Welcome to the first instalment of Thursday’s From the Front Desk.

Please note! Due to the unpredictable nature of the PR world From the Front desk may occasionally be posted on a Friday, after-hours, from my father’s computer. Like today, for instance.

From the Front Desk is Samantha Lovelace’s spin on the PR world from a entry-level perspective.

As an entry-level PR-erson and, indeed, office worker, Samantha sits at the front desk of TFC.

During an average day she doesn’t just answer phones and fix printers; Samantha’s front desk experiences are just short of a full degree’s worth of education in PR, computers and people. This, along with general office antics keep her, and she hopes will keep you, entertained all workday long (and sometimes longer).

Now that being said, and with out further ado, Here’s Sammy!

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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls - Welcome to the first ever post From the Front Desk!

I thought I’d take this opportunity to introduce myself:
My name is Samantha Lovelace and I work at the front desk at Thornley Fallis Communications.

I was lucky to have been introduced to the job, Alex Milroy, Sandra Cruickshanks and Michael O’Connor Clarke by my most fabulous friend, Ms. Lauren Saliba.

Lauren was “the front desk” at TFC in Ottawa and knew they were looking for “Lauren” in Toronto. After great consideration, she declined the offer to transfer herself and passed on the opportunity to me; a quickly tiring, server/bartender/manager of 8 odd years.

Lauren and I have been faithful friends for close to 14 years. We met, one fine evening, in the yard behind Muchmore public school in Ottawa’s “the Glebe”. I believe it was a Friday.

With a fresh squeezed BBA and a desire for something new I was eager to take on the new challenge and marched in to the Ottawa office for my first “career” interview.

I got the job!

With in the month I left the famed Royal Oak in the Glebe of Ottawa, trained a couple of days in Ottawa and packed up my things, my loving partner-in-crime and our cat. Off to Toronto we went.

It was three days before I experienced my first printer malfunction, learned how to do a mail merge, met my first client and worked past five in a 9-5 job. Lets just say I didn’t find my admin skills they were violently thrust upon me with the fury of one incredibly angry volcano.

I like to think, though I’ve hit many a nasty pot hole along the way, I’ve fared relatively well. Not only have I learned how to take care of normally adminy duties, but I took on some new roles too. Media monitoring, event support, ideation, podcast production and some fundamental accounting tasks are just a few of my weekly activities.

And now I can ad one more notch to my PR agency belt:
Almost a year later, well versed in computer malfunction, telephone manner, morning scans, excel spreadsheets, and with a couple of events under my belt, I am writing my first official post on PR Girlz. I can say, as I sit faithfully at the front desk of Thornley Fallis Communications, I finally feel like I am an official PR Grrril.

Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to sharing some front desk antics with you next week.

Until then, take care.

Samantha Lovelace

We have our very own special correspondent at the Mesh Conference. Communications enthusiast, Kyra Aylsworth will be reporting on Canada’s premiere Web and social media event.

We look forward to her account of the proceedings!

-ETA-
Here is a brief bio for Kyra:

Kyra Aylsworth is an aspiring communicator with a background in merchandising and promotions. She is a graduate of Seneca’s Corporate Communications program and recently completed her Masters in Communications at the University of Western Sydney. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of Toronto. A self-described ‘geek cheerleader’, she hopes to find extremely rewarding work in the field of public relations.

Geek Cheerleader. One who admires and encourages the development of computing technologies without fully understanding those technologies oneself.

Well, dear readers (all four of you, at TFC domains), I admit I’ve become a bit bored with this blogging malarkey. I haven’t been reading the digital tomes of public relations and I have become woefully immersed in nonsense, such as my own life. It’s guilt which chides me to check out the ’sphere in order to read beyond my usual online destinations - Go Fug Yourself and The Superficial - and actually look at something work-related.

Sooooo, here’s one… While I’m late to the party (as per usual), seems there’s been a ripple of disagreement between some bloggies about whether or not some sort of PR accreditation is worthwhile. It kicked off, I think, between Todd Defren, who says nope, and Kami Huyse, who’s in the pro-accreditation camp (and has an APR to prove it, obviously). Kami thinks that the accreditation process creates better PR pros and this might help improve our lousy image.

While I’m in no position to dump on people chasing some letters to add to their name - I’ve got a bloody M.A. in PR, for crying out loud - I don’t see how it would make you a better, more ethical, or even a more employable PR type. If accreditation was able to weed out the baddies and the dim, there would be no sleazy or incompetent lawyers, doctors or engineers. Granted, PR is naturally going to attract more people who are a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Call it the Sex in the City effect. (The glamour! The clothes! The cosmopolitans at Nobu! The opportunity to stand on the door with a clipboard and a headset!)

In my own humble opinion, if someone in PR wants to go far, to do serious work and be taken seriously by serious business people, they’d be better off spending some time outside PR to see how business really works. Practitioners who have never been outside the PR department or the agency sometimes seem to think that the business world does, and should, revolve on a PR axis. They can get annoyed, testy or confused when their client - be it someone higher up at their company or a client in the true sense of the word - rejects their idea because it doesn’t fit the business realities. For all our bellyaching about the “C suite” and their lack of understanding about PR, I’ve been in meetings where PR people have demonstrated a shocking lack of knowledge about business fundamentals.

Maybe we’re getting the credibility we deserve? We can’t be credible if we aren’t credible, know what I mean?