The Career

So in my last entry I wrote about how I was fired let go from a company, and then I found my dream job, and now I’ve been living happily ever after ever since. 

Or something like that. 

My career path was a complete struggle for me early on, even though I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I graduated school. I had a clear plan: work in California and get paid to take pictures of surfers. Easy right? A girl can dream. And then you grow up and realize when you’re a citizen of a particular country it can be incredibly difficult to work in another country legally if you are 1. not famous and 2. are just your average human with skills that another citizen of that particular country easily possesses and therefore: you are not special. It still amazes me to this day when I sift through resumes for folks applying to jobs at my company, people applying all over the world; ambitious, bright eyed and eager, but like dude — I cannot hire you if you can’t legally work in the country in which we are hiring for. 

Long story short, life and/or labour laws slap you in the face and might change your plans a bit. But I have also learned, that some of these compromises should not force you settle; in fact they should challenge you. Maybe you end up working for a company that you have never heard of before, but it turns out to be the perfect fit. 

Growing up I was obsessed with magazines. I was one of those teens that ripped out pages of magazines and plastered my bedroom walls with ticky tack and glossy pages from Zink. But I also didn’t care if the page was an ad or an editorial shot, whether it was a clever concept or a model with amazing clothes or lighting, it was probably on my wall between 2003 and 2008. So that meant, I was like 13 years old and looking at advertisements for Starbucks and big name brands and thinking in my room “I like that!” And tore out an actual advertisement and put it on my wall. Can you imagine if kids nowadays did that? Anyways, you might have guessed it by now but my first “real” job other than baby sitting and camp counseling was at Starbucks. I dropped a whole 4L container of frap mix all over me in my first week, and I swear I smelled like sugar for weeks on end afterwards. 

Ya gotta start somewhere. 

I only worked at Starbucks for one summer but I’ll never forget some of the simplest customer service things I learned. Some people expect their order right in front of them the moment they walk in when they visit your establishment every single day, apparently this also gives them the right to not even say a word to you and just put money on the counter and walk away. People also are horrible and sometimes carry two cell phones with them (two blackberries at the time) and if you dare ask if ever you are encountered with this type of situation WHY this person is lugging around two cell phones they may answer, “two girlfriends” but I sincerely hope you never have to encounter this scenario. 

So Starbucks didn’t work out but I guess it only makes sense that I eventually made my move into the world of advertising where a common motto of the industry is, “there’s no feelings in advertising.” Not related to seeing the ads themselves, but just working within the field; you can’t let your feelings get the best of you. 

This is likely true for many other industries as well, don’t get me wrong. But I only write about what I know. And what I have learned in advertising is that anytime a client has feedback for you, it doesn’t really matter how absurd it is, or how wrong bold it is, usually you just gotta swallow your gut and do it.

I have definitely learned more working in advertising than I ever have, likely in college and all my other jobs combined. It’s an ever changing landscape which makes it extremely hard to completely understand 100% of the time — but that’s also what makes everyone so vulnerable. Everyone is in the same boat in the sense that nobody really knows everything there is to know about advertising. There’s always more testing that can be done, new updates to certain guidelines or new tech coming out that you need to read up on. I guess as someone who can get bored easily; it’s the perfect fit. Would I say it’s for everyone? Absolutely not. It takes someone who really sees themselves as a jack or jill of all trades but master of none. I’m constantly juggling random shit like javascript knowledge, employee development, new processes, conditional logic, and more buzzwordy bullshit. It’s tough, but I enjoy the challenge. 

Do I work late nights? Sometimes yes. But I feel like I choose to. I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t passionate about my job and what I do. I think it was pretty clear from the start though, being 13 and sticking Starbucks ads to my walls that I would end up in this industry. It’s just not words you hear from your parents often through the walls when they’re talking on the phone like, “We just know they’re going to be the next Einstein” or, “They’re definitely going to Brown on a sports scholarship!” Parents aren’t going to brag to their other parent friends being like, “well my daughter is so smart she rips out ads from magazines and sticks them to her bedroom walls.” 

But to be honest, the modern landscape of careers is changing drastically. Not only are they apparently teaching kids how to code in elementary school now, but salaries and wages are taking a huge shift. So if I’m the woman who got myself into the advertising industry by pure wonder, excitement and awe at 13 turned creative, fast-learner and extreme multi-tasker at 30 then maybe we will evaluate success differently for the next generation. Whether our kin wish to be doctors, office administrators or … dare I say social media influencers? Probably taking it a bit too far on that last one but the point remains — the times, they are a changing. And it’s important to stay up to speed with demand so you can navigate your career path appropriately. 

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