Events, Executives and Early Mornings

I'm well over halfway through my internship at Devahasdin PR and am really enjoying it. This week hasn't been as crazy hectic as last week was with our corporate event, but still have managed to keep busy and get plenty of work done! I feel that the biggest couple of lessons I've learnt this week is that PR is not a 9-5 job, and although we have office hours of 8.30-5.30 from Monday-Friday, there are always client events going on after hours and on weekends that Account Executives and sometimes other team members have to attend.

We had a big event for one of our clients on Sunday night that went until from 5pm onwards, and our Account Executive for that client was there well before 5pm and didn't leave until midnight. That doesn't sound too bad in the scheme of things usually, but then she was up at 5am to be in the Channel 9 studios by 6am for an interview with those same clients. Then from there, it was off to another photo opportunity for post-event coverage, and we weren't back in the office until 11am, then it was business as usual, handling other clients and our regular work until our usual finish time of 5.30pm. Fortunately I wasn't up at the early morning studio interview, but watching my Account Executive going from event to interview to photo op to regular office was insane, and really reminded me of how crazy PR can be! Not that I'm complaining - I loved attending the photo opportunity and watching the PR team liaise with Channel Ten and the newspaper photographers then jump back into the office for follow ups and media monitoring. I really like the fact in this profession that you can be plugging away at the computer then have to up and go at a moment's notice for a client meeting or photo opportunity.

Besides that, I've been doing a lot of work on client PR reports and clippings journals, as well as calculating PR values and writing up event listings. I've also noticed that my confidence on the phone has improved a lot, and that's definitely come down to having to call publications and newsrooms regularly to check for coverage on our clients. I've also learnt never to take someone's word over the phone that 'they will email you,' and to always make a note to follow up with them that afternoon or the next day if you haven't heard, because chances are, as soon as you hung up the phone after giving them your email address, they'd tossed it away (or hadn't written it down at all) and moved on with their day. That doesn't always happen, mind you, but I've learnt that it's important to keep following up, but without hassling them.

I'm forever loving the culture here at Devahasdin, and I love working with everyone here. Today was our accountant's birthday so we went and bought delicious baguettes, salads and cake, and had a lovely lunch in the boardroom which was really fun, and good to take a break out of our day and have a chat about non-work related issues. We also have an event tomorrow night at my Director's house to celebrate her becoming an Australian citizen (she's Scottish) which I'm really looking forward to, as it'll be good to get to know everyone outside the office and I'll be sure to put up how it goes on my blog post next week. Until then, happy interning everyone! :)