In my second week at Go I was unfortunate to not have a futuristic deadline as a luxury. In a week of work I had learnt that deadlines can change dramatically. Take for example, a proposal was given to Sarah and I for us to prepare a client presentation. We had till 4pm Monday. Perfect, it was still Friday morning and we aimed to start working on it after lunch Friday and finish it off Monday morning. Little work was achieved after lunch as media monitoring became a priority and by Monday morning we were only really just starting the power point. All good though because we had till 4pm right? . Wrong. At 10:55am Monday our supervisor informed us of a change of plan and it was due at midday. Frantic, we pulled together a presentation (yes, we did it) and managed to have it completed by 12pm. The pressure was surprisingly a good thing, where we had to think quickly and smart to complete it.
To my fellow classmates completing their internships, the world of PR is constantly changing (as I'm sure your already aware). The media will change their deadlines, the bosses will change their deadlines and the client will change their deadlines. While sometimes stressful, being organised and being on top of your work at all times will ensure a smooth transition for when the workload due is moved forward a few hours.
Bec
2 comments:
Hey Bec,
Such a good topic to write about for your blog, and one that really relates to work done in PR. Especially in consultancies where you're handing more than one client at a time, sometimes these datelines can overlap! When I was working for a company called Grayling in Singapore, we would always start the day off with media monitoring and complete a daily news report for clients. PayPal was the client I was writing the reports for and I had to hand it off to my manager by 10:45 because she would have to check the report than hand it off to her correspondent by 11, who would then have to post it by 11:30. Sometimes this chain would be a lot longer and it goes to show how important deadlines are because it can affect the rest of the chain if you're late. The upside to all of this is that we are trained to be great time managers!
I hope the rest of you internship goes smoothly and that you get a lot out of your time there :)
KIm
I can completely relate Bec! And I had a very similar experience at the same work-place. I’m super impressed you and Sarah manage to pull together a presentation in that small amount of time – did you both feel it was up to your usual standards? I’ll try to take your tips about time-management on board and apply them to this semester. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Thanks,
Molly
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