On meeting people I look up to.

   So if you read this blog, you know all about my J.K. Rowling fiasco, if you don't, click the link to find out how I choked in front of one of my biggest idols. Spoilers, I choke.

   This past week I was in France for the Cannes Lions festival, and it was amazing. The festival itself, the networking opportunities and so on and so forth. But I have to admit what I liked the most about it was meeting people I look up to.

  Before heading off to France I saw that the Sorted boys tweeted about being there and lost my mind momentarily. Then I tweeted them, all nonchalant, and invited them to come to our lounge and try some caipirinhas. To which they replied. (Be still my fangirl heart.) Long story short, after some mild (or not so much) stalking on my part I did get to meet them and they were as lovely as anybody would expect. I also got to meet Dan and Phil who are a lot taller than I imagined but just as lovely!

   What I learned from my sad sad story with J.K. Rowling was that even if I was nervous or starstruck I better get ahold of myself quickly, because I could be missing out on some very interesting conversations with really top notch people. Regardless of how much I look up to them, or how successful they are, as I curled up into a ball at that theatre in Bath and cried in front of strangers I promised myself I would never miss opportunities like that again.
And I didn't!

M.

SortedFood boys enjoying a Caipirinha at the FilmBrazil Lounge - Cannes Lions 2013

 

Doing it anyways...

   So it's no secret that one of my favorite blogs is All Groan Up, it is funny, insightful and just plain old good read. I was particularly chuffed when I learned Paul (who follows me on twitter, cough cough) was releasing his book, 101 Secrets for your Twenties.

   It was particularly great to see that he had set up a contest for his readers to become part of the book, submitting their own secret that either got them through their twenties or is helping them now. So I wrote something.

   In all fairness, maybe "wrote" is putting it nicely, I jotted something down and sent over, without thinking too much about it. I find that my best writing comes out as "mind-vomit", and I can ruin a text like nobody's business by overediting and over thinking the main idea. I have no expectations to be published or even picked as the top 100 of all the submissions  because of the lack of effort I put into it. But I did it anyways, because I love to write, and would have done it even if this contest didn't exist at all.

   So that's the topic for today, boys and girls, not what have you done lately that you expected no results, but why did you do it anyways?

M.

Business Etiquette of the Digital Generation

   I have recently been reprimanded by a former boss about not thanking him/her properly after he/she helped get my current and very exciting job.

   I was very puzzled by this, for I made a point of writing him/her an e-mail literally as soon as the interview was over. I was so thankful for this opportunity and I felt like I expressed that on a very well thought out e-mail. Only to learn, months later, that he/she was expecting a hand written card and flowers.

  Now, here's some important details to this story. I live in a different country than this former boss, I have also just graduated college so it is universally known that I am broke, and to top it all off, I am 22 years old.

  So my question is, when was the last time you hand wrote a letter?

  I could get into the point of how we communicate only electronically now and things lose their values etc. But the point I'm trying to make is that I didn't send them an email because I didn't care, on the contrary, I meant to express my gratitude as fast as I could.

  Is my generation missing all the lessons of business etiquette or have the practices just changed and some people haven't adapted to it? I find it antiquated to send them flowers that will die after two weeks of serving no purpose, but maybe I am in the wrong and should have bough a card, hand written it, then posted it so they could get my thanks 2 to 3 weeks later?

What is your take on this?

M.