11 “Bottle Fed These Baby Birds" and "I Kinda Sucked At Uni"

00:00

My mom was always rescuing every animal she could find. One time she found a bird's nest outside and the mother had abandoned it and she brought it inside and bottle fed these baby birds from the time they were nestling until they were full growth. And they lived in our house and then she had to set them free obviously. But she was always very much taking in strays, taking in animals, saving anything she could. What the hell is my job? We had this bat come in one time that had fallen out of a tree.

00:29

and it was a super sweet little baby bat and we took it in. It was so sweet though, I swear, it probably sounds like the most hideous thing you've ever seen, but it's like this little thing the size of my hand and it fell out of this tray. We brought it inside and we're looking at it, it's like just crawling around, like the sweetest thing you've ever seen and it was like squeaking and stuff, like it was great. And it's really just like, if you see something in detail, you help it. So I work as a wildlife biologist mostly in the summer because that's like when the field season really is. A lot of it's birds, honestly, so.

00:59

Like even growing up, my parents had a horse farm, right? So we had like four or five dogs at a time on our property. And then as I grew up, like I knew I wanted to work with animals and everything. So yeah, I am obsessed with bats. I mean, pretty much anything, honestly. You know, went to school and I got my degree in wildlife biology, but it turns out that's pretty seasonal. So like I work a lot in the summer for that, but then as it starts winding down and like the field work stops coming in as much, I realized like there's a...

01:28

like a big gap in time. And I can do desktop work from home. So I do like the Nest reviews and stuff there, but there are still like chunks of time where like I wasn't working. And then I found Rover. I have a friend in California who is where I'm originally from and she started Rover because she's in university for nursing school and she couldn't work full time. So she signed up for Rover and it's made for like a full income even though it's not regular working hours. And like, you're not doing like a nine to five or anything.

01:56

but she pops in here and there and because each visit is a set amount, she started really great and she has bookings a ton every day. And I was like, oh, this is great. I worked with dogs a ton in the past. I've had a ton myself and I've worked at a vet clinic before too. So I signed up just on a whim and it really kind of took off fast. I started dog walking and then dog sitting and then.

02:19

I have like four or five bookings a week. Sometimes it really just like takes off on the weekends too. So I try to do both because honestly Rover has become like a huge source of income for me too. And I see so many great dogs. So, you know, I do my wildlife biology things and see animals in their habitats and I study them during the summer and like when everything's really happening. And then I come home and then I have animals here too. So I like having like the difference in experiences throughout the day.

02:47

I mean, for me, this is like ideal. Um, I live with my boyfriend. He's allergic, so probably not for him, but yeah, I am obsessed. Most people actually don't want me to walk their dog with other dogs, which is totally understandable. Um, so I'll walk like one dog for half an hour and then immediately go to another booking for half an hour and then immediately go to another one for half an hour and then some people want me to watch their dogs, like from my.

03:15

apartment and so I'll have like two or three here at a time too. So I'll walk them, come back, see my dogs, go out and walk some more, come back, go out and do some more. And I always do like a meet and greet beforehand to meet with the owners to make sure, you know, what they're comfortable with and what I can provide to to make sure we're a good match either way, especially with I have a dog myself. So him and their dog as well as me and the person, some people will be like, can you please like send pictures, you know, twice a day, three times a day, which is totally fine. It doesn't take me super long.

03:44

like snap a picture, send him like a quick update like he's doing great or you know she's playing with with Goose my dog and some people who are on vacation will just tell me like I don't care do whatever you want I just want to be left alone on vacation and so they'll leave um and just not not checking at all and they'll come pick up their dog or like asking to walk their dog and that's all I hear from them about um so it's really different with each person but I don't mind

04:14

generally it's really very quick and I spend a lot of the time with the dogs even when I'm trying to take pictures of them.

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04:24

Hey, folks, it's Naty. We'll be back with more right after this break.

04:34

I'm in some Instagram makeup group chats and one of the comments from this makeup artist, she's very, very, very ambitious. From day one, she was always like very not nice to me. And one of the comments that she made after the pandemic, she was like, oh yeah, finally this pandemic, like it's like cleared the waters and a lot of people quit this job. So this morning worked for us. And I thought that was wild.

05:06

In the past four years, so much happened because I studied hair and makeup for theatre and media and my special effects and all that and I graduated in 2020 which was the worst year to graduate in and weirdly enough I was able to transition from being a student to do full-time makeup seamlessly which is very rare I think but because after the pandemic there was so much work.

05:36

because every production, every agency, every brand, they were all like a year behind with content, videos and everything. So everyone was so eager to like go back to work. And finally, after the lockdown was lifted, I had so much work. And with all the contacts that I gained from just like testing loads and building my portfolio as I was while I was studying, which thankfully I did from the day one of my uni course. Yeah, so the pandemic really.

06:05

kickstarted my career in a bizarre way. Weirdly enough, I kind of sucked at uni because I was so hyper-focused on my career already. I wasn't as focused on them as my classmates were. I was more focused on using the things that I was getting taught to actually put them into practice and use them on my shoots and on my videos and all the jobs that I was getting on my whole life.

06:34

was work. My self-worth as well relied on how good my work was and how much money I was making and what kind of clients I was getting and what kind of photographers I was working with, which in hindsight is kind of unhealthy, but at the time that was the number one thing, the only thing that I cared about. I didn't care about going out, I didn't care about drinking with friends, I didn't care about becoming popular among my classmates or anything.

07:03

If anything, I actually got kind of bullied by some of them because a lot of them were quite envious that I was, my work was getting good at like an early stage, if that makes sense. I didn't really care about anything else for a long time. That's exactly what made me...

07:21

peak really early. Also moving from another country I think because I didn't really have many friends. I didn't really have anyone to hang out with so my hanging out was just showing up on set and like travelling up to London, having drinks after work with my colleagues and with the people that I was working with and yeah just talking about the future and the things they wanted to do and the vision that we had and like I was so creative.

07:49

in that sense and yeah that you know my career really fulfilled so many aspects of my life at that time. I realized at some point that I was completely getting burnt out because the only thing I was thinking of was working and the only thing that put value into my life was my job. So obviously all the other aspects of my life were getting a bit starved and as soon as my...

08:18

I had some issue with my work or a colleague being nasty. It really, really affected me. And so at some point, I had a bit of a mental breakdown. I was working way too much because that was the busiest year of my career. At some point, I had a mental breakdown. I was like, I feel like I'm nobody outside of my career.

08:41

I don't know who I am anymore. My identity relies on my career and relies on my creativity and relies on my success, which is a very unpredictable thing. And it's very unstable. And having that as a reference point for the person you are, it's very dangerous. The things that I thought were amazing and artistic and creative, like we're not getting anywhere near as much attention as some of the more silly stuff.

09:09

I would say constantly trying to chase something. And I was really envious of people's work. I just had this urgency of being better than everyone else, which is obviously bullshit, because you only have to be better than yourself in the past. That's the only person you have to compete with. So a really important thing that I really, really appreciate, and I am very grateful that I went to uni for this. Basically, I started doing makeup when I was 20. Before that, I studied fashion and like...

09:39

I was painting and sculpting because I went to art school in Italy. The fact that I was... At the time, we had a lot of freedom when it came to doing research about the things that we liked. And the first one I did was based on club kids and blitz kids and new romantics and the goth kind of movement because I was a massive... I mean, I still kind of am a massive girl when I was younger. Now I'm more into hardcore and that kind of music. But at the time...

10:08

That was like my biggest passion. The 90s in New York and then the new romantics in the late 70s in the UK and this movement of hippie drag queens in San Francisco in the 70s called the coquette, which I was completely obsessed with at some point. These phenomena, these social phenomena and like these subcultures. I am going to actually tattoo myself. World Paper, which is my favorite club kid.

10:37

I think had such a huge influence on my style. Really, really, really influenced my style of makeup. I think way more than Pinterest ever did. Hope you liked the episode. Please help us out by rating us, sharing with your friends, or buying us a coffee at buymeacoffee.com/whatthehellismyjob. It costs us money and time to be here for you at the start of every single week. So please consider supporting us. See you next time.