wurk»advertising {Your career. Your say.}

When you first rock up to your agency you are uncontrollably full of nerves. You start to climatise when meeting your fellow grad trainees but you’re still on edge. However, no sooner have you asked all the obvious questions (what did you study? what university did you go to?) you’ll be out getting wasted with your new colleagues thinking you’ve never had so much fun with your trousers on and been paid for the pleasure - what a sweet deal. Free lunches, easy 9 - 5 days where all you do is sit and listen to others, visits out of the agency and being expected to be the most hammered at any social gathering. Quite easy for those wishing to drag out their student days.

Well, it all comes to a massive grinding halt I’m afraid and this is usually the time you get put onto an account. Oh no more lunching with management for you, you’ll be lucky to stuff a 99p cheeseburger down your throat as you leg it back to the office to finish off that contact report that has been destroyed by the red pen of doom about ten times already. 5pm? HA, you’ve got more chance of curing Stevie Wonder’s eyes than seeing a 5pm finish as the shit always seems to hit the fan…that’s right…at 4.55pm meaning you’ll be formatting presentations, binding documents, composing emails and tasking a whole stack of admin that, you know, doesn’t have that much to do with advertising into the early hours. You’ll question yourself, the people above you, whether human rights apply in this building and if you ever get out what will be the best way to spend your 2 hour evening before bed. You will also have to pretty much bend over backwards to keep all those above happy and not get that much recognition….well most of the time none.

But it’s ok boys and girls, as like all things, when you hit rock bottom where else is there to go but up. It’s very easy to lose morale in your first year what with all your gimping and feeling like a poverty stricken factory worker. However, you have to put yourself in a mindset that this first year as well as the second is going to be gopher hell. It’s just the way it is and a way to earn your spurs. Big agencies are so nervous about client retention that they will only allow seasoned staff to get really into the nitty gritty. As a result you have to go through what may appear to be a career lobotomy - you join all ready to go and are filled with lots of bright ideas only to be hacked down have no real platform to voice what you think and then be given mundane admin as your purpose in life.

I’m making this sound really bad aren’t I? I don’t mean to, it’s all worth it and hey, of course there is fun to be had along the way. Just don’t sign up to be a grad trainee and think that it’s going to compare in terms of involvement with your buddies in management consultancy. Furthermore, many agencies are growing up and starting to appreciate that the young ones do have brains too…..and just keep telling yourself that once you get through those first two years it’ll start getting much more sexier…and it does. When you hit account manager level you’ll soon have a lowly grad to hand all that archiving and CD burning over to, it’s just natural evolution. The whole point of this post is to reassure you that whilst things don’t seem to be moving they are and while it seems like you’ll be at a photocopier for the rest of your life you wont be.

Enjoy the space to think while you work out your master plan, where you want to be and how you’re going to get there…..the binding machine will provide ample time to do this.

xx