Lesson learned
Update on my last post: basically the lesson to learn is to wait. All throughout my career in PR (which has only been 6 years), I’ve gotten successes and wins from moving fast. But sometimes this leads to mishaps too. I’ll feel the need to jump and release a story so quickly, for fear of losing the timeliness and momentum, that it will lead to mistakes, like the previous blog post shares.
Basically, we got consent from the person to release their story in full. Got consent over the phone and in writing, and they were delighted. But because I had not gotten consent myself, had only assumed it from their colleagues, it was a huge error in judgement on my part, and I created my own little potential reputational mess for my company. Fortunately my manager was very kind about my blunder. One thing that struck me was that the journalists I’d worked with flagged that this was not a time-sensitive story (I thought it was) but an evergreen story (which I am surprised about).
But hey. You live and learn. Always blundering, always learning.
It’s a funny thing. I spotted a BBC story and got my spokespeople to comment on it for media, but the story was already 3 hours old by that point. Too old, and no one in the media took our comments, which is a real shame. Our comments were fine. But that same day, we got an urgent filming request from the BBC that I took on, and got us national news coverage. So that’s a win.
On a personal note: Nothing is bringing me joy anymore. Ever since I stopped eating meat, chocolate and coca-cola for Lent, nothing fills me with joy. My computer games don’t inspire me, I’ve forced myself not to write any new (fiction I mean) and since then I feel kind of lifeless. Like, what’s the point? I read, I go to work. I’m doing a jigsaw puzzle to let my mind whirr and take a self-imposed break, but I just feel dull.
I’d taken on too much recently, and I got sick and all the deadlines came at once. Very much like everything, everywhere, all at once. Crazy. I was working on my train journeys into London because that was the only time I had free and was having anxiety dreams, and waking up in the middle of the night with the overarching sense of ‘my cup runneth over’, it’s at the brim, and something big is about to drop and it’s going to be all my fault. So I met all my deadlines, turned everything in and now am taking a break. Or trying to. Wish me luck.
