BARREL MAKER: How long have you worked with Barrel Maker? How have your roles shifted since the beginning, and how have you seen Barrel Maker change?
RACHEL: I’ve worked for Barrel Maker for about 4.5 years. At the beginning I did lots of different stuff, and now I still do lots of different stuff – it’s just shifted significantly over time. When I first started, I was handling almost everything – most of the customer service, separating artwork, creating mockups, ordering garments, catching, boxing, shipping, and checking in garments. Slowly, all of these tasks were taken over by other people as we grew. Now that I work remotely in St. Louis, I still handle some customer service, all promo and embroidery orders, and I manage live printing events, online stores, and fulfillment. I’m constantly learning new things and trying to figure out new ways to better our current processes, so Barrel Maker definitely keeps me on my toes!
This is also one of Rachel’s (more dangerous) highlights:
BM: You’ve worked a lot of events. What do you think makes a successful event? What do you think makes an event a total mess?
RACHEL: Keep things simple! The less options you have available keeps the process running smoothly, and this makes it MUCH more fun for participants. They get to see the process and they get their merch quickly! And I would say that exactly the opposite can make things a mess – having too many options makes us run much more slowly, and the more variables you have, the more things can go wrong.
BM: What’s the best thing to do in St. Louis? Can we come visit?
RACHEL: The City Museum is pretty cool, if you’ve never been there check it out! Just wear knee pads. There are also lots of really great breweries to visit! Also, everything is free here too – the zoo, the art museum, the science center, the history museum. And of course, you can come visit but you’ll have to fight my cats for the guest bed.
BM: Wait why do you have to wear knee pads to a museum?
RACHEL: Because these things hurt –
BM: Oh woah. That’s rad. If you’re living in the same city as that tight museum, how do you get yourself to focus while working at home? Do you get to hang out in your pajamas all day?
RACHEL: I just pretend that I’m in the office every day. I get up, shower, and make tons of coffee. Having a space that is set aside just for working helps, so when I enter this space, it’s a work environment. I don’t wear the actual PJs that I wore to bed during the day, but I do get ready for the day and put different PJ/comfy clothes back on. So kinda like fake PJs. And a dragon onesie once or twice.
BM: What’s your advice for being a good client? What are the tips to make your print rep love you? What’s the worst thing a client can do while trying to order shirts?
RACHEL: I love it when clients know exactly what they want, but I understand that not everyone has that luxury! If customers knew what they wanted all the time I wouldn’t have a job, so I’m here to help ?. I also LOVE it when people have nice clean vector artwork, that makes me happy. I think the worst thing a client can do when placing an order is to not communicate what you want. If you expect your print to feel like dragon scales and your print comes out nice and soft, you might be upset. Now if you had just communicated that you wanted it to feel like dragon scales, I can either educate you that it’s not really something we can do or we can figure out a way to make that happen.
BM: Dragon scale shirts are very popular, you’re right. So – after a long day of work, what’s your favorite beer to drink?
RACHEL: I like citrusy IPAs, cause it’s the cool thing to do. And being cool is what’s important in life.
BM: Name your top ten places to hide pistachios.
RACHEL: PJ drawer, under the cat, between the mattresses, in my mouth, vents. That’s all I got.
BM: We’ll remember this for next time. Thanks Rachel!