Being a senior is weird. While I am savoring my last year full of tailgates, $3 Thursdays and being able to wear jeans 24/7, I am also looking forward to becoming a real person. I got a good taste of reality this summer at FleishmanHillard* and I absolutely loved it! It was fantastic to be in the city every day with the hustle and bustle of so many other people going to work at the same time. I enjoyed the challenge of working at a PR agency and all of the amazing people I met along the way.
I can't believe I haven't done one of these posts sooner, but I thought I would write about a day in my life as a Health & Wellness intern at FH this summer. As anyone in PR will tell you, no two days are ever the same, but I thought I would try to summarize the basics of what I did all summer. I'm super nostalgic for being at an agency right now and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm just over classes at the moment. This is about a typical Thursday because that was my favorite day of the week - you will quickly see why. Enjoy!
5:30 a.m. - Woke up bright and early (it was often dark when I got up) to shower and get dressed. At the end of the summer, I had streamlined my routine a bit and could wake up at 6 a.m., but that was pushing it.
6:30 a.m. - My dad dropped me off at the train station and he headed to work.
6:49 a.m. - Caught the train. I loved being among the sea of commuters on their trek to work. I definitely felt grown up as I read on my iPad mini every morning.
7:50 a.m. - Walked to work. The train station was about one and a half miles from the Aon Building, so it was a bit of a hike. I enjoyed passing the same people every day who were also on their way to work. Thursdays were especially fun because there was a farmers market in Daley Plaza. I was always tempted to stop and get a treat, but never had time.
8:30 a.m. - Started my work day. I would usually catch up on my media monitoring by going through the Google Alerts that came in overnight. These alerts helped me find coverage based on keywords that I set up. I tracked recent issues and general industry news related to nutrition products that would be of interest to the client. I would keep track of the coverage in a Excel spreadsheet and at the end of the month, I synthesized the information into key trends and issues and created a monthly report.
10 a.m. - Every day differed because I would get projects from various team members when they needed help. Sometimes I would work on an ongoing research project while other days I would complete a writing assignment. It all depended on what was needed at any given time.
12:30 p.m. - Headed to lunch with my intern FHriends. Jimmy John's was always a favorite of ours - I discovered the Beach Club this summer...best and worst find ever! I loved chatting with everyone and just having an hour break in the day. Once you are hired at FH (and I'm assuming this is similar at most other agencies), you no longer get a lunch so we were always encouraged to take our full hour, unless we were extremely busy (which sometimes happened!).
1:30 p.m. - Throughout the summer we would have brainstorms to plan an upcoming campaign or generate ideas for a new client proposal. During these meetings, I would take notes on the board for the group and it was always so much fun to hear the new and creative ideas my teammates had. I enjoyed challenging myself to come up with innovative ideas and ways to execute them.
3:00 p.m. - I created many media lists this summer, compiling journalists' contact information for various outlets including broadcast, online and print publications. I used Cision to search for this information and exported it into a massive Excel spreadsheet. The media lists were then used to pitch to journalists, so it was imperative that I picked the most appropriate contact person, therefore increasing the likelihood that the story would get picked up.
4:00 p.m. - TREAT CART! This is the reason that Thursdays were my favorite. The whole office would stop what they were doing and head to the kitchen where a big spread of food and drinks would be available. My favorites were the cheese and crackers (and cupcakes sometimes!). We even had beer and wine. It was so much fun to socialize with the rest of the office, especially since I sat on the north side and didn't always get to see everyone else. I loved that there was a work hard, play hard atmosphere at FH. We were spoiled for sure, though!
4:20 p.m. - After treat cart, there was only about 40 minutes left at work, so I would start wrapping up for the day. I would finish the tasks for that day and then examine my future workload, prioritizing the projects that needed to be done first over the ones that had a bit longer lead time. If I realized that I didn't have much on my plate for the next day, I would let my supervisor know so that I would always be busy.
5:00 p.m. - Done for the day! We had to keep track of our time at my internship so that FH could bill the client properly for the work that we did on each account. For this reason, we couldn't stay longer than our 7.5 hours per day. Time entry was a beast to learn with all the different project codes and sub-codes. My brain does not deal well with numbers and I wanted to be meticulous, so I would always do my time entry for the day before I left so I wouldn't forget anything.
5:33 p.m. - Take the train home. I loved to catch the express so that I could be home in about 40 minutes instead of the full hour it typically took. I really enjoyed having this time to catch up on some reading. I cranked through so many books over the summer and it was probably the saving grace of my otherwise terrible commute.
7:00 p.m. - Dinner with my family - a plus of living at home!
11:00 p.m. - Lights out for another amazing day at FH!
My incredibly messy but well-decorated cube. Things that got me through the day: all the Diet Dr. Pepper I could drink and the Vampire Weekend station on Pandora. Oh, and Post-It notes!
What is your day-to-day work routine like?
*All thoughts and experiences are my own!
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