Interview with the newest Woot Staff

Travis Gentry ("TGentry"), besides being Shirt.Woot's most-printed artist, is now also their newest employee. Travis kindly agreed to an interview so we could get a few more details about his new job and how he got it. If you're curious about how Travis got his start, here's his original artist interview from way back in Derby 25.

Tell me about your day job before you worked at Woot.
I was a Character Artist/3D Modeler for a game company in Bellevue, WA. I drew up characters and modeled and textured them for the animators to bring to life.

I know you were already in Seattle before Woot moved there. How did you and Woot find each other?
There had been some talk about it when they were still in St. Louis, but the logistics of it weren't really feasible for either side. My family is pretty firmly entrenched here. So I made a call to my pal Jeff Bezos and he did me a solid. Next thing you know the offices are moved to Seattle and we started talking again. There wasn't really an interview per se... just some talking back and forth. I guess my several years subbing shirts was the long, drawn out interview. If I had known that I would have worn something nice.

I know you, Barbara, and Joel share the Shirt.Woot administration duties. Anything more you can tell us about that or your role at Woot?
I'll be finding art to print from familiar and new artists, helping to plan special events and ideas we have for the site, dealing with day to day business such as derby themes, honorable mentions, and Editor Choices, and washing Joel's car. Some people have asked if I'm the one doing rejections now -- that's something that will be handled by all three of us.

I know you can't participate in the derbies. Will you do occasional Woot-staff dailies? Any other artistic outlets in your job?
Woot-staff dailies aren't out of the question. That's pretty much the extent of the shirt designing I'll be doing though. There's also no shortage of non-shirt related design work that needs doin', so I get to have fun with that. I also love giving feedback and guidance to artists looking to get printed, so I'm hoping people will take advantage of that. And I'm still doing personal work in my free time, so I have plenty of creative outlets.

What surprised you most about seeing Woot from the other side?
I think what surprised me most is just how dedicated the staff here is. If something needs to be done in the wee hours of the morning, you can bet someone is on top of it - even if it's something you might not notice. The perception in the shirt forums might be that the staff doesn't care much, but in fact it's quite the opposite. Even if they don't post a lot, they are constantly looking at and discussing everything that goes on. They are just as into shirt.woot and it's qualities and quirks as you guys are.

Can you give people an unequivocal "yes" that there are plans for Classics to return in some form someday?
Yes, I can't give you any unequivocal answers on that.

Do you want to give people a "tease" for anything cool coming down the road? Anything else you'd like to share?
I've been privy to some "down the road" stuff that I think is very exciting, but of course I can't really talk about it.

Thanks for the taking the time to do this, Travis!
Sure thing! Please include my woot email as well. I'm here to help as best I can! tgentry@woot.com

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