The Devil is NOT Always Disguised in Prada...

Now firstly I want to distinguish the difference between work experience and internships....

• Work experience is a maximum of two weeks in a company where you observe the runnings and maybe take part in minor tasks, but the main thing is that you are there to learn.
• You should expect travel expenses and maybe food expenses.

• Internship means you stay in a company for a longer amount of time - from a month to a year.
•  It gets you ready for a job in that company, or to walk straight in to a job in the industry.

Most interns I know are being given expenses, even though they're working unpaid for over 3 months. I thought this was normal. A pain in the arse especially when paying rent, needing to keep fashionably up-to-date, traveling, food and in the present time CHRISTMAS! But recently I read an article in the Guardian by Huma Qureshi who has written about the hell that interns go through (read it here). From reading this article I have looked at a website called Interns Anonymous which publishes good and bad experiences that interns have gone through and helpful tips.

One helpful tip I have found from Interns Anonymous is that the HM Revenue and Customs say that Internships are for people who have graduated and are independently living, been given proper and important tasks to do for the company then they should be paid at least minimum wage!
Why have I just heard about this now? And why haven't the government pushed this harder? Instead of allowing companies to screw over interns by not even paying expenses.

There is a charity called NABS who do help students and people looking to start their career in the media industry, and good for them to look out for people like us, because the government are certianly taking their time over it.

Networking

London Launch invited the other interns and I to a PR, events and advertising networking social in Canary Wharf's Ice Rink on monday 16th November. So we all panicked as none of us had business cards. So in a mad rush, just after work, we printed our designs and cards with details on it.

For my card, I wanted something memorable as desperation for a job is increasing now...so I put my picture on the front of my card.  Yes the screaming pic that is on my twitter and blog. My boyfriends written a blog post about it it's called "Brand me like that" have a look!



Anyway this is what it ended up looking like:

On the journey there we quickly trying to cut them out on the train...here's Laura attempting hers! God knows what people thought when we handed them badly trimmed business cards lol.

So we met lots of lovely people, and got a little bit tipsy as there was a lot of martini's flowing, and I was so hungry so I was drinking them mainly to get to the olive at the bottom ha! I met a guy who owns an event company called Masqurade, I ended up giving him my business card and he looked at the picture and said "O my god, I already know who you are, I follow you on Twitter!" Well I felt like a celebrity and was hugely flattered, so now i'm very much praising twitter. If you want people to know who you are get on twitter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zelebritiy Waiters

Been working so hard on this event and it turned out pretty nicely, everyone had such a good night and we managed to raise a lot of money for charity!

1. Jess and Laura with the signed pic of The Saturdays

2. Laura with the signed t-shirt from X-Factor contestants

3. All of us with Little Miss Joslyn

4. Me, Nikki Grahame and Laura

Lips

I cannot stop staring at this page, it is soooo stunning! It is inspiring me to be a lot more creative with my make-up.

Kisses xxx

Love you xxxx

Making a Mess.

After a hard week at the office I really love doing absolutely nothing on the weekends! 
Except that usually doesn't happen and even when I have the chance to I get very restless and need to do something. So my boyfriends step-mum Amy, gave me a vintage dress that she didn't want and with her permission I altered it to an inch of it's life. 

This is before.....

....And this is after!!! What do you thing??? Love ya x 

Postal Strike Sucks for all Interns!

Because of the postal strike interns all over Britain are having to wonder miles from the warmth of the office out in to the freezing cold to hand deliver mail...I am slightly over dramatising, it's not that bad especially as it has given me and the new interns to get to know each other!

This is James, Rachel and Nicola on the train after handing out leaflets round Ealing.

Lotsa Love xxx

The Mansion Party - Portland Place

After work Paris and I got changed and went to a bar down the road called LVPO on Dean Street. They had given me a complimentary free round of drinks as we work around this area. The cocktails there were AMAZING!


Tom then showed up and had a crazy spicey cocktail, walked in to what he thought was the girls toilets by accident but ended up being the mens just a guy had long hair and was wearing eyeliner so poor Tom got confused. 


Then Pia turned up finally and we were all ready to party. After a quick stop of in the mcDonalds toilets of course to re-touch make-up, we took off to our friend Monthira's birthday party at 33 Portland Place, a huge 24 bedroom mansion owned by Edward Davenport one of 'Britain's most flamboyant entrepreneurs.' 


The whole place was amazing, Jacuzzi, buffet, open bar, topless and trouserless waiters. Lovely evening, and even though we didn't meet anyone on the PR or journalism scene we did meet a lot of promoters and fun socialites, which is always a bonus and you never know when someone might come in handy. 

1. Paris, Me, Tom and Pia in LVPO

2. Naked waiter

3. Me and Pia by Jacuzzi

4. Me, Paris and Pia snapped by the photographer