Every Job Teaches You Something

After finishing uni, we spent a few years working in Wellington before heading to Sydney for a year. We didn’t have a plan—just a willingness to dive in and figure it out as we went. So we said yes to temp jobs. Some were forgettable, but others left a mark.

My first gig was with a company managing third-party ATMs—the kind tucked away in pubs, charging you $5 just to withdraw your own money. They were everywhere back then.

Cassandra landed a role at Lion Nathan, where the Friday drinks were legendary. Massive beer wall. Help yourself. Let’s just say I may have been kicked out of a taxi that night.

Next, I helped organise architectural plans at a design firm, while Cassandra worked at a Subaru dealership.

But the most unexpected job? Working for a company that acted as a middleman between telcos and those old-school text services—ringtones, dating lines, all the odd stuff from the early mobile days. One week I was just another temp; the next, I was sitting in a regulatory meeting helping plan out new legislation. It was surreal—but also a sharp reminder that even the most chaotic industries need structure eventually. I didn’t realise it then, but I was getting a front-row seat to how fast things can evolve—and how being adaptable matters more than having it all figured out.

What we thought would be a year of random gigs ended up teaching us something more valuable: how to roll with the unexpected, how to learn fast, and how to find our feet in unfamiliar territory. All skills we rely on heavily now as we run our own business.

We were only 23, but we were already learning a key lesson: you don’t need to have it all figured out on day one. Give it a couple of hours, and you start to get your bearings. By the end of the day, you’ve picked up even more. And within a week, you’re getting the job done. We didn’t know everything, but we knew how to learn fast—and that was enough. “Fake it till you make it” wasn’t just a phrase—it was survival, and surprisingly effective.

Turns out, learning to say yes and back ourselves was the best prep we could have had. And we’re still doing it—one challenge, one opportunity, one day at a time.