Tag Archives: engauge

To the midtown miles…

22nd August 2014

I’ve officially crossed Peachtree, up the stairs at 14th and back into the Promenade for the last time. After four years, my company, Moxie, is moving to a bigger office space. Which while exciting, is sadly no longer in midtown. I could list on and on the experiences I have 1230 Peachtree Street to thank for, but it feels the best to start and end with running.

midtown running

If the UGA Botanical Gardens were my meet cute to my run relationship, midtown is where I feel in love. Over the past four years, I’ve logged hundreds of miles on the streets here, learned to love hills and trained for my first (and second, third, fourth and fifth) half marathon. I’m sure I’ll be back, but it most likely won’t be several nights per week.

A la Jimmy Fallon…

Thank you, to that stretch from Monroe to Beverly to Peachtree for teaching me what it means to climb a hill and how it feels to make it to the top without dying.

Thank you, Ansley Park for your extra wide streets, allowing me to steal an extra mile when the fall sunset came too quickly without fear of being hit by a car.

Thank you, midtown neighborhoods to your Halloween and Christmas decorations, for well, just being plain pretty.

Thank you, Atlanta Beltline for the always smiling faces and the search for the Beltline cat or that lady that pulled her dog in a wagon to kept me entertained on those hot, no shade afternoons.

Thank you, Piedmont Park for an endless array of leaves for crunching. It seems fall in Piedmont is allowed to go on three times as long as anywhere else in the city.

And finally, thank you, to the running community of Atlanta for being out there with me during a pop-up thunderstorm, blooming of spring flowers or even the ever elusive winter flurries that sent the rest of the city into hiding.

Midtown running 2

To midtown making me into a runner. Thank you.

I’m Back!

19th August 2013

It’s been a busy few weeks around here. If you happened to notice, changing servers late last week meant this site was down for a few days. If you didn’t, that’s OK too, I’ll take it you were doing more fun things than hanging out here. After a few tech support phone calls, file transfers and pleas for assistance from the developers who sit beside me, and I’m back up and running. Success. I even learned a little something along the way. Score one for pretending to know anything learning quite a bit about web dev.

So, it has been a busy few weeks, and there is more to come, which means there will be plenty to post about. In the meantime, I’m just plain excited that this thing is back in cyberspace, instead of feeling like this:

I’ll leave you with a few little things to be excited about in the upcoming weeks…

1. The agency I work for was acquired (we were in the New York Times, you guys). There were cheers, congratulations and questions about whether or not the infamous company cruise would be reinstated (sadly, it is not), but best of all, it means a lot of exciting things for someone in my position.

2. I turned 25 and celebrated with plenty of wine. Who knew North Georgia was home to quite a few wineries?

3. In a little more than a week (nine days to be exact) I’ll have some extra exciting news to share that includes lots of painting and DIY projects in my future.

4. P and I are venturing to Charleston for the first time, which means I’m scheming ways to convince that kid to go on a ghost tour, naturally.

5. My baby sister goes to college. I’m not sure how that happened.

6. I’ll celebrate three years at Engauge and I’m not even remotely tired of it yet. Which is good, because in agency dog years, I figure I’ve been here around 21 years by this point.

7. College football season is a mere 12 days away and I can already hear the “Glory Glory” cheers coming from Sanford Stadium.

Stay tuned. I promise I’ll be back with more than Zoolander GIFs really soon.

8 Do’s and Don’ts for Interns

5th June 2013

All work and lots of fun. Entern class of 2012 hosting the weekly beer cart.

All work and lots of fun. Entern class of 2012 hosting the weekly Engauge beer cart.

This week was an exciting one here at Engauge (and it seems to be a trend). We had 15 bright-eyed and bushy-tailed interns (or enterns) start. FIFTEEN.

This time of year always takes me back to my own intern days (of which were not too terribly long ago) and as this is the first year I’ll have an intern to co-manage myself, it has me thinking much more seriously about do’s, don’ts, plans and projects for her arrival.

All of the planning has lead me to creating many lists, including experiences I loved and other tid-bits I wish someone would have shared with me on day one.

Here are a few of my biggest takeaways:

 

Do show up on time. In an agency setting some people arrive at 8:00, some people at 10:00 and that’s OK. Don’t get in at 10:00, unless you have explicit direction to do so.

Don’t expect to be busy everyday. There will be downtime. Don’t get frustrated or put it to waste. Find ways to grow independently. Ask colleagues what newsletters they subscribe to or sites they frequent. Save those for your downtime. Spend some time perusing SlideShare, we’re all still learning to master the escape of death by powerpoint.

Do make friends, but branch out from the intern group. It’s important to form relationships with both your peers and your superiors. Make sure to find a balance that works for you.

Don’t turn down happy hour, lunch or coffee. Not only because there is food involved, but also because these settings frequently hold potential for conversations that the office doesn’t always make time for. Learn more about others’ backgrounds and find out what they are passionate about.

Do ask for introductions (when appropriate). You are an intern and one of the biggest perks is that you likely aren’t signed on to an exclusive relationship with your job. Take advantage of that! Ask to meet people from other companies, agencies, etc. When I thought about moving from corporate to agency post-college, a boss of mine did me a fantastic favor to help set up informational interviews with agencies across town. Without that experience, I would have never known where I wanted to end up – or have nearly as many fantastic connections, with whom I still keep in touch today.

Do introduce yourself to someone who’s job you’ll never have. No, I’ll never be a web developer or a user experience architect, but spending time with those people early on in my current role helped to round out my skills and better understand and speak to their disciplines.

Do dress well. Yes, it’s summer and it’s hot. No a mini skirt isn’t appropriate. Dress for the job you want, not the one you have.

Don’t be negative. Yes, there will be some long days. Yes, people will drive you crazy. Yes, it may take longer to land the full-time job than expected. Be patient and be positive, each and every person you will work with has been in your shoes. And they survived.

What have I missed? Anything else former interns (or current ones) would add to this list?