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Christmas

How to be in PR and still take a Christmas break...or die trying

By Lisa Mennie, Director

Skylark PR

|

Opinion article

December 22, 2014 | 5 min read

It's Christmas and that means the end of the annual calendar and a period of winding down, well unless you work in supermarkets, media and communications. If so, then likely you'll groan Everytime your mobile phone makes a noise, as will your loved ones. Here, Lisa Mennie, director of property comms business, Skylark PR offers her experience and advice of how to juggle the personal and professional.

Lisa Mennie

Picture the scene if you will. T'is a cold, crisp, December evening, just before Christmas, and my business partner's mobile rings: (Frantic / sheepish client on line:) “Pauline [my business partner]. You have children. How d'you make up a baby feed?'"

This was because the client's wife is on a Christmas work night out and he does not know how to feed a child and does not want to call said wife, knowing full well how this will be received.

In PR, nothing really stops for Christmas. Work does calm down (depending on what sectors you cover: I assume that if your clients are Christmas tree suppliers or bauble manufacturers, it just gets crazier), but there's always scope for a call from a journalist as soon as you leave for Christmas drinks on the last day of work, or from a client who may or may not have said or done something that may or may not end up in the paper. Or can't feed a baby.

The media doesn't stop for Christmas. News pages still need filled; clients are still asked for comment and queries still need responded to. It's just how the industry works, and as PR works hand in hand with journalism, it's the nature of the game that phones just keep on ringin'.

For many this is their worst nightmare. Calls in the pub? Responding to queries to meet a deadline at 8pm on a Sunday night? Issuing a press release at 7pm once an exclusive has run online? The industry doesn't suit everyone and many people prefer to switch off once they've left the office.

But PRs (and journalists) are a funny breed. Particularly those who have gone it alone or started their own business: for many of us, we never really switch off. And I think it's possibly fair to say that it's in our nature not to actually want to switch off.

If you work in PR, be it for a firm, freelance or for your own business, there are a lot of perks. No two days are ever the same; the job is immensely mentally stimulating and you get to unleash your creative beast. But no job is perfect and with that comes the downside: late nights; urgent calls at all hours and dropping everything to write a response, whether it's a Saturday night or Christmas Eve. But the payback for these small downsides is having an exciting, interesting job and I suspect that most of us would take the late night phone calls over a job where we did the same thing day in, day out. We understand that this is the trade off; and without the downside we wouldn't have the upside. So we just build a festive bridge and get on over it.

But there are ways to combine being 'on call' with the festive season:

Be specific with clients in advance as to when you will be able to take calls and tell them beforehand who the next 'port of call' is if they can't reach you

Gauge colleagues' availability in advance so you know when they will be available so that you can relax for at least some of time

Most importantly of all: to coin an old PR favourite, 'it's PR, not ER'. The world will not stop turning if you let one call run to voicemail and call them back

And let's face it: an urgent Boxing Day call from a client is a pretty good way to get away from the dinner table when the inevitable family cabin fever has set in and good natured debating has turned into a full scale fracas that results in noone speaking to each other until March.

Every cloud and all that...

Christmas

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