Agencies are all the same…

When I first started my agency gig I was so excited.  It was totally new and I could make it whatever I wanted it to be.  After about 3 months my manager/mentor quit and I was left mainly with PR people from the old agency.  Another few months went by and the third partner quit so we were struggling to maintain 4 employees.  But then a lot of clients began asking for website work and while the GM was originally more focused on 1.PR 2. marketing – he couldn’t stop the web dev train.  We did not have the capability so I took it upon myself to learn HTML, photoshop, a bit of javascript so I could design (badly) and program sites using FrontPage or Dreamweaver.  Most of our clients at the time were PR people who needed some kind of online presence – in other words they weren’t really brand or marketing people so we didn’t necessarily have to be expert designers or roll-out large-scale sites.  This was a boon for the agency though and I am proud to know I had a hand in that growth.

Over the 5 years I was there I ended up managing a little team of account people and freelancers.  By far the worst part of managing is having to fire someone.  I always see good in people and I had a VERY hard time hiring qualified and reliable people.  I think I focused too much on personality and not enough on skill/experience.  It was a great learning experience, if nothing else.

After 2 years I was getting antsy so I went for my M.A. in Communications – I got it from a great online program at Seton Hall University – but I really should have gotten my M.B.A., big mistake.

After that I started looking for another job.  The GM was nice on a personal level – a great guy really – but from a business perspective he was a nightmare.  I don’t think he ever really wanted the agency to get too big but it started feeling claustrophobic and not enough of a challenge for me.  I get easily bored can you tell?!  He also just did some asinine things which I can’t even remember but I know they frustrated me and my colleagues immensely.  Actually I think the biggest issue was the fact that he micromanaged everything so you would have a discussion with a client and he would come in and change something.  There was no independence whatsoever and it basically felt like nothing you ever did was right, totally horrible and demoralizing.

I guess he was ready for me to go too after 5 years because he didn’t even ask what could be done for me to stay.  I guess I was just a little hurt by this because although I couldn’t stand him as a manager I loved him as a friend.

We spend SO much time with people we work with – think back to all those people! – and you share SO much complaining, confiding, and then you just never talk again.  It seems so wrong…

Up next, I get a job on the “client-side”!

Bad mascots are not PR worthy!

After commuting to NYC I was ready for a job closer to home.  I answered an ad for a PR Coordinator position at an international hospitality company because I thought PR would be a nice fit for my English/Journalism degree – and to my dismay I could not find anything remotely related to online PR or marketing.

This was my first real corporate job and really it was just a welcome back into high school between people being territorial, wanting attention and just general political B.S.

The director of our group ended up getting fired a few months into it – I never knew why but I heard rumors it was related to sexual harassment, who knows.

Then my direct manager got fired and this was classic.  She was nuts to begin with – I had no idea why upper management didn’t like her but she flipped out on me because I couldn’t get any media people to attend an opening of a sub-par hotel chain in the middle of Florida.  I was beyond annoying by sending and re-sending press releases and calling media folks and calling again and again and again…all about this opening at which there were going to be the hotel chain’s fabulous mascots Sunny and Daisy.  Yup.

Anyway I got reamed for not getting anyone to go – wow did I hate this job, another bomb for me.

Then one day out of the blue the hotel chain VP asked me to her office to find out if my manager had said anything about her or the President.  I had a brief moment of exhilaration – this was the chance of a lifetime, I could FINALLY speak my mind and totally crush my idiot manager.

But I didn’t.  As much as I hated her I just couldn’t do it – a little part of me actually felt sorry for the woman I guess.  She got fired anyway so it didn’t matter.

Then I tried to worm my my into the marketing department quite unsuccessfully so I ended up leaving there after only 8 mos.

Luckily a few of the guys from my old online PR job had started their own business and I was able to join them as one of the first employees!