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love my job...Life in a cutting edge, start-up agency from an SRE’s perspective Research has its up and downs and most people have aspects of their work they dislike and others they actually enjoy ... Very often, however, you only read about the good bits with a few cautionary notes thrown in, because the writer is being identified and can’t be ‘too rude’ about his or her employer. The idea of this page is to highlight some of the best and worst things about working in MR, from a different perspective each month. We hope anonymous will mean interesting! ‘The big plus of working for a small start-up is the sense of ownership you get from day one. Whatever you are doing, be it producing a fax template, a proposal structure, a creds pitch or choosing a photocopier you are shaping the way the business is going to develop, unwittingly taking on a very responsible role in the future direction of the company. The highs that you get from winning a new piece of business mean so much more than in a larger agency - after all, you can see the direct correlation between the client’s payment and your salary (not to mention the potential for bonuses!). Similarly, the freedom of being in an environment devoid of any fixed hierarchies has its advantages, although at the same time you have to remember that you are there to do a good job, and part of that job is in growing and shaping the business to make it somewhere desirable for you (and others) to work. The downsides are many. If you are someone who needs managing, or who needs to manage others, or who needs work to provide a thrusting social life for you then a start-up is not for you (there’s just not enough people). If you are rigid in your working hours then it just ain’t meant to be. And if you constantly worry about the future then the uncertainty over where your next pay cheque is coming from (and when!), let alone how long you’ll have a job for, will be enough to make you turn on your heels sharpish. But contrast that with the freedom and the chance to really make a difference. When does this type of opportunity present itself in a big organisation? The benefits are great for the right type of person, but you have to remember it is a competitive world out there. And by the time you are big enough and have been around long enough (and this might only take 12-18 months) to convince some major players that it is worth using you for your originality of thought and cutting edge thinking, there’s the exciting anticipation of that phone call from an empirebuilding Martin Sorrell! In summary, if you get the opportunity to work in a young, small agency, then do it. You’ll learn a lot more than research (really learn accounts, law, HR and consultancy) and you’ll probably take a fair wedge home with you at the end of the day. But if you want to sit behind that desk, a tiny piece of a not particularly well-oiled machine, that’s your lookout ...’
 I
hate my job...Life in a medium-sized agency, also by an SRE ‘I don’t think there are many people who hate what they’re doing all the time. If that’s the case, why are you still doing it? Sure, there are good days in this job, for example when I finish a pilot depth interview with someone interesting, and I can go back to the office and add the results into the melting pot for designing my questionnaire - I feel like I’m in contact with the real world and with my project, and I’m designing something that interviewers are going to I hate my job Life in a medium-sized agency, also by an SRE I’ve been there and done that, a bit, and know it works. And there are exceptions to the negatives I’m going to list below, for example where a client seems really interested in some results and I get to hear about the follow-up to some of our strategic thinking, within that company - even, perhaps, the launch of a product or a campaign that’s strongly influenced by the work we’ve done. On the whole, however, I have to admit that the down side is winning at the moment. I think the whole thing stems from overwork - and how many times do I hear REs and SREs in other thing. ‘We’re getting pizza in tonight ... again ... because we’re all here until 10 o’clock working on another presentation ...’ So that’s camaraderie - it’s fun? Well, it is for a bit, that’s the point, but when it’s the norm, it’s no way to work. It’s not just the lack of social life this leaves me with, but the knock-on effect on the work itself. I don’t get time to finish anything or to follow anything up. I don’t get involved with proposal writing, which is supposed to be the next big thing /my path to promotion, because I’m too busy working on projects that have been commissioned and for which we don’t really have enough staff. I would really, really like to sit down and plan a masterpiece, especially a report but a presentation or even a questionnaire would do - but there’s not enough time to think deeply because of the pressure of work. Perhaps worst of all, the vaunted ‘ongoing relationship with the client’ goes out of the window because there’s no time to be pro-active. I’d like to ring them and say ‘I see X have scrapped their Internet-ready handset due to lack of demand ... why don’t we do some research to find out what’s preventing adoption’ or ‘Congratulations on the new TV ads - you’re going to need some research to assess that ...’ but I don’t have time to keep in touch with the mobile phone industry, because I’m too immersed in the medium-sized research agency industry. And I probably haven’t seen their new TV ad, unless it’s on the office TV during the pizza break ...‘ |
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