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!
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…
Its time for part 2 of this project, this morning I got in and carried on with finishing off my editorial ideas, my personal aim for today is to finish all my feature ideas in time for some feedback. I find it takes a lot of time to work on a pitch especially as I have repeatedly stated its hard to get in the mindset of a target audience who is a lot older than me. I know that I may come across that I have moaned since the start of this project by saying its tough and its hard BUT I would like to point out that I am not giving up and am putting in 100%, this pitch has proven to be a real challenge and it is the first piece of real work I have had to do so of course its not going to be plain sailing, life will always be a massive roller coaster full of ups and downs.
I’m glad my placement gave me a project as big as this to do by myself because I feel having a real taste of something that you truly want to do helps you with your expectation, gives you a real sense of the working world and knowledge on how hard something can be so that in the future I don’t end up going into a career, quitting or giving up because I found it too hard, didn’t like it or not at all what I expected. I can say I kept at it, although challenging and pursued it instead. I remember being told that when I did my GCSE’s they would be the easiest part of my education and that A-levels would a step harder, university would be 10x harder and then putting all that knowledge into real life is even tougher especially when I’m studying a theory based course. So this week so far have made me learn a lot about myself that I can keep going and although I do feel like giving up because it would be EASIER, I’m not I’m carrying on.
Although I find this project so challenging, I am really enjoying it because its pushing me to think outside the box, to be inventive, creative and push myself to produce the best piece of work that I possibly can. I have to always remember that I am working for someone else and not only does this have to be accepted by the client but I have to maintain my placements standard, I have to prove myself, show that I am a creative and a slight perfectionist.
Today I managed to have a meeting with Editor 2 and receive some feedback on my progress so far, it was exciting for me to finally be part of the other side – Editorial. Sometimes I walk past the meeting rooms and see editors discussing with their note books and mood boards and I feel envious that I’m not in there too. The meeting went very well as I managed to receive plenty of tips, Editor 2 was pleased with initial ideas for my feature but suggested that I expanded on them.
Today sounds like I’ve pretty much lounged around because before I knew it, it was 5:30 and I managed to complete 6 slides but I blame F.A.C.E & Keynote, I did try to complete all my feature ideas so that tomorrow I can focus on the outer concepts such as audience, magazine role etc. Keynote, seriously is one time consuming software as well as making sure that everything I have written is geared towards the client. It’s also picking the right picture to liven up the slide which is where media language then comes in along with its denotation and connotation. I will say this, after using keynote you become a perfectionist it will even make you start aligning your bedroom.
Today I left work early due to a hospital appointment, once I arrived in the office I carried on working on my editorial ideas from yesterday. I expanded on my feature ideas and focused on the layout of how to present my ideas to make sure I was incorporating the concept of F.A.C.E. The part I hated the most about this project was the fact that I felt I had no idea what I was doing, getting in the correct mindset was tough, so thinking up of editorial ideas especially as I was finding this so hard revolved around me staring at a blank screen for a while. I hate that feeling of the added pressure of being timed knowing you have to complete this by a certain date but then not having anything to show for what you have done for the working day… writers block and lack of inspiration I feel is the worst especially when working in a creative industry.
Whenever you do anything in a creative industry, everything depends on an idea and I have a silly little theory of how I think of this. I think of it being the process of planting a seed to watching it develop into a flower. My thought process is that the seed is the thought – the raw ideas, the leaves become the work to develop it and the flower is the finished product whereas the nurture of the soil and water are the improvements allowing the idea to grow. I do the exact same thing when writing up my blog posts the notes I scribble down sometimes don’t even make sense but then I work on them, nurture them and can finally then click publish.
Naturally this section was all I managed to complete today and due to confidentiality I cannot discuss the editorial ideas I produced as the ideas are tailored for the client and are very specific!
Finally its the weekend, the last four days have been tough but I am so glad to be able to experience a real taster of the creative industries. Pitching has proven to be really challenging as there is so much that you need to take into account.
Ok for this post I’m going to start it differently you might not see the relevance to start off with but it should become clear as I go on…
I’m going to tell you about where my dream to be an editor has stemmed from I may have briefly mentioned it in another diary entry, apologies if I am repeating myself I’ve written so many that I can’t remember. My dream goes back to when I was 14 years old and I had just started Year 10 in school I was in the 2nd or 3rd from bottom set and instead of studying GCSE English language & literature we were set to study studied English language with Media Studies, as the school felt we were under achievers, at the same time the following series started…
I always had a love for writing and English and the more I studied this class the more I fell in love with Media Advertisements, writing and magazines. For this class I worked insanely hard for it, it was the only place where I put in 110% but in the end it was worthwhile I came out with Grades A in media and B in English language. I actually remember coming out of my media exam in tears thinking, ‘Oh no I ran out of time, that went awful, I’m never going to do well.’ and then when I got my results and seen I had an A I cried again, I was so happy. However watching Ugly Betty opened my eyes to what I wanted to be when I was older I want that job title of Editor in Chief, Ugly Betty aspired me to dream big and while it’s all good to have a dream they can also be toxic at the same time because thinking my life would be exactly like Ugly Betty is not realistic, going to New York and getting hired in a top publishing company would be insanely hard I’m still such an amateur and have a long long way to go. I will always be grateful for my placement because they bought my life down to a reality and to real expectations of what a publishing company is like. Now you can argue that I have only been in one publishing company and haven’t experienced others and that some may be just like what I expect in my dream, the concept is the same it the differences, the organisational culture that makes them different to others.
Today I was so excited to book a meeting room because its give me a tiny taste of what editors that I aspire to, do on a daily basis. I know its a tiny thing booking a meeting room but I’m the kind of person where the tiniest things in life mean the most. Before I would cover reception and editors would ring me to book them a room now its the other way round I’m calling reception to book a meeting room for me! I have my first meeting in a meeting room with an editor, how exciting so now today I have prepare for what I’m going to say and what I want to address…Eeekkkk!! I am always so grateful for the opportunities that my placement give me but sometimes I feel like they see me as a ditsy girl prancing about the office and not taking publishing seriously although that’s probably not true as I have lasted 3 and a half years, its probably just my negative opinion of myself.
Back to the work day, my plan for today was to finish the following by lunch time the social media section of my pitch and then to begin working on the print side of what this magazine can improve. I then printed off the entire document of what I have done so far to show to Editor 1 for our meeting, you know the one that I booked myself 🙂 Editor 1’s feedback was that for the social media section where I am analysing the hash tags that could be used to reach a larger audience are connoted as negative and when doing a pitch you have to sugar coat what you are saying by giving out a positive idea so after the meeting I had to go and re-do my analysis and use my creativity of how I could portray the use of a negative hash tag into a positive one.
Working on print is very hard, actually you know what this whole project is brilliant to be working on as its something extra that I can add onto my CV but it is so challenging and I hope by challenging myself to work towards the high standard that my placement set I will achieve an excellent pitch for them. Thinking of editorial ideas is incredibly hard as you have to be inspired & brainstorm what the audience would want to read, its back to getting into the mindset of your target audience age which for me is 55+ in order to go forward with a idea. One of the criticisms for this magazine is that its dumbed-down whereas the content on their online platform I felt was much heavier (this is just my opinion). Also it is said that magazines are starting to decrease, but it is still important to have a print platform as well as an online one because the older generation still prefer traditional methods of use instead of using the internet. Although some of the older generation have adapted as technology has developed, some still choose to remain defiant and stick to traditional use i.e. magazines and newspapers which is why this magazine could improve in its editorial content as statistics from my social media slides also back this up.
That’s it for today, it’s time to go home and I will see you tomorrow…
Today I got in and caught up with the editor who has set me this task, I will state that in this project two editors are overlooking what I am doing so I have been able to get advice and input from two different editors. Due to confidentiality and their social media policy I cannot state names and clients so to make it clear for YOU, THE READER I will name the editor who set me the task as Editor 1 (original I know!) & the editor who advice’s me when editor 1 isn’t available or is not in the office as she is part time as editor 2. Now that this makes sense and its clear we can unravel how my day went and what I have worked on.
This morning I had a meeting with editor 1 to show her what I had worked on yesterday, I created a word document of the research I have found and divided it into different categories so I know which part belongs where and which slide I can paste the information on. I’m still finding it hard to get to grasp with when doing anything to keep in mind that my audience is 55+ as all content is to target them. Looking through my research document that I worked on yesterday I decide to work on the social media section first and work from the outside in as I find this part the easiest because I understand the use of social media being a massive addict myself and using it in my spare time. I feel that once I have completed this part of the presentation the rest of my research will fall in place.
I took the opportunity to talk to the social media manager and see how I could analyse the magazines online content in order to look for improvements. She suggested a few websites that she uses in her work too where you can analyse tweets and see how many Twitter users a tweet can reach. These websites were very useful in finding how well their content on Twitter was doing, I’ve also uploaded the links to the Useful links page 🙂 http://topsy.com http://socialmention.com http://tweetreach.com/
Topsy analytic’s was the most useful because it has access to Twitters entire database, I remember when I was younger I never understood the point in surveys I would always think how is my information really going to help you? Now that I have analysed data from doing competition entries and trying to figure out how successful this Twitter page is for this project, I understand the importance of how thousands of tweets together can prove to make very important statistics in order to say these are the statistics and this is what they show. Topsy analytic’s has also been in the news recently because Apple have bought social media data analytics firm, Topsy Labs, which specialises in using data from Twitter to track customer sentiment.
For the Twitter section I have 7 slides to fill so far the titles are:
– Twitter
– Companies Twitter Feed
– Statistics Twitters Demographic
– #Hashtag
– Twitter Findings – Improvements
– Social Media Audience
I started by looking at the company’s Twitter page and had a read through of their tweets for 5-10 minutes to get an idea of the content that they uploaded. I then pulled out a few tweets that were worth discussing and mentioned how their content online differs to the content in the magazine and that the company is clearly trying to increase its brand awareness by thanking followers for following, re-tweets and mentions. I then went on to look at Twitter demographic to establish the average age of Twitter users and found that 67% were 34 and below and of that statistic 28% were below the ages of 25 whereas only 33% are above the ages of 35.
Using Topsy analytics to establish how many Twitter users use the hash tag that the company’s posts on their Twitter page was very low in comparison to words that those of Twitter users below the age of 34 would use for example #Job was used 1,377,521 in the last 30 days. I came to the conclusion that the company’s choice of hash tags could be one of the reasons as to why its not increasing its brand awareness, as statistics showed that Twitter is used by people of a young age and the target audience that I had to bear in mind was a lot older this means that the company’s online content could be going to waste due to it not reaching its target audience. In order to improve this I suggested that the company could target different audiences via their multi-platforms in order to reach the maximum possible audience.
In short, I spent all day on the Twitter section but I felt that I accomplished nothing as I only managed to complete 7 slides as KeyNote is very time consuming, also I found when making a KeyNote document you only write up what is essential so that you have squeezed out the most important information from the research you have done as you have to remember when pitching to future clients you want to keep them engaged in order for it to be a success. I like to think of it as if I’m tweeting for each slide so I’m writing the key words that I think need to be mentioned. This is partly the reason as to why I feel I don’t have much to show for what I have done because the slides are simple and to the point.
Work Experience Girl... 