It's here! At last I have made it to one year with Pilot. I know in a previous post I said that I had started on June 15th, but, much to my amusement, only a few days after I posted that did I find out that my start date had been bumped up to June 9th. Funny how life works.
This past year can be summed up into one word: learning. Fresh out of college with some internships and a degree under my belt, I thought I was aware of and could take on anything the working world threw my way. Needless to say this was wishful thinking, and I was in for a whirlwind year that would mold my skills as an Assistant Editor and a team player.
From day one, I was given the task of mastering our company's post workflow and becoming aware of how to aid our freelance editors with any issues that might come up. Our company has two branches, one in Marina Del Rey and the other in New York, with the majority of the company at the latter. Being the only post person at our West Coast branch, I quickly learned that I couldn't be a passive player, turning to my post colleagues to save me when things got hairy. This became especially apparent the first time I ran into issues with a digital file delivery.
In the days after my mishap, I swore to myself to never have that happen again. As a result, whenever we got a new job from a client, I immediately read up on and studied their delivery specs, asking questions about any sections that were confusing to me, even creating checklists of all the elements that needed to be uploaded. With the addition of mapping out more hotkeys to speed along my editorial process, new jobs became less scary and more of a puzzle that just needed the proper time to find the solution. Final deliveries to clients are already stressful enough, and if I can avoid any added stress just by being prepared, I'll take it.
Even writing emails, of all things, is not as daunting. When I started out, I tended to be very wordy, sometimes even asking questions I already knew the answer to. After much trial and error, and looking at how my coworkers wrote to clients, I figured out how to be direct with my inquiries, even learning the polite way to correct clients if there was a misunderstanding. With so many emails being sent and received every day, quick and concise message are a godsend.
Finally, this job has coaxed me out of my comfort zone. I'm more on the quiet side, and working at the Marina Del Rey office has had me make phone calls to various companies to place orders or ask questions, as well as communicate with shoot crews and freelance editors that enter Pilot for the first time. It was a bit of work to push myself to do so, but I'm so glad I did and my confidence has grown because of it.
Thank you Pilot for an amazing year, and I look forward to what the future has in store.