When I tell people that I work in PR I’m often faced with a blank expression and an inquisitive “what’s that then?”, but more often than not it’s “oh, how glamorous!”.
My job is many different things, but I wouldn’t put glamorous at the top of the list.
Now this isn’t to say that there isn’t a touch of glamour in my role, I get to don some high heels and a sparkly dress every once in a while, but day to day you won’t find me sipping champagne in some fancy bar.
My role takes me to lots of different locations and I get to meet lots of new faces but usually it’s over a cuppa in a cosy boardroom or on location at a regional site.
If I tell someone that I’m off to Scotland to do some filming I think they envisage glamorous shoots on the streets of Edinburgh, when the reality actually involves frantically editing a script at midnight in a Premier Inn room and then freezing my toes off for hours on end whilst trying to get the right shot.
A big project I worked on for Persimmon Homes last year got me out of bed at 6am on a Sunday. Yes that’s right, on the day of rest I was pulling on my wellies and hitting the M6 before the birds had even begun to tweet. If anything other than work had needed me to wake from my slumber at that ungodly hour on a Sunday my response would be “not on your nelly!”, but I jumped out of bed that morning with a smile on my face.
I was off to the culmination of a big project that I had been working on for many weeks – the demolition of the former Massey Ferguson tower at Persimmon Homes’ Bannerbrook Park development in Coventry.
The day was a huge success with a gaggle of journalists, local dignitaries and members of the community turning out to watch the landmark tower disappear from the Coventry skyline.
I got home after a long hard day and watched the fruits of my labour appear on both the BBC and ITV news that evening and celebrated with a large glass of wine (whilst wearing my oh-so-glamorous pyjamas!).
I do enjoy a swanky event occasionally but I’d take the feeling of success that I felt that evening over glamorous parties any day of the week.
Lizzie Furnell – Account Manager