Bookseller and barista, available for the busy season
Hi, I'm Sam.
I'm looking for part-time work while I get my freelance web development business up and running. I love books and reading, and I also have barista experience, so I figured I'd reach out and see if you all needed any extra hands this holiday season. I built this little website as a way to say hello.
My experience
Until this spring, I worked at Composition Bookshop in Longmont. It's a great little shop and I highly recommend a visit if you haven't been. I only left because I moved to Denver and the commute was a bit long.
My coffee experience comes to about three years. I worked at a cafe in Marfa, Texas, called the Sentinel, where I was the head barista and operations lead: I made the schedule, interviewed and trained new hires, and handled the inventory. I bartended a little there too, mostly morning cocktails.
After that I took a job at Cedar Coffee & Supply in Alpine, Texas, where I stayed for about two years before floating around a bit through Workaway, a service where volunteers from all over the world connect with hosts and come to work for them in exchange for room and board. That led me to Boulder, where I rented a place, worked on my web development skills and portfolio, and took the bookseller job in Longmont.
You can learn more about my experience from my résumé.
By the way: If the Book Society ever needs a hand with its site, its Google business profile, or anything else on the tech side, I can help. Here's my code portfolio.
What else?
Besides reading, I also enjoy going to the movies, being bad at math, and West Coast Swing dancing. If I were an animal I'd be a barn owl. My favorite flavor of ice cream is coffee, followed closely by mint chocolate chip.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this! Even if you don't need extra hands now, I'd love to be considered for any future openings.
All the best,
Sam
Five books I'd hand-sell
Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry
I read it for the first time this year, and I'll never know why I waited so long. The book works because the characters feel so real and you live with them for so long, and the result is heartrending. It's both one of my favorite books and one of the saddest I've ever read.
Sam recommends
On Writing Well
William Zinsser
Once upon a time I wanted to be a writer. Back when I was on that journey, this book was my bible. I am extremely self-conscious by nature, and never more so than when I write, but Zinsser's book helped turn a fraught, desperate process into a calm means of exploration.
Sam recommends
Thinking in Bets
Annie Duke
This was my first formal introduction to probabilistic thinking, and it actually changed how I think and operate. Duke shows that nearly every decision we make has an uncertain outcome, which makes it essentially a bet, so almost everything benefits from a probabilistic mindset. It's probably one of the most important books I've ever read.
Sam recommends
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
Stephen King
Different Seasons is an amazing collection, but Shawshank is far and away the best story in it, in my opinion. What struck me when I read it was how much more brutal it was than the movie. If I had any doubts beforehand that fictional characters could be role models, this book assuaged them.
Sam recommends
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Raymond Carver
This one's a bit out of my wheelhouse, to be honest, but after I saw Short Cuts I had to read it. Another great example of spareness, though I read somewhere that Carver's spareness was largely due to the influence of his editor. Something about that is a little off-putting, but it's hard to argue with results.
Sam recommends