desk job

I never pictured myself as having a job that would require me to sit behind a desk all day, but I guess no optimistic American youth really wishes that on themselves. Sure, it's preferable to blue-collar manual labor, but occupations that could be called desk jobs have a fair share of negative connotations; and in my opinion, those negative associations are well-founded. We as humans are created to have healthy, rich interaction with our natural surroundings and our peers. Yet everything about the environment of most professional offices in the U.S. seeks to prevent us from connecting in any real way with each other and the world outside our walls, and to at least some extent it's dehumanizing, which is probably why so many are resentful and why entertainment which parodies the white-collar experience - The Office, Dilbert, Parks and Recreation (poking fun at our nation's largest provider of desk jobs, government) - have become so popular.

Anyway, suddenly I'm required to sit at a desk from 9 to 5, when only 6 months ago in college, the longest class I ever had to sit through was 80 minutes long, so I can't help but feel a little restless and confined when I'm at the office. We're all separated in our little partitioned areas; clickity-clacking on our keyboards; exchanging, sharing, creating, and managing information; having complex and extensive dialogue with people hundreds of miles away, yet going hours on end without speaking a word to the person who is no further than an arm's reach.

And so I ask myself, "Can you handle something like this? Can you find contentment in this kind of environment? What kinds of modifications would you need to be able to tolerate this lifestyle, and what employers do you think would be willing to accommodate those modifications?

Some people get a potted plant, or put up pictures of their cats, or set up lamps with soft lighting, or add whatever homey touches they wish to their work space in attempts to regain their humanity, but I'm just not certain of my ability to cope with the typical desk job work environment. It remains to be seen.

Even a veteran white-collar employee like Dilbert does his best to forge some sort of connection  with  his natural surroundings. 

a PR lesson

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's PR department really excels in traditional PR. And for this reason, I wanted to do a little overview of public relations in the traditional sense - using BSO PR as an example - just in case you're still wondering what in the world public relations actually is.

Both advertising and public relations work to spread the message of an organization. The rudimentary difference is that in advertising, you get to control most all aspects of how your message is broadcast, because you put down a lot of cash for the right to control your message; and in public relations,  you create your messaging and then give it to outside entities in hopes that they will broadcast your message (basically for free) simply because your message is worthy to be heard and people will want to know. For example if the BSO were trying promote a concert, BSO advertising would buy air time with a radio station and broadcast a commercial; BSO PR would convince the radio station that the concert is significant to the public interest and then the radio station would voluntarily cover the concert in the way they see fit. I could go on about message control, credibility, and the nature of news outlets, but we'll leave it at that.

So when it comes to traditional media (newspaper, radio, & television), public relations people must try to capture the interest and favor of journalists, in order to gain free publicity for their organization. On the other hand, journalists must remain cordial with their PR contacts, in order to gain access to information about the organizations the PR contacts represent. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Journalists are the gatekeepers to traditional media, and PR people are the gatekeepers to information.


Day in and day out in BSO's PR department, we are bugging journalists to get them to cover our up coming concerts; but journalists are also calling on us to get them photos, tickets, artist bios, and interviews. And so we try to manage these give-and-take relationships. But then again, most all our relationships (business and otherwise) are defined by how we subconsciously weigh the costs and benefits. It's something we learn in elementary school when Valery asks for one of your Oreo cookies and you think these advanced, future-career-building thoughts, wondering if you grant her your last cookie, will she remember how you sacrificed for her the next time her lunch box has a few squares of her mom's homemade fudge?

before & after

My first week at the BSO I was given a "special project": redecorate the sound room. In the sound room, they film video interviews with guest soloists for Musician's Corner.  Well, at 4pm today, the renovations were completed. The new bar stools we snatched from the front lounge, and BSO's sound guy hooked us up with lapel mic's. The grey carpeted walls and orange sound panels required curtains, which were a little more challenging ($200, 3 trips to Ikea, and lots of man-hours). Many thanks to everyone who helped along the way: Alicia, Larry, Laura, Bertha, Gail, and most especially Ivory!

before

after

coffee zealots

If you were trying to reach the BSO's Marketing/PR department last Thursday morning and everyone seemed to have stepped away from their desk, it's because we had embarked on a pilgrimage to 7-11. We had to take time to celebrate the festival that is National Coffee Day. While some organizations don't grant their employees the freedom to exercise their faith in roasted beans of the Coffea arabica, the BSO sent out notification to all its employees that the day of celebration was upon us, and those who wished to participate in the joyous occasion could partake of the cup at 7-11, where medium-size cups of fresh-brewed, hot coffee were offered at no charge.  So with this common cause, we set out.

Some chose the hazelnut roast, others Colombian. Brazilian bold. French roast. And one fervent follower even savored the taste of blueberry roast coffee. It was one of those experiences that transcends my ability to describe in mere words.

And we each took up a single-serve liquid creamer, and set them in a heap to serve as a sign. In the future, when our children ask us, "What do these creamers mean? we will tell them that the day was long, but the coffee was hot and it was good. And this is to be a memorial to the people of Baltimore forever.