Emotions Equal Problems
"I love Stefanie and want her to do well and I know that she is a very dedicated employee! But if she is going to be successful, she will need to learn to set aside the emotions and focus on completing the tasks at hand."
Hello everyone and thanks for tuning in for more Kell on Earth!
In the beginning of this week's episode, we are still in London and we're working the Jeremy Scott fashion show. We had an early morning call-time - I laughed when I saw what Kelly was up to in her room while me and Robyn were waiting for her! But it was all fine and we were on time for the show - early, in fact! Had enough time to chat with model Cole Mohr while we were prepping backstage - we know him from the shows in New York and he is a pretty funny character! Not to mention, quite a famous model in the menswear industry. I couldn't help but ask him about his look in the show and indeed his answer was hilarious. The front-of-house was pretty funny also -- Robyn and I were busy busting bag-stealers and front-row crashers. You know, the usual.
Our dinner with Ilario that night was fun -- it was nice to relax knowing that we finished another successful show. Kelly jokingly married us all off to Ilario and he decided to lay down his own set of rules! It was pretty hysterical. We had a great time in London and completed a lot of successful work and Ilario was a good host. What you don't see is that during the dinner, Robyn and I needed to call the office in NYC because of a staffing issue with the LA office. Always working!
When we got back from London, it was straight back to business. I had to delve back in and immediately try to find out from Stefanie where everything was at in terms of reporting to our clients. This was frustrating because the way that Stefanie was working, she had at least 20 screens open on her computer at once and she was having a hard time focusing on each task and delegating projects out to interns and the other assistants in the office. She said that she is only one person, but the reality is that there were still many other staff members working at our office at that time including both Andrews, Pablo, Michelle, Mike, Becca and plenty of capable interns, not to mention new staff being hired. Stefanie was still moving out of her position as Kelly's assistant and trying to learn how to balance her tasks as a Jr. Account Executive and this was challenging for her at first. When I started out working in Fashion PR (over 12 years ago), I was thrown right into the job and I learned from a woman who was not a micro-manager at all -- there was no hand-holding. Everything that Stefanie is doing now, I have already done many times over. Being able to multi-task and delegate is key in her position -- if you are not extremely organized and able to accomplish each task one-by-one, you can get really bogged down.
When I started realizing that Stefanie was drowning and none of the reports were completed, I got really nervous and wanted to help her get things off her plate and take care of them myself and delegate out to the assistants. The problem was that she had started putting the documents together but she was holding ALL of the information on her desktop, so it was impossible for me to know where things were at and when I started asking her about it she freaked out. She thought I was attacking her, but I was just really frustrated and needed answers. I am actually glad it happened, because I think it was a good lesson for Stefanie -- I am trying to help her learn how to do this job and do it well. If she listens and figures out how to communicate and ask for for help when she needs it, she will be much more likely to survive in this business. I love Stefanie and want her to do well and I know that she is a very dedicated employee! But if she is going to be successful, she will need to learn to set aside the emotions and focus on completing the tasks at hand.
Stefanie and I headed off to work the INA MEN store launch event, just the two of us with a few interns to help. We had secured tequila sponsorship from a new high-end, premium tequila company (Casa Dragones) but I was a bit concerned about whether we had enough product on hand for the 2-hour event. However I never realized that it would go over as well as it did - everyone was really enjoying it! As a host of the party, I wanted to appear to be tasting the tequila so that is why you see me holding a glass, although in reality straight-up tequila makes me feel sick (even if it's ultra premium.) It always makes people feel more comfortable if the host is drinking though, so I pretended to partake. Then, while I was running around and introducing Ina to all of the editors and ensuring that they were well taken care of, suddenly we ran out of tequila at the bar! We placed a call and were able to get more, but there was about a 20 minute lapse of time where we had to serve some chilled Prosecco - so our bar was not totally dry. Once the additional tequila arrived, I jokingly offered some to Stefanie. I had to point this out because of course we have said in the past that it is inappropriate for the junior team to drink at events, but with the whole drama involved, we just had to joke about it. The party was actually great and we secured good press coverage, so thankfully it all worked out in the end!
Thanks again for watching and hope you are enjoying the show.
Peace,
Emily
