Happy Friday, everyone!
I don’t have a lot to share this week, as I’ve only been
back to work for a few days, but they have been relatively busy. I spent two
days doing office tasks and only a little bit of writing, one of the downsides
of being an intern. But one of the cool things about a weekly paper like this
is the way that everyone at one point or another has to partake in the menial,
secretarial part of the job. I like the equality there, as opposed to a bigger
newspaper where specific people are designated filers and press kit
put-togetherers. That type of camaraderie is something I’ll look for in any job
I may have in the future.
Yesterday and today I spent time calling local restaurants
and eateries in preparation for next issue’s annual Dining Magazine. It is free
publicity for all the restaurants, and I stressed that to each person I called,
but that did not save me from a few hang-ups and a few more disgruntled owners
and managers. I suppose I can’t really blame them, as I’ve been known to hang
up on advertisers and telemarketers a time or two, but it is frustrating when
all I’m working to do is help them out. The Dining Magazine is a hugely popular
addition to the newspaper each summer, and many locals refer to that for their
year-round dining, and sometimes it was really challenging to not share that
with the angry owners in a confrontational way.
Customer is always right and all that.
If nothing else I suppose I am honing my people skills, and
my interpersonal skills in general. There will always be crotchety people in
the workplace, even people I’ll be trying to help, so figuring out the best way
to deal with them now can only help me in the long run. I tend to take hang-ups
way too personally, but by the time I finished today I was kind of angry with
all of them, too, so maybe it will be like moving through the five stages of
grief—I’ll get to acceptance eventually and then it won’t bother me anymore.
I feel your pain. I do a lot of calls to restaurants in the area and I've gotten my fair share of confused and grumpy individuals. There is always this half nervousness with any phone conversation. It really is a strange exchange not seeing the intricacies of people's facial expressions. I'd say keep on truckin', getting into the dynamics of an office or hell, any new place is scary.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in that even though you might not feel like you're always putting out new writing material every minute on the job that you're still doing something very useful and it all relates in the end. When you're doing "meaningless" office tasks you're contributing to that help-each-other-out family feel and when you're making phone calls you're preparing for writing endeavors and having customer service skills will never not be worthy. Sounds like you're getting some interesting projects!
ReplyDeleteWorking at a weekly is a package deal. I like the way your editor manages the paper. Spreading the load allows people to do what they like (hopefully most of the time) and the other menial stuff that greases the wheels (hopefully less of the time).
ReplyDeleteYeah, not taking stuff personally is a challenge. I've had lots of experience being on the receiving end. One thing I've learned is that it's most often not about me. Someone's got a splinter where they can't reach it and the person who calls next catches the brunt of it.
I do appreciate the irony of hang-ups on a popular section that could drive their revenue. What gives?!
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