First Last Day: Your Account Has Been Closed

Hi

i Hope You are having fun right now! It’s Sunday, so i’m getting this post to you much later than I prefer, but it couldn’t be helped. I’ve been traveling by bus (33.5 hours to be exact!) to my next job and unfortunately, buses don’t have wireless Internet connection. I’m sure Amanda, Kieley, and I may find blogging to be difficult depending on the job location, travel length, and the amount of Internet we have access to in general. Why have I never thought about this until now? Nevertheless, more challenges! I’m ready for them.

So, about my last two days as an account executive. They were pretty low-key. I’d characterize the entire week as low-key, but the last two were moreso because they didn’t bring any official shadowing opportunities.

On Thursday, we had a date with Chicken Express. Jeremy and I decided to have lunch with his friends Dennis and Josh, whom I mentioned in the previous post. We also had lunch with another one of their friends, Julie. Julie is the Editor for the paper that Josh and Dennis are Art Directors for. Everyone works so closely together! The meal was great because it was free. Okay okay, it wasn’t great for that reason alone. It was also great because I (here I go again) got the chance to “deeply discuss.”

The following is an excerpt of what went down:

After the conversation ended, Josh said something I found interesting:

“YOU SHOULD LET US KNOW ON YOUR BLOG WHEN YOU GET TIRED OF HAVING THESE DISCUSSIONS OVER AND OVER AGAIN.”

I laughed and thought about my response before giving it:

“I won’t ever get tired of talking like this, because for me, it truly is new every time. To hear a different person talk of what they love, or how to love, or how to live love, is new. Every time. These were the conversations that fueled me throughout school, and still do today. The ones that seek to examine our existence, how we choose to spend our time on Earth. The discussions that do get old quickly are the ones we choose to have instead, unconsciously and repeatedly. The ones that talk about how fat we’re getting, how broke we are, how “unhappy” we are, though we don’t make serious moves to change things. Those are the discussions I get tired of. I wish we never had them.”

Yep.

After lunch, we all went back to Dennis and Josh’s place and spent the rest of the day working on our respective assignments. I also took my shot at the weird chair from Wednesday’s post:

On Friday, my job as an account executive came to an end. Ryan, Jeremy, and I had lunch over laptops at the good ol’ church. If you didn’t notice, this was my first time to see Ryan since Tuesday. I had missed him! We took a few pictures, and discussed projects. Jeremy had to leave for a project, and Ryan and I left not too long after that , because there was a huge rainstorm. My last duties as an account executive were to update the websites, and to finish writing the articles. I finished those by the end of the day.

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Question Time.

What did you dislike about the job? Why?

I didn’t dislike anything at all. I think it’s because I did a great job maximizing the learning potential for everything I encountered. I can’t think of one thing I disliked. Oh, actually, I disliked that it was only one week. I imagine I’ll be saying that again, but this is one reason that a virtual or work-from-home company would be bad. I don’t feel as if I got to know my co-workers and boss as much as I could have.

I enjoyed spending time with them when I got the chance, so by the week’s end, I felt a little sad to go. If I were to work for a virtual company, I’d probably work harder to have random hang-outs or something. Yes, I’d be that co-worker that wants to get together after work hours. Nothing beats a regular dose of face-to-face interaction.

What did you like about the job? Why?

I liked the people. I liked every person I met. There was not one time where I felt uncomfortable or out of place, and I thank Ryan and Jeremy for making things that way. People really make or break any work environment. Again, I also loved the flexibility of the work hours. I felt less pressured to just get the work done, and took time to do some background research to optimize my chances of creating a good finished product. I liked the different stories that came with the different accounts and marketing packages. As an account executive, you are constantly maintaining the image of a business, and while that can be stressful at times, it keeps things fresh. You’re never doing the same thing each day. Whatever I end up spending my future doing, I want each day to be unpredictable like those of the past week.

What lessons did you learn from being an account executive?

1. Be ready EARLY. Ryan lives 2 minutes away from my house, and he was my ride to the big client meeting on Tuesday. He ended up coming earlier (yeah only about 10 minutes earlier) than he said he would, and I was taking my sweet time to look pretty. It never occurred to me that he would arrive early, so I had to rush a little. I have this weird thing where I try to use every minute I can get, like Ross from Friends, when he’s checking out of a hotel room. It always messes me up. In short, your boss should never be waiting for you at your front door. You should be waiting for him.
2. Do SOMETHING. Those articles. That was my big assignment, and I took it seriously. However, I spent so much time enjoying the research that I didn’t start to write my articles until Friday afternoon. What I should have done was start to write something, and ask Ryan for feedback every step of the way. Instead, I wanted to do a thorough search before starting, which ended up with me doing my assignment at the very last minute. While I did learn a lot about SEO writing by reading about it, I could have learned more by researching a little, actually writing something quickly, rewriting, researching again, rewriting again, etc. In short, BALANCE is the key to efficiency and a job well done.
3. People are everything. If You don’t like the people you work with, you’ll be miserable. Know the difference between situations where you need to stick it out and just learn more about a person, and situations where you need to remove yourself immediately because things are too toxic.
4. Smile first. This is random, but it makes a difference in the work environment, for you and those around you. Those two outcomes probably work hand in hand. I’ll let You think on this one.

Would you do this again, as a more-than-one-week job?

Yes, but it would have to be one of many jobs, which would be my ideal “work” format, anyway. Ryan has another employee who used to be more part-time but now only acts as an account executive for a few accounts, getting paid by the hour. I think this situation would be more ideal for me, so I could get the chance to be a part of a flexible company and develop relationships with a few clients, but also get the freedom to be a part of other industries. If I worked more with Ryan for a few years, I think I could get to a place where I could manage a few small accounts on my own. I’d have to work hard of course, since I have had no formal training in writing, PR, marketing, journalism, etc.

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Aging, ageism, cheese and gray hair

4 Comments Posted in: One Week Job - USA | May 16, 2012

“Age is not something that matters much unless you are cheese.”    (from Brain Rules by John Medina; sent to me by my friend, Ann Dockendorff) So, I wish that that was true.  I was walking Brady dog  yesterday and ran into Bill, the gregarious, handsome, warm, intelligent and beloved social hub of the hood.  He told me that …

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