Have you ever seen those giant cityscapes and dinosaurs at LEGOLAND? Do you ever wonder what it’s like to play with LEGO blocks for a living? Do you ever think about your own comparatively boring career and wonder where you went wrong?
On the final episode of “Do You Work Here?” Mike Simpson took a tour of the workshop at LEGOLAND California in Carlsbad.
Master model builder PJ Catalano said he gets the same reaction every time he tells people his job title: “Is that a real job?”
“Kids love it. They think it’s cool because they see the toys and they see the LEGO,” he said. “But parents are like, wow, that’s way more impressive than we realized it ever was or could have been.”
How does one get such a sweet gig? Catalano said there’s no particular background required. He was a bartender for 12 years before falling into LEGO building.
“Any design helps, any architect [experience] helps, computer science helps, even DIY and construction helps because we also install all the miles into concrete, into wood, into ceilings, into floors,” he said.
This isn’t just child’s play: it takes weeks to build the massive models on display at LEGOLAND. In August, the team was already hard at work on the Halloween display.
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“We have a giant six-foot pumpkin that we built last year,” Catalano said. “It took three of us: one person to design, and it took them about 40 hours, and two of us six weeks to build it.”
Listen to the full episode above to hear more about Catalano’s favorite models and the millions (yes, millions!) of bricks in the LEGOLAND warehouse.
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