Let's Talk About Ads

It's off to work we go

After staying at work until 11:30pm working on a project with the rest of my team, my boss turns to me and says, "Welcome to advertising."

My hours really aren't all that bad, though. I know the pay is terrible, but it's really easy to pull at 45-50 hour work week. I have friends working 115 hours a week, and we're all still only interns.

I think one of the things I really like about this industry is how flexible everything is. I don't have set hours. I can come and go as I want. A lot of it is my decision. My previous job was very accommodating of my schedule. If I had somewhere I needed to be, I could just tell my boss. It wasn't about asking her permission, it was about letting her know where I was going to be so that she would know not to come looking for me. It's almost the same way now. I left work at 2pm on Wednesday because I felt like I had pulled a lot of hours on Tuesday. I had a friend staying over, and I hadn't had time to do anything with him yet because of work. So I left.

It's also very important to learn how to work professionally at a job. A lot of interns that I've seen still treat work as high school. They're constantly asking their bosses about what to do. They don't know what to do unless someone specifically tells them. They're constantly asking permission for things. They spend their time either procrastinating on work they have to do or fooling around when they're not given any work to do.

Now I'm not say that happens with all interns, nor am I saying that I'm not guilty of those things occasionally. I do have fun at work. I will goof off occasionally as well because I don't want to get burnt out. But I also have asked for long term projects that I can work on. If I don't have anything to do, I'll read things online to catch me up with what's going on in both the advertising industry and the industry of the client that I work for. I like being knowledgeable about the company that I'm working for.

I feel like I've gotten so much more mature since I've started working sophomore year. I wouldn't give away this experience for anything.

posted by Sarah @ 7:44 AM