20 Years | By Katie
20 years is an excellent song by Placebo.
June 18 was also when I hit my 20-year milestone at REI.
I remember it well—landing a career at the age of 18, fresh out of high school. In my senior year at SOTA, I was assigned to REI's photo studio for my 3-week internship. In January of my final year in school, I headed down to Sumner—on antibiotics for walking pneumonia—and filled out waivers, got my picture taken, and printed on a badge that gave me access to the photography studio.
I sat on stools behind photographers taking precisely lit pictures of shoes and air mattresses. One photographer even let me model my hand for a sterilizing pen in a glass of water. I watched an environment set come to life as stylists stood around using white sand, dirt, branches, and sticks to make a table look like it was on a sandy shore—all to take photos of a credit card with REI's logo on it. An entire day would be spent by three people hovering over computer monitors, making sure the highlights didn’t blow out, the shadows weren’t too dark, and the sand looked natural.
I found myself drawn to the samples room. It wasn’t as darkly lit, and they let me do things. I started spending more time steaming racks of clothing to get the wrinkles out and stuffing backpacks with polyfill and sleeping bags to make them look full and trail-ready. I played treasure hunt, looking for specific samples needed in a grouped product image. I helped unpack location shoots and found the homes of each item coming back from Hawaii.
After those three weeks hanging out among photographers and sample coordinators, it was time to head back and finish earning my diploma. One of the managers told me, “Reach out if you need a summer job.”
I took that to heart. Kind of. After I graduated in mid-May, I maybe did nothing for a full month. It was summer, after all.
Around the second week of June, I shot off an email to the address on the business card given to me when I left my internship. I typed out a few sentences trying to sound professional, sharing my availability to help in whatever capacity.
My email was redirected—there had been some role shifts—but the new manager said, “Absolutely. Can you come in three days next week and three days the week after?”
I remember telling my mom that I needed the family minivan from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. three days a week for those upcoming dates. Her first reaction, as I approached her on the sidewalk between our garage and back entry, was: “What?? Why do you need the car? I have this appointment, and things I need to do.” As she scrambled, she stopped mid-sentence, paused, and said, “Oh, you got a job!” Then she proceeded to think out loud: “Okay, I can shift my cleaning day to this day, I can use your dad’s car to make it to this appointment…” and so on.
The next week, I arrived in the Sumner parking lot again, parking in the far back. (Another story for another day, but I used to see Thom because we both parked in the same far reaches of the lot.) I filled out even MORE paperwork to become what they called a “Casual Employee,” got an employee number, a new badge with a new picture, and essentially—what started as “three days a week” turned into full weeks. That turned into going to community college and moving my work dates around classes. My parents made me commit to driving my stick shift—a white 1991 Toyota Tercel with four speeds.
Three days a week turned into 20 years, where I went from "Photo Production Assistant" to "Senior Production Designer". I flirted with the guy who parked his Tercel in the same part of the parking lot, married him, and now we’re taking our two kids on my second sabbatical to Alaska to celebrate.
