Uncommon Personalities: Meet Paul Allison

My hometown is…
Brooklyn, NY by way of Chicago and Boston.

I’m inspired by…
Music, kindness, and fun!

An uncommon fact about me…
I had the good fortune to travel the world and sing, and got to travel the world one last time as a competitive Magic: the Gathering Card Gamer. (Magic: the Gathering is a fantasy based card game that has been around since the ’90s that has won numerous awards, and revolutionized gaming.)

The best customer interaction I’ve had at UncommonGoods was…
I appreciate every time when I am able to allay my customers’ fears and make everything right.

When I’m not at work, you’ll find me…
I still have the gaming bug, so elbows deep in game geekery–all kinds of gaming, board games, computer games, miniatures and card games (but not the gambling kind).

Working at UncommonGoods I’ve learned…
It’s a wonderful thing to love you job again.

If I could meet anyone currently or formerly alive, it would be…
Benjamin Franklin. He is one of those people who were a pivot in the course of history. Without him the world, and the United States in particular, would be entirely different. He is an amazing figure of intelligence, creativity and diplomacy. Plus, history suggests he was just a plain groovy guy.

Would you rather… have the ability to read minds, or to tell the future?
Can’t I fly instead? To know the future would be an awful temptation to do some awfully selfish things, and a crush of responsibility to try to stop the ill of the world, while being able to read people’s thoughts is awful intrusive. But flying, just get a snuggly jacket to keep warm up there and you get to skip rush hour traffic and get a heckuva view! And maybe I could get over my fear of heights, although no doubt I would soon develop a fear of street lamps after running into a few.