Wide-eyed and Jaded

Wow, it has been so long since I’ve updated. I’m kicking myself for it. I keep telling myself, “You have to blog, Rayanne. Your employers will think you were blogging only to land the internship.” Haha. So this—the weekend following my first week working at a PR agency—is my chance to begin to show that I’m in for the long haul.

After weeks of diligent job hunting, resume and cover letter tailoring and discussing internship frustrations with my classmates, I’ve landed at Veritas Communications, specifically in com.motion, the agency’s social media marketing department.

A lot of people have told me I don’t have agency personality. I even presented on this in my Presentation Skills class at Centennial. I’ve had trouble understanding why people said this and often refuse to believe it.

I know I’m a quiet girl. I attribute this to the way I was raised, and I don’t have a problem with that. My parents are ministers. I went to church every Sunday (often twice and on other days of the week as well) until I moved away from home for university. I was always a very cheery, smiley and friendly child. I’ve always made friends easily and have little difficulty getting along with most people I meet. I also like to think I’m pretty selfless. I suppose saying that is kind of selfish in itself, actually. But, I honestly rarely put myself first in anything I’m confronted with. I like helping other people so much. Mostly, I just want everyone to like me. So I guess my selfless nature has a seedy underbelly.

Why am I telling you this and what the hell does it have to do with my internship or agency personality? Well, because I work to make other people happy, I tend to keep to myself when I can and let other people talk if that’s what they prefer to do. I know this is a problem. I am on one end of the extremity scale.

So, when I hear I might not fit into an agency as well as some of my classmates, I cringe, but I know exactly why.

You might also be wondering, “Why did you try so hard to get into an agency knowing you might not fit in?” I didn’t really think of this when I was applying to be an intern. I just thought of my specific skills and what I love to do (which is social media, for those who don’t know me well).

I know there are many corporations and not-for-profit organizations interested in becoming more connected, but I fear for those only doing so because it seems like the new bandwagon to jump into. I know I’m not a social media expert, and I don’t want to be responsible for helping an organization do something it shouldn’t or isn’t ready to do. So, I decided to look for a place to work that was already involved, but could benefit from my personal touch as well.

At the same time, I do know what I’m talking about. I love social media. And yeah, I’m starting to hate the term as much as the bitter guys. But, I’ve been a huge Internet nerd since being introduced to it in 1996. I love meeting people from all over the world and the many different ways there are to do so.

That’s what social media is to me—a different world to meet new people and talk with them. Frighteningly, I don’t think a lot of people share my opinion. I think a lot of them say they do only because that’s what’s expected of them.

So, while learning to overcome my quiet nature, I hope to bring my experience and honesty to the table during my eight weeks at Veritas. And, I hope I learn a lot, too.

This entry was posted on April 5, 2008 at 6:58 pm and is filed under About Me, Learning, Social Media, The Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.