January 2019 – Life in Public Relations Hell

The Brazilian Incident

I will call this “The Brazilian Incident.”

It sparked one of the worst and troubling periods of my public relations career and nearly led to me finally, once and for all, leaving this heartbreaking profession for good.

The Brazilian Incident all started rather innocently.

Our agency, as had written in my previous posts, brought in a lot of interns from the local colleges and for a while, this included a lot of foreign exchange students.

Two Brazilian interns in their early twenties — Emmanuella and Tristessa — joined our team for several months.

Like Millennials in general, they had no courtesy or manners and were strangely standoffish and smug but didn’t know anything. I had known a number of Brazilian women in work and in my personal life through the years. Unfortunately, Emmanuella and Tristessa possessed none of the warmth, kindness, and passion of the Brazilian women I had known and worked with.

Emmanuella had a strange low voice and laughed at dumb shit on the internet. If you tried to say hello to Tristessa, she would give you a strange suspicious look like you were trying to pick her up or something. She even gave me a weird look after my boss introduced us after her first interview. Later, I found out she as a public relations major, but she never once tried to learn anything from me, someone with a lot of experience in the business. Not surprising, though.

Frankly, neither one of them were as cool or as hot as they thought they were. But their attractiveness or coolness is hardly important, as it is their attitudes that proved more than troubling.

The problem all started during a long work car trip to Silicon Valley for a new business presentation to a large Chinese tech company. Rather than fly some of the team up there and do the rest via Skype or phone, my boss cheaped out and rented a van to take the whole team up to the meeting. It was a long and grueling drive for nothing. We never did get the client, but that is another story.

On the tedious and tiring drive back from Silicon Valley, Emmanuella, who was sitting next to me in the middle seat of the van with Tristessa, fell asleep on my arm for a short while. I thought about waking her up, but I didn’ t want to disturb her. This proved a costly mistake that I would regret over the next few months.

When Emmanuella woke up, she was startled, said excuse me, and abruptly moved away from me. She didn’t initially act strangely — like I was trying to molest her or something — until later. I swear I never touched her, or had any intentions of touching her, but that didn’t matter in her eyes. She slept on my arm. What the fuck?

In fact, I had a similar experience while on a plane a few years ago. A woman — who was closer to my age — fell asleep against my arm for a brief while as she sat next to me during the flight. When she woke up, she was very apologetic and nothing ugly ever came from it. She didn’t think I was trying to molest her or something. Crazy.

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So, after we stopped at a gas station to fuel up and go to Starbucks, Emanuella moved to the very back of the van and avoided me like I had the plague. When we finally arrived back to the office that night to go home, Emanuella ignored me as did her friend Tristessa.

The next day at the office, Emanuella avoided me like I was some kind of old sexual predator. Her friend Tristessa did the same.

Then it got even worse. For weeks after the van incident, I was shunned from their so-called team lunches they had with other creepy Millennials and others around our office — namely Lydia, Code Boy, and their creepy social media manager friend (who I will write about in an upcoming post). They would invite everyone right in front of me like I was invisible. They also did this when they invited the entire office — except for me — to an after-work party for Halloween.

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Still, I wondered if I was imagining all of this…

Sadly, I wasn’t. However, I didn’t realize how bad things really were until Emmanuella and Tristessa rudely warned one of their friends against me – right in front of me!!!

One of their friends, an attractive, tall woman with long black hair, visited our office and greeted me in a friendly manner. I actually saw Tristessa and Emmanuella immediately get up from their desks and pull their friend away and take her out of the office like I was some kind of a sexual predator to be avoided.

The horrible looks of hatred and fear on the faces of Emmanuella and Tristessa when they warned their friend about me haunted me for weeks. I was beyond insulted and hurt. I was furious. I debated about telling my boss about it, which I didn’t.

Now, I have been treated horribly at PR firms through the years, but never quite as rudely as that. I had to leave the office for a while I was so shaken up.

Who were these fucking creepy interns to feel they could treat me like this? In a work environment, no less.

I never spoke to them again after that.

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When the Brazilian freaks finally left our agency after their internship was over I was so elated.

Lydia’s final message to Emmanuella and Tristessa on their last day was to “stay beautiful.” Of course, they (and Lydia for that matter) were anything but beautiful, as I believe beauty is truly skin deep, but not in their case with their ugly, unfriendly, and immature attitudes.

In the end, I, unfortunately, discovered through this crazy Brazilian Incident…that the rudeness and cluelessness of Millennials truly cross borders, and sadly, is an age and generational thing.

TEAM LUNCH?

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Sometimes I wonder how I ended up here…working late in my career at an agency that has a staff made up of mostly interns attending college or recent graduates.

So naturally, you can imagine I work in Millennial hell. (I will write more about my disdain for Millennial attitudes and work habits in later posts, but I will only make a passing comment on it for this post).

Being a veteran of the business and much older than these interns, you can imagine that I didn’t have a lot in common with them, to begin with.

However, I am a firm believer that you shouldn’t use the word TEAMWORK if you truly don’t have an understanding of its meaning in a workplace environment. Cliquish, high school behavior should be avoided and is anathema to building a supportive team culture. Unfortunately, many of the Millennials I have worked with have no concept of this and exhibit rude, standoffish behavior like they are still in high school or in a college fraternity.

And yes…sadly ageism is alive and well in the public relations industry, too. But more on that later.

This blog post will focus on an idiotic co-worker I will call Lydia. She is a 24-year-old recent graduate from a local southern California college. Lydia started out as an intern but was later hired by the agency as a graphic artist. My boss, who actually is pretty cool as far PR bosses go, but that is not saying much, thinks Lydia walks on water. However, I constantly find errors in her work for websites and campaign pages. She hates when I point it out.

I think real reason my boss likes Lydia is that he can get her cheap as she is just out of college rather than having to pay more for an experienced person, who is more professional. My boss is cheap, which I won’t dwell on too much in this blog, but even he is not the cheapest person I have worked for in public relations. I’ll explore that more in future blogs about how hard it truly is to make money in the public relations business.

Lydia is a short, chubby Latina woman with a strange, round face, bad teeth, stringy red hair, who thinks she is the shit. She is not. She also speaks very quickly (uses definitely a lot) and even mispronounces words in client meetings. It can get embarrassing at times.

Lydia also is shallow and constantly laughs (more of a high-pitched cackle to be honest) at jokes and videos on the internet and comments from her colleagues Norman and Alireza, who are not funny at all.

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Norman is the bosses’ son, who I call Code Boy, as he creates websites for our agency. He is in his thirties, tall with short hair, a goatee, and an odd, arrogant and unfriendly demeanor. He wears pilot shades while in the office and thinks he is so cool. He is not. However, his own father warned me during a trade show trip that Norman could be a cold person and not to take it personally. Actually, I think he is two-faced and creepy, and I remember when I joined the agency, Code Boy didn’t talk to me for several weeks.

Even worse, Code Boy actually thinks he knows more about public relations than I do and he critiques my emails to clients at times, and even my press releases, although he knows nothing about PR. One time when I went to a Dodger game, soon after I joined the firm, he tried to get an inappropriate media pitch for a military client pushed through my department without my approval. I stopped that immediately and spoke with his father and he never tried that bullshit again. Now, during our conversations, usually, after everyone has gone home, I notice Norman looking for every little mistake or sign of weakness I show to share with Lydia and the rest of team to mock me behind my back. So I am much more careful what I say around Code Boy now.

Lydia’s other compadre is Alireza, a scrawny creep with a beard who joined the agency as a graphic artist a few months ago. I have never exchanged more than a few words with this fool, but he has always been unfriendly toward me.

How can you hate someone you don’t even know?

I can only think it is because of what I call Lydia’s “poison.” Her hatred of me has always been there since I joined the agency and didn’t want to engage in dumb small talk with her. But two other factors, a dumb social media millennial fool who used to work at our agency who also despised me, and something I will call THE BRAZILIAN INCIDENT, also turned Lydia against me. I will explore these subjects in later blogs.

So, at the end of each week, Lydia will walk around and invite all the Millennial workers in the office to what she calls a “team lunch.” (Norman is the only one invited that is not a young Millennial out of school, but he is the boss’ son after all).

Lydia does this right in front of me, knowing I can hear her do it. It is a form of shunning me, but I have come to believe it is much worse. Lydia calls her lunch backstabbing sessions “team lunches” but since she doesn’t invite everyone on the team, it can’t be a team lunch. Lydia has no idea how high school and dumb that is.

I used to think nothing about it and figured they were all young and wanted to talk about school and other trivial matters Millennials love.

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However, I soon came to believe Lydia’s “team lunches” had a much more sinister purpose toward me and were doing serious damage to collaboration and so-called teamwork in our agency. She used these lunches to bash me and my PR work at our agency yet she also knows nothing about public relations. I began to notice this when Lydia started inviting interns that worked on my PR team to her lunches. Before they went to lunches with Lydia, the interns that worked for me were supportive and respectful. They were eager to learn. After Lydia’s lunches, they became unfriendly and even disrespectful and unprofessional at times. The female interns’ reactions were even worse. They became wary of me as if I was going to hit on them or to do something inappropriate, which would never be the case. A future blog about the BRAZILIAN INCIDENT will make this nightmare more clear.

Even Louis, who works for me and I will call MBA boy, (and will write about more in a future post), has also been poisoned by Lydia’s lunches. His attitude used to be much more respectful and supportive but has turned unfriendly and questioning in recent months.

I know I am not imagining things as I was reminded of again recently when we had three new interns join our agency, and they were all friendly toward me until they went to lunch with Lydia. Now the new interns are unfriendly, ignore me and are even borderline hostile toward me. And they don’t even know me. I can only imagine all the horrible things Lydia is saying behind my back. It has been hard to deal with at times as I already hate my job, but I have grown to hate this creepy Millennial agency culture even more.

It has come to the point where I don’t even bother to befriend new people who join our agency as I know they will soon be poisoned by Lydia against me. I have seen it happen so many times over the past year.

And women say they are not vindictive.

It is a sad fact I have to face — I have no allies here except for my boss. I’ve had allies in the past at other agencies, but not here.

I am feeling isolated and left out a lot during most of my work days. There is no real sense of team at our agency. Although everyone here pretends differently.

I just want to work with cool and supportive people and make more money.

Is that too much to ask for?

Being a Publicist is a Thankless Job…

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Being a publicist or public relations executive is truly a thankless job.

Publicists get no respect. It is even worse than comedian Rodney Dangerfield could have imagined. Everyone dumps on us — the media, lame advertising people who don’t understand public relations, and worst of all — clients.

Public relations clients are never satisfied. It is kind of like being in a relationship with a nymphomaniac or sex addict. No matter what we do — securing front page magazine and newspaper articles, intriguing online profiles, top TV coverage, etc. — it is never enough. They always want more, more, and even more…like true media whores.

Your past successes mean little in the public relations industry as far as clients are concerned. PR clients’ overall attitude and mantra remain constant: “What have you done for me lately?”

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Sadly, most of the clients I have encountered and worked with through the years, have little or no clue about what us publicists actually do for them, the actual difficulty of the job, and the true nature of how the media works. They want everything yesterday even though obtaining media relations always takes much longer than anyone thinks, and is a time-consuming and frustrating process that requires diligence, and patience — the one quality most clients I have known…lack.

I could write a 10 volume encyclopedia about what clients don’t know about public relations and even that wouldn’t cover it. Each PR campaign launch requires a constant educational effort for clients who expect instant media coverage. Keeping clients’ expectations within realistic and achievable goals is an ongoing job that never stops.

The main problem is too many people don’t really know what public relations actually is and what role PR can play in promoting a company and building brands over time. Too often they confuse it with advertising where you may control and pay for the message, but it doesn’t have the same credibility as public relations, which is simply free earned publicity for of your company, etc.

Yet even trying to explain this difference to friends and family is a daunting and frustrating challenge. A typical conversation goes like this:

Family member or Friend: “So…you’re in advertising?”

You: “No…public relations.”

Family or friend: “That’s the same as advertising…isn’t it?”

You: “No. Not exactly. In public relations, we don’t control the message of our clients. We provide free publicity. In advertising, they buy the message and essentially ad space or time. We have to earn public relations coverage by telling stories and promoting the news value of our clients…”

At that point, your family member or friend stares at you blankly in abject confusion.

“Oh, OK,” they say and quickly move on to another subject.

So once again we get no respect as no one, including our clients, truly understand what we do and the true value of what a strategic public relations campaign can overall bring to enhancing a company’s reputation.

Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t just stay in journalism. I might be hated but people would at least understand what I do.

The funny thing is I thought public relations would be a cushy, high-paying job. Boy, was I ever wrong. You couldn’t blame me, though. I was an underpaid, overworked high school and college sports editor for a Southern California daily newspaper. I actually loved the work and writing but hated the late hours, constant deadline pressure, and ridiculously low pay. At one point, I worked 45 straight days without a day off. I worked almost every holiday and most Friday and Saturday nights. I even worked Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve one year. It was hell on my social life, to say the least.

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Even if I wasn’t at the office, I could be called into work on a moment’s notice or would have to work on articles at home. I was stressed out and couldn’t ever seem to relax and get away. I see now that it was my first introduction to work burnout. I figured public relations couldn’t be that bad, but PR had its own downsides I didn’t foresee. As a reporter, if a reader doesn’t like one of your stories, they can write a letter to the editor, call the editor to complain or post nasty online comments under the story. However, generally, you don’t lose your job over reader complaints. There still exists a US vs. Them mentality in journalism even today.

In public relations, if a client complains to your boss about your performance– you could be gone. As with many other industries, there isn’t a lot of employer loyalty in PR especially when it comes to public relations clients and the business they bring into an agency or firm. The client is always right even if they are so completely wrong. They pay the bills as advertisers, and to a lesser extent, subscribers, do for news organizations.

Also, you can remind your clients a million times that you have no control over the media and you need to approach the media with modesty, finesse, and creativity, and all they want to know is why you couldn’t get their lame product or story covered in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. Even at times when you land a huge placement for your clients, they will still complain and ask why the media didn’t just print their comments from the press release or their favored message points. They essentially want to turn the media into their own publicity outlet with no regards to the news value of their product or story or the media’s own needs to tell an interesting story to their readers.

You can painstakingly explain this media dynamic to clients like they are a 3-year-old and many of them still won’t get it.

Recently, I was reminded of this media dynamic at the CES show in Vegas. I had one client that became the hit of the show and received an avalanche of coverage. They get the role of PR in launching their business and support our efforts and the planning that went into it. They treat us more as a partner in their business than a vendor.

The other client we had at CES began complaining and demanding instant coverage even just 12 hours after launching their press release at the show. Their product was hardly anything new or truly groundbreaking at a show that specializes in just that. Still, eventually, our team rallied to get our client interest from a major business publication and an interview with another high profile publication at their booth.

The bullshit never ends.

Even though I have been able to effectively transfer my journalism skills to the PR world, I have long since lost patience with the bullshit side of the PR business. This why my career has been a revolving door, and an endless and ongoing search for the perfect public relations job and agency that I am beginning to realize may not exist. Still, I hold out hope…but can’t help thinking that I am deluding myself.

So…welcome to my life in public relations hell.

An Introduction of sorts…about a frank look into public relations hell…

I wanted to start this blog to share my experiences, funny stories, crazy anecdotes, hard lessons as a public relations executive. I am hoping to shed more light on the dark side of the public relations world.

I believe public relations is one of the most misunderstood and underappreciated careers. Everyone thinks they can do it, but many (especially clients) don’t have a clue. More on that later.

As a current public relations executive, I need to write this blog under a fictitious name, but let me assure you that the stories that will make up this blog are honest and truthful. However, the names of the people and companies have been changed or left out to protect the not so innocent and clueless.

This is not a chronological diary or narrative blog as I will jump around to different times in my career to share a bizarre story or make a point. As I have found, even with the passage of time, human nature, the dark side of it I speak of here, has remained eerily similar through the years bearing out that old adage that the more things change, the more they remain (sadly in this case) the same.

I will eventually adapt these posts into a series of fictional books in the coming years.

However, please remember this blog is fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, any events or locales is purely coincidental. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

In the meantime, enjoy this always frank look into life in public relations hell.

Look for more posts soon.