Day 2, 8/4/14

My second day at Remarkable was slightly more relaxed. I was still working on the large list of jobs they had given me on the first day. i wasn't behind, they just wanted to give me a big pile of tasks that i could slowly work through during my first week. I organised myself by priority, completing the press releases that were due in May over the press release exercises that were purely for my benefit.

I wrote a press release for one of our clients 'Cash Converters.' This was a lot easier than Ben's press release as it was less political and so therefore did not highlight my knowledge weaknesses. I researched into World Cup and television viewing statistics for this piece as I needed to incorporate figures to help promote the client. This was interesting and entertaining as it took a long time to gain the right information. When i had finally finished, I emailed it to Gemma who had delegated me the task. She cleaned it up and added more informal aspects such as changing 'football' to footy, but it stayed largely the same, which i'm very pleased with. She really liked the quote that i generated for the client's CEO. This was a strange one for me, as just the day before, Ben had warned me not to make up quotes, yet in this release, I was specifically asked to (the CEO reads it and gives us permission as he doesn't have time to write a quote).
I'm still yet to ring around the supermarkets, as it's a daunting task for me. I feel like I don't have enough or the right information to have a full conversation, plus these supermarkets are massive, high profile companies. If I could get over this flaw, I could certainly work in PR, but it's a lot of meetings, discussions, schmoozing and communication, but i'm improving. 

Another interesting new task I was given was regarding the police. They have an agreement with Cash Converters to protect and monitor the stores so that no stolen goods are being sold there. So, Remarkable are arranging a photo opportunity for some members of the force in each region to have a photograph outside one of the local stores. My task was to sort the stores into a table, so that they were listed next to the regional force that oversee their particular store. It took a long time, mainly because in the list I was using, some of the stores' 'county' was actually a city so it didn't correspond with the table created for me.
Overall, the day was fairly productive and I'm really enjoying it here. I prefer the longer tasks because there's no pressure of a time limit and it can span the day while I dip in and out of other jobs.