a waste of (white)space.

(sorry, just couldn't resist the title, it was such a given.)


04.05.2011
I sent out an email 09.05 this morning alerting everyone that I had nothing to do. 50 minutes later - no response. None.

Let me take you back to February 2 this year. That's the day I had my interview. I was excited. I was enthusiastic. And I was hungry (not just because it was 2pm and I hadn't eaten anything, but because I was eager to get in the game).

When I left I was even more excited. But I should have known better. Because every time I have a really good feeling about something, the turn out is the complete opposite. And every time I'm not sure about something, it ends up being fantastic. (My "female intuition" is a bit off to say the least.)

I think it's great whenever agencies take on interns, but in some cases it's a little bit like companies doing a Facebook fan page; don't do it because you feel like you should and because everyone else is doing it. If you don't have the time or don't know how to do it, just don't get involved, it's only gonna reflect badly on your brand (remember, your brand is how people perceive your brand, not what you tell people it is. (Similar to telling someone you're funny, but they don't think you are. Kind of what I do. Except that I AM funny. No? Shit.)

So what went wrong? Well, I was never really involved in any of the projects properly, I was never a part of the process. There was no real feedback or constructive criticism. Whenever I got the opportunity to give feedback and come with suggestions, I did. Unsuccessfully so. Unsuccessfully in the sense that they never told me why they did what they did and why that would work. (Gee thanks, I'm learning so much..)

So. I brought this up and things got better.

08.05.2011
Until today. In a meeting it was said that what I was working on at the moment, Social Media content planning, was "not a priority". These things happen. You work on something, turns out there was no need for it, no budget and so on and so forth. I understand that. That is fine. That's the nature of this industry (any industry really). However, then one of my colleagues approached me about bouncing around a few ideas, I was never briefed though as someone else shouted that they needed me for another project. This was then followed by another of my colleagues who wanted me to write some copy for a client, let's call them.. hmm.. Sweaterheal (check that wordplay!), a company which I had already written some copy for, but I was never introduced to the client. Which ultimately means that, I can do as much research as I want on their current copy and tone of voice (which was said to be honest, approachable and straight talking i.e contradictory and misleading), but unless I get to meet or talk to the people I'm actually writing for (that's usually the client and rarely their target audience), I can only do so much. This is the moment when this happened in my head: **** *** ****..! (Very much like Benicio del Toro at 0:58 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj5vERbLtYI)

But that's when I also remembered their instrument of thought (a.k.a mantra): JFDI (Just Fucking Do It) - so I did it.

Then I went home. And I thought about whether I should stay the remaining three weeks or not. Or well, I pretended to think about it when I had already made up my mind. Because a mantra of my own had already made an apperance in my head: DWYTOSTNYNAEWLOBF (Don't Waste Your Time On Something That Neither You Nor Anyone Else Will Learn Or Benefit From)


I think it's a shame that they didn't realise that they could have benefitted from having me there as much as I was looking to learn from them. All in all, they simply didn't keep me in the loop of things and there was a severe lack of communication.

Finally, I must add that I have nothing against any of the whitespacers (special shout out to Jan and Ailsa, and Carolyn can have her baking day back - yay!), it's a great agency, some great people and they do some really great work. It just didn't work out. It happens. You learn. You go somewhere else. You learn more. And so it continues.

On the bright side, all of that spare time I've had at "work", I've come up with some kick-ass ideas for my final project. Went straight to the computer lab after my "I'm-giving-you-my-one-hour-notice" speech and got cracking on my website. And the more I worked on that, the more I realised what a freaking brilliant decision it was to leave whitespace.