2012 is turning out to be quite a year. Not only will the Taylor Bennett Foundation be running four PR internships, and increasing the intake from six graduates on each programme to eight but also, rather inconveniently, I am having a baby.
It was a planned pregnancy. Well, planned in that we have been trying to conceive for nearly five years with no luck, but I never really had expected it to happen and so in terms of when the baby is due to make an appearance, it was not diarised.
For anyone who knows me well, you will realise that this has caused me endless sleepless nights. My role at the Foundation is completely unique. I have never met anyone who does my job elsewhere and so I take great pains to make sure I am not away on holiday when the internships are running so that someone else doesn’t have to take on tasks they never imagined they’d have to. I never imagined, therefore, that I would be taking four months maternity leave in the middle of the year and leaving my precious interns in the hands of someone new.
The baby has been warned that it must appear on its due date of May 5th as to be early would be disastrous and to be late will mean mummy will be cross. My friends have scoffed at the idea of a child who follows my spreadsheet but it will have to learn pretty quickly I tell you.
The question of who will manage the internship programmes while I am away is still up in the air. We’ve had a few ideas but the decision of who takes over is down to the Foundation’s trustees so I have my fingers crossed they will go with my first choice.
Whoever it is will have to take on a bewildering array of tasks. I have been running these programmes for two years now and I had never quite grasped the variety of things I do on a day to day basis. To ease the cover person into the role, I have started compiling a “Guide to Running the Taylor Bennett Foundation Internships”. It is twenty pages so far and I’m only up to what to do to recruit the interns and how to settle them in on their first week.
I am very lucky in that I love my role. It is challenging, interesting and can be very rewarding, but it demands of me some unusual skills.
So, for those of you who fancy running such a scheme here are just some of the more random things you’ll be tasked with:
- Make sure the interns understand how to change a toilet roll (no one likes going into the loo to find that the last roll has been used and not replaced)
- Ensure you’re up to date with popular culture so as not to seem a million years old (I am 37 so to the average 22 year old I am ancient) and, if running an internship focussed on fashion PR, be clear in your understanding that Paul’s Boutique bags are chavvy and Mulberry are not
- Be clear when giving instructions. Graduates are used to pages of academic instructions with little room for interpretation. If your directions aren’t clear, they’ll go off piste
- When giving them career advice think about it from their mum’s point of view. If it’s not advice you’d give your own child, it’s bad advice
- Bring them cake. Homemade is best, but if you’re six month’s pregnant and can’t be arsed to bake then Krispy Kremes also go down well
Such dedication – I can remember similar angst around 20 years ago …. like you a long time coming and then not properly diarised! We all survived – hubby, job, team, newborn son and me. I was also part way through a 3 year part time MBA and did my ops management just before the birth and a finance exam soon after!
Trust me Sarah, you are about to embark ont he biggest roller coaster ride of your life!
…and to top it off we’ve just moved to a new house which is being completely re-vamped. My husband is, as I write, turning the air blue as he chases in cables for the new kitchen appliances.
So, quite a busy year. But never dull.