How To Fit In: The PR Industry

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  1. Wear black: You don’t know why this is the uniform but it is, and this industry is largely about conformity so you better get black and lots of it. Perhaps you’re not sure how to infuse colour into your closet but nevertheless, you don’t want to rock the boat and you certainly don’t want to not fit in. The ultimate goal is to wear black but to smile a lot – you’ve got to be positive so don’t let your wardrobe get you down. You are not tortured; you are privileged. Most importantly, you love your fast-paced life.
  2. Spend money on your hair: Have it blown out with volume and make sure your highlights are touched up on the regular. You’ve thought about going ombre and you probably will when it’s too late (like, now) but you’re considering edging out so you have a couple pics of ombred-celebs ripped out of the tabs and tucked into your Moleskine for future reference. Never have split ends or bed-head that results from actual sleep.
  3. Surround yourself with media types: Socialize in the ad/marketing ghetto of your city and follow all of your media peers on Twitter. Sometimes you’ll #FF yourself or RT compliments directed your way but I’m certain these foibles will be forgiven (/forgotten) with the amount of mindless chatter you’re pumping into the digital sphere.
  4. Be like, totally interested in client coverage: Please refer to F*ck The Client for more information.
  5. Be half-assedly interested in fashion: Continue to talk about the legacy of Alexander McQueen regardless of the fact that you couldn’t describe any of his collections if your life depended on it (save for Spring 2010, thanks to Gaga). Wear too many accessories because you honestly just don’t know better and be sure to Dubbin your knee-high leather boots at the turn of each season. All of your knee-high leather boots.
  6. Go for after-work drinks: And if you don’t want to, you better put on your schmooze face and do it anyway cause you know they’re gonna shit talk you over socially-smoked cigarettes. If you want to move up, you better go and you better get your drink on. If you have a joint you stole from your boyfriend, gold stars for you. PRs like to perpetrate the image of working hard and playing hard so if you have a big life out of corporate walls, you should probably shut up about it and get thee to the ________ & Firkin.
  7. On casual Fridays, wear plaid to assert your street cred: Not only are you a PR Professional, but you’re like so totally connected to the influencers in your city. Be sure to upload Influencers to Facebook so you can predicate your cultural relevancy to the folks you left back home in the ‘burbs. You work in PR and manage reps for a living, but you must also manage your own rep and ensure that all your tweets, links and online references communicate the appropriate and desired self-image.
  8. Still on the outs? You should probably quit: If you’re not willing to carefully follow steps 1 through 7, I highly suggest considering another industry. Personally, I decided to skip over the steps outlined above because I thought, for however short a period of time, that I could be a genuine exception to the PR Playbook. Needless to say, I handed in my resignation two days ago after a year and a half of fakery and I’m fairly certain I let the President know that “she couldn’t handle a freak like me.”

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image – Idhren