Or so it would appear, judging from a Ragan.com piece in which a PR pro writes that she loves to work in PR because PR people drink lots of coffee, "love to save the day," "overanalyze everything," obsessively check dozens of social media forums to "pick up opportunities and monitor conversations," and because "there's 24/7 excitement."
And then the commenters got into a debate about Coke versus coffee, as a caffeine-delivery device.
Not to overanalyze, but these are the traits of Adult Children of Alcoholics:
"We became addicted to excitement."
"We confuse love and pity and tend to 'love' people we can 'pity' and 'rescue.'"
"We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us to not look too closely at our own faults, etc."
"We have 'stuffed' our feelings from our tramatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much. (Denial.)"
Or, as a commenter said in respone to the Ragan article: "This just makes me enjoy what I do more PR ROCKS."
Does PR really "rock"? Or do some PR jobs "rock"—generally in-house jobs at good organizations, or high up as agency counselors—while much of the field is populated by emotionally desperate people who can't go to sleep at night without the TV on?
I abhor this post on Ragan. Frankly, the author did us an injustice and so did the commenters who agreed. I don’t love PR for any of these reasons at all.
1. I’m caffeinated, sure, but who over at least 15 isn’t?
2. I don’t love to save the day. It’s called crisis management and while I’ve honed my skills in this area, it means I have to use them because someone has messed up or something has gone seriously wrong. It’s not fun and I certainly don’t “love” the process. That’s narcissistic and it’s not me.
3. I don’t overanalyze anything, even for my work. I am thorough. I ask all the tough questions various audiences will ask, but I overanalyze nothing. (By the way, to my knowledge, nobody finds me annoying in my work or personal life.)
4. Not a stalker. Again, I’m thorough. That’s it, but in this day and age, my kids are also knowledgeable about trends as well. I know who the competition is and what they are saying about my clients. It’s called being good at your job and it’s not exclusive to PR. (But… you will not find me reviewing social media on my phone at dinner.)
5. 24/7 excitement is self-induced, I’m happy to say, not my PR work.
PR gets enough flack (pun intended) for being misunderstood as a career, we don’t need further misconception about it posted by actual practitioners. I love PR because I get to continuously learn about new technology, write about it for various audiences, and ensure consistent and accurate messaging is delivered and amplified across those audiences. I don’t fault the writer for liking the profession for her own reasons, but I do not agree with generalizations being made about all of us, especially when they are all so subjective.
Well said, Samantha.