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The Uncommon Life

Uncommon Personalities: Meet Anthony Carella

September 10, 2013

UncommonGoods Inbound Warehouse Team Lead Anthony Carella

Anthony Carella, UncommonGoods Software Developer

My hometown is…

Brooklyn, NY

My favorite process in the UncommonGoods warehouse is…
Returns! It encompasses every aspect of the Inbound operation and requires extreme attention to detail and a vivid understanding of how we do things at UncommonGoods. It also gives me insight as to why customers return our products, and that information is then used to better serve our customers and improve our products and business.

I’m inspired by…
My wife, my daughter, my family, and my sense of self-confidence.

The best gift anyone has given me was…
Unconditional love. I know it sounds cheesy, but sometimes growing up as an only child is rough. My mother, cousins, aunts and uncles were always there for me and provided me with support and compassion.

An uncommon fact about me…
During my late teens and early 20s, I was a world champion at the video game Dance Dance Revolution. I was on MTV twice, was in a music video, was in a New York Magazine article, and have over a million Youtube video views all from me playing Dance Dance Revolution.

When I’m not working, I’m probably…
Playing video games, spending time with my wife and daughter, cleaning/organizing/straightening something up, collecting permutation puzzles, reading science fiction novels or coding.

The word that best describes me…
Sketch. This was my nickname for everything growing up.

Working at UncommonGoods, I’ve learned…
That your career can change so much without you anticipating it. I went to school for business and accounting, got hired at UncommonGoods to work in the warehouse for the holiday season, and now (a few years later) I am still here and a software developer.

Would you rather … Have a lifetime subscription to your favorite magazine OR get to play for free at your favorite arcade for life?
I would definitely choose playing for free at my favorite arcade for life. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, arcades were such a prominent part of my generation. My all-time favorite arcade was called Broadway City and it was located in Manhattan, NY. If I were allowed to play all of the games for free, I would lose my mind!

Gift Guides

Gift Lab: How To Be a Real Smooth Guy

April 29, 2013

Research
Hard work comes at a price; rough hands! I chose the 7 Day Hand Repair Kit for Men for my experiment because it seemed like the perfect product to give my hands an overhaul. The designer of this kit was a mechanic for 20 years, and his damaged hands pushed him to make this product. Coupled with the fact that I have never tried anything like a hand repair kit before (although my neighbor wore gloves everywhere because she was a hand model), I figured that this might have interesting results.

Hypothesis
I was very active as a teenager, and I work in a warehouse now, so this seemed ideal given that my hands have lost many battles in the hand-aesthetics department. I predict that I will have softer, more moisturized hands by the end of the seventh day of me using this repair kit.

Experiment
I figured that Monday morning would be a good day to start this experiment. I opened the kit, which includes soap, hand repair lotion, knuckle wax, night salve, cotton gloves and butter nub along with instructions.

The instructions on the kit state that there is a morning and evening routine. The first step in the morning routine was to thoroughly wash your hands with the hand scrub soap. The soap actually made my hands feel smooth and soft after using it.

Next, the instructions state that after the soap, I should use the hand repair lotion followed by the knuckle wax. After the first couple of days I did not really notice much of a difference. However, at around the fourth day, my hands did in fact feel somewhat softer.

The evening routine varied slightly. After using the soap and hand repair lotion, the instructions stated that I must coat my hands with the night intense salve instead of knuckle wax and then cover them with the cotton gloves. The main ingredients in the salve were cocoa butter and shea butter, which left my hands shiny and slippery (even after rubbing the moisturizer in for a couple minutes). I left the gloves on overnight and took them off when I woke up the next morning.

The butter nub, which has skin healing oils and is meant for on-the-go moisturizer, took a bit of extra effort to get out of the container as it was of a more solid consistency. My wife described the smell of it as similar to shea butter, although it definitely seemed harder than the night salve. Throughout the seven days of hand repair, I used the butter nub in an attempt to moisturize my hands while at work and home.

Conclusion
My hypothesis was correct. My hands actually felt softer after using the 7 Day Hand Repair Kit for Men. This was a cool experiment that allowed me to improve my hand texture and keep them moisturized. If I did this again, I would probably use less of the butter nub as that seemed to have the least effect on my hands. Overall, though, the morning and night time routine seemed to work after a few days, and now I have great hands! Well, maybe not great, but definitely smoother than before I started using this kit.