bye, bye, bang, bang!

Hurry on over to http://getpaperswag.tumblr.com/ 

And if you're contemplating leaving your job then

1. Do it.
2. Get help here.

Much love.

the day jesus told me I look like his high school sweetheart.

He appeared out of nowhere. (Mad Jesus skills.)

I was hunched over Martin Lindstrom's buyology, frantically sipping on an iced latte and munching on McDonald's free Wi-Fi, checking my work email while trying to figure out where the hell I was. I mean, I was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn - I knew that much. But that borough is very unfamiliar territory to me. There are NO cabs in Brooklyn. Plenty of plaid shirts though.

Anyhow. All of the sudden he was standing there, looking all wise and holy (with a pair of brand new sneakers if I'm not mistaken?), saying I reminded him of high school and then he told me to 'keep doing what it is you do best, and if you need any help I'm always here' (See - Jesus!)

I smiled, thanked him and he walked up to the counter and ordered a burger. 'Lucky bastard' I thought, '...he could turn that burger into thousands if he wanted to'

I was writing an email to one of the guys whose apartment I was about to go view, then Jesus appeared again. This time he said: 'Excuse me, is that an important text you're sending?' I looked up, told him no, and put down my phone.

'I just wanted to tell you how much you remind me of this girl in high school, we went to prom together you see...' Jesus was smiling when he told me this story, but his eyes were sad (and a bit disoriented). I listened to his story like a good Christian, I mean, except that I'm an atheist - but no need to inform Jesus about my religious view. He finished his story, without revealing if it had a happy ending or not. Did he end up with his high school sweetheart? I don't think so. But I seemed to have brought Jesus a few moments of happy memories that Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn, which reminds us all, to put down our phones once in a while, shut the fuck up - and listen.

so this is when i should shut up?

So let's make an average length story short and a mediocre plot exciting here, shall we?

I was offered full-time employment at the company where I'm currently interning. I was offered 25k a year plus a 5k bonus. One word popped into my head: what a fucking insult. Whoops! (That was four words.) I said no. I was offered 28k plus the 5k bonus. Seriously people? Have you not noticed me here? Putting in an absolute minimum of 10 hours a day. Working til 4am? Replying to work emails during the weekends? Are you guys seriously not realising my value here? I mean, I'm currently using about 75% of my abilities here, and they genuinely expect me to bring it all to the table for a handful of peanuts? You know what David Ogilvy said; if you pay peanuts, you'll get monkeys...

Our HR person was clearly pissed off when I brought this up (again) after I was granted my absolute minimum requirement: 30k plus the 5k bonus (a bonus only paid if I meet the expectations (?)). The immature little pisshead living inside of me (oi, come on now, we all have one) wanted nothing more than to say 'fuck you and good luck', take my belongings and leave the office immediately - the beauty of being an intern, you can do that shit.

But.

Instead. 

Instead I listened to her rant that was in no way related to my initial question (regarding the healthcare plan), and had to sit through a bunch of 'personal opinions' concerning my way of addressing the issue. An issue I had addressed from the very beginning - i.e I want to see all of the details of the healthcare plan and dental care  (JoJo, you're not in Europe anymore), bonus system etc. Even after having brought this up on several occasions, I never got a clear answer. Hence, I'll get cheeky. Hence, it could potentially piss people of (HR lady). 

If you're straightforward with me, I'm straightforward with you. If you're taking the piss. I'll double that piss.

So to summarise:

Did I sit there like a good girl, listened, nodded and said I understood? Yes.

Did I let her 'smooth things over' by asking me about travelling to Scandinavia and other bullshit? Yes.

Was I for one second not completely aware of what was happening? No.

Do I 100% trust these people? No.

Do I like these people? Yes.

Will I prove to be so freaking fantastic that they will feel utterly ashamed of their salary proposal? A million times over.

But here I am, in New York, as planned. With a job offer and colleagues that I actually like. And that was when I decided to shut the fuck up, sign the contract and get on with my life. 

One thing at a time.

several sunday postcards to pete.

Here are a few photos to further convince my 'brother from another mother' Pete that his decision to come to New York is not just the right decision, but the ONLY decision. In life.

And then we can run the New York Marathon Pete, like these poor bastards.

But if you don't want to do that, you can wait for me at the finnish line (see what I did there?) waving a Finnish flag like this guy:

Unfortunately, you'll get here in January so the weather will be shit. But it's still New York. And New York - is awesome.

a friday postcard to joe.

Not many people will get this post but I gotta look out for my fam soooo... this one is for you Pevans! Enjoy!

$1.99 smash and other life events.

So I've been fairly busy lately as I've started a second internship. That means I now have yet another person to try and impress. And I can tell you this - it's exhausting. More on that later though as there's been a shortage of images on this blog. So here you go, here are the main events in my life from the past two weeks:

I found smash for $1.99. Unreal. (It's the little things in life.)

I introduced the infamous '80's jacket' to the office. Always a win.

The Upper East Side went missing in a snow blizzard. So did our internet and my cell phone.

I was officially awarded a MSc in Design & Digital Media. That, dear readers, is a £6000 piece of paper. Graduation is on the 23rd, I shall be attending it virtually, watching the live stream of the ceremony and make overly witty comments (to myself).

As you can tell, my life isn't too exciting at the moment. This hunt for a visa sponsor is most certainly preventing me from making the most of New York City. However, I'm not here to fuck around, I'm here to do business. So do share if you have any exciting news, then I can live vicariously through you. I'll be eating my $1.99 smash and dreaming of visa sponsors until then!

this is the world we live in.

"...am I fired?"

Little did I know that my masters degree would prepare me this well for working at a startup. I remember the seemingly endless and equally frustrating discussions about logos, fonts and colours. If I didn't know better, I might as well be in the computer lab back in Edinburgh arguing my case in front of Tash and Sinead. Now I'm arguing my case on the 9th floor in SoHo instead. I've never worked at a startup before, and it's an interesting process to say the least. And as always in life, you need to know when to shut up and when to speak up. Last night - I did the latter. The founder is based in London and the CEO goes back and forth. Gmail and Skype in all it's glory yes, but sometimes, miss-communication is bound to happen. To make a long story short; I'm supposed to write a founding story. In order for that to happen, I kind of need to know how the company was founded. This was never clear, hence a story made up of words without substance and personality. Two things that are kind of crucial. So I fired away a fairly ballsy email to the CEO last night after he reminded the digital team that we needed an "About" story. I was pretty blunt, opening line being: "Can I be blunt? I'm gonna be blunt." - then I said my piece. I also might have mentioned that the founder's bio on his page was merely "a list of achievements, i.e bragging". And I said that reading it made me not want to buy anything from him. My conscience caught up with me at the end and I realised that maybe this wasn't my place to say these things, having interned at the company for only two weeks. So I ended my email with "...am I fired?" pressed "Send" and went to bed. Not only did I sleep like a baby, I also woke up to an email saying:


"Definitely not fired. Definitely going in right direction."


Shutting up: 0 
Speaking up: 1


Exhale.

"i wasn't sleeping!"

Yesterday I was working from home because I had a Skype interview. I was in the middle of doing research/writing copy when the phone rang. The guy on the other end introduces himself and points out the fact that we were supposed to have a Skype interview about 10 minutes ago.

Great.

Usually when I go to interviews I'm always ridiculously early. My record is two hours. Most of the time I have to awkwardly hang around the neighbourhood before it's a reasonable time to show my face in the reception. So now, when being pretty much "right there" the entire time - I'm late. Don't even get me started on the irony.

I'm wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. Shit! I throw on a blazer, quickly jump on Skype and I phone the guy.

Me: Ahem.. so that wasn't the best first impression.
Mahdad: Were you sleeping?
Me: NO! (Even more ironic, I had been up for hours and hours.)

The guy is asking me some good questions, mostly focused on social media. I'm feeling the pressure. I need to make up for "being late". I like the guy, which is even worse. Because that makes me want to give an even better interview. I gave some pretty decent answers, I think. (I hate when you see them taking notes, it's like oiii come on, what are you writing there? A little peek please? Juuuuust a little one.)

As always, I was being honest about my situation and my search for an employer to potentially act as a sponsor for my visa. At one point the guy goes "you're from England so..." which results in me not only interrupting him, but semi-shouting "I'm from Finland!!". (Idiot. Stop shouting.) (And yay! Patriotism.)

The interview is a wrap and the guy says jokingly "you can go back to sleep now". Which again, results in me semi-shouting (no actually - I was shouting this time) "I WASN'T SLEEPING!" and making a sad face. Pouting and everything.

We hung up.

In the afternoon, I was offered the internship.
I must have done something right.

If my @bangonthemoney Twitter account was still connected to my phone he would have received a witty comeback. Unfortunately, I just saw this now. 

What a joker. Too good! Kudos. TVI Designs. Check it out, folks.

the interview from hell.

I was early for my interview. As always. Standing in front of a door marked "Room 303". The door was locked. I could hear a loud voice coming from inside. "What the hell is going on here?", I thought to myself. I knocked, not really sure what to expect. A friendly looking guy opened the door and it turned out I was in the right place. A bunch of boxes were piled up in the corner, a massive shark balloon was lounging out in the middle of the room and there was a huge table over by the windows. In case you didn't know - because I sure didn't - these are all attributes that help in the creation of an awesome first impression.

They were nice guys the two founders, friendly looking, happy. They asked me the usual; background, experience and all that. Then they talked about the website, how it works and so on.

Then all hell broke loose. One of the guys told me to pick one object in a hotel room and then sell it to them. I asked if I could pick any object in this imaginary hotel room. Sure, I could. First thing that came to my mind was a giraffe. Seriously Jo, don't say giraffe. I went for something more conventional. A TV. "Are you ready?" one of the guys says.

Words coming out of my mouth: "If I have to be."
Words in my head: "I wonder if I would die if I jump out that window?"

So I pretended to sell them a TV. It went something like this:

Me: Hi, I'm Jo from........................................................ Jo's TVs.
The boys: Jo's TVs! (Laughter.)
Me: So can you tell me about the TVs you have in your hotel right now?
The boys: You don't know? You didn't do the research?
Me: Uhm. Apparently I didn't. Refresh my memory, please.(At this point a loud drilling machine goes off in the hallway. Excellent timing. Also, how do you do your research on something that was made up five seconds ago? Is there an app for that?)
The boys: We have Apple TVs and they are the best ones.
Me: .....I can not only match that product, I can top it.
Guys: How?

Questions that followed were "Does it come with a remote control?" and "How can we make money off this TV?".

This was by far, one of the worst things that has ever happened to me during an interview. I understand that this is a Sales & Marketing Internship - but seriously. I repeat: seriously.

I looked like a moron. The most obvious reason for this? This was a fictional environment. Put me in a real-life situation like this, i.e put me in front of the customer, and you'll get the real me. And a pretty awesome one. Why would they have me do this act, when, in 2011, acting is the last thing you should be doing as a marketer. I know how to talk to customers. I'm genuine, personable and likable. I've been doing it for 12 years. That's 4380 days (leap years excluded). You pick up a thing or two.

However, I don't think we're a match. In fact, I think we're from different worlds. I think I have a different approach and a different perspective - and I don't think these guys are looking for a new one. One of the guys might have a Goldman Sachs Global Leader Award but has he dealt with a customer who's taken a shit in a store?

Exactly.

That being said, I withdrew my interest in the internship. It's a great product and I'm sure these guys will be doing very well for themselves. Best of luck to them.


In hindsight - I totally should have gone with the giraffe.