Week #12

This week was quite the challenge. Once again, the office is arriving at that painful stage of deadline. Next week is their last week to get everything rounded off for the next issue, so up until then I expect to have a fair few jobs thrown my way.

My week started with being assigned a whole heap of written work by Steven. We sat down together in the office as he went over everything that needed doing and ended up assigning me four written pieces on book reviews, and 9 written pieces on beauty news.

I completed the four book reviews on the Monday, which was an interesting experience considering I hadn’t actually read the books I was reviewing. Three of the books I didn’t have a hard copy of, so for them I decided to search up multiple reviews about them online to form a general idea of what the books were about. I then had to mention why Remix loves these books, so I had to find an angle or twist, or something specific within the book that I could target and discuss. I did have a hard copy for one of the books however, which meant that I was able to use the intro on the front page and the blurb on the back of the book for reference. I was also able to flick through the book and identify reasons for why Remix might love it. I sent my completed work in that evening.

The following day, Steven sent me all the information I needed for writing up the beauty news section. He also gave me the deadline ‘ASAP’. I was sent some of Josie’s writing (Remix’s previous beauty news writer) for me to mirror her writing style. This was extremely intimidating for me, because as mentioned before I am not familiar with makeup products, so describing them doesn’t come naturally to me. Reading over Josie’s work however, you can easily see that it’s second nature to her just from the quality of her work. I knew I wouldn’t be able to achieve the same standard as someone with years of experience, but I really wanted to replicate her style to the best of my ability in order to impress Steven. I had a few other commitments that day including presentations, class, and work at the pub, which meant that I didn’t have a lot of time to spend mulling over my work. I had a lot of documents containing information which I had to condense to include the most important stuff, and then I also had to spend time attempting to mirror Josie’s writing style. After sending in all 9 pieces to Steven that night, I was feeling very stressed out about not having enough time to complete work to my own expectation of standards. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I came into the office the following day to be complimented by Steven on how great of a job I did.

I was then assigned three more written pieces, one on a grey-reducing shampoo for men, another on Helen Cherry’s winter wardrobe, and finally, one on Jimmy Choo’s first ever fragrance for men. I finished all three on the Thursday and sent them through to Steven.

Finally, on the Friday, I completed my very last drop off run for Remix, as there are no more shoots for the next issue which ultimately means no more clothes. I made sure to thank everyone I had built relationships with at each store, and despite the fact that I hated having to drive around all day to complete these jobs, I felt a bit sad that it could be my last time associating with these people.

Despite this week being extremely busy, I feel that I’ve managed to organise my time well in completing my responsibilities by deadline while maintaining my usual routine with uni and work. Looking back, I’m surprised by my capability to produce 16 written pieces in one week. I hope to see some of it in the next issue when it comes out in June.