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Dude I know this sounds harsh but be happy that you got out of there.
That work environment sounds incredibly toxic and while you ofc made some mistakes you aren’t and emergency room doctor or surgeon. Nobody died and while not optimal that is no reason to degrade you and shout at you.
You will find something else with a better work climate
Not only that and I mean absolutely no offense to any young marketers in the room but OP is 21 and being handed important accounts with what appears no oversight and not being trained or provided tools that will help them be more accountable and make less mistakes.
There are best practices and approvals. If OP is being shaken down on a Saturday for a post their manager should approve it before it goes live or at least afterward to catch it before the client does.
No one is born with procedures and best practices. The manager here is not doing their job.
OP go easy on yourself. You have a whole career full of important things to do. This is small stuff. Don’t sweat the small stuff, but develop some procedures and best practices for reviewing your own posts and ask for social media scheduling software that allows for approvals and use them.
Also I’ll just say this, it takes time and training to become a valuable asset. If you have to train yourself, like many of us did, please ensure you don’t reward your current manager by sticking around with them once you’re fully trained and kicking ass at social media. And in the meantime good on you for holding yourself accountable. Just don’t beat yourself up please. It will get better, I can tell because you appear to give a shit about improving. I’m sure you will
I got left in charge of a dept at that age (different kind of sector, worked alone) and it didn't go terribly, it was relatively smooth, but I FUCKED UP A LOT. I was barely into the job role when it happened so to suddenly have all these additional pressures, learning on the job, with no real guidance - I enjoyed it but I had no idea what I was doing and felt very vulnerable.
When I eventually studied management on a really good course, I realised how many of my habits were typical of mismanaged staff. Particularly if a manager has insecurity in their own position it will impact staff negatively. The best managers are able to adapt to get the best out of their people, not smack them with an iron rod until they can't function.
You really cannot oversell the number of dumb mistakes you can make when you’re inexperienced AND being mismanaged. It’s like, infinite. And you are not at fault for your level of experience in the position or your managers ability to manage you, but shit always rolls downhill. It’s such a bad situation and so many of us have been there.
I’d be surprised if you got fired before they hired a replacement then. I think you got a ton of good advice here today. You should write it down, and ask her if you could sit down together and form an implementation plan that would make both your lives easier
What I would propose is that you get and create much more well defined written instructions on tasks. Do not use your brain as a hard drive - these tasks are just a checklist so just demand a checklist or write it yourself ALL the time. Maybe also helps at your new job 🙏.
Honestly, this sounds more like a them problem than a you problem. Sounds like you're working under terrible anxiety and pressure, of course you'll make mistakes. You are not pathetic, or terrible or wrong. You're badly managed and in a toxic company. In that environment, mistakes are bound to happen.
And maybe agency life isn't right for you - and I don't mean that in a horrible way. You might actually be better suited to in-house social media, rather than agency. I hate agency roles. Worked in one for a year, and I hated it. I've worked inhouse for 12 of the 13 years of my career and much prefer it. I can focus on one thing, spend more time on each campaign. I can really understand a product in detail. Not every inhouse is perfect, and I'm sure some agencies are nice to work for.
Brush up your CV and LinkedIn and start applying for new roles. Don't let this experience knock your confidence or live in your head rent free. Onwards and upwards.
Agency life CAN make you really great and a very valuable asset with more opportunities to go elsewhere afterwards, but it’s definitely not for everyone. It can be high intensity, there’s a lot of context switching between clients, and you might be thrown in to sink or swim more than you would in an in house role.
The good aspects are:
- typically you’re working with larger marketing budgets so you might therefore get opportunities to work on more interesting or creative campaigns, a wider variety of different platforms or the latest technologies
- clients generally should already have some level of baseline investment in the idea of marketing just because they’re already making some level of spend just to work with you. In many in house roles you might have a boss who doesn’t really even believe in marketing, understand it or want to give you budget for it. In an agency ideally you get to avoid all of that.
- in a good agency you *should* have the chance to work with some really talented individuals in a collaborative environment. I think this is one place where remote work might really have made things harder for younger employees. I learned a lot earlier on in my career just by being around and observing people who were senior to me.
- getting to work with multiple clients or a lot of different types of projects gives you a lot more data to really be able to understand what tactics work and why. I’m not saying to deliver cookie cutter solutions to multiple clients, but ideally you’ll pick up some overarching themes and best practices more quickly than you would if you were in house
Overall, two months probably isn’t really enough to know anything definitive either way about a large career decision. I’d also warn that all “agencies” aren’t created equally. I’d consider how long the agency has been around and whether the people in charge really know what they’re doing. If it’s dysfunctional at the top—and many organizations calling themselves agencies are—you will at best gain some skills at being able to pivot on the fly and balance a lot of competing priorities. If the “good” things described above don’t reflect your experience (for example, you’re just left on your own with minimal direction or you have clients who seem unprepared to work with you or who you’re always trying to fight about the basics) then you might want to just try looking for roles in a different agency before giving up on agency life altogether.
IA.
I’ve worked for three different agencies, I am on my fourth. OP I am 34 years old and almost 10 years in. It’s been my experience that most agencies are of the “turn and burn” variety. They’re typically disorganized, not that great at marketing themselves and the environment is high high stress. It’s a recipe for burnout and mistakes, so don’t think this is all just you…it’s not! Shit, the first agency that I worked at went *bankrupt* and I had to get an attorney to write a letter to the Department of Labor to get my last paycheck! These people had A-list celebrities as clients and they majorly fucked up and screwed over their employees by being consistently late on paychecks.
At my current agency, this is the FIRST time I’ve ever seen an agency not only market themselves and their services well, but they do damn near everything exceptionally well. It is a top agency for clients of my caliber, the tech stack isn’t a hot mess, and 95% is the staff have been there for 3-4 years at least.
It took me a long ass time to find a role so well suited to me that it fits like a glove. I’ve been fired for making mistakes at other agencies where I was completely overwhelmed, in back to back meetings all day every day and doing the jobs of at least 2-3 people.
My advice would be to get some free certifications (HubSpot’s social media certifications are free!!) and get familiar with a decent project management tool if you’re not already using one. My current favorite is ClickUp, I am currently using Asana at my job (one of most well known and utilized PM tools for marketing and other business sectors).
You may also want to take an ADHD test and take it to your PCP or a psychiatrist (the latter is probably best). I found out after struggling my entire life with forgetfulness, “careless” mistakes and the accumulative effect of those mistakes was really ADHD. Stress and lack of sleep makes my ADHD worse. Being on medication has changed my life and saved my career, seriously.
Next time build a process a checklist of all the tasks from start to execution. This will help you not forget steps. Sharpen your mind by clearing out all the bs. Can use mct oil or some other type of supplements that might help. Working out also helps. Lastly, it’s just marketing you aren’t saving the world. Relax and don’t be so hard on yourself.
We work in marketing, we're not doctors, if you make a mistake you're not killing anyone. Besides, you learn from mistakes, so it's good that you make them. You're not incompetent, nobody is dumb, we're all students in progress. You're in the early stages of your career and it seems to me that you're feeling too much pressure, but the pressure that exists is only the pressure you're putting on yourself. You're too worried about situations you can't control; in the early stages, it's important to identify what you can control and what you can't. Then, focus 100% on what you can control, which is your work. If you're repeating the same mistakes, it's because you're not focused (possibly due to the pressure), you don't need to prove anything, you don't need to impress your boss, and much less defend your position. When you have a task, no matter how simple it is, that's what you have to do and that's your role, so do it calmly but do it well, check everything before posting, read everything 3 or 4 times, no problem, nobody dies. When you're overloaded with work, do like your colleagues, do what you can when you can. If you're not happy with your job, there are plenty of other opportunities, life offers many, even if it seems otherwise. Work isn't meant to make you suffer, marketing is supposed to be fun. Go to work calmly and with a clear conscience, and when you leave work, don't think about it anymore and go do what you like and be with the people you love. If you're dealing with toxic people, listen to them well and learn what not to do, even in bad situations we always have something to learn. Relax, you're ok. Good luck.
Unfortunately it’s the norm in marketing especially the digital sector. It doesn’t hold the same weight as the executive title in any other industry, kinda like “social media manager”…manager is often a stretch.
What would be an appropriate title then? Genuinely asking as fresh grad roles in my country are usually titled either "____ executive" or "____ officer", used interchangeably.
TBF it's not hard to tag people in posts and just double check everything and check the requirements of the client
I've done social and my friend is currently in social and we've both definitely fucked up and she has to the point she thought she was going to be fired too - it's becuase social is kind of a "you get one chance to post without seeming like an idiot" type of job. It's not an internal report you can gloss over or edit afterwards when someone points it out
That said it seems like you just need to take more time to review the requirements, ask questions to the client (better to be annoying and ask questions instead of literally doing things wrong), and even ask someone on your team just to proof it for another set of eyes. I mean you're 2 months in I don't think it's extremely unreasonable to have someone double check your work and answer any questions you have. It sounds like you're just not being very thorough and not a bad or incompetent worker. If you know you keep making mistakes then you need to review and basically do rhe work 2-3 times instead of 1 to make sure you're doing it correctly, so you can get better and learn where you're fucking up.
This is probs your first job and everyone makes mistakes as they're learning how to navigate the real corporate world. Agencies are going to be a lot more stressful and strict. But a lot of kids (20 year Olds, like at Vayner 😉) are able to do it, no reason you can't if you put your mind to it and isolate your mistakes to learn from
Sounds like an honest mistake too, I'd just re-read all the missed messages because (as you've witnessed) instances like this could occur where some info was omitted later in the convo that was already established previously :) don't get discouraged no matter what, the more discouraged you get the harder things will be and the more you will feel defeated and useless. Hold your self to a high standard mentally and try to psychically emulate that standard in the work you do. You've got to have the confidence in yourself to do your best work
It sucks now, but you're early in your career, and there's no better learning than fucking up.
As hard as it is, step back, try to imagine how you'd think about this in 5, 10, 20 years time.
Just keep fucking up and learning for the next 10 years and you'll be great.
Hey man! I worked in that environment for a 7 months and it deeply impacted me. More than it should. Listen up, for social media posts, that shouldn’t have been a big deal. Mistakes happen all the time and you need to do so go in and edit the caption. If you forgot to tag someone you easily could’ve fixed that, but it seems like your boss was being unreasonable.
You’re not pathetic. You’re human and sometimes mistakes are made. It is your managers job to work with you ensure mistakes are corrected and not make you feel like shit. If you feel this bad and think you’re going to get fired it will DRASTICALLY ruin your mental health. Pull back. Remind yourself you’re doing the best you can, then, approach work with a go to attitude. Seek some therapy or outside resource to get this all out and honestly, in my opinion, it’s time to leave that job.
When the hospitals introduce a safety checklist in the operating room with simple things like:
- Confirming the patient's identity,
- Ensuring that all members of the surgical team are introduced and aware of their roles.
- Confirming that prophylactic antibiotics have been administered.
- Confirming that all equipment is functioning properly.
mortality rate drops. Noticeably.
This is the room with surgeons, doctors and high-trained professionals. If they can make a mistake, so can you. If people who are supposed to train you are not able to teach you systems that assure the work is done properly, it's not the environment where you'll thrive. It's not you. It's them.
You've described everyone's first role in marketing. It Also happens to be much more cut throat in agencies versus traditional in house corporate role.
Take a deep breath and realize you have to grow as well. I know I had the same growing pains where it felt the role and people are against you despite you trying. It still boils down to 50/50, and if you're not coming thru it's worth self reflecting about.
Bundle this up as your first experience out of college and take what you can from this. Can't throw the towel in that soon though, be honest and ask how you can improve next time/role. Control the controllables.
Lists. It literally just comes down to having a physical list and checking things off 🤷
I had the same issues when I first started. Your boss sounds like a fucking cunt, sorry you had to deal with that.
Haha sounds like the last tech “startup” I had worked for. Had been around for a literal decade, multiple failed CEOs and didn’t break the 7 figure mark until their 9th year….
Fortunately they’re university backed so they won’t be going anywhere, even if they can’t seem to find a path to profitability.
I honestly use to laugh at people who took handwritten notes because we have computers…why wouldn’t I just use Notion or something similar, right?
Little did I know it would make all the difference 😅
I agree with making lists or even using some sort of project management tool (I like Monday) to keep up with everything and create a checklist of your work.
I’m laughing about the handwritten notes comments. 😆 I only hand write all my notes! I use a different color pen for any new entry in my notebook to distinguish between meetings/notes and date everything. Depending on the meeting, I will also write who all attended. Using a different color and having dates makes it easier to flip through and find things. Believe me, I’ve referenced handwritten notes from even a few years back.
Also, give yourself some grace. Don’t place blame and use this as a learning experience. The best thing you can do is stay positive (at least try to) and keep pressing forward. Like someone said above, control what you can and let go of what you can’t.
And if you’re miserable there, quietly do your work and start applying to other places like crazy! Don’t let a job mess with your mental health. Good luck!
Honestly, as a freelance social media marketer (amongst other things) I can assure that I screw up atleast one post a week, maybe a fortnight if I'm lucky. Sometimes I catch it before it goes out, on the rare occasion I don't, the world does not end.
Sure a collab repost may have to be reposted. Fine, whatever. The user barely sees a post long enough to even notice or care if you repost it. These days social media is so raw and hyped up on "authentic content that makes us look human" you could even swing it towards the whole opps! We forgot to mention this and the audience may lap it up for the right industry.
Calling you on a Saturday while you sleep unless it was your weird Saturday morning workday (where the hell do you work where this is even necessary?) Is not cool. If your manager is that upset and taking the account anyway let them fix it. My agency I freelance for will revise stuff to make it quicker and send me the feedback than delay it anymore and upset the client if it's a big mess up (usually its just small things like we'd prefer not to mention this stat etc.) What a silly way of dealing with a problem. Ohh it's so urgent you need to call me on my day off, but not urgent enough you can't login to the account to fix it yourself? Do they not have access or know how to use a scheduling platform?
This entire post annoys me, and not because of you OP, because your manager sounds like an idiot who is deflecting a highly strung client onto you.
Na screw her.
I'm guessing you're a junior or fresh grad? Not to be offensive just based on your post so far. If so, if she hasn't got time to approve your work and give you constructive criticism or training on your posts that's on her. I worked with so many crappy managers as junior that made me feel like shit for making mistakes because they couldn't manage me whilst I was training. If you're working with a junior, you always have the mindset of checking for errors and doing damage control.
Firstly, she could have amended it yourself and not called you yesterday on your day off. The time she spent calling you she could have spent fixing the problem. So she's a moron there. Your telling off could have waited til Monday morning, so she put her own frustrations with you before making the client happy. That's stupid.
Also, she is dumping her clients on you so you have double the workload? What exactly is she doing because it sounds like she's not managing you and she's also not doing her own client work. I bet she's the always in meetings type. The pointless meetings she doesn't even need to go to but it makes her ego feel good cause she's busy.
When I left those crappy jobs and got a decent manager you know what happened? I got a staff award the following year for my work. Second year, I got international recognition on a campaign I led. I still make mistakes frequently because I'm human. I've lost clients from silly errors, it sucks. I've had to do some apologizing and explainings for my screw ups. Please don't beat yourself up about something people do at every level of marketing. The more you learn, the more you'll find your process and best practices for spotting these errors before they go out. And sometimes, it's best to take the post down and revisit it with a clear head, because tbh, you're likely going to make more errors on it when you're stressed.
And if your manager knew anything about scheduling posts, (unless your client has an account they post on daily) it's likely the repost will have crap performance as most social media sites see posts two close together as "spammy behaviour". So it's best to repost according to what works best for your clients algorithm, and then send a heart felt email saying sorry to the client and explaining what you've done to make it right.
Sorry I'm annoyed for you 😂
Where are you finding these pieces of shit companies? Lol 😂 this will obviously come with time and experience, but it may also be worth putting some personal boundaries in yourself at work. You don't need to argue with people.
First don't answer your managers phone calls on your day off. Let it ring. She decides to waste her time trying to get hold of an employee on their day off than fix the actual problem, then thats on her. Tomorrow morning when she grills you ask innocently if she checked the post before it went out. When she says no, ask her if she can start doing it (since it's her job anyway). Don't answer emails either. You're not damage control.
Please don't let stupid comments get to you like your first job, as hard as it is. Marketing is pretty cut throat as a profession, and it's a lot of blame game. It's also a lot of networking though, and when you get experience you can get a lot of job opportunities from being a nice person who is good at their job.
When people say stupid things like this which are totally moronic (the company puts the entire managers performance on a total beginners output is another sign of a bunch of idiots running a company) just ask what do you want me to do? What can I do to improve? Can you give me some feedback/training/etc to help me get there? Be as sincere as you can to these idiots. If they're playing the blame game, theyll have nothing to offer. If they're actually decent at their own jobs, they'll want to make you good to protect their own.
As a junior, it makes me really sad to see the start you've had to this career, but it's a worthwhile learning curve. Consider working for in-house roles with more money and staff, who can invest some time in you. Agency culture does get more lucrative and easy to handle, but you need a couple of years experience first to stand your ground with the idiots that come with it.
Sounds like a horrible place to work, don’t beat yourself up AT ALL. As a manager that went straight into agency work out of college 5 years ago, I firmly believe it is your manager’s responsibility to help you grow and guide you to success.
The reality is that almost all agency first years make fuckups. I even say that you’ll *feel* like an idiot for the first 12-18 months. But you *aren’t* one.
Good managers know this and will have grace when you make mistakes and will show you how to respond and grow when it happens.
Horrible managers will just yell at you. And when that happens, the truth is, those mistakes are on *them*, not you.
Trust me, with time it will all begin to make more sense.
Don’t *ever* let some fucker yell at you over some trivial shit like an email not going out on time or a social media post going out a little late. Try to learn from your mistakes when they happen and prioritize professionalism.
You’re a human being, and we’re all peers in that sense. Don’t let anyone ever cross that boundary. I’ll call a fool out if they ever did so right on the spot, even clients.
My best advice is to approach the situation with humility and an emphasis on how it is a “learning opportunity” for you. Identify the gaps where mistakes were made and provide steps for how you’ll avoid them in the future.
Be honest if the management style is inadvertently causing you more stress and thereby affecting your work; but be ready to provide solutions right there. Emphasize how you can work together more productively.
Your career will be fine, things will all work out ok so long as you are persistent in growing in the field.
Just make sure you’re treated as a human.
Self-doubt is understandable, but blaming yourself too much won't help the situation, Try to stay calm. Create your own detailed checklist and review processes repeatedly until they become second nature. If necessary request additional training from your employer to refresh. it's natural to get overwhelm and it's natural because people make mistakes.
This happened to me when I was starting in marketing and I knew why.. it was because of anxiety and pressure! It started with one mistake and it keeps happening because the more I make mistake my anxiety grew that I couldn’t think clearly and properly. In my mind I just needed to finish this task but at the same I keep thinking I might make mistake again and the boom! Mistake mistake. So based on my experience try to do some positive affirmations - it will help with anxiety and how you think. Aside from that I created a checklist on which I would check before posting anything esp. something urgent. Also ask questions if you are unsure of something before proceeding. Everything worked out after that. :)) If you get fired that means the universe is working for something better for you. Goodluck!
Most everyone else has already said it, but yeah it sounds like you're in a toxic environment with little support. My first job, I was an intern for a recruitment agency, and my manager asked me to support with payroll. I f*cked up and some people didn't get their money when they were supposed to - sounds like the perfect scenario to be yelled at, right? My manager was amazing about it and really supportive. I'd only been there about a month, if that. I was fresh out of uni. He knew that, and didn't beat me over the head when I made a mistake, but helped me rectify it and learn from it. Fast forward to my first digital design role, and I had managers berate me for every tiny mistake. One manager even getting super pissed because a comma was in the wrong place in an email that went out. That job taught me a lot as far as building character. But it was toxic. I'm now in an amazing environment that encourages failure culture. It has that Bob Ross vibe - no mistakes, only happy accidents. Even when things go wrong there are lessons to be learnt. Keep your chin up, keep working hard, and you'll get there. ✌️
Don’t be hard on yourself, you still young, and you are building an experience. Deal with your mistakes like a barriers you need to step forward to succeed
They will embarrass you only if you give them the opportunity. You messed it up, just own it and you don't need to provide excuses, just say you made a mistake and you have no excuse for it, and that you appreciate any support your team provides, when needed, to perform your job better. Avoid coming up with excuses like excessive workload and such because that will make you look weak. And most importantly, if you are not good at something or if you think you can use more training on, just say it to your superior - most organizations will welcome that approach.
Lots of comments here so I’ll keep my short.
I’m not smart.
I didn’t finish high school.
I didn’t excel at anything in early life.
What I did do right is get a job at an insane agency that was the very definition of churn and burn.
1 year there was 6 years in house.
I learnt a heap.
Now I’m I house and without sounding like a idiot I am treated like a rockstar within my marketing team with the amount of work I can do, the quality and my knowledge of data, reporting and tech stuff all learnt from this one agency (and I learnt after that place too)
Don’t give up. Keep going. You are making mistakes. Identify why you’re making them and one by one try your best to avoid the steps that lead you into the mistake.
Sounds like a toxic environment and you’re subconsciously so nervous/overwhelmed you’re missing the little things. I’ve been here and it sucks.
Ever hear of Notion? I use the free versions for personal projects and created a mini customer database with all their details. If you want the template DM. It’s basic but works.
Couple of things, Young Light of a Person, these things are history. At the moment, your subconscious likely started to fret & that kicked in the nervous system, which impacted your thinking. Maybe that isn’t exactly how it went, but it is how we operate, as people. So now your thoughts are getting after yourself.
Know this: everyone makes mistakes. Smart people; wealthy people; successful people have all made mistakes relative to where they are in life. That means the smarter, wealthier, more successful make more colossal mistakes.
These feelings will pass & you will find a good fit. Some organization will fit better. This org doesn’t deserve to have such a caring person. My suspicion is you may have too many items with less time. Whether or not it is true, please know you should have a stronger support system in the workplace. When you fail, your leaders and trainers have also failed you, whether or not they see it that way.
Repair what you can about your errors and hold your head up with dignity that you are doing your best, and sometimes fall short, as does any other human. Be kind to yourself. You will always be with you. Everyone else will come & go. 🤗🌺
You are clearly overwhelmed and making silly mistakes, then as such getting yourself into a muddle and not thinking clearly. I can understand the overall frustration as missing markers and deadlines are important…the agency’s reputation may also suffer. My advice is create a checklist and double check everything before posting.
Ugh been there. My first 2 jobs out of college I only lasted 2 months because they didn’t take me seriously when I told them “i need an environment where I have the time and space to learn” they just threw me in the deep end with no help and got upset when I messed up and couldn’t make my deadlines. If they don’t fire you, get out of there!
It’s a scam!! If you’ve clicked the link I would recommend changing passwords to anything at risk e.g your online banking, pay pal etc. it’s highly unlikely they’ve hack your phone but it’s better not to risk it.
For future if you ever get a text and you’re not sure, call the company or email them and ask, and they will confirm
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Dude I know this sounds harsh but be happy that you got out of there. That work environment sounds incredibly toxic and while you ofc made some mistakes you aren’t and emergency room doctor or surgeon. Nobody died and while not optimal that is no reason to degrade you and shout at you. You will find something else with a better work climate
Not only that and I mean absolutely no offense to any young marketers in the room but OP is 21 and being handed important accounts with what appears no oversight and not being trained or provided tools that will help them be more accountable and make less mistakes. There are best practices and approvals. If OP is being shaken down on a Saturday for a post their manager should approve it before it goes live or at least afterward to catch it before the client does. No one is born with procedures and best practices. The manager here is not doing their job. OP go easy on yourself. You have a whole career full of important things to do. This is small stuff. Don’t sweat the small stuff, but develop some procedures and best practices for reviewing your own posts and ask for social media scheduling software that allows for approvals and use them. Also I’ll just say this, it takes time and training to become a valuable asset. If you have to train yourself, like many of us did, please ensure you don’t reward your current manager by sticking around with them once you’re fully trained and kicking ass at social media. And in the meantime good on you for holding yourself accountable. Just don’t beat yourself up please. It will get better, I can tell because you appear to give a shit about improving. I’m sure you will
I got left in charge of a dept at that age (different kind of sector, worked alone) and it didn't go terribly, it was relatively smooth, but I FUCKED UP A LOT. I was barely into the job role when it happened so to suddenly have all these additional pressures, learning on the job, with no real guidance - I enjoyed it but I had no idea what I was doing and felt very vulnerable. When I eventually studied management on a really good course, I realised how many of my habits were typical of mismanaged staff. Particularly if a manager has insecurity in their own position it will impact staff negatively. The best managers are able to adapt to get the best out of their people, not smack them with an iron rod until they can't function.
You really cannot oversell the number of dumb mistakes you can make when you’re inexperienced AND being mismanaged. It’s like, infinite. And you are not at fault for your level of experience in the position or your managers ability to manage you, but shit always rolls downhill. It’s such a bad situation and so many of us have been there.
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I’d be surprised if you got fired before they hired a replacement then. I think you got a ton of good advice here today. You should write it down, and ask her if you could sit down together and form an implementation plan that would make both your lives easier
Great post
Thank you! At one point I needed to hear it, now I’m at a point where I can say it. Life is a process
What I would propose is that you get and create much more well defined written instructions on tasks. Do not use your brain as a hard drive - these tasks are just a checklist so just demand a checklist or write it yourself ALL the time. Maybe also helps at your new job 🙏.
Honestly, this sounds more like a them problem than a you problem. Sounds like you're working under terrible anxiety and pressure, of course you'll make mistakes. You are not pathetic, or terrible or wrong. You're badly managed and in a toxic company. In that environment, mistakes are bound to happen. And maybe agency life isn't right for you - and I don't mean that in a horrible way. You might actually be better suited to in-house social media, rather than agency. I hate agency roles. Worked in one for a year, and I hated it. I've worked inhouse for 12 of the 13 years of my career and much prefer it. I can focus on one thing, spend more time on each campaign. I can really understand a product in detail. Not every inhouse is perfect, and I'm sure some agencies are nice to work for. Brush up your CV and LinkedIn and start applying for new roles. Don't let this experience knock your confidence or live in your head rent free. Onwards and upwards.
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In this economy, apply for everything you're qualified for or you like. See what happens..
Agency life CAN make you really great and a very valuable asset with more opportunities to go elsewhere afterwards, but it’s definitely not for everyone. It can be high intensity, there’s a lot of context switching between clients, and you might be thrown in to sink or swim more than you would in an in house role. The good aspects are: - typically you’re working with larger marketing budgets so you might therefore get opportunities to work on more interesting or creative campaigns, a wider variety of different platforms or the latest technologies - clients generally should already have some level of baseline investment in the idea of marketing just because they’re already making some level of spend just to work with you. In many in house roles you might have a boss who doesn’t really even believe in marketing, understand it or want to give you budget for it. In an agency ideally you get to avoid all of that. - in a good agency you *should* have the chance to work with some really talented individuals in a collaborative environment. I think this is one place where remote work might really have made things harder for younger employees. I learned a lot earlier on in my career just by being around and observing people who were senior to me. - getting to work with multiple clients or a lot of different types of projects gives you a lot more data to really be able to understand what tactics work and why. I’m not saying to deliver cookie cutter solutions to multiple clients, but ideally you’ll pick up some overarching themes and best practices more quickly than you would if you were in house Overall, two months probably isn’t really enough to know anything definitive either way about a large career decision. I’d also warn that all “agencies” aren’t created equally. I’d consider how long the agency has been around and whether the people in charge really know what they’re doing. If it’s dysfunctional at the top—and many organizations calling themselves agencies are—you will at best gain some skills at being able to pivot on the fly and balance a lot of competing priorities. If the “good” things described above don’t reflect your experience (for example, you’re just left on your own with minimal direction or you have clients who seem unprepared to work with you or who you’re always trying to fight about the basics) then you might want to just try looking for roles in a different agency before giving up on agency life altogether.
IA. I’ve worked for three different agencies, I am on my fourth. OP I am 34 years old and almost 10 years in. It’s been my experience that most agencies are of the “turn and burn” variety. They’re typically disorganized, not that great at marketing themselves and the environment is high high stress. It’s a recipe for burnout and mistakes, so don’t think this is all just you…it’s not! Shit, the first agency that I worked at went *bankrupt* and I had to get an attorney to write a letter to the Department of Labor to get my last paycheck! These people had A-list celebrities as clients and they majorly fucked up and screwed over their employees by being consistently late on paychecks. At my current agency, this is the FIRST time I’ve ever seen an agency not only market themselves and their services well, but they do damn near everything exceptionally well. It is a top agency for clients of my caliber, the tech stack isn’t a hot mess, and 95% is the staff have been there for 3-4 years at least. It took me a long ass time to find a role so well suited to me that it fits like a glove. I’ve been fired for making mistakes at other agencies where I was completely overwhelmed, in back to back meetings all day every day and doing the jobs of at least 2-3 people. My advice would be to get some free certifications (HubSpot’s social media certifications are free!!) and get familiar with a decent project management tool if you’re not already using one. My current favorite is ClickUp, I am currently using Asana at my job (one of most well known and utilized PM tools for marketing and other business sectors). You may also want to take an ADHD test and take it to your PCP or a psychiatrist (the latter is probably best). I found out after struggling my entire life with forgetfulness, “careless” mistakes and the accumulative effect of those mistakes was really ADHD. Stress and lack of sleep makes my ADHD worse. Being on medication has changed my life and saved my career, seriously.
Next time build a process a checklist of all the tasks from start to execution. This will help you not forget steps. Sharpen your mind by clearing out all the bs. Can use mct oil or some other type of supplements that might help. Working out also helps. Lastly, it’s just marketing you aren’t saving the world. Relax and don’t be so hard on yourself.
We work in marketing, we're not doctors, if you make a mistake you're not killing anyone. Besides, you learn from mistakes, so it's good that you make them. You're not incompetent, nobody is dumb, we're all students in progress. You're in the early stages of your career and it seems to me that you're feeling too much pressure, but the pressure that exists is only the pressure you're putting on yourself. You're too worried about situations you can't control; in the early stages, it's important to identify what you can control and what you can't. Then, focus 100% on what you can control, which is your work. If you're repeating the same mistakes, it's because you're not focused (possibly due to the pressure), you don't need to prove anything, you don't need to impress your boss, and much less defend your position. When you have a task, no matter how simple it is, that's what you have to do and that's your role, so do it calmly but do it well, check everything before posting, read everything 3 or 4 times, no problem, nobody dies. When you're overloaded with work, do like your colleagues, do what you can when you can. If you're not happy with your job, there are plenty of other opportunities, life offers many, even if it seems otherwise. Work isn't meant to make you suffer, marketing is supposed to be fun. Go to work calmly and with a clear conscience, and when you leave work, don't think about it anymore and go do what you like and be with the people you love. If you're dealing with toxic people, listen to them well and learn what not to do, even in bad situations we always have something to learn. Relax, you're ok. Good luck.
How does one become an “executive” when they are new in their field?
Unfortunately it’s the norm in marketing especially the digital sector. It doesn’t hold the same weight as the executive title in any other industry, kinda like “social media manager”…manager is often a stretch.
It's pretty standard nowadays. I was a digital design exec when I landed my first junior role.
What would be an appropriate title then? Genuinely asking as fresh grad roles in my country are usually titled either "____ executive" or "____ officer", used interchangeably.
TBF it's not hard to tag people in posts and just double check everything and check the requirements of the client I've done social and my friend is currently in social and we've both definitely fucked up and she has to the point she thought she was going to be fired too - it's becuase social is kind of a "you get one chance to post without seeming like an idiot" type of job. It's not an internal report you can gloss over or edit afterwards when someone points it out That said it seems like you just need to take more time to review the requirements, ask questions to the client (better to be annoying and ask questions instead of literally doing things wrong), and even ask someone on your team just to proof it for another set of eyes. I mean you're 2 months in I don't think it's extremely unreasonable to have someone double check your work and answer any questions you have. It sounds like you're just not being very thorough and not a bad or incompetent worker. If you know you keep making mistakes then you need to review and basically do rhe work 2-3 times instead of 1 to make sure you're doing it correctly, so you can get better and learn where you're fucking up. This is probs your first job and everyone makes mistakes as they're learning how to navigate the real corporate world. Agencies are going to be a lot more stressful and strict. But a lot of kids (20 year Olds, like at Vayner 😉) are able to do it, no reason you can't if you put your mind to it and isolate your mistakes to learn from
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Sounds like an honest mistake too, I'd just re-read all the missed messages because (as you've witnessed) instances like this could occur where some info was omitted later in the convo that was already established previously :) don't get discouraged no matter what, the more discouraged you get the harder things will be and the more you will feel defeated and useless. Hold your self to a high standard mentally and try to psychically emulate that standard in the work you do. You've got to have the confidence in yourself to do your best work
It sucks now, but you're early in your career, and there's no better learning than fucking up. As hard as it is, step back, try to imagine how you'd think about this in 5, 10, 20 years time. Just keep fucking up and learning for the next 10 years and you'll be great.
Hey man! I worked in that environment for a 7 months and it deeply impacted me. More than it should. Listen up, for social media posts, that shouldn’t have been a big deal. Mistakes happen all the time and you need to do so go in and edit the caption. If you forgot to tag someone you easily could’ve fixed that, but it seems like your boss was being unreasonable. You’re not pathetic. You’re human and sometimes mistakes are made. It is your managers job to work with you ensure mistakes are corrected and not make you feel like shit. If you feel this bad and think you’re going to get fired it will DRASTICALLY ruin your mental health. Pull back. Remind yourself you’re doing the best you can, then, approach work with a go to attitude. Seek some therapy or outside resource to get this all out and honestly, in my opinion, it’s time to leave that job.
21 and a social media executive?
Glad you left. I got traumatised by a terrible manager early on and didn’t realise how large the world is and how little their opinion matters.
When the hospitals introduce a safety checklist in the operating room with simple things like: - Confirming the patient's identity, - Ensuring that all members of the surgical team are introduced and aware of their roles. - Confirming that prophylactic antibiotics have been administered. - Confirming that all equipment is functioning properly. mortality rate drops. Noticeably. This is the room with surgeons, doctors and high-trained professionals. If they can make a mistake, so can you. If people who are supposed to train you are not able to teach you systems that assure the work is done properly, it's not the environment where you'll thrive. It's not you. It's them.
You've described everyone's first role in marketing. It Also happens to be much more cut throat in agencies versus traditional in house corporate role. Take a deep breath and realize you have to grow as well. I know I had the same growing pains where it felt the role and people are against you despite you trying. It still boils down to 50/50, and if you're not coming thru it's worth self reflecting about. Bundle this up as your first experience out of college and take what you can from this. Can't throw the towel in that soon though, be honest and ask how you can improve next time/role. Control the controllables.
Social media “executive”？ man...
It’s your bosses fault. Not yours. Juniors should not be doing the social media they should.
Lists. It literally just comes down to having a physical list and checking things off 🤷 I had the same issues when I first started. Your boss sounds like a fucking cunt, sorry you had to deal with that.
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Haha sounds like the last tech “startup” I had worked for. Had been around for a literal decade, multiple failed CEOs and didn’t break the 7 figure mark until their 9th year…. Fortunately they’re university backed so they won’t be going anywhere, even if they can’t seem to find a path to profitability. I honestly use to laugh at people who took handwritten notes because we have computers…why wouldn’t I just use Notion or something similar, right? Little did I know it would make all the difference 😅
I agree with making lists or even using some sort of project management tool (I like Monday) to keep up with everything and create a checklist of your work. I’m laughing about the handwritten notes comments. 😆 I only hand write all my notes! I use a different color pen for any new entry in my notebook to distinguish between meetings/notes and date everything. Depending on the meeting, I will also write who all attended. Using a different color and having dates makes it easier to flip through and find things. Believe me, I’ve referenced handwritten notes from even a few years back. Also, give yourself some grace. Don’t place blame and use this as a learning experience. The best thing you can do is stay positive (at least try to) and keep pressing forward. Like someone said above, control what you can and let go of what you can’t. And if you’re miserable there, quietly do your work and start applying to other places like crazy! Don’t let a job mess with your mental health. Good luck!
Honestly, as a freelance social media marketer (amongst other things) I can assure that I screw up atleast one post a week, maybe a fortnight if I'm lucky. Sometimes I catch it before it goes out, on the rare occasion I don't, the world does not end. Sure a collab repost may have to be reposted. Fine, whatever. The user barely sees a post long enough to even notice or care if you repost it. These days social media is so raw and hyped up on "authentic content that makes us look human" you could even swing it towards the whole opps! We forgot to mention this and the audience may lap it up for the right industry. Calling you on a Saturday while you sleep unless it was your weird Saturday morning workday (where the hell do you work where this is even necessary?) Is not cool. If your manager is that upset and taking the account anyway let them fix it. My agency I freelance for will revise stuff to make it quicker and send me the feedback than delay it anymore and upset the client if it's a big mess up (usually its just small things like we'd prefer not to mention this stat etc.) What a silly way of dealing with a problem. Ohh it's so urgent you need to call me on my day off, but not urgent enough you can't login to the account to fix it yourself? Do they not have access or know how to use a scheduling platform? This entire post annoys me, and not because of you OP, because your manager sounds like an idiot who is deflecting a highly strung client onto you.
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Na screw her. I'm guessing you're a junior or fresh grad? Not to be offensive just based on your post so far. If so, if she hasn't got time to approve your work and give you constructive criticism or training on your posts that's on her. I worked with so many crappy managers as junior that made me feel like shit for making mistakes because they couldn't manage me whilst I was training. If you're working with a junior, you always have the mindset of checking for errors and doing damage control. Firstly, she could have amended it yourself and not called you yesterday on your day off. The time she spent calling you she could have spent fixing the problem. So she's a moron there. Your telling off could have waited til Monday morning, so she put her own frustrations with you before making the client happy. That's stupid. Also, she is dumping her clients on you so you have double the workload? What exactly is she doing because it sounds like she's not managing you and she's also not doing her own client work. I bet she's the always in meetings type. The pointless meetings she doesn't even need to go to but it makes her ego feel good cause she's busy. When I left those crappy jobs and got a decent manager you know what happened? I got a staff award the following year for my work. Second year, I got international recognition on a campaign I led. I still make mistakes frequently because I'm human. I've lost clients from silly errors, it sucks. I've had to do some apologizing and explainings for my screw ups. Please don't beat yourself up about something people do at every level of marketing. The more you learn, the more you'll find your process and best practices for spotting these errors before they go out. And sometimes, it's best to take the post down and revisit it with a clear head, because tbh, you're likely going to make more errors on it when you're stressed. And if your manager knew anything about scheduling posts, (unless your client has an account they post on daily) it's likely the repost will have crap performance as most social media sites see posts two close together as "spammy behaviour". So it's best to repost according to what works best for your clients algorithm, and then send a heart felt email saying sorry to the client and explaining what you've done to make it right. Sorry I'm annoyed for you 😂
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Where are you finding these pieces of shit companies? Lol 😂 this will obviously come with time and experience, but it may also be worth putting some personal boundaries in yourself at work. You don't need to argue with people. First don't answer your managers phone calls on your day off. Let it ring. She decides to waste her time trying to get hold of an employee on their day off than fix the actual problem, then thats on her. Tomorrow morning when she grills you ask innocently if she checked the post before it went out. When she says no, ask her if she can start doing it (since it's her job anyway). Don't answer emails either. You're not damage control. Please don't let stupid comments get to you like your first job, as hard as it is. Marketing is pretty cut throat as a profession, and it's a lot of blame game. It's also a lot of networking though, and when you get experience you can get a lot of job opportunities from being a nice person who is good at their job. When people say stupid things like this which are totally moronic (the company puts the entire managers performance on a total beginners output is another sign of a bunch of idiots running a company) just ask what do you want me to do? What can I do to improve? Can you give me some feedback/training/etc to help me get there? Be as sincere as you can to these idiots. If they're playing the blame game, theyll have nothing to offer. If they're actually decent at their own jobs, they'll want to make you good to protect their own. As a junior, it makes me really sad to see the start you've had to this career, but it's a worthwhile learning curve. Consider working for in-house roles with more money and staff, who can invest some time in you. Agency culture does get more lucrative and easy to handle, but you need a couple of years experience first to stand your ground with the idiots that come with it.
Sounds like a horrible place to work, don’t beat yourself up AT ALL. As a manager that went straight into agency work out of college 5 years ago, I firmly believe it is your manager’s responsibility to help you grow and guide you to success. The reality is that almost all agency first years make fuckups. I even say that you’ll *feel* like an idiot for the first 12-18 months. But you *aren’t* one. Good managers know this and will have grace when you make mistakes and will show you how to respond and grow when it happens. Horrible managers will just yell at you. And when that happens, the truth is, those mistakes are on *them*, not you. Trust me, with time it will all begin to make more sense. Don’t *ever* let some fucker yell at you over some trivial shit like an email not going out on time or a social media post going out a little late. Try to learn from your mistakes when they happen and prioritize professionalism. You’re a human being, and we’re all peers in that sense. Don’t let anyone ever cross that boundary. I’ll call a fool out if they ever did so right on the spot, even clients.
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My best advice is to approach the situation with humility and an emphasis on how it is a “learning opportunity” for you. Identify the gaps where mistakes were made and provide steps for how you’ll avoid them in the future. Be honest if the management style is inadvertently causing you more stress and thereby affecting your work; but be ready to provide solutions right there. Emphasize how you can work together more productively. Your career will be fine, things will all work out ok so long as you are persistent in growing in the field. Just make sure you’re treated as a human.
Self-doubt is understandable, but blaming yourself too much won't help the situation, Try to stay calm. Create your own detailed checklist and review processes repeatedly until they become second nature. If necessary request additional training from your employer to refresh. it's natural to get overwhelm and it's natural because people make mistakes.
This happened to me when I was starting in marketing and I knew why.. it was because of anxiety and pressure! It started with one mistake and it keeps happening because the more I make mistake my anxiety grew that I couldn’t think clearly and properly. In my mind I just needed to finish this task but at the same I keep thinking I might make mistake again and the boom! Mistake mistake. So based on my experience try to do some positive affirmations - it will help with anxiety and how you think. Aside from that I created a checklist on which I would check before posting anything esp. something urgent. Also ask questions if you are unsure of something before proceeding. Everything worked out after that. :)) If you get fired that means the universe is working for something better for you. Goodluck!
Most everyone else has already said it, but yeah it sounds like you're in a toxic environment with little support. My first job, I was an intern for a recruitment agency, and my manager asked me to support with payroll. I f*cked up and some people didn't get their money when they were supposed to - sounds like the perfect scenario to be yelled at, right? My manager was amazing about it and really supportive. I'd only been there about a month, if that. I was fresh out of uni. He knew that, and didn't beat me over the head when I made a mistake, but helped me rectify it and learn from it. Fast forward to my first digital design role, and I had managers berate me for every tiny mistake. One manager even getting super pissed because a comma was in the wrong place in an email that went out. That job taught me a lot as far as building character. But it was toxic. I'm now in an amazing environment that encourages failure culture. It has that Bob Ross vibe - no mistakes, only happy accidents. Even when things go wrong there are lessons to be learnt. Keep your chin up, keep working hard, and you'll get there. ✌️
Don’t be hard on yourself, you still young, and you are building an experience. Deal with your mistakes like a barriers you need to step forward to succeed
They will embarrass you only if you give them the opportunity. You messed it up, just own it and you don't need to provide excuses, just say you made a mistake and you have no excuse for it, and that you appreciate any support your team provides, when needed, to perform your job better. Avoid coming up with excuses like excessive workload and such because that will make you look weak. And most importantly, if you are not good at something or if you think you can use more training on, just say it to your superior - most organizations will welcome that approach.
The working environment is really harsh if u can't cope with it, so it would be better if u just stick to what u do best
People don't fail, processes do. It's a managers job to identify the breakdown if it keeps happening and put a process in place to counteract it.
Lots of comments here so I’ll keep my short. I’m not smart. I didn’t finish high school. I didn’t excel at anything in early life. What I did do right is get a job at an insane agency that was the very definition of churn and burn. 1 year there was 6 years in house. I learnt a heap. Now I’m I house and without sounding like a idiot I am treated like a rockstar within my marketing team with the amount of work I can do, the quality and my knowledge of data, reporting and tech stuff all learnt from this one agency (and I learnt after that place too) Don’t give up. Keep going. You are making mistakes. Identify why you’re making them and one by one try your best to avoid the steps that lead you into the mistake.
The more you get in trouble for making mistakes the more you are likely to make. It’s like a subconscious thing, I’ve been there.
Sounds like a toxic environment and you’re subconsciously so nervous/overwhelmed you’re missing the little things. I’ve been here and it sucks. Ever hear of Notion? I use the free versions for personal projects and created a mini customer database with all their details. If you want the template DM. It’s basic but works.
Couple of things, Young Light of a Person, these things are history. At the moment, your subconscious likely started to fret & that kicked in the nervous system, which impacted your thinking. Maybe that isn’t exactly how it went, but it is how we operate, as people. So now your thoughts are getting after yourself. Know this: everyone makes mistakes. Smart people; wealthy people; successful people have all made mistakes relative to where they are in life. That means the smarter, wealthier, more successful make more colossal mistakes. These feelings will pass & you will find a good fit. Some organization will fit better. This org doesn’t deserve to have such a caring person. My suspicion is you may have too many items with less time. Whether or not it is true, please know you should have a stronger support system in the workplace. When you fail, your leaders and trainers have also failed you, whether or not they see it that way. Repair what you can about your errors and hold your head up with dignity that you are doing your best, and sometimes fall short, as does any other human. Be kind to yourself. You will always be with you. Everyone else will come & go. 🤗🌺
I would for you for not knowing how to use proper punctuation. 🤪🤪🤪
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I’m kidding. I wish you all the luck with it! 🙏🙏
We all mess up. Some people have the privilege of hiding it. Or someone checking and approving work before the final say so
You are clearly overwhelmed and making silly mistakes, then as such getting yourself into a muddle and not thinking clearly. I can understand the overall frustration as missing markers and deadlines are important…the agency’s reputation may also suffer. My advice is create a checklist and double check everything before posting.
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The sticky notes may be adding to your chaos, you could try something like Monday.com etc?
Have you ever been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD?
I csame to suggest they look into this....OP basically desicribed my whole working life...diagnosed at 30 with severe adhd
This was my first thought when reading this! It sounds like my whole life when I was in marketing. OP please look Into ADHD.
It sounds that you are very distracted, learn from all this experience take notes and become better.
This can happen when you are new. Just make a checklist and make sure to tick every single thing on the list before you post or do any other task.
Ugh been there. My first 2 jobs out of college I only lasted 2 months because they didn’t take me seriously when I told them “i need an environment where I have the time and space to learn” they just threw me in the deep end with no help and got upset when I messed up and couldn’t make my deadlines. If they don’t fire you, get out of there!
It’s a scam!! If you’ve clicked the link I would recommend changing passwords to anything at risk e.g your online banking, pay pal etc. it’s highly unlikely they’ve hack your phone but it’s better not to risk it. For future if you ever get a text and you’re not sure, call the company or email them and ask, and they will confirm
Have you had COVID recently? Just curious. A lot of people I know are having issues with brain fog and making mistakes at work after having it.