Friday, January 27, 2012

Lessons in Public Relations, Week Three

1. Researching is usually more fun than writing.

I never thought I'd say that, but turns out, it's true. My two-part reasoning: (1) You come across all these cool websites/blogs/businesses when you're researching and you learn all this new information while (2) when you write something, it usually gets edited beyond recognition, so what's the point in feeling proud of it/a sense of accomplishment when the final product is barely yours anyways?

When you're new to PR and you haven't learned the voice/tone your company's going for, your end written product will always get edited a ridiculous amount. After they're done, about 5, maybe 10% if you're having a great day, will be your original content.

Personally, I find that rather depressing.

And somewhat discouraging as well.

Sigh.

2. When someone doesn't answer your email within an hour of you sending it and it's still within the work day, call them.

Make that half an hour if the matter was important. We've got no time to wait around for them to respond back. Be direct. Get them on the phone. Now.

3. If the person with seniority thinks they know something better than you, it doesn't matter that you're technically more knowledgable in the subject area and know what you're talking about. Your good idea/better understanding isn't going to be heard by the boss, so just do what the senior person wants and let it go.

I'm not sure I'd follow this advice if I were planning on working here long term or were being paid for my time, but since I'm not, let's just keep the peace and move on.

It also doesn't help that the person with seniority in our office is only about a year older than we are, but hey. That's life.

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Current Thoughts on This Job {That Don't Apply to All PR, Just This Internship}:

1. The 'unpaid-ness' of unpaid internships can start to affect your motivation and drive when you realize how much brainpower you're expending versus how much you're getting out of the internship {experience/learning-wise}.

What makes this even worse is that I'm technically paying to expend lots of brainpower and be belittled for my inexperience because not only am I not being paid, but I have to pay for the bus every day and spend two hours in transit. Lovely.

2. I started counting down how many more times I have to go into the office before this internship is over early last week.

That was the beginning of second week. Aka the third day on the job. Apparently...

3. When I get out of college and get an actual job, I need something that is either (a) more creative, (b) something I really believe in/enjoy, and/or (c) something where the learning curve isn't straight up, which is like running into a brick wall face-first at 60 mph.

With the economy the way that it is though, by the time I graduate, I'll be thankful for whatever job I can get. *sigh*

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