7:00 am: Wake up, shower and read the morning papers, a necessity, not a luxury for my job.
9:15 am: Walk into the office. I work so late at night trouble-shooting and fire-fighting that unless I have a9 am meeting I usually drift in no earlier than9:15 am. That’s pretty much the culture where I work although frequently there is an early morning meeting to arrive to and there are always the early birds in the office who like those quiet early morning hours. . . .
9:20 am: My coffee has arrived and I am knee-deep in the day’s deliverables which are usually a continuation of the day-before’s deliverables. I begin by responding to all emails and calls and leafing through my To-Do list for the day’s tasks. I run to the editorial team because a press release that was due the day before is still not in my Inbox and I have an email requesting major edits on another client’s press release. While I’m there I check up on all pending copywriting work including a translation of a press release that has also been through the mill several times and keeps getting changed by the client every time we rewrite it.
11:00 am: On a3-way conference call with a client marketing team in2 cities about an Industry PR event they want organized in Jeddah. I take notes, listen a lot and make suggestions. Mostly I need to manage expectations regarding timelines as expectations as usual are unrealistic.
11:30 am: Immediately start working on the plan for the client’s Jeddah PR event as the client has not given us too much leeway in terms of time. Get on phone with our own Jeddah office and ask them to start looking at venues and checking costings and availability for our proposal. Talk to our copywriter again about drafting an invite in2 languages and a press release for the event. While I‘m in with the copywriter I again enquire about the client press releases and articles and feature stories I have pending with them.
12:30 pm: No time for lunch. Grab a candy bar and coffee at my desk while I return phone calls from a couple of reporters I have been trying to reach on behalf of clients. Organize an interview for a client CEO with a major industry journal and finally seal the deal to have another client company featured on a monthly basis for6 months in a requested section of another business magazine, a real coup for me and obviously for my client.
2:30 pm: Pitch presentation for new client business at their offices. I worked extensively on the pitch presentation but didn’t have a minute to look at it today. Luckily the rest of the team is well prepared and the presentation goes well, we have a lot of credentials in that industry and are told our ideas for the prospective client are very innovative and right on brief.
4:45 pm: Back at the office. Hordes of emails and calls to respond to. I have3 clients to manage on a daily basis but on some days it feels like these3 are20! Major press release to dispatch to media tomorrow but the client still hasn’t approved it and their partner’s spokesperson still needs to submit a quote. We then still need to translate it into Arabic for approval early the next morning . . . Looks like its going to be a late night! I am on the phone with them reminding them of the urgency of their approvals.
5:15 pm: Industry clippings for one of my clients were incomplete today missing2 major items and the client noticed the omission and was unhappy. I am on the phone with the media monitoring agency trying to find out how we can tighten the media monitoring activities so no news online or offline slips through the net.
5:45 pm: Call to arrange the monthly coordination meeting with another client and start preparing the week’s Work-in-Progress report for my3 clients.
6:15 pm: Run manically to the TV station where I am meeting a client who is appearing live on the evening news. Arrive just in time to brief him again quickly. Luckily I sent him all the questions he will be asked, with suggested answers beforehand, but still sometimes an off-script question will pop up and take a client by surprise – I fervently hope it doesn’t happen today.
8:15 pm: At home but my work is not yet done. I read through my clients news clippings and competitor news for the day which I didn’t get a chance to earlier and check my email to see if I got the press release approvals I needed. I also start drafting a release which is due later in the week as I have3 press releases scheduled for dispatch in the coming2 days and will not get a chance to work on it later on.
11:00 pm: Log off. Exhausted sleep!
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