Variety was the spice of my sixth week at Sunny Media, because I got to do a bit of everything and had a bunch of great new experiences; such as, a pitch, looking at Roy Morgan research and the company’s monthly lunch. My days have moved from Monday and Tuesday to Thursday and Friday for the time being. I intern Thursdays and work Fridays.
The interning day started with my usual duties of creating media schedules and entering invoices into Work Flow Max; however, Michelle was out of the office this morning. She’d sent me jobs to do and I completed them autonomously. Even after she’d come back, she just sent me more jobs I could complete with minimal questions to ask. It felt empowering and more productive to just have a list of objectives to complete; moreover, I no longer need to ask so many questions. When I did run out, and Michelle was away, I just went to Sarah and she gave me something different to do: compiling a list of Yamaha Motorcycle suppliers.
While I was working in the morning, Michelle mentioned to Trevor that I should attend a meeting. The meeting, as it turned out, was a pitch from Nicholas James, from Wrappt and Ridefree, to Mark from Narellan Pools. The product was an in-house film kit that would allow companies to produce their own videos for much cheaper than traditional methods. Not only did I think this product was a brilliant idea, I found it useful to see the back and forth between Nicholas, Mark and even Trevor. I will need to make sure I’m prepare well for my pitches to client, because in these situations selling is a two-way discussion. I found this meeting very fun and valuable. And Trevor was very kind to say a few very nice words about me while introducing me.
I spent the rest of the day doing more general duties.
On the work day I started by creating a twelve-month plan for one of our clients. Michelle explained that we do this to have an idea of our budgets well in advance, so client know how much their spending. Afterwards, Michelle ran me through Roy Morgan research. I was really excited for this, because I love seeing consumer insights! It was particularly enthusing because I could see Michelle was as much a nerd for data as I am. Must just be a symptom of our industry. The data showed people’s media consumption habits, general attitudes and opinions about the world.
Once Michelle had run me through it, she gave me free reign to choose statistics that were useful for a media recommendations presentation. As the client was a socially responsible baby product company, I chose findings relevant to babies, the environment and shopping habits. It felt very satisfying to do something that would help advise a real client. I think this is part of why I’m enjoying it at QA so much. Unlike university, my actions have real world effect.
Today was also my first company lunch. Every month there is a lunch on Friday, and everyone comes together for a meal and a chat. We had Junk for lunch, which happens to be one of my favourite local restaurants. It was nice to see everyone come together and hang out. I felt very excited and lucky to get to attend this lunch. I felt even more like a member of the team.
I know the work day was a good day, because I managed to earn a Peppi Bueti high-five. He needed some help resizing an image to approximately 1 megabyte. I’ve never done it on a Mac, so it took a few moments. It was quickly solved, and I fluked it to 1.2mb. Peppi did the next one, and I was rewarded with a cheerful high-five.
I spent the rest of the day doing a large media schedule for Australian events and completing the Yamaha location compiling for Sarah. Turns out, there’s a lot of Yamaha suppliers in Australia! Roger also pulled me aside to ask if I could stay on for two days, or an extra half a day, because I said I was going to reduce it to one day while at university. He said I’ve been helpful to Michelle, and it was nice to feel valued. I agreed to an extra half day, which I’d already been considering. I love coming in to QA, and only reduced my days to keep up with university. As I explained to Roger, I’d be in more often if I had the time.
It’s been another great week and, much like last week, it was nice to have more autonomy.