Oh dear Lord Almighty

Ok, my editor is starting to PISS ME OFF. Seriously, who says that their friend wants to help out their alumni by advertising with the Daily … then asks if that said friend can get free color … BEHIND MY FREAKING BACK!!!?? He can’t even ask that to my face? I don’t know really what to think … and then he just up and disappears right before I asked him to talk a client about her events? I asked him the night bloody before and he said that he would be in … did that not mean that he was going to talk to her? Is this a trend I see? Is it not going to be a good semester between my darling editor and I?

Maybe he didn’t mean anything by it and I’m reading too much into it. After all, I am a girl and we do take things rather personally. And the more I think about it, the more I get angry about it. So I should just let it go unless it gets worse right? I really hate politics, which is why I decided not to go into business. Look at my dumb ass doing it anyway.

On the bright side, I managed to get one of my staff for the semester to come in early. I facebooked stalked her and she actually came through thank goodness. She’s really great – on time, picks up on things, does copies … she helps out a lot. And she volunteered to come in tomorrow, which is wonderful since tomorrow is probably going to be worse than today. And trust me, today was a doozy.

Got in more contracts and closed Monday down for any future clients. Got a couple more contracts coming in for Monday and then we are CLOSED. So I can start doing schemes for Monday at least. My AsD started to get the hang of things and the creatives are fun to bug – though I think they may take things a little too seriously at times. I’ll need a couple more things to come in … then I have to start working on the week after for clients and contracts. Should be SUPER FUN!

And I also have to figure out how I’m going to teach the students that are coming in. Gotta remember to talk the Big Boss about that. Argh, so much to do, so little time … seems to be my mantra. Which reminds me that I forgot to email a client and should do that now … and make a To-Do list for tomorrow. YAY!

I have never been so tired …

There is so much to do and so little time. I feel more exhausted than when I had to work 40 hours a week … argh. So tired …

So I have been calling and contacting people nonstop just to get a few more ads in. AND since my AsD has no idea how to do anything, I’ve been teaching her how to do everything too. I kept on asking her if she needed to know anything and to come in so that I could teach her a little more … but dear goodness, its become too much. I bet this is how our office manager feels about me. Not to mention that I keep trying to contact the staff for this semester to come in and no one is freaking answering me. So I still have to: get the creatives up to scale, write about 5 or 6 different contracts … several of which I have no idea what’s going on with them, tear down and then rebuild the wall decorations … not to mention all the millions of other things that I still have to do. Not to mention we’re going to have 16,500 inserts flying around campus on the first day and have to get a crew together to pick all that up.

Argh, and the budget cuts … the goddamn budget cuts. Not only do they make my personal life a hell, but they also make the life at the Daily a hell. For about 4 separate days we have to get the paper ready and done without any leeway for the next week. Then there are faculty furlough and there are campus-wide furloughs … that hit in the middle of the week, shutting down 4 of our publications and making my life with all my contracts that need to be in and signed, very very complicated since if a client does request it I have to say no.

Well, that’s my life in a nutshell. *Sigh* well tomorrow the creatives come in and start to learn the ropes. Hope they can start to handle everything. Wonderous wonders.

Back to work!

So started my first official day as Ad Director! Crazy crazy. So many things to do and it feels like we do not have enough time. AND the staff union for my school has everyone on a furlong every Monday so I can’t come in on Mondays. Ha, well gotta get it done anyway.

Started to learn about handling national accounts. The things that go into handling invoices are crazy. I do not envy my AsD who has to deal with it. I had to deal with it a little and it seems like everything is seriously complicated. Its also complicated that she has never worked in the sales department before and I have to teach her a lot about the things that go on in the office. We have to start adding things in AdPro which we did not get to do today, but at least some of the prelimenary stuff is up and I got rid of most of the junk mail and know who to call.

I’m actually pretty happy and excited. It seems so hard and yet … it seems pretty fun too. I’m trying to get people to like me so that when I do screw up it won’t be so bad hehe.

Until the next time I go in …

Hm nothing new to report

Other than dealing with life in general, there’s nothing really new to report other than I’m a little hesitant about my Creative Director next semester. She’s nice and all … but kinda of hard to get ahold of. Oh well, we’ll see how this pans out.

I’m not dead!

Look at that! Haha, well its mainly because of the fact that I got so busy with life that I just plum forgot about this blog entirely. Well, in the past 6 months or so this is the recap:

Update: Part I

The Daily got busier and busier. Went to Vegas for mine, my dad’s, and my grandpa’s birthday. Even though it was a no work vacation I still ended up taking a call. Impressed my Ad Director through my neat binder with all my accounts in it. My boyfriend of many years’ grandmother passed away. More Daily stuff to do. Ended up with more accounts (yay!), even some that I managed to get through cold calling (another yay!). People hung on me a lot (not so yay). Got best seller at the Daily. Debated taking over the Ad Director job. Went for the Ad Director job. Got considered for the job. My calabash auntie ended up dying after years of battling cancer. Ended up taking up taking another vacation to Hawaii to go to the funeral (pretty sucky vacation and depressing to boot). Went back to the Daily and got the Ad Director job (silver lining). Ended the semester with very little training from my Ad Director, but enough to get by for next semester.

Update: Part II

School ended. Started Ad Director job already (ack). Found out that I couldn’t add a class that I need to graduate. Emailed my counselor, emailed my teacher, emailed my teacher again, and again, then went back to the counselor. Never heard back. Spent a summer waking up at 7:15 AM every day to go to an Art 101 class that I didn’t want to take and if I have to spend a whole ‘nother semester at the University, don’t need. Dealt with my darling boyfriend almost every day of the week. Spent more time on the Daily without email from the Daily OR going into the office. School and July ended … leading me to here.

So next week I go back to the Daily for work officially, which hopefully will give me enough money to get by foodwise. Just spent my morning (which should’ve been doing chores and helpful things for my parents) working on deciphering an invoice through Zim2papers.com and thinking what the hell is a “FSI.” Finally figured it out through the wonderful invention called the Internet (thank God) but had to call my Assistant Director AND email the former Assistant Director before that (neither of them knew anyway, sadly enough). I think I have my work cut out for me, but thankfully my Assistant Director or AsD (cuz I’m quite lazy when I type) is very sweet and she always wants to do the best job that she can.

I just hope it’s not as hectic as I think it’s going to. Tough luck there right?

*Gasp*

I disappeared!  Ok, so I didn’t, but last week was crazy!  I had a project due, another in jeporady of not getting off the floor, and a very tired management staff at the Daily.

The silver lining … I think I hooked the game store account and talked to the vegetarian restaurant and got an appointment (Yay!).  Thank goodness my bf is all into gaming in all forms or I would have been totally out of my element.  Of course a lot of that revolved around Halo 3 and Pokemon, the trading game … but the heck, its still gaming.  As for the vege place … hmm well, they seem really nice and I hope I can hook them in too.

But right now it’s my birthday and I’m tired and I don’t want to write any more.  So I’m out internet peoples.

Advertising in a crappy economy

Rather media buying in a tough economy … is a pain in the butt.  Especially when you are just a little school newspaper in which people doubt that any reads your little school newspaper.  I know they told me to expect this, but we are scrapping around to ANY business that will advertise with us.  So we call about 5-10 companies a day, trying to find anywhere that will advertise with us.

Oddly enough right now, I have about 6 accounts … the most so far, even though I have all the tiny, little accounts. It makes me wonder about everyone else.  What are they doing?  But then again, they have better contracts than me.

The big crisis of the week is that we need to sell student valentines in the newspaper by TODAY and while we need about 20, we only have 1.  They’re only 3 or 5 dollars, but while people are interested, no one seems to have money on them.  It’s depressing as heck … seriously, if other students don’t sign up, we on the newspaper staff will have to.  And do I want to shell out 20 dollars to buy valentines for people that I barely know?  NO.  But if we need to fill the space, that’s what I’m probably going to end up doing.  We also need to fill the “Places to Go” part of the newspaper … but that is just going to be tiny and sad.  Nothing we can do about it, the deadline’s passed. This is not turning out to be a good semester.  But our adviser, Prof. H, reminds us that every problem is actually an opportunity.  We’ll see if we’ll be able to turn this problem into an opportunity.  We have a whole semester in front of us.

On another note, I messed up yesterday (oops!).  I made this mistake with an account … I accidentally gave a half-rate instead of a half-price.  So I got in a little bit of trouble.  Didn’t get yelled at though since I had to run out and grab a check and a contract from another client at the same time.  Thankfully Pat, our finance manager, didn’t realize that I was going to grab a check so she was happy when I came back.  Remind me to never do that again … Pat can be so scary when she’s scolding … I’d hate to see her actually angry.

But a little bit of good news: YAY!  We have a new member to the staff!  So far, there are only 8 of us peons (aka. account managers) … 1/3 of the amount that there was last year.  Last week Bryan left the staff due to personal reasons and yesterday Ryan came and signed up.  Weird how that works out huh?

In other news, I volunteered to be team leader for my ADV 128 Campaign – yay for me.  I have to find out if we can switch the product we’re doing right now to Northface.  Why we decided to choose Lipitor in the first place, I have no idea.  Hopefully we can get this down so that we can start the project.  I really hope that we can do well, especially since this is the first time I’ve been in charge of a major project.  Time will tell.  Then I’ll know, and then I’ll tell you.  Hopefully I’ll do well so that future HR for future jobs will look at my resume and think … “hm, I guess she’s ok” and hire me.

Also, my professor, Prof. H, keeps on talking about the bill that might make advertising a non-tax deductible entity.  Quite honestly, it is a depressing thought.  We’re all going to pray that Obama and his administration doesn’t do anything like this since 1) our professional lives depend on it and 2) consumer products, even business products, depend advertising to get messages out to the public.  Could you imagine APSCA paying for their ads?  I doubt they would still be able to promote their organization if they were forced to pay the amount of money that a business needs to advertise.  Don’t make me even go into the topic of small business.  Sad sad.  On a personal note, cable bills would go up!  Sad, but true since advertising pays for a lot of the costs that go into my and your fav. shows.

Well on that depressing note … what the heck!  No, I will not end on a sad note.  People, read paragraph 5 again and end on that.  Because that is the best news I had for yesterday.  I’ll find more fun things today with all hope.  Til tomorrow …

So a little about myself …

Well if you haven’t read anything in the ABOUT section, then you really don’t know about me do you?  Well as the title says, I’m an advertising major at a San Jose University in sunny California (though it is rainy at this present moment).  I switched majors from Journalism during the last summer and am desperately trying to graduate by next Fall.

Currently, I am on the advertising staff for the Daily (very original right?), the school newspaper, am part of the Ad Club on the Fundraising Committee, and am a part of the American Advertising Federation (since the membership comes with joining the Club).

Right now, I am sitting in an empty office, wondering whether I should actually start work or not.  It was supposed to start at 11 … but no one’s here.  So now I’m a little nervous on whether today was a work day or not and whether anyone else is going to show up.  I guess right now I should be calling people … but I’m nervous!  What the hell?  Where is everyone?  Not to mention its rainy outside and therefore the office is making scary noises …

Oh yay!  Someone showed up!  I’m not alone!  So I guess I should start working now … Until we meet again Internet peoples!

Why hello world!

Well, well, well … Hello people of the internet!  I doubt people will be reading this first post … or any subsequent posts … but I was talking with a teacher who was suggesting we all start blogs of our own.  I thought I was all cool (besides the fact that NO ONE reads my blog), HOWEVER, (and yes that is a large however), she also said that we had to revolve our blog around a theme.  So yes, I had to pick a theme.  And I know, talking about my adventures in advertising is kinda lame, especially me being an advertising major and all, but its my life, I revolve around it, and its all I do besides hang out with my boyfriend, my family, or do massive amounts of school work.  And so here I am building a blog about me and my adventures in advertising!  Yay!  If I do pick up a following, then I hope I amuse or help you in some way.  If not, well then yay, I’m talking to myself.  Which I do anyways, so who cares right?