Pay Your Career Dues

As a PR Executive, I once attended an event where I managed press. It was a product launch for a big brand and quickly fell below my expectations.

Long story short, my line manager – who attended the event as well - walked up to me and asked me to join the caterers in serving food.

I was mortified.

There I was, sweating it out in the kitchen, trying to balance trays of food on my shoulder, tottering on my heels and serving food to guests and the journalists. All my #PRGal photo moments completely ruined by sweat mixing with makeup and running in rivulets down my face.

My career snippet for today is … pay your dues!

I see interns and newbies reject some jobs or complain when assigned some tasks. Listen, you may not get the posh, clean, high flyer jobs in international organizations at first but keep your head down and work hard. Learn everything you can while you are down in the trenches and use that knowledge to do better as you move higher.

Questions:

1. What would you have done in my shoes? Serve the food?

2. Do you think PR executives should be accorded more professional treatment during events and not assigned tasks outside their JD?

#CareerSnippetsFromOke

#LearningFromMyWorkExperiences