In October, I started at Saatchi Yates. Many of the tasks at the beginning were administrative tasks and daily housekeeping. For example, turning on the lights and restocking food and water for clients and colleagues. Yes, these tasks are not complicated or new to me, as I have previously worked in hospitality; however, it made me understand the value of this. I became highly organised and capable of managing administrative tasks. I was comfortable communicating with suppliers and maintaining a smooth workflow by completing simple tasks. I also perform quality control checks and ensure the details always meet my and their standards.
Another task I quickly learned was packing and shipping artist catalogues. To uphold the gallery standards, the way we shipped catalogues, whether bought or gifted to clients, had to be of the highest standard. This task became increasingly something I oversaw. I checked that all orders had been completed and monitored shipping updates.
October was busy as they opened a show for a popular artist, Olaubu Slawn. It was also Frieze week in London. I ran many errands, such as delivering catalogues to various galleries and arranging Frieze tickets for the gallery’s owners and artists. I also helped set up a pop-up Slawn had with Dover Street Market. I helped prepare the event, set up, and take down the display.
The first month was very stressful because of the busy calendar. This made it hard for me to learn the basic tasks; however, being thrown into the environment helped me understand things and form bonds with my colleagues.
I started at Satellite 414 toward the end of October. I enjoyed the change of pace with the PR agency. It was a much more relaxed and structured workday. For the whole first month, I mostly learned my weekly tasks. Learning each task took a while because the placement was only one day a week.
The first task I was taught, and I continued every week, was filling out print and online press reports for their clients over the past 24 hours. For the print, I would get sent the daily report if any clients were mentioned in print papers; with this, I would send it to the whole team and log it into the artist report. For online coverage, I would search for myself, log anything, send it to the respected publicist, and then file it into the online reports. At the start, this would take me the whole day.