Brian Hashemi, Director of Marketing
My hometown is…
In Virginia somewhere. I didn’t really grow up in a “town”, it was really just the middle of the forest. Well, like a house in the middle of the forest. A house in a forest that was technically in a suburb of DC. My backyard flowed into a state park, so I could walk for miles back there without running into another house. It was great as a kid to be able to explore – I once found an old bootlegger’s hideout back there, a dilapidated building full of old, rusty stills. It was pretty much exactly like the house they find at the end of The Blair Witch Project. The place I grew up looked a lot like The Blair Witch Project.
I’m inspired by…
The fact that existence exists, because it doesn’t have to. There is something weird and profoundly mysterious about the idea that we are here at all. It’s really much weirder than we allow ourselves to think about.
I chose to go into marketing because…
Marketing chose me. I’ve felt my way through a series of jobs that I’ve found progressively more fulfilling, until finally landing at a company and role and team that I love.
If my 3rd grade teacher could see me now, he or she would say…
That I’m much bigger now? That my math and verbal skills have progressed (but my handwriting hasn’t really)? I don’t know, I think my 3rd grade teacher is dead. So I don’t really think she’d say anything.
The most amazing thing I’ve ever seen is…
Let’s see – I once saw some dogs eat a baby horse, that was pretty amazing. Oh, and ghosts; I’ve seen two ghosts. Well, one was sort of a spirit that visited me in a dream. The other was like a real, physical ghost (that I saw in a graveyard in Scotland). So yeah, I guess I’d say ghosts. I don’t know, was I supposed to say something more profound, or more poetic? Like, “The most amazing thing I’ve ever seen is the sun rising over Everest.” I have seen the sun rising over Everest – but I still say ghosts.
If I could travel back in time, I’d…
Stand very still, trying not to create any paradoxes that would destroy the universe, make my image disappear from photographs, or cause humans to follow an alternate evolutionary path resulting in us now all being lizard-tongued beasts.
Working at UncommonGoods, I’ve learned…
So much. I’ve been lucky enough to have been exposed to so many different sides of the business; it’s really been a thorough education. I’ve gotten the chance to take on many things that I don’t think I’d ever have gotten the opportunity to do at another company. I came in as an analyst, but have been given responsibility for everything from PR to project management at various times – I love learning the ins and outs of new things, and how to optimize different programs. I’ve also learned that I can have a viable, successful career without compromising something about myself.
An uncommon fact about me…
I am constantly replacing my bones with metal. I have metal rods in one arm and one leg, because of soccer injuries. I’m hoping that thousands of years from now, when alien archeologists unearth my skeleton, they’ll point to me as the missing link between organic humans and the cyborg overlords that subsequently took over the earth.
Would you rather… go without music for a year, or go without travel for a year?
I couldn’t go without music. I mean, how do people get anything done without Ke$ha blasting over their headphones on repeat? Music is an everyday thing, travel is a treat.
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