22 Chasing My Dream

This was my first official day at work in the designs department. As instructed, I headed to my department and met my mentor there. The stern-looking lady was waiting for me, and I could tell that she was quite senior in the company. She led me to the boss’s room to introduce me to my boss. She was the head of my department and also someone that I looked up to very much after having seen many of her work in public and reading many interviews that she gave online and in business journals.

“Hello, my name is Lauren and I am the head of the design department here at Jessens and Hill’s. It’s a pleasure to have you here with us,” my boss said.

I looked up at the lady who smiled politely at me in awe. I respected her and revered her talent. Apart from that commercial that changed my life, she is another main reason why I wanted to join this company. I smiled in return as I thought about how much closer I had gotten to the start of realizing my dreams. From today on, I will get to work with Lauren.

“I’m Karina Miller. It’s nice to meet you too. Thank you for having me. I look forward to working here,” I replied politely.

She nodded her head in acknowledgement. Before signaling for the older woman to take me to my seat. There was an empty desk and chair prearranged for me. After settling in, I introduced myself to my new colleagues. Two employees were selected to act as my buddies. One was a woman with light blonde hair and very long eyelashes.

“Hi. My name is Katie. It’s nice to meet you. I’ll be your buddy from today. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask me, I’ll help you out,” Katie said as she smiled at me.

I could sense that she was very friendly, and I hoped that we would get along.

“I’m Karina. It’s nice to meet you too. I look forward to working with you,” I replied politely with a friendly smile.

“My name is Dan. I’ve been here for almost five years now, so if you need any help, don’t hesitate to ask me. I look forward to working with you,” Dan said politely.

…..

My other buddy who seemed more senior than Katie, introduced himself. He was a tall and thin man with brown hair and a very wide smile. I could feel their genuine generosity to help me out at work, and I felt extremely thankful to have such supportive colleagues.

“Let me walk you through what we do here at the design department. Although, you’ve probably heard as part of the job description already of what we do, I’d still like to walk you through just to show you the ropes. Well then, if you’ll just head this way,” Dan said as he led the way to a small meeting room.

Katie followed after us. After setting up his computer, Dan flashed some slides on the presentation screen.

“Here at the design department, we focus mainly on the storyline of advertisements based on the demands of our clients. The process starts out with pitching to our potential client. Our company will receive requests from clients such as the scope of what they want their advertisement to be about, their products, so on and so forth. Then, based on the scope outlined by the client, we as the design department, would come up with storylines and storyboards that we would pitch to the client. Our ideas of what the advertisement should be like,” Dan explained.

“Of course, we are very active in the design of the storyboard, and we are also active in the presentation to the client. If our company and our idea is selected for the advertisement, then we would work with the production and the planning team in order to plan the production of the advertising. We would also get involved with the execution of the production to make sure that it matches with what we had in mind when we designed the storyboard and the storyline,” Katie chimed in. 𝗼𝐯𝐞𝐥．𝐜𝐨𝗺

Dan continued explaining each phase in more detail as he pointed to the associated elements on the presentation slides. Katie sat silently by my side as she also listened in to Dan’s presentation. Frankly, what he described was like a dream come true for me. It was all that I ever wanted to do as my job. Using my creativity and imagination to bring a storyline to life in an advertisement. It was what I had always wanted to do after seeing that commercial on that fateful day. I wanted people to feel the emotions and the underlying messages in the advertisement that I had designed.

“Do you have any questions?” Dan asked after he had finished explaining everything.

“No questions at all. It’s very clear. Thank you so much, Dan,” I replied honestly.

“That’s great. Then let me show you around the office a little more. And I’ll also introduce you to other team members,” Katie suggested enthusiastically as she got up from her seat.

I didn’t get my first project assigned to me on that day, so I spent a lot of time just shadowing Katie and Dan to see what they were doing as part of their daily work. When lunchtime arrived, we went out for lunch together at the cafeteria in the building. Dan had a meeting in the afternoon, and I was allowed to sit in and observe. After that, Dan prepared edits to the storyline based on his client’s feedback. He was working on an advertisement for a chain of fitness gyms.

“The client told me that they wanted to add a bit more of a healthy angle to the whole storyline, so here I’m adjusting to put in the other services that they provide such as nutritional advice and programs,” Dan explained to me, as he pointed to the storyboard, that he had on his computer.

“Do you have a meeting with your clients soon?” I asked.

“Yes, the meeting is coming up next week. That’s why we’re working so hard. If I could just get the storyboard approved by the client, then we can move on to more in-depth design, planning, and then production,” he explained.

“Good luck. I’m sure that you can do it,” I said encouragingly.

Dan turned to smile at me and nodded.

“Would you like to join the client meeting next week? If you are still free?” he offered.

“Sure, I’m sure that I’ll learn a lot from it,” I said, feeling thankful.

I continued observing Dan working for the rest of the day. He was kind enough to pause here and there to explain to me what he was doing and the importance of what he was doing. Towards the end of the workday, I got a message from Kyle.

–To be continued…