Where's your head at?

It did not hit me that I wanted to go into music promotion until about a year and a half ago. And even then I figured I would end up working at a small music venue, alongside small bands or even for a totally un-related company that just deals with event planning and advertising without having the slightest bit to do with music. I never in a million years thought about working for a record label. I mean, yes, it has crossed my mind that once bands get good enough they sign on to labels, but I never really thought about me being the person who promotes them and helps to sell their product once they do so.

After getting this internship at Victory Records I have done a lot of thinking about what this means for my future and where my life is going to go from here on out. Victory has helped me to open doors to so many future job opportunities that I did not even realize were out there. Much like how I never thought about working for a record label, I never thought about working for smaller inter-linked companies, such as record stores, bars, universities, or even comic book stores, that help to promote different artists and the music they create; I did not originally realize how much networking is done within the sales and marketing department – or even in the entirety – of a record label. Having this small bit of extra knowledge has really reassured me in that I do not have to necessarily work for some huge corporation to promote music; I can work for a smaller, more people-friendly company and still get the same goals accomplished. Knowing this has really got me thinking about all of the different types of jobs I could have that I would have never thought of if it were not for Victory.

On a different note, something that crosses my mind on a daily basis while interning at Victory is the question of “What is professional?” Victory has no real dress code, everyone on the staff wears t-shirts and jeans on a daily basis, and with that it has no language code. That is, unless you were to count swearing as a code in the English language. About 90% of the workers there shoot out f-bombs 5 times a sentence while other various curse words are strewn throughout what they say; I have certainly learned the diversity of certain words since starting this internship. Yet at the same time when these individuals are making phone calls or making business propositions with retail stores or what have you, they are continuing on with this harsh verbiage. Regardless, I think that some of the recipients of those calls or propositions are dealing out the same sort of speak.

But like I previously mentioned, all of this casual dress and profanity is really making me question the difference between being professional and not. In my past jobs professional meant uniform clothing, whether this be a literal uniform you would see in a food services job or the uniform dress of business casual seen at an office job, and “professional” language, meaning all employees speak clearly, confidently, intelligently with no slang or profanity. So after delving through this definition I now am left wondering does this mean Victory is not professional?

After thinking it over for a while, I have come to my own individual, personal agreement that the word “professional” is applied differently to each company. Each company is its own culture; it has its own language, its own style of dress, its own way of doing things. It is funny that I would come to this conclusion too, as I just took a Communication Studies course to fulfill my major entitled Communication in Organizations. The extra funny part is that we discussed the cultures of organizations and that they differ depending on each diverse organization. I guess that class really did pay off in the end.

Even though Victory has its own definition of what it means to be “professional”, I still find myself acting a bit up-tight, making sure I always speak formally and politely, even though the culture at the record label does not require me to do so. My biggest fear is that if I were to stop acting this way for some reason, I would lose my ability to act “professionally” and end up making myself look like an idiot in future workplaces or “professional” situations. I do not really feel that companies mean to have a certain “code” for how to do things; the employees there construct their own definitions of things and truly make the culture what it is based on how they do things. So I suppose what should happen if you are new to a company is that you should just interact with people in the organization, see how they do things and how they talk and dress, and sort of mimic them. If everyone at the company has a unified understanding of how things are run within that company, it seems as though things will run more smoothly and the individuals will feel more connected.

But these things do not really matter much to me. I try not to focus all of my time worrying if what I am wearing will be socially accepted by my 30-something supervisor who curses like a sailor and dresses like most laid-back college students. What really matters to me at Victory is that I absolutely love it there. I love the people. I love the atmosphere. And most importantly, I love what I get to do. When did I ever think that I would be the person putting together marketing plans for bands at a real life record label? I never could have imagined that! Furthermore, it makes me feel SO important that everyone at the company looks at these plans that I have created AND they think they look amazing! While I see so many people in this program groan when they have to drag themselves out of bed and pull on a pair of business slacks, I spring out of bed, pull on a pair of jeans and happily sing to myself on my way to work. I have never been so excited to wake up in the morning and start my day. It brings me such joy and personal pleasure to be able to…to be honored to…do the job that I get to do. You know you have finally found just exactly what you want to do with your life career-wise when you come to the point where you would rather be at work than at home.