young cousin of mine. We put together a basketball court where the lego people stood on a spring platform so you could bend them back, let go, and pray the ball goes into the hoop. While I first saw this as another example of specialized bricks and commericalization of a creative toy, it soon became fun to give people mor
Lego CAD package (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Is Lego even alive? (Score:5, Insightful)
I blame the over-use of specialized pieces. Heck, when I was constantly building LEGO assemblies the most specialized piece was the human figures. Now many LEGO packages are made up of human figures, a contoured bottom, and two or three pieces to complete the set. I realize creativety is lacking these days, but who wants to buy LEGOs to assemble a whole 3 or 4 pieces?
LEGO CAKE FOR LEGO BOI'S AND GIRLS (Score:5, Interesting)
Like a lot of kids, 9-year-old Katie Lemberg loves LEGOs.
In honor of her favorite locking blocks, Lemberg and her mom developed an ingenious concept, the LEGO party.
"It was great," Katie recalls. "None of the adults knew what it was--and all of the kids did."
Materials
1 13- x 9- x 2-inch sheet cake
8 cupcakes
White frosting
Food coloring (your choice of color)
Toothpicks
Step 1:
Turn the cake upside down and place the cupcakes on top as shown. Hold each cupcake in place with a toothpick.
Step 2:
Frost a bright color such as blue, red or yellow.
Whatever happened to... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Whatever happened to... (Score:3, Funny)
Harley Cross c/o William Morris Agency
151 S. El Camino Dr
Beverly Hills, CA 90212-2775
and no, I'm not affiliated with this chump
Re:Whatever happened to... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Whatever happened to... (Score:2)
Re:Whatever happened to... (Score:3, Funny)
One Big Advice for LEGO (Score:4, Funny)
Of course they don't actually fire, but wouldn't some kid feel great loading clips and clips of ammo and tweaking with sniper scopes. Hey you can even have belts of ammo so kids walk around the living room feeling like Rambo.
no LEGO guns (Score:2)
Re:no LEGO guns (Score:2)
I'm 25 and one of my first LEGO sets was in fact a cammo bucket set which was military themed. Of course I mostly used it for making bridges, bases, and other engineering things for my action figures but LEGO most certainly sells and has sold for a long time military themed kits. Of course that stuff pales in comparison to Technicks and Mindstorms (I had the Technicks 4' working car!)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:One Big Advice for LEGO (Score:2)
Lego used to have a policy of no militaristic themes. I don't know whether it still stands... those pirates and spacement sometimes look a bit violent.
Re:One Big Advice for LEGO (Score:2)
Re:One Big Advice for LEGO (Score:2)
Re:One Big Advice for LEGO (Score:2)
Those were the days, being 10, where you just spend your day watching TV and making Lego models, instead of worrying about work and money..
Re:One Big Advice for LEGO (Score:4, Interesting)
Lego Beretta [malagraphixia.com]
get started now folks! (Score:5, Interesting)
Legos are CHEAP on eBay [ebay.com] available in bulk lots or even Complete mindstorms sets [ebay.com]
And if not for you, buy them for your kids. Beats letting them rot their brains out watching TV all day.
Just watch out, stepping barefoot on a 2x2 lego in the middle of the night is worse than medieval caltrops.
Re:get started now folks! (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the Slashdot mentality that also thinks management jobs are easy.
Building Lego professionally is one of the most difficult tasks out there. The amount of material needed to build displays for shows, events and parks goes beyond what you can buy off Ebay because "Legos are cheap".
Imagine someone saying that writing code or administ
Re:get started now folks! (Score:2)
Well now... (Score:2, Funny)
"The top model builders from each city will be invited to Legoland California in Carlsbad for a chance to become the eighth Lego master model builder and build and maintain the huge Lego sculptures in the park. The winner will be paid $13 to $15 an hour."
Thats pretty good pay for doing something you were do at the age of 5, or for some of us still doing today.
Clicky [washingtonpost.com] (Washingtonpost.com)
Already Slashdotted (Score:3, Informative)
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:O-j4lnUvtb8J
Blogzine.net [blogzine.net]
Slightly OT, I know... (Score:2, Informative)
I hope they get someone good (Score:5, Insightful)
Where's the imagination and ability to shift around that? I loose the freedom to go my own direction. all the set levels have gone this direction over the years and I miss the old 40 page manuals and endless posibilities you could do on your own after that.
Re:I hope they get someone good (Score:2)
Re:I hope they get someone good (Score:3, Informative)
What happened to old lego ingenuity? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? (Score:3, Informative)
Where lego has been (Score:5, Interesting)
This job sounds so cool... (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me give you some background: an entire room of my domicile is devoted to Lego. (Well, it's a walk-in closet, but it's a big walk-in closet...) Just my unsorted Lego fills 50 gallons of storage tubs, plus some. Sorted, I have organizers with well over five hundred small drawers of little parts, so I can always find what I need. I'm pretty ridiculous when it comes to Lego. I can build some pretty cool stuff.
But after going to Legoland in Windsor, I realized the master builders are so out of my league it ain't even a contest. I'm not worthy to carry these guys' baseplates. The stuff these people do is mind-boggling. Stunning. Amazing.
Every self-respecting geek may know about it, but almost all of us are gonna have to settle for ooohing and aaaahing at whoever does get the job and the spectacular stuff this person can build.
Re:This job sounds so cool... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you really knew better, you'd have applied anyways... and let the chips fall where they may.
The worst they can do is say no, or not call on you at all.
Why turn down or reject yourself for a position that you aren't even making the hiring decision for? I know that when you apply for a job you really want, it's difficult to avoid getting your hopes up, and when it doesn't pan out there's a sense of disappointment, but in the end you are really no worse off... in fact, you would still be better off than before because you exhibited the self confidence in the first place to dare to even apply, which is a highly transferrable skill and will make it that much more likely that you'd be able to land your dream job in the future.
Don't sell yourself short.
Re:This job sounds so cool... (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus, they might be out of your league for now, but what about when you're spending 50 hours a week building the damn things?
Re:This job sounds so cool... (Score:3, Insightful)
I have been more impressed with the creativity shown in whoever designs the sets...the new designer stuff w/ all the joints, some of the Mechs from the Mars series, and the tiny-scale Star Wars stuff are all very cool. (Admittedly the tiny-scale Star Wars stuff I'd seen on the web before, but its definately a nice contrast to the usual minifig scale works)
Re:This job sounds so cool... (Score:2)
Re:This job sounds so cool... (Score:2)
The stuff these people do is mind-boggling.
The stuff these people do is possible because they get paid to do this for a living. Full-time.
Best way to lose your dream job? (Score:5, Funny)
Look at the grammar! (Score:4, Interesting)
Will this disqualify him from this particular job? Perhaps, perhaps not. What it means is that it is unlikely that this candidate has what it takes to grow beyond that role.
Communications skills and people skills are what determine the influence that you can have within an organization.
Have you been the victim of unfair promotion within the workplace? Have you seen people with lesser skills move ahead?
It's probable that the reason behind this "crazy" promotion is that your written and verbal communications combined with your ability to get along with and/or lead people are somewhat less than those of the person promoted past you.
The "Big Lie" that we geeks tell ourselves is that intelligence and technical prowess alone are the determining factors in career growth. They are not the most important factors. I'll share a recent insightful quote:
"The one who knows 'how' will always have a job. The one why knows 'why' will always be his boss." (Maxwell, Thinking for a Change)
Practice in blogging skills like his is unlikely to help develop skills needed for career growth.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
BTW - God loves you and longs for relationship with you. If you want to know more, please email me.
Best way to GAIN your dream job... (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps the person who posted the article here to Slashdot is the real genius, pointing the world to the innocent, excited applicant's blog so the LEGO people can dash his dreams away, hence freeing up the job for "ikewillis".
You're a shrewd one, ikewillis.
Job rating (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Job rating (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Job rating (Score:2)
"Top Coolest Slacker Job"?!? Methinks instead we found a new addition to this year's Popular Science Worst Jobs in Science [popsci.com] article.
Funny anecdote (Score:5, Interesting)
Nobody got anywhere close.
The funny thing was that she had previously taught an English 1001 course. One of the first writing assignments she gave was to ask "What was your favorite childhood toy?"
She'll never give that assignment again. Not at an engineering college. She got to read 30 essays extolling the virtues of Lego, how they inspired creativity and building, and how all the newer sets suck because they have overly specific pieces.
I wasn't in that class, but I suspect my essay would've been similar. Lego just rocks. My first child is due in a month and we already have some of the newborn Lego stuff. My sister gave me a bag full of Duplo blocks (many of which came from me) since her kids have outgrown them, and I'll give them to my kid when she's capable of using them.
Honestly... I'd much rather see a kid playing with blocks or lego than with most of the electronic toys nowadays. For one thing, they're far quieter... and they don't need batteries (although you can some sets with them nowadays -- which I only dreamed of when I was a kid).
Re:Funny anecdote (Score:2, Funny)
depends on the kid's imagination... I gave a duplo kit to a friend's kid for his birthday, and one week later I ask my friend what kind of stuff his kid is building.
he said he had to put the duplos away, because his kid kept throwing them around randomly, and scratching the paint off the drywall in his home.
Re:Funny anecdote (Score:2, Funny)
The Game: Build the most bad-ass spaceship, and then throw it downstairs to see who gets the most spectacular crash-landing.
Re:Funny anecdote (Score:3, Funny)
I didn't know legos could get so dented until we did that. (:
Re:Funny anecdote (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Funny anecdote (Score:3, Interesting)
High School Science Olympiad competitions have something similar, except they give you a prebuilt model (which often includes but is not limited to LEGOs), and you have to describe it in detail. You're given 15 minutes to do this. Then you pass it off to your partner who gets 15 minutes to reconstruct it. Since the rules are known beforehand good teams will practice a few times, and the winner (as our team was o
Re:Funny anecdote (Score:4, Funny)
My mother encouraged us to play with Legos because she thought it was better and more "family-oriented" than television. This lasted until the next Christmas, when my brother and I received 4 or 5 big Lego sets apiece, and within and hour were banished to our rooms when playing with them. There aren't a lot of household sounds louder than a bin of Legos being dumped out onto the floor and rifled through (except maybe the sound of Dad stepping on a stray 2x2).
-Carolyn
As a parent to a two year old (Score:2)
Avoid Baby Lego: they don't
Tedious? (Score:3, Interesting)
Kind of reminds me of Herb Ritts (the late fashion photographer). As well as lighting technicians, reflector holders and makeup artists, he had an assistant simply to raise his heavy Pentax 6x7 to his eye - all he had to do was squint through it and take the shot. Now *that's* when you know you're at the top of your profession.
At the top (Score:2)
Knowing that is far more valuable than the technical skills needed to set up the kit for the shot. That's what makes the difference.
My greatest lego triumph (Score:4, Interesting)
Full Text (Score:2, Funny)
Ugh, my nerves were all over the place. I ended up re-writing my cover letter prolly 6 or 8 times Saturday morning before finally heading up to Boston with my belly full of butterflies--and Smores Cereal
The setup for the whole event was pretty cool. They had very impressive LEGO models all over and filled the place with people wearing LEGO shirts. It was nearly impossible to tell who was from LEGO and who worked at the college hosting it.
So I show up and regis
Not for $7/Hour (Score:4, Informative)
I met someguy a few years back on an cms implementation project who told me he used to be a professional lego builder building the various large scale models found in their stores.
I (thinking it was a dream job) replied: "Wow. What a dream job. Why did you stop?"
To which he replied "Try living on $7 bucks an hour"
Re:Not for $7/Hour (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, it's gone up since then at least -- it's $13-15/hour now. See here [washingtonpost.com] or here [chron.com].
That said, $13-15/hour isn't going to be a whole lot of money if you're living in So. Cal. -- it's livable, but you're not going to be buying a lot of toys (except lego obviously) or live in a big house (unless you make it out of the aforementioned lego).
Based on the "Lego Master Builder" FAQ page (here's a Google cache [216.239.37.104], since the main is toast) there are decent benefits as well, plus some travel (which probably means a good bit of travel, for which you'd be paid extra).
Whether or not you can live on that money is obviously dependant on lifestyle and other income, but, hey -- it still is a dream job (if you like Lego).
I started bouncing. I was literally bouncing!! I c (Score:2)
/me Imagines a lego model of Spirit Rover bouncing around mars. Woohoo, I want what this guys on.
Ask, and ... (Score:5, Funny)
Lego Spirit Rover [lego.com]
My first task as Master Builder... (Score:4, Funny)
5 minutes wasted (Score:4, Insightful)
I had to have wasted 5 minutes of my time just thinking.
I find this statement strange. These 5 minutes of thinking probably scored him double with the interviewers.
When I was a Patternmaker I would typically spend 8 hours (1 whole day) thinking about the job before I started it. Most jobs would take 400 hours so this was still a small amount of time in my mind.
Rushing to start a job just leads to mistakes when you are building something big and complex like a Lego model or a set of 50 tonne press tools.
Lego is no longer about imagination... (Score:3, Interesting)
But now it seems it's impossible to buy a set that isn't "themed" with dozens of proprietary parts that only really work within their designated set. Any attempt to mix sets now results in even more of a Frankenstein creation than I remember being possible when I was a kid. We eventually gave up, realizing that (as other posters have pointed out) the only way to get a real good "set" of Lego is to buy bulk on e-Bay.
Moral of the story, whatever you do, DO NOT throw old Lego away. The primary color simple blocks don't come in regular sets anymore, but are probably the most valuable pieces around (and I don't mean in terms of cash value).
They're going back (Score:3, Interesting)
Equal opportunity employer? (Score:3, Funny)
BTW, 'Clikits' is much too phonetically similar to a word that ends with 'oris'
Article (Score:2)
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainmen
The original flamewar (Score:4, Funny)
vi vs Emacs;
Gnome vs KDE;
Linux vs BSD;
Free vs Open;
Windows vs Anything.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present the granddaddy of them all...
Lego vs Meccano
Re:The original flamewar (Score:3, Informative)
Another guy's story... (Score:3, Informative)
Legos for girls (Score:3, Informative)
Legos for the Stupid Sex (Score:3, Interesting)
Those were the days (Score:3, Interesting)
Space Shuttles with working bay doors, landing year, robotic arm.
Guns of all makes, and a working crossbow. I used the lances from the castle kits as the bolts, very cool and would cause some bodily harm if you shot it at your 4 year-old neighbor.
My biggest creations were always massive submarines. They would have between 4 and 6 torpedo tubes (I would use the shock absorbers from the technic cars to launch the torpedoes) and missile tubes. I would also build primitive propellors and drive them with model rubber bands. The big problem was always flotation. All that air trapped inside the sealed blocks caused a problem. The solution for me turned out to be a coin slot on both ends. I would weight the thing down with various coins just to make it go below the surface (had to have a 'bank' on both ends to keep it level). I build these things up until I was about 14 with the longest one being 5 feet.
Now I have a 2 year old and I play with his Duplos. Can't wait to get him the regular kits. I still buy the Technic kits of Formula 1 cars (Ferrari, Jordan, McLaren, Williams) even though most of them are the same kit at a different scale and with different colors.
Re:Those were the days (Lego box != Cat box) (Score:5, Funny)
But... make sure the common bucket doesn't look like a cat litter box. I have bad childhood memories of digging around in the lego box only to find the cat had been there first...
In related news... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The sure did make a mess... (Score:2)
Re:Coincidentally... (Score:3, Interesting)