My official job title is “Social Media Rock Star.” When I tell people that, I also tell them that I’m not kidding; it really is my job title. If they say that they “heard me the first time” or that they “didn’t think it wasn’t my job title,” I just say I know and that I thought I saw them make a face or shrug in a way that implied that maybe they didn’t believe me.
But really, it is my job title.
I work for a New Media Marketing company. It’s not like the boring jobs my friends with houses have back home. It’s much more fun and laid back. My job requires me to be an expert on Facebook and Twitter. How cool is that?
When I interviewed for the position, I wore jeans and a t-shirt. That’s why I got the job. I also got the job because I’m smart. There was another guy interviewing for the job and he was wearing a suit. I was like, “Hey, nice suit man! What, are you going to a suit convention or someplace that requires a suit?” I didn’t say that, but I was thinking about it for a pretty long time.
Later, when I was driving home I thought, “Hey, nice suit man! What, are you going to a funeral?”
Everyone in our company is super creative. Most of the men have beards and the women joke about how lonely they are. Last week, Karen, our producer, said that she saw a pacifier on the sidewalk and burst into tears. I know that doesn’t sound like a very good joke, but the way Karen said it made everyone laugh really hard. I don’t even think we noticed Karen walk away. One of us was just all of a sudden like, “Hey! Where’s Karen?”
Keith is our boss, but his title is “Head Honcho.” It makes him more approachable. He used to work for a big ad agency, but left it because he didn’t feel like they were letting him be creative enough. That’s why he started this company. It’s essentially the same job he was doing before, but it’s more organic because it lacks the security of his old job and the office is in a pretty rough neighborhood.
Still though, it beats grinding it out for six figures in some dull accounting office like the idiots I went to high school with.
Another big part of my job is to update the company blog with stories about how fun and laid back we are. It’s crazy because I can write about pretty much anything and I don’t have to worry about getting in trouble. I can write that we were having margaritas at happy hour or that we turned the office into a dance party the night before. Sometimes, Keith has me write about those kinds of things even if they didn’t happen because we were working late.
There is a scooter in our office. People ride around on it and nobody cares. There’s also rollerblades and a putting green. For a while we thought we had some pogo sticks, but they turned out to be a set of polio crutches belonging to a client. We bent them up pretty bad.
We also have a coffee machine. It’s really dirty, but it’s free and Keith likes to say that it’s silly to leave your desk to go stand in line at some coffee shop when we’ve got free coffee right here. Every time he sees someone with a coffee from Starbucks, Keith will joke about it, like, “Well, well, well! Is our coffee not good enough for you, your Majesty?” Then he’ll laugh because he’s just kidding. Every so often, Keith will send us an email with instructions on how to use the coffee machine even though we already know how.
Being a social media rock star usually means staying late. Even on days when I don’t need to stay late, I’ll just do it anyway because other people are staying late. That’s just kind of how it is around here. If a coworker leaves before 9pm, the other coworkers will say something like, “Hey! I guess so-and-so’s only putting in a half day today!” Then we all laugh and joke about how worthless that person is and how he/she should be fired. Minutes later, the rest of us leave simultaneously.
The next day, we do it all over again. Only, it’s different somehow because the thing about social media is that it’s always morphing into something new.
I once told some clients that my job changes the same way a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. One of the clients asked me what change happened after the butterfly – since I said it was always changing and all, and I told him that I didn’t know. And that’s why social media is so interesting. Because nobody knows.
“I think the butterfly just dies,” said the other client. “That’s the next major change.”
In the restroom, I stared into the mirror and pretended to fight the client. First, I kicked him in the knee and then, when he doubled over; I punched him in the side of the head. I repeated the motion adding a part where the client tried to strike me first. That way, my actions were in self-defense.
Where it stands now, I don’t have the money to be sued for assault, but I know that if I work hard enough, one day, I will.
Photo by Peter Atkins, licensed on Fotolia
Reddit readers: You might also like our column by Mark Zuckerberg. And yes, this was entirely fictional.