Over the course of 6 years (tomorrow!) I have worked on membership and marketing for 5 national non-profit organizations mainly in the Metropolitan Washington DC area. At first I thought there’s no way I could survive these mentally-exhausting job positions, but I surprised myself. I’m still here. Very well and alive! So I guess that means something. I love my position and the job that it entails. Yea, it’s a lot but I fortunately learned how to handle the pressure.
When I first took the marketing job at a pharmaceutical non-profit organization based in Rosslyn (I love that area!), I thought I don’t belong here. Everyone looked very professional, men wearing tie (kind of hot actually), and absolutely strictly business only atmosphere. Well, I told myself “Eh! This is a piece of cake!”. Handled it just fine until 13 months later, I left and felt I had to move on with my career.
Although I miss very few people there and in fact became very close friends with, up until now, I still think I would not have made it very far at that place career-wise. You know people have been there for years and I wasn’t about to replace them. There wasn’t really a space for folks to move up a little in their positions. That’s why people come and go. So no one really pro-long their stay there especially when/if you have an entry level job. So, yea! I said I gotta go.
I left that place with hopes that I could get another job that pays a little bit better and that it has some possibility of pushing me up with my career. Well, in fact, I fortunately got the job I have now through ASAE website (for those who doesn’t know - ASAE stands for American Society of Association Executives, where I proudly belong). Got hired pretty quickly because of my marketing background and my experience with membership marketing. Held the Manager position until two weeks later upgraded my position as Director. Sweet! Wow, speaking of trying to get promoted, that one came phenomenally fast. I couldn’t believe it at first, until when it finally sinked in. That’s why I’m pulling my hair out now–I shouldn’t have taken the job!!! Kidding. I love it.
Well, being in this job now for 3 years, once again tomorrow (Do I hear Congrats?), I thought I’d branch off from marketing and move onto another specialty like web designs, or communications, or publishing. Well, I’m the web designer for two of my clients, with limited means (Gosh, I don’t want to talk about it!) of web design softwares. I think I’d make a good web designer and or a publisher. I’m now working on a project that has to go to press tomorrow and I love the coordination aspect of it–layout, content, proofing, etc. The whole process is very tedious, but very productive and quite a learning experience. You get to know every single person involved in the process. And you know what the most exciting part of it is that after you’ve done what you’re suppose to do, you get a hardcopy of your work. It’s not like Michael Angelo work of art - but certainly worth seeing your hardwork in solid reality. Once this project of mine goes to press, I can’t wait to see my work as a hardcopy!!!
The whole of this blog is to say I’m getting fed up with marketing stuff, and I want to move on and tackle other things and perhaps become a designer, or a publisher, or a public speaker. Nah, that’s too ambitious! But, you know what–maybe it’s possible. Definitely possible!
In the coming days I’ll be discussing with my Executive Director regarding the possibility of letting go of membership marketing completely and tackle on more executive type of stuff like board and committee management and/or finance. We’ll see . . .
I will blog about me going back to school again at NOVA next time… For now, good night!
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