PR is definately one of those jobs where it can be glamourous at times and other times you are down and your hands and kneees in the rain picking up name tags for an event feeling terribly sorry for yourself.
Tuesday 13th of May marked the day the Federal Budget was to be announced nation wide.
It was also the day that rained and rained continued to rain.
Making my job of carrying 360 guest name tags from one side of the city into the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre (PCEC) a horrible job. To make things worse off I dropped about 30 of them off a tray in the pouring rain and had to get down on my hands and knees and pick them up and wipe them down.
These name badges were for ANZ's Annual Federal Budget Dinner that afternoon.
We had just over an hour to set up the badges in alphabetical order on a dressed up tressle table, put up a million pieces of signage and set up the programs onto each table including a billion pens and bits of card for a competition.
Once that was done we had the shock of our life, two guests who had obviously gotten the time wrong and so they went for a walk and returned about 45 minutes later.
During this all, i was thirsty, dehydrated and had lost my shoes. Typical girl thing, to wear super high heels and complain about how sore the feet get, then take them off and lose the bloody things.
Eventually I found my shoesies and was sent to do the meet and greet at the top of the escalators. Dieing of sore feet from standing and repeating the same greeting I felt like such a doll and my face was aching from smiling. But the guests seemed to be delighted with people giving directions and just being greeted was nice for them. They even thought we were the PCEC staff.
The ANZ nationwide event was held simultaneously across the states and so WST we were having entrees at 5.30pm. Well I should say guests were, we didn't even get a pickle for our work so we were starving but we had plenty of jobs to fulfill.
A competition was held called "guess the number of times the word inflation would be said during the announcement of the budget". Well we had guesses from 0 - 439! The correct number was 15 and it was shared by 10 people. Each of them scored two bottles of D'Arenberg wine so they were content.
Meanwhile guests were enjoying their meals and being entertained by a comedian, we were counting and sorting the the competition answers and laughing about silly comments that were written down. The food smelt spectacular but all I could do was sniff from a distance hahahah
Then all of a sudden, we were left jobless, the only job left was to collect all then pens and programs off the tables when the event finished.
It was a large event but majority of it was organised from Melbourne - our head office so as a result we couldn't really write any media releases or anything of that sort but I have included it as a feature in the WA Newsletter.
So, it does prove that PR does involve good bits and pretty horrible things... fingers crossed I don't particularly want to scrub a toilet before an event but.... I do believe all the uni lecturers when they say its a job that has to be done and most times it is the PR people that do it.
Fair enough. I did get a chance to be involved in making running orders (thanks to PR techniques!) and tedious jobs like making name tags and sorting them in alphabetical order. Glad that's over. Phew! I now know my alphabet if I didn't before.
The event allowed a lot of insight and I was able to capture some good piccies for the final report.
That's all for now folks!
Love Lannie xxx
3 comments:
I know what you mean when you say odd jobs! I have been updating my company's contact's database for nearly three weeks. There is only one word to describe that job: BORING! Yes it is the most boring job ever and I do not see where it fits in PR ( I have not studied PR to do that!). But database administration is very important because: 1. If database is outdated, we cant contact clients.
2. If we cant contact client, we have no deal, thus no money.
3. If we have no money, organisation cant work- so PR cant work!
Well I also assume that this is not the job I will be doing because they normally assign those database administration stuff to interns, so I just do it for the sake of doing it.
In the internship I have been doing, 25% has been PR and 75% has been database administration. The good thing here is that I have understood how to use Excel properly and I have understood the true value of everybody's job in the organisation.
Oh yes, database entry…. We all have been there, believe me! I have spent months and months (that’s at least what it feels like) updating databases and contact details, in a range of jobs…and unfortunately, I have to tell you that data entry never goes away. You heard me right: NEVER.
You might find yourself an intern to help out, but at the end of the day, if you are working in public relations and you are in charge of a project, campaign or even international strategy – there will always times when you simply have to roll up your sleeves and do what has to be done.
On a positive note though: It’s amazing how much you can ‘soak up’/take in when you are working on mundane tasks such as data entry!
Hi all, Yes I have to agree with Katharina in that database admin/entry doesn't go away. From my experience even in this short period of time I've had to do data entry for an events I've organised. I had to enter in all their contact details so I could keep track on how many people were attending but by doing this it made it so much easier to send out letters etc. Also when you're updating media lists - you're either entering their details in for the first time or changing details. Thats all database work. So yeah, it doesn't go away but the more you do it the quicker you get at typing so that could be a bonus!
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