The following is from Sarah Moore, who has just left our team to join the great squad over at Greenville Health System.
When I started my agency career three and a half years ago, many of my friends were jealous. “That’s so cool,” they said. “You’ll be just like Olivia Pope,” they said. “You’ll be handling big-time issues in front of media all the time,” they said.
And then I got here, and for the first six months of my career, my main focus was working on the now infamously doomed 2014 penny sales tax campaign to #fixourroads. It mostly consisted of planning press conferences on roads, to talk about roads, to then go to County Council meetings and hear people complain about roads. Riveting.
Fast forward to now, and I’ve had some of the coolest, most impactful experiences in my time at Complete PR that more than outweigh the, shall we say, mundane parts of public relations, which everyone has to deal with at some point. There was the time the Old Cigar Warehouse hosted a CNN Presidential Forum with Anderson Cooper and our team got a selfie with him on stage, and honestly that’s probably where my life peaked. Or there the time I got to play a part in telling the story of Deshaun Watson and his journey as the son of a Habitat homeowner to both a local and national audience. Stuff that does, in fact, rival Olivia Pope.
And while all of that stuff matters, and goes on social media as part of your highlight reel, there are a whole host of things I’ve come to appreciate in this job that don’t make it on social media. So as my agency career comes to an end and I start a new career elsewhere (yeah I know, way to bury the lede), I’m here to leave you with, what else, a list. A list of the things that I appreciate so much more coming out of this job than I ever thought I would going into it.
- Local Greenville dive bars/restaurants. Case in point: The Zorba. Would I ever voluntarily enter a place with no windows and flickering red exterior lighting before working at Complete PR? Absolutely no. Did I voluntarily pick this place as my going-away meal? Absolutely yes. Consider it John Boyanoski’s influence.
- Our business community. I have been introduced more than once as “someone who does PR for the City of Greenville.” Not entirely true, but not entirely false either. Complete PR is a member of a wonderful business community that understands the importance of encouraging growth for the Upstate as a whole, not just for individual businesses. So yes, when our city earns a win, we all celebrate it, in this annoyingly charming kind of way that makes everyone who isn’t from here want to move here.
- A good Game of Thrones reference. Although I am not a Game of Thrones watcher, thanks to my coworkers, I can also drink and know things. I will absolutely miss their weekly recaps and will feel significantly out of the pop culture loop without them, but I know they’d say the same about my Bachelor recaps. Spoiler alert: Krystal DOESN’T go home this week. Mistake.
- My coworkers. What do you say about the people you spend most of your time with each week? It honestly amazes people when I tell them all we do in a week, and then I say that we do all that with a staff of three. They kick ass, and I will miss them immensely.
Well, Complete PR, it’s been quite the run. Cheers, to the next one, and for now,
