I've got a new job!

My dream job at LBi

Yes that's right. A beautiful, bright shiny new job! 

I started working at LBi as a Social Media Account Manager just four weeks ago! This is very good news. 

The last company that I worked for was WAXAgency went out of business and it's a long story. It's a long story with a fantastic ending, me ending up on the social media team at the best digital agency in London.

I can't believe that I've been there for four weeks already! It's flown by. I've got a few projects to get me going and there's lots happening. The team at the London office has been around for 6 months and is rapidly growing. Tomorrow my boss, the Head of Social Media, is going to present the new team structure. The other perk is that I am working with great people, people who I really like! 

This job is more than just a job to me. It represents me reaching a significant milestone in my career journey here in London. I started writing this blog to document my experiences of working and living in London. It hasn't always been smooth sailing, but it's been well worth it.

When I was first looking for a job in London back in October 2008 I met a woman through the She Says network who worked at LBi. After meeting her I went and had a look at the agency's website and thought that it looked amazing. I had in the back of mind that I wanted to one day work at LBi, so I am pretty excited that dream has come true.

After getting my first job in London I found it a bit challenging to write about it. I didn't feel it was right to expect my unsuspecting colleagues to play leading characters in my blog drama. I feel like people have the right to privacy. At that point I felt like I wanted to write about what was happening on a day to day basis at work, but I didn't.

Writing about working in London

However, what I want to write about now is the entire experience of starting out to finally landing what I like to refer to as my dream job. A journey that started back in 2008. 

What I am not sure about is the format in which I go about writing about it. Do I do it here on this blog? Do I start another blog? Should I just write it as a book?
 

I am leaning towards just writing it as a book, a sort of inspiration how to guide. The purpose of the writing is to share my story of coming to London as an American and finding a job (during the height of the recession) in a very tough and competitive field (digital Advertising). 

My audience is going to be expats who have recently arrived in London, who are looking for jobs and the message that I want to put across is one of hope. When I was first looking for my first job I would go onto the UKYankee forums and read hundreds of posts about Americans who were having really hard times breaking into the UK job market. 

I wished I had found a few good stories in those posts, so now I am going to add my own!

Back to work

I was excited to go back to work in the new year and so far it's been great to be back. My office closed on the 23rd of December and we returned back on Tuesday. I had a great holiday break and got lots of stuff done that I wanted to. I made a dress, finally went through my gigantic bag of unpaired socks and paired them, puttered around the house, spent time with my family, read some good books and spent a lot of time thinking about how to make 2011 one of the best years yet.

There are some changes happening at work, all good and exciting. Part of that excitement might include moving to another part of town. At the moment we have a very nice office in North London, near Caledonian Road. I love the office and the building, but I am not crazy about the area. Mainly because there's not much around there in the way of shops or places to grab a bite to eat. There's a few good places, but I like a bit of variety. I usually like taking a walk at lunch time and grabbing a good cup of coffee and maybe a pair of shoes :)

I used to work up in a part of London called Harrow and Wealdstone, the very last stop on the Bakerloo line. I have to say that I probably wouldn't ever work in that part of town again. The office was fantastic, really nice, but the surrounding area was less than inspiring. Your choices for lunch were either McDonalds or Tesco Express and the Tesco Express didn't arrive until I was three months in. There wasn't a good pub to go for drinks or much of anything. Although to be fair there was a library that I used to go to once a week.

So it will be pretty exciting to work in the heart of London. The commute will be nice as well. Just one tube and a 15 minute ride, can't beat that.

There's a great energy at work at the moment and it's inspiring and there are good projects on and interesting things on the horizon.

When it comes to work I've always lived by the mentality of I do what I love and I love what I do and when you follow your bliss work doesn't seem like work at all. I hope everyone has a great 2011!