Today it’s not the PR team that’s asking the questions, for a change. Instead of them peppering others with questions, we give them a chance to speak for themselves. The questions have been provided by our dear colleagues who previously starred in a Meet a Spreader interview. They did a great job replying to both interesting and challenging questions – see for yourself and find out more about our PR team:
How did you get into Spreadshirt, and what exactly does PR do?
Eike: I actually managed to get into Spreadshirt straight after my studies in 2007. Having finished my final exams in the last week of March, I started working here on April 1st as a Junior PR Manager. The “Junior” eventually disappeared from my job description, and since 2013 I’ve been Head of Global Public Relations and Corporate Communications. Put in a nutshell, I’m responsible for corporate communications and public relations at Spreadshirt in Germany, and also internationally.
Just to be clear: Maria takes care of communication with the Spreadshirt’s customers, and we are responsible for all other forms of communication with the outside world. This most of all means dealing with journalists and the media.
Anja: I was out on maternity leave when one day two girlfriends of mine unwittingly sent me the same message: “there’s a vacancy at Spreadshirt!” Truth be told, I didn’t think it possible to get back into work straight after parental leave, but suddenly everything went very quickly. And so it happened that I started working at Spreadshirt in April 2013. I don’t really have a title yet; in my signature it just says “Public Relations”. My focus is on events and sponsorship. But I also “entertain” journalists – it’s all like Eike said: supervising TV shoots, designing awards and preparing conferences and similar tasks are all part and parcel of our very varied job.
Melanie: I started out as a working student at Spreadshirt in October 2010. It was great to be able to gain some practical experience after my first year at uni, and now that I have finished my bachelor and I’m half-way through with my master’s degree, I still find it hard to resist the lure of the T-shirt. Over the years, my tasks have been quite different, and today I mainly try to tell the world exciting stuff about Spreadshirt, prepare press releases, write a lot and have a keen eye out for what the media says about us.
Susanne: I joined Spreadshirt in October 2010 after my husband decided that it was time for us to move to Leipzig as he wanted to start a study program here. So I took on a job in Spreadshirt’s Customer Service, where I was responsible for the French and German market. At the same time I started a college course in Public Relations, and a couple of years later I moved desks – to the PR department. It’s been a great move for me as I can now gain some valuable experience as an intern here. My tasks involve the intern classics: careful listening, observing with watchful eyes, and asking a lot of clever questions.
Eike, you’ve already been at Spreadshirt for 7 years. Why are you still here?
It’s the international nature of the company that really excites me, the work in my team and also the overall atmosphere at Spreadshirt. It may sound like a bit of a common-place statement, but it’s true: I find it both fascinating and motivating that this place is brimming with the energy and enthusiasm that so many of my colleagues display on a daily basis. It’s this atmosphere that encourages me to give my all every day.
Are there any days that are more stressful than others? Maybe Mondays?
Eike: Sometimes there are deadlines that make certain periods more stressful. If you need to make sure you can publish information for 4 countries at the same time – usually Germany, France, the UK and USA) – then this is usually the day when the phone won’t stop ringing and you need to do hundreds of other things. But it never happens just on a Monday, any day can be a busy one.
Susanne: I wouldn’t really call it stress. As Eike said, on some days it feels like you need to be doing a hundred things, but that is also what makes the job exciting. It’s important to not neglect anything and concentrate on the individual tasks at hand.
Eike: Events can be very challenging at times.
Melanie: I’d say it’s those days when we feel like moving guys: looking everywhere for props such as furniture, lampshades and T-shirts.
Eike: And you just need to keep calm and carry on.
Do you nibble at chocolate or nuts to keep your calm? And do you have a healthy tip to deal with stress?
Melanie: Any kind of sweets will do.
Susanne: Breaks with colleagues always make for a welcome diversion. A nice chat is a good way to avoid eating chocolate, and getting out into the fresh air on our roof terrace makes chatting to colleagues even more enjoyable.
What makes your work exciting? Is it the success you have with publications?
Susanne: As a beginner in the field I’m always happy when I see my work take shape and bear fruit. And as long as nobody tells me “Oh no, that’s crap!”, then I know that I’m not doing too badly.
Eike: It’s obviously a good feeling when you are approached by family and friends who have read about Spreadshirt in the media. It’s also great to be in a room with random people, and suddenly someone gets onto the subject of Spreadshirt. Usually the perception is that people see Spreadshirt in a positive light, which makes you believe that you got something right along the way.
And what was your OWN best press release in terms of an article you wrote on Spreadshirt?
Eike: A feature in one of Germany’s biggest online paper called Spiegel Online. And then I would mention another newspaper article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung covering our Feel-Good Manager Stephanie, just because it hit the big national stage. But there are many more clippings of which I’m quite proud.
Anja: It’s just very hard to compare and rate the success of press releases. Being featured in the Cosmopolitan with a product of the week is just as good as making the big quality papers, but in a different way.
Melanie: For me it was a very proud moment when on my first day at work I saw a press release on a sweater that I had to write when applying for a vacancy at Spreadshirt. It was just fantastic to see my wording almost completely unchanged, and I’m still beaming every time I come across this sweater somewhere in Spreadshirt’s online portfolio.
Nobody is perfect – what makes you imperfect? Are you prone to make certain mistakes?
Susanne: Hmm, a fault or a weakness of a more general nature that I’m surely guilty of is my penchant for infinitely long and complex sentence structures, which is something that tends to slow down my texts and can go on for over 5 or 6 lines. “Now, it’s time to come to an end,” I hear this little voice in my head say, and I often vow to get better. But I just can’t help it!
Eike: I once agreed to a journalist to interview Phil, our CEO. I calculated the time difference wrong, because Phil happened to be in America at the time, and he was waiting in his hotel room in vain for the guy to call him. Eventually, Phil wrote me that he was already pushing his bedtime. Oops…
Anja: A slip of the pen is not a nice thing, but it just happens. The worst I can think of right now is when you copy and paste content for emails and don’t change the name of the recipient – that can be quite embarrassing.
Melanie: Oh my God, when this happened to me, I felt like blending into the wallpaper! The incidence told me to watch out for it all the more.
Summer is in full flow, and T-shirt season has started. What’s your favourite season, and why?
Anja: Spring. First of all, I think it’s a great thing to live in a climatic zone with different seasons. And when days get longer and sleeves shorter, I just enjoy getting on my bike and seeing nature fully in bloom again.
Eike: Summer is my favourite. I have an Indiana Jones hat that I wear in the summer, which to me is the epitome of the season. I wear it when riding my kayak and when going on holiday.
Susanne: Autumn, because it’s great not to be stared at when I carry around a jacket.
Everyone staring at Susanne…
Susanne: I have this thing: I just need to have a jacket on me wherever I go, and in any kind of weather or season. It’s just like with using a blanket in the summer – I know there’s no actual use, but it just feels right to me. So I never take a bag with me when I go someplace, because I already have a jacket to carry.
Melanie: Do I need to say winter now to round it up and complete the circle? Well, I must say that I like winter, but most of all when the sky is clear and temperatures drop down to minus 27 when I’m out in the nature. I really fell in love with the season when I had my study abroad term in Finland, but today I don’t always need to super chilly temperatures to enjoy a good winter’s day. But I’d love to see the Scandinavian panoramic views again some day.
Eike, if you could do another job at Spreadshirt for 3 weeks – which would it be?
I think Jürgen’s. He is the head of production, and that’s the area that our customers perceive as the real Spreadshirt. That would surely give me a very different understanding as it would broaden my horizon and maybe add another dimension to what Spreadshirt is all about.
What film or book title would best describe your work?
Susanne: I can’t really think of any title in particular, but my approach to work probably comes quite close to that of cooking instructions in recipes. I work in a goal-oriented way, and to me this means making myself and my environment happy. In order to achieve my goals, I look for qualified input by conducting research and asking the experts in our company for advice. And if I don’t get it right first time, I’ve learnt from the experience and will be able to apply the ‘recipe’ better next time.
Final question: what 3 things would you take to a desert island?
Anja: I’d like to think that I’d be able to get on in the wild, so I’d take a bow, arrows and a water purifier. But what I usually do is take my tablet computer, a wifi stick and my partner.
Melanie: If i was ferried there and later picked up again, I’d take my hammock, a book and something nice to eat. I just don’t want to envisage a different scenario as I wouldn’t even know which berries to eat and how to put up camp.
A big THANK YOU to Jasmina, Do and Kathleen for making this phenomenal photo shoot happen, and also for taking this magnificent photo with my first professional make-up. This is yet another reason for what makes my work fun: it’s not every day that you can time-travel to the 1960s!
And thank you to those who’ve asked these really good questions!
Anything you’d like to ask? Then please do!
The post Staff talk – introducing the PR team appeared first on The Spreadshirt UK blog.