Opposites Attract

Among many things, Christine Olszewski, our marketing and events manager, is good at disrupting the office with her booming laugh, scaring away the media, inventing “endearing nicknames” for teammates and attempting to design fliers that cause Lori Eldridge, our graphic designer, nervous breakdowns. How many times does Lori have to tell her to never bold and italicize the same word? One of Christine’s roles is to serve as our quarterly newsletter and video editor, which reflects her creative and quirky personality. This quarter, she passed along her wisdom and put me in charge of recording the video. During the process, something occurred to me: Christine isn’t the only one with a big personality. It’s a miracle Eisbrenner Public Relations functions so well with all the different characters working here.

The process of recording the video was great because I got to see everyone’s personality shine. For example, Michelle Welsh and I went to Town Tavern to record her video and have a glass of wine. After convincing the bartender we were making a film about alcoholism, we began recording the video. Only afterwards did we reassure the bartender we were kidding. I noticed Michelle was instinctively checking her watch as we drank our wine to make sure we’d get back in time. That must have been the former editor in her.

From Jessica Howell, who’s the most poised person I’ve ever met, to Holly Myles, who loves a good rock concert, we all contribute to the team just by being ourselves. When we recorded, some wanted to go outside, some people only had 30 seconds to spare because they had to run to their next meeting and others recorded their videos 50 times before getting it right. I won’t mention names.

Not only did I have the chance to learn about my teammates, I realized my personality contributes to this team, too. I’ve never pretended to be somebody I’m not. I have a Harry Potter screensaver on my computer, I wore my graduation cap and gown around the office, I tell corny jokes and I even try to set my colleagues up on dates with people I know. (Christine still hasn’t agreed to be my stepmother.)

The freedom at work has allowed me to make friendships and has pushed me to figure out what I’m good at. Maybe we all aren’t designers, or maybe Christine is just really bad at design, but at least we have a teammate who can fix our attempts. Individually, we have unique strengths and interests, and we share those with one another to make a very well-rounded, excellent team.