Imagine a Monday that you wake up, drink your morning coffee and prepare yourself to go to work; thinking about the tasks you’ll do on that day and maybe the time that you will spend on the way. With one difference, your work place is not located in a boring plaza, it is the whole world and the time that you will spend on the way is not a chaotic traffic jam, it’s the flight you’ll take: go to another country.
Does it sound unreal, right? Well, if someone talked to me 2 years ago and briefly told me that I will work like this, possibly I would just laugh. But here I am, almost for 7 months I am working for GIS Consult and I can say, everywhere, that I have my computer with me, is my office. I worked in 5 different countries, 12 different cities, sometimes on the flight sometimes at a café or the most beautiful sunset near the sea was my office.
Thanks to GIS Consult’s amazing 3 women, I entered a new world where there is no Monday syndrome, instead you enjoy your work and eventually your life. As a former advertiser, despite the long working hours (where the day starts at 9 am- ends at 4 am), the most boring thing from my side is being stuck in the office, forgetting about there is a world outside (feeling lucky when I see the sunset) and stop growing professionally. After these 7 months, I realize that I actually love my job, the thing I didn’t love was the way that called ‘normal’ working style.
Living in the Global Village
I didn't choose a career that would rise vertically. Maybe this can be a common situation among the Y generation, when you realize that you will be less productive by getting professional only in one major, the mind automatically wants to learn the things outside of the box and eventually the transformation starts horizontal. After the big budget campaigns, TV commercials, billboards all around the country, I realized the ‘communication’ that I am creating starts with an idea, builds internally (nothing can affect it externally) and aims to affect only target audience and the satisfaction feeling will be always the same. In this case, Public Relations was my door that I can reach outside of this compressed world.
The professional development that I see with PR is based on several different factors. As well as client needs, you need to follow the countries agenda, medium’s agenda, sectoral improvements and even the competitors. The most challenging and the beautiful part is, you have to follow all these factors not domestically but also international. Imagine the differences; after selling internal ideas (advertising), you are shaping the ideas (PR) by following the world.
Thanks to our clients and our international agency network, I found myself being a part of a multinational teams; instead of the internal communication with same people for years, I found the chance to work with people all around the world. Learning their work ethics, comparing with mine, maybe developing myself or affecting them with mine. It feels like, changing the window view from the city chaos to an ocean view. In this 7 months, I had the chance to work with clients from 9 different countries. I changed my focus from Turkey to world, their countries’ agenda became important for me and most importantly, I realized there is a world outside which is bigger than mine, and honestly how this affected me positively can be a main topic for another article.
Wish your dreams to be true
This whole summer, I’ve been at abroad and I continued my work schedule like I am working in Turkey. Everything was the same, meetings, reports, projects but only I was away. Even for Europe, this was something uncommon. People were asking so many questions, trying to understand how can I work but ‘not work’- because I realized, for everyone being a corporate employee means stuck in an office. More and more I talked to them, they also started to see there is a world outside where they don’t need to give up neither their work or their dreams. So many talented people I met were looking for some time for their personal projects and yet so many are afraid to step outside. As a Turkish, as a woman and as an employee I felt really lucky to be working with these 3 women who know how to look outside of the windows and bravely change the views keeping the windows wide open.
Finally, I feel myself like I broke the circle, there is no vertical or horizontal personal development. All I know, I opened a door for myself where my colleagues are multinational, I am not limited only with ‘ideas’ and the things I will learn never ending.