This morning on my way to work, I stopped off in Boots to buy some Leminsip & A-Z Vitamins due to have woken up with a cold, I know some of you may say, ‘It’s only a cold, man up!’ BUT I have a weaker immune system to others due to being diabetic so when I catch one I tend to be very ill so I’m doing all I can to tackle this. When I cover reception my job title within my placement becomes, ‘front of house’ as I am representing my placement I cannot and will not be all fluey when answering calls to clients!
Not how I really imagined my morning to be…
Once I arrived in the office I made sure all meeting rooms were tidy, filled the coffee jars, gave the kitchen a general tidy and made sure that the dishwasher was empty ready to be filled with breakfast plates… I then switched on my computer opened ICAL & emails. Today is fairly uneventful apart from having to prep a meeting room at 12 for a job interview which is good news for me as that means I can write up a lot of my dissertation up until 3 o’clock as the day is suggested to then become slightly busy. Time to get stuck with in with some uni work…
In between writing up my dissertation I had to…
– Sign & hand out parcels – Hand out post – Count competitions – Book meeting rooms – Prep meeting rooms for job interviews – Put paper delivery away
As much as I tried my best to resist until the end of the day, I do not feel well at all even after taking 2 lemsips as well as taking A-Z vitamins and drinking a glass fresh orange juice to try and make myself feel better. I feel annoyed with myself that I had to leave and go home, I feel like I slightly let my placement down especially with leaving them without a receptionist.
On my way into the office I collected the post books from downstairs and once I arrived in the office I was informed to buy dishwasher tabs… I emptied the dishwasher and made sure the kitchen was clean, then got myself a bottle of water, changed the setting of the phone to my reception desk and got stuck in with opening ICAL and emails luckily there’s not much to do today…
In between answering the phones and being ready to drop everything for whatever the editors need…
– I finished updating everyone’s movements for the week on ICAL – Sign and hand out parcels – Hand out the post – Count competition entries – Book a taxi for an editor – Prep a meeting for the management team – Clear out meeting room – Book meeting rooms
Finally I can do some dissertation, hopefully I can get a lot of university work done yay… I do really need to get this done!
In the afternoon… – The PA asked me if I could count some money for her, I feel almost privileged that they ask me to do so as I think it shows trust to trust someone with money – Put on the dishwasher and empty it – Frank and send out the post
As the PA has kindly said feel free to bring in university work whilst covering reception I have been working on my dissertation and I’m so happy to proudly admit in a day I have reached the 1000 word bench mark only 9000 more to go… ahhh
Today is the first day of lent and this year I have decided to actually try and commit to the things I have given up this year, I’ve chosen to give up my alarm snoozes, diet coke, chocolate & cheese… my favourite things in the whole world! If you know me personally you would know that if it was possible I would actually live in a chocolate house, I think I rarely go a day without chocolate, I just cannot resist it! At my placement, for me personally it is impossible to go into work with the mindset to say, ‘I’m starting a diet and keeping to it!’ There are chocolate treats everywhere… Ahhh! Usually if its someone’s birthday or someone has something to celebrate they tend to bring in some treats, leave them in the kitchen and send an email round to say, ‘There are cake is in the kitchen, help yourself!’ How can you not resist?!
I’m ashamed to admit but I’ve cracked already 😦
Today has been crazy…Wow, it has literally been non-stop!
I collected the Special Delivery and Recorded post books from downstairs and made my way up to the office, once I got in I hung up my coat, tucked my bag under the desk and went straight to the kitchen to get myself a drink of water ready for when I’m answering calls. I gave the kitchen a quick tidy, filled the coffee jars, emptied and re-filled the dishwasher with dirty breakfast plates and went back to my desk to open up ICAL to see what to expect from the working day…
Today is going to be a long one… there is so much to do… Yay, I really do think I have become a slight workaholic! I have to prep two meetings, I actually quite enjoy having to do this, making sure everything is presentable, aligned and perfect! I also remembered that I forgot to give back one of the birthday cards back to the PA so that she could post it so that our birthday wishes would arrive on time. Luckily the PA remembered and managed to post it.
ICAL says to do a stationary order for the office and one of the editors asked me if I could order a year diary for them. I’m slightly nervous as I don’t know how to do this, I’ve never done it before…
I am bouncing off adrenaline today…
My reception tasks today were: – Count competitions… Why do people enter them?! Being the one counting them, makes me not enter them anywhere just because I know how minuscule it is to be chosen as a winner there are just so many entries and because I know there will be someone like me also counting competitions. Once competitions were counted I updated the entries in the competition folder. – Book meeting rooms – Answer calls & pass on messages – Hand birthday cards back to the PA – Hand out & sign for packages – Hand out post – Greet visitors… however today I made a silly mistake whenever visitors come into the office the first thing I do is ask them if they would like a drink but today I gave them the wrong cup to drink from as opposed to getting the nice shiny newer glasses… presentation is key! – Ring concierge again about a leak in one of the toilets – Pass on any issues relating to magazine subscriptions to the relevant editor who is in charge of the magazine – Clear out the boarding room – Clean up the kitchen & fill up coffee jars again
AND FINALLY I CAN BREATHE…
The pace of the day has finally slowed down a bit and now have all afternoon to do some uni work, hopefully… fingers crossed!
– The PA asked me if I could sort through the paper left by the printer and send out an email asking everyone to collect what they have printed out otherwise it will have to go in the recycling. She also said to me, ‘feel free to listen to some music whilst doing it.’ I have currently been listening to this on repeat its amazing!!!
After lunch… – The reminder for the office order came up and as I don’t know how to do it and the PA didn’t have time to show me she said to not worry about it as it can wait – Empty and refill dishwasher – Frank and send out post – Food shop, this involves me making sure there are no essentials missing from the kitchen such as tissues, coffee, tea, dishwasher tabs etc. – Bind some documents – Fill the photocopier with paper, stock up the paper cupboard and email the editor in charge of ordering paper to order more.
Last but not least… I also got the chance to do some transcribing, something which I have never done before… I love doing new things at my placements it always makes me feel so positive, the piece of audio that I had to transcribe was 10 minutes long and in relation to mobile technology. For me it was very inspiring and interesting to listen too, as in some ways it was very similar to the talk I posted about and had some great information for my dissertation.
Finally its home time, I cannot wait to put my feet up & Nope I managed to get no uni work done 😦
I’m back for the week covering reception, as usual as soon as I arrived I got myself a bottle of water and got started by opening up emails & ICAL to see what to expect from today…
I know I have said it a thousands times before, but I really am 1000% grateful for my work placement, this week in between covering receptionist, the PA has kindly said to me to, ‘feel free to bring any uni work to do in between answering calls and emails.’ This for me is a load off my shoulders because I can work whilst studying and not have to try and make time for this in the evenings too, especially being in my last year at university and can now visualise my dissertation deadline.
I find Mondays and Fridays tend to be the same… busy, busy, busy.
The best thing about covering reception for me is you never know what job will come your way next, I love the excitement of not knowing. Today’s reception duties consisted of:
– Answer calls
– Pass on messages
– Handing out the post
– Emptied the dishwasher
– Book meeting rooms – Fill out an expense sheet for the commercial director and making sure it was in date order
– Sign some birthday cards, one of the things I love about the office is the organisational culture, I really like how friendly people are here such as whenever its someone’s birthday, a birthday card is sent around the office so that everyone can sign before given to the birthday girl/boy
– Call the concierge to let him know there was a water leak in one of the toilets
– Bind some documents for a meeting tomorrow
– Fill the photocopier with paper
– Keep the kitchen tidy
– Fill up coffee jars
– Search for and print an email for the PA
– Sign for parcels and hand them out & Last but not least… – Frank & send out the post
By 11 o’clock I finally had some spare time to do some uni work seems like I might have to factor in time to do work this evening too, this week is going to be a long one…
I also managed to grab the graphic designer when she had a spare 5 minutes to ask her if I could shadow her even just for a half hour, I feel so proud of myself when I actually embrace a gold mine of an opportunity, go for it and simply open my mouth and ask. Yayy!
I’m not in tomorrow so I will see you on Wednesday!
OH MY GOD! I had the best day EVER and the best part was I was all by myself imagine how happy I would be if I was out with others, I’m currently spreading happiness in my household eeeekkkkk…. nothing and no one can bring my mood down. The advertising and creative industries workshop I mentioned in lifeisfunbeingme was AMAZING!
I wrote pages and pages of notes down, its always interesting to hear the stories of creatives in the industry and I have realised that their story of how they became who they are always differ but I always find they have one thing in common and that is OPPORTUNITY. They always mention how they did something and then the opportunity came along and that opened doors for them which allowed them to network, grow and get to where they are today.
All creatives advise the same thing and that is perseverance, those that become intimidated by the industry because of competition and rejections will not make it you need to be strong and keep at it, because an opportunity for you will happen and those that give up, give the opportunity to someone stronger than them.
This workshop really opened my eyes to the opportunities around me and what I want to do, to be honest as much as I love writing, have had the passion inside me since I learnt how to write my first sentence and cannot shut up if I start talking about my blog. I’m not good at it, some of you may think, ‘Aww she’s wrong, I love reading her lifestyle blog lifeisfunbeingme!’ but maybe that’s because I write it how I speak, yet this has grown to be my writing style you should see how much I beat myself up when I have to write for someone else. I panic because I worry that I’m not good enough, I hate writing reviews they are my ultimate pet hate but I love writing opinions, updating lifeisfunbeingme and getting my opinion across through writing, I’m pretty good when I’m pissed off, I just have to write it on paper and sometimes it turns out to be some of the best work I have ever done. When I know I have to write something that has to abide by certain rules and make sure I tick everything off the checklist, I lose the spark, you should see my essays I dread doing it because I find it so hard whereas here I let go and write whatever I want and how I want my blog is my freedom and no one can dictate how I should maintain it.
I might be repeating myself here but for my module creative industries and professional practice we had to do a project in a media industry where I was assigned to create a pitch for a magazine and I cannot believe I am saying this but when I started it I was absolutely terrified but the more I got into it, the more I got into my task, I ended up enjoying myself so much that I think I may want to work in the creative side of the industry and not editorial, I know it’s been my dream to write since I was a child but I think I want to take the path of brand management and see what doors it opens…
I now know what steps I want to take after graduation, first thing tomorrow when I go home for my hospital appointment and see my parents I am going to sell myself to them hoping they will employ me for my first project so that I can start to build my portfolio, I can become a someone and start to get my name recognised in the big wide world.
Aww today was just amazing, the inspiration you get from these talks is just brilliant I have a massive smile plastered on my face, I sang the whole way home in my car with the radio at like 100 and that smile is still there whilst I’m writing to you guys. I feel even more motivated to go just for it and I feel like I could write for ever. I am so happy with myself that I made the effort to go as opposed to going to my lecture which is the one I dislike the most, I just think imagine IF I didn’t go I wouldn’t have had the chance to gain an insight into 5 peoples working career in the industry I want to be working in, I wouldn’t have realised that brand management is what I want to do and I wouldn’t have realised that as much as I love my work placement, I have decided to leave in September and chase the world to see what else is there. I will always be grateful for all the things they have done for me, for giving me that chance to grow, to find out about the industry but doing admin for the rest of my life is not what I want to be doing, I want to be creative. I thought to myself that I don’t think I really take advantage in being there, and next time I go in I should show them what I am capable of by working on a campaign in my spare time and say these are my ideas what do you think? Can I come in and work on it with your guidance so that I can prove myself? If there is one thing that I learnt today, its in the creative industry you can’t apply for a job in a conventional way, you need to do it creatively to show your future employer you are worthy to be employed because you wow’d them by being creative and doing something different.
See you soon I’m off to make my idea a reality, good luck me:)!
Once I was allocated which computer I was going to be working on I then opened the files I needed to complete today’s task. Following on from Friday I am finishing to input the company’s contacts into their database via FileMakerPro, for those of who have just stumbled onto my blog you will see my tiny rant at how time consuming I find this software, it’s a bit like when you first use a mac and notice there isn’t a right click button or when you first use Photoshop and realise you have to click on the layer you need and then on the arrow to be able to complete the action you need…
Anyway, I’m about half way through before carrying on with today’s task I called over the commercial manager so that she could spend 5 minutes going over what I need to do so that I can make a checklist for my own personal use when inputting the data. For every contact I had to write their Name, Sex, Phone No, Email & Job Title whereas for each company I had to write the name of the company, Sector, Website, Phone No, Address and in the comments write which client magazine it was for.
Today my lunch break was slightly different as it was broken up by going to the pub as it was one of the editors birthday, I really do enjoy speaking to the editors out of the working environment. As I got into the hang of using FileMakerPro rather quickly I finished my task with an hour and 20 minutes to spare, so the promotions manager asked me if I could count the competitions for her. I’ve also found a new soundtrack that I listen to when doing uni work and when in my placement it helps me relax and concentrate… have a listen yourself 🙂
For my project which is what I been working on over the past month I have to create another blog solely for university purpose and in our guidelines we have we need to upload up our CV. Now I have always had trouble with this as I expect most of you guys may have too, I find it hard because every potential employer has a different idea of what makes a good CV anyway I have asked the PA if we could spend an hour or so going over my CV, what better than asking a professional for guidance.
I also asked one of the editors that was overlooking what I have done for my project for some feedback and they said to me what I had achieved was good and I am so proud of myself for that, the more I concentrated on my project the more I began to dislike what I had achieved as I could see plenty of improvements that could have been made. However the editor said to me that I could have added a concluding slide but I was missing budget and what my placement as a company do which was out of my knowledge so she said, ‘Think of it as a sandwich you have completed the middle bit of the pitch.’
Today I’m back to covering reception and seriously multi-tasking as I still have to finish off my project, yesterday I printed off a copy for my own reference to take home and to look over in the evening I found many mistakes and the more I looked at my project the more I had hated what I have achieved. Today I have come in looking at my project with a pair of fresh eyes and making small tweaks that will improve my pitch. See I’m a bit of a perfectionist and I really do think that nothing is ever perfect, take the concept of the pitch it’s basically saying, ‘Hmm what you’ve done is OK but these are the mistakes we see and this is what you should do to improve it’, there really is always room for improvement a perfectionist simply never sees anything as 100% its more something is 99% complete and that 1% is left being improved… a perfectionist will always say, ‘I can do this better’
Once arrived in the office I got myself a big bottle of water, I opened up ICAL and E-mails and I’m ready to be answering phones, passing on messages, writing up remittances and tweaking my project because as I said I think nothing can be ever perfect, it can be right but it can always manage improvements! ICAL shows that today shouldn’t be busy BUT it is Friday and in the media world it means finishing up deadlines.
Covering reception today consisted me of: – Sending out remittances – I did the funniest thing with this today usually the accountant hands me the list of expenses going out with the invoices, most invoices have an E-mail address so that we can forward them their remittance. Each invoice I send a remittance to I stamp with a paid stamp and cross it off the expenses list. Sometimes invoices may not have an E-mail address but they’ll have a contact number so I put these invoices into a separate pile to go through once I have finished the rest. I then contacted the invoices without E-mail via telephone in order to be given an email where we can forward them their remittance, only problem is the first person I called was one of our freelancers in the office and she said to me, ‘I’m in the office, I’ll come over and speak to you now.’ I had no idea it was her as I knew her by her first name only, a bit of office banter is always fun… – Plugging in the editors movements for next week – Franking & Sending out the post – Emptying the dishwasher and putting in any dirty plates lying around – Handing out the parcel – Counting competition entries
My morning was pretty calm as all I had to do were the remittances, then before I knew it I have 3 big jobs to finish by the end of the day…Ahhhh! It was slightly annoying as well as just to top it off the computer was being really slow… I’ll be honest too I have been having some panic attacks lately and getting the opportunity to cover reception again really does help my confidence. I remember the first time I answered the phone I was terrified as I thought to myself, ‘Do not mess this up, you are representing this company.’ I feel I have come such a long way since then but now I feel like I did the first time I did it…simply put I just need to get over myself and do it.
I’ve also finished tweaking project and spent an hour applying F.A.C.E (Font, Alignment, Consistency and Engagement) to finally be able to send a PDF format to the editors for some feedback.
The commercial manager asked me if I could update my placement clientele via File Maker Pro, I had to search for the company first to avoid duplicates in the system and if it wasn’t listed to then add new company, company sector, company website, phone address and in comments write which client magazine it was for and then add the following information name, tel, email & job title for the contacts company.
It’s finally home time :), even though its Flexi-Friday and I made the extra effort to get in early so that I could leave earlier due to being so tired all this week, it ended up back firing as I couldn’t finish on time due to having so much work to do.
I’m back in on Wednesday to finish inputting my placements clientele, so I will see you then…
As I’ve mentioned before for me my biggest challenge whilst completing this pitch was figuring out who I was writing for aside from the client. Completing the audience slide was toughest task I faced as when doing a project similar to this you cannot move forward unless you have established who your audience is. I found even harder as I had to think like someone who was 40 years older than me!
Looking back I cannot believe how much I have progressed in the last two, I’m actually really proud of myself. I started by reading the copy of one magazine which I read over 100’s of times to get inspiration and the online content over and over again in order to figure out what needed to be improved. This assignment has been very overwhelming and challenging but I really did enjoy it. I have finally finished my project ready to send off to the editors for feedback but I’m pretty sure I’ll take one more look at it tomorrow and decide to go through it and re-edit it again before I can say here you go this one is 99% perfect.
Today I was rather annoyed as I spent all morning working on the social media section of my project as the consistency was out of place, hopefully this afternoon will be more productive.
On a positive note, I’ve managed to finish all my feature ideas and I’m really excited that this project has really started to come together. Compared to when I first started only 7 days ago I couldn’t imagine how much I would have improved in such a small time. I can now focus on the concepts which I find the hardest, such as completing the audience slide and getting together the editorial content.
After lunch I had a meeting with editor 1 for some feedback and she told me to look at a pitch in this perspective as I have mentioned before I have been struggling with creating this pitch. She said that the purpose of a pitch in its simplest form is to say that the magazine is good but we can do it better. I’m currently working on the slides i dreaded the most i.e. really focusing on who the audience is and reviewing of current content, although I can proudly say I have completed my editorial ideas.
I spent a few hours going through the slides making sure that all details were correct and F.A.C.E was applied throughout I will say that next time I do a similar project to this I’ll start off with master slides so that I don’t waste time doing it later. I felt that a bit of this project was spent wasting time such as applying F.A.C.E and the master slides this for me was a huge set back as I could have spent the time developing my ideas into more detail.
What’s really good is that recently a graduate student has started her internship within my placement and its been really good getting to know her and to see what to expect after university. I would have loved to apply for the position as I seen it on Twitter but as I am yet to graduate it was not possible.
I am so grateful to have an insight into the publishing world especially having the opportunity of having 1 on 1’s with editors that advice me on what to do as well as ways to improve myself as a creative.
I love my placement so much, I really do feel part of the media industry world… I’m just about Media Media Media! Today I had one of the best days at placement, I got in and was assigned my computer, opened key note and carried on developing feature ideas.
My placement are strict on maintaining their standards and for every presentation they make they always make sure F.A.C.E is present. However when I started creating this pitch I didn’t abide by using the master slides and if I’m honest I forgot too include them. For those of you who don’t know what a master slide on KeyNote is, it’s a slide which defines the slide attributes such as title, body text box layouts and default font styles; the slide background etc. Undoubtedly my placement have their own, so today I copied the master slides from a different Keynote presentation and applied them to my KeyNote document as well as beginning to apply the acronym F.A.C.E.
Making sure everything has face is a real pain as it takes so long, my aim for today was to finish all the slides I have started so that tomorrow I can work on the audience. I’m really getting into the project now as I can see myself doing this in the future.
After lunch I had a meeting on social media with the content director as the last 5 diary entries I have posted I have been at my placement for my module Creative Industries & Professional Practice I have taken at university as not only in businesses but as a citizen you need to be careful with what you post on social media as it can really damage a business reputation as well as an individuals. A stupid comment is all it takes so when using social media especially when having to maintain confidentiality contracts you have to be smart with what you publish.
From the meeting I came away with the golden rule that as long as there is no mentioning of names and any anything you disclose regarding a company i.e. my placement is taken off the company’s website is acceptable as that does not break any social media policy due to already being publicly posted.
I then started to create my checklist to make sure F.A.C.E was being applied, such as in the consistency section I had listed to make sure when using bullet points I would leave a space, then compose the first word and made sure I would use the same type of bullet point for each slide. When looking at how the organisation could improve their use of social media I made sure that there were no mistakes when writing the word Twitter and made sure that every time it was written it was spelled with a capital T. My placement have their own strategy of when using KeyNote to highlight text using the same colour as their logo so that the slide looks appealing and engaging, I made sure that I used the same colour density for every highlighted word throughout the document as well as making sure all font was the same and same size.
That’s it for today, it’s all I managed to complete I’ll see you tomorrow…
Work Experience Girl... 