To Listen or Not to Listen…?

… to music at work?

In college when I’m doing my homework, I plug in my headphones, tune everyone out and focus on my work. But is that really something you want to do in a workplace? Tune everyone out? On the one hand, I understand if you’re having a really busy day and need to get stuff done and checked off the list, but you miss the fun discussions with coworkers, the “hey, who knows the answer to this” questions, and the initiative that every intern is supposed to have.

I have decided not to listen to music at work, despite overhearing distracting phone conversations, even though some other people choose to use headphones. I feel that by not using headphones I have connected to my coworkers better, and it has actually helped my performance. Last week, I overhead my boss telling a coworker about this crazy order this company just placed and how they wanted information in an hour. Being the intern (and Scripps student I am), I emailed my boss and offered to help. She took me up on it. It took four of us all day to pull the information they wanted and she was super grateful. Near the end of the day, she sent an email out to the whole team about how big a help I was and how she didn’t even need to ask. If I had had my headphones in, I would not even have heard that conversation to know how busy she was. It was at this point that I confirmed my decision not to listen to music at work.

A New Lens on Advertising

I think one of the greatest changes in my life since I have started my internship is the way I look at ads. Before I was upset that ads invaded my life in ways that distracted my life and my routine.

For example, last September, while listening to an online radio station in the library and writing a paper, an ad popped up (three times louder than the music I was listening to), totally caught me off guard and made me lose my train of thought. I even posted on Facebook about how annoying it was. A week or so later for my birthday, my brother bought me an ad free subscription. Best birthday present ever, btw. (Thanks, Andrew!)

Since working in advertising this summer, I have created a new account.

Just to see the ads.

Now, you’re probably asking, why? Why would anyone choose to listen to the ads? Ever?! Well, this is why–why I have learned to like them, and why you should too.

  1. I look at the ads to learn what we sell.
  2. I look at the ads to see which companies buy advertising with us.
  3. I look at the ads to understand how our ad products work and what they look like.
  4. I look at the ads because part of my intern duties are to test the ads and make sure they are working before they go live.
  5. I look at the ads because the products we advertise can enhance your experience on and off the website.
  6. I look at the ads to see how other companies market themselves.
  7. I look at the ads because it shows insight into the advertisers company, products, and what they find important.
  8. I look at the ads to see how companies are separating themselves from their competition.
  9. I look at the ads because, sometimes, the advertisers don’t realize they are selling you something in the most obscene and unproductive way possible.
  10. I look at the ads because sometimes I don’t even understand what they’re trying to sell me.

See, as a true liberal arts student, I can see that ads are more than just companies trying to sell a product; they are trying to sell a lifestyle. Sometimes advertisers do this well, sometimes it’s totally over the top, and sometimes you just think to yourself, “there’s no way.” Advertising provides a window into a culture. This culture can either already exist, has existed in the past, will exist in the future, or is a product of the imagination. Advertising is story-telling. It connects you with the product (or attempts to) in a meaningful way. Advertising provides a unique understanding of America, Americans, and the world at large. So I look at the ads to learn about myself and about ourselves as a whole rather than to be sucked into to buying the product.

Although this may or may not be what the advertiser was hoping for when it sells ads, I can’t help it, I go to Scripps. I have learned how to critique and ask questions, instead of taking life at face value.

The Working Life and Time (or lack thereof)

A 9-5 job is hard on many levels. The first is that for 22 years of my life I have been going to school. For 18 years, it was roughly 8am-3pm. In college, it’s a few hours here and there each day. These usually include the recess breaks, walking from class to class, taking the occasional nap, spending an hour for lunch, etc. Now, at an internship or job most of us get none of that. Usually you are sitting at a desk for 8 hours, with a 30-minute lunch break. That whole 3pm-slump—that’s a real thing. I can’t tell you the number of times I have almost fallen asleep, but instead I went to the kitchen, grabbed a Red Bull, sometimes two, and pulled myself together for two more hours.

The hard part is all I want to do when I come home from work is watch TV, eat, then sleep. But, alas, I can’t.

After getting up at 6am each morning to go to work and getting home around 5:40, I have about 6 hours left to do all the other things I want to do each day. Read a book, watch TV, go to the gym, and work on my application (see below). Whoops, forgot about dinner and friends. Some days I’m more productive than others. Seriously, how did my parents find time for themselves? For so many years, they would get home from work, go grocery shopping, make us dinner, take us to sports practice and band rehearsal, and tuck us in to bed.

My other job this summer is a task I’ve given myself, well, an opportunity I’m making for myself (hopefully). An application to travel for a year, do research on whatever I want, and receive money to do it. The application is due in mid-September. Time is ticking. I’ve finally settled into a routine at work (four and a half weeks in). I used to get to work an hour or so early, and sit at a coffee shop and do research. Now I just start work at 8am instead of 9am and that hour I gave myself each morning has disappeared. So, when do I have time to figure out which four countries I’m going to visit, where and for how long I will stay, why each one is important to what I want to study, which companies and people I need to talk to, how this will stimulate my interests my personal growth, and my future undecided career? Answer: I have no clue.

Correction: I make time. I push back my sleep, so that I can go to the gym, make dinner, do research, watch an episode of TV, and read my news headlines.

The Power of “Yes”

In my family we have a saying to explain people’s work attitudes. We call them “Can-Do” or “Can’t-Do” people. As a result, my parents have always taught me to be a can do person. The main way to do that is to always say yes to any task given to you. For me this has turned me in to a people-pleaser. I will often go out of my way to make others happy, even when it obviously doesn’t make me happy. It’s taken me until about a year ago to realize that there’s a balance and I don’t always have to say yes every time.

Saying yes and being a can-do person doesn’t require you to go completely out of your way to do something, it just means when someone asks you a question, you answer it in a way that provides all the information they’ll need as opposed to just the information they asked for.

I bring this up because when I asked one woman last week what she wished she had known when she graduated from college that she knows now, she said, “always say yes.” Always. She told this story about when she was working at a company for a few years and was really ready to leave. Two days before her last day, her boss asked her to do something, and she said, “ugh.” She forgot her professionalism because she was so ready to leave and fed up with her current job. She never thought it would come back to her later. But it did. A few years ago, when she was looking for another job again, she interviewed at a company to which her previous boss now worked. Needless to say, she did not get that job because her boss remembered her response and attitude that one say and called it unprofessional. She told me this story to explain that no matter what, you need to remain professional. I took her lesson a step farther to connect it with what I learned from home: always say yes.

The conclusion: to be professional is to be a can-do person.

The Puzzle

A few weeks ago, the director of my department interviewed someone for a position and the candidate talked about this concept that one of her previous jobs did. They bought a puzzle and whenever anyone needed a 5-10 minute break from work, they would work on the puzzle. It ended up being a social, relaxing, team building activity. As a result, my director took it upon herself (yes, the director is a woman with two kids) to buy a puzzle for the office. Less than two weeks and 1000 pieces later, the San Francisco skyline was finished.

There were two dilemmas I had with this puzzle concept: the first was that I was worried that if I worked on it, I would be seen as slacking off because I wasn’t working. The second was that I absolutely love puzzles!

With this being said, I decided I would contribute to the puzzle, because how couldn’t I? I love puzzles. But I would wait until there was already someone else on the team over there so that way, I would also be chatting with a coworker. I thought this was a win/win. You know what’s also a win/win? The entire puzzle concept! It definitely felt like a team bonding experience, and I did get to know my colleagues. There were some people who contributed more than others, but I think it’s mostly because they don’t like puzzles as much as I do. (Can you tell I’m obsessed?) But really, the concept is genius. And our next puzzle will be done as a competition between teams.

May the puzzles be ever in my favor!