Finishing my apprenticeship

Almost two years ago, I wrote a blog called Becoming an apprentice, all about my journey from a law school drop out to a fresh apprentice in the world of PR and Marketing. I’ve now finished that apprenticeship.

The past few years have been, just as younger me predicted, the best of my life. I got a dog, I grew my fringe out (it did not suit me), I moved house, I made new friends, I got a new car (I crashed it a week later).

My work life has been just as amazing too. I got to attend exhibitions, have meetings in cafes, give a talk at a university, volunteer with the local community, network, all while completing my course and working full time.

I wish that I could go back and tell the girl that wrote that blog how much she has to come. Unfortunately, this is the best I can do. So:

To me, From me.

 Hey, Molly.

You did it! You passed. All the nights of stress eating, and lack of sleep were entirely unjustified. Unfortunately, you didn’t find a rich husband/wife, so you’re definitely going to have to keep working full time. I will keep trying though.

That gut feeling you described as ‘home’ when you first visited Nielsen McAllister was absolutely right, and it never went away. Every day you wake up furious and wishing for more sleep, but after a coffee you’re excited to be there. You have multiple plants on your desk, and a little box filled with memories from your apprenticeship. It has receipts from coffee trips with Rhiannon, encouraging notes from Jack, pictures of your adventures with Hannah, entry bracelets from industry events, and tokens from every NM social event.

You never quite learnt how to pick up the phone or call clients out of the blue, but you’ve gotten better at finding excuses not to. ‘I was out of the room when it rang’, ‘I had my headphones in’. I’m proud of how far we’ve come.

To answer your many other questions, yes, an apprenticeship was the right decision. No, we still can’t parallel park. And don’t even ask if we grew out of using colourful pens on our to-do lists, because you know we won’t.

I’m not sure you’ll ever get to read this, but in the miraculous event that someone invents time travel, I have some last-minute tips for you.

• It’s okay to not know something, your team are there to ask. They won’t judge you; they’ll help you.
• Listen to Jack, although he annoys you to no end, he’s going to support you through a lot of tough tasks. You need his knowledge!
• Please, I’m begging you, stop procrastinating.
• Don’t bother writing any notes for Google Analytics, you won’t need it for long. (Still not happy about that).
• Invest in noise cancelling headphones for the office. You need them.
• Slow down when you’re talking, nobody can understand you when you’re presenting.
• And remember, above all, fringes aren’t for everyone. Just grow it out.

From,

The fully qualified, 20-year-old, version of you x