My First 3 Weeks At Creative Natives

I respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which I live and work, the Bunurong Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Eastern Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.

If you told me 2 months ago that I’d be a Marketing & Public Relations Coordinator while still studying at university with 14 months left, and be sitting in a meeting room with my colleagues talking about some of the biggest marketing, design and PR agencies in Melbourne and Sydney… I don’t know what I would’ve said, I might’ve laughed and asked you to please stop teasing me.

Preparing myself.

When I found out that I got the job at Creative Natives, I did what any Gen-Z with no corporate experience would do, did a quick google search for “before you start a new job” and read a few different articles with tips and advice for ways I can get myself ready for this new and exciting time. The first “job” I ever had was at my dad’s pizza shop when I was 10 years old, and after 6 long years I moved on up to a cinema for my official first job! I learnt so much across them both and even did four internships during uni, but nothing could prepare me for what it would be like coming into a job like this.

I made sure to quickly update my wardrobe by purchasing some new work jackets as well as a classy new work satchel for my laptop, and some snacks- I mean… important work documents. It’s my first time working in an office job, so I of course wanted to impress!

My first day! Well, sort of 😌

My first day at work was like no other, I started on a Friday and came into the office to attend an ‘End of Q1’ rooftop party. It was a lot of fun and I met so many new people. Normally you’d start work at 9 am, but I instead started at 3 pm where I was on a mission to capture some footage of… well, everything. Now we have a pool of footage that I got to tap into for creating this fun video for our socials to recap the night, check it out if you haven’t already.

The first real day though, working 9-5 in the office, was equally amazing. My team were careful not to add too much to my plate but were still ensuring I was included in as much as possible. One way they did this was by inviting me to their meetings and being treated to a team lunch on Swan Street and had some amazing Japanese-inspired protein-packed salads at FISHBOWL. As someone studying PR, I know all about the importance of earned media, so even though this is in no way sponsored let me just say that if you’re near one of their stores and want to treat yourself to lunch one day, definitely check this place out! Their food is so filling and delicious, while also being very reasonably priced. I had a delicious Tofu & Pumpkin bowl with Brown Rice and Cabbage as a base, but their other Vegan options looked so good too!

The wonderful office space

If I could write a whole piece on how much I love ‘The Commons’ (our office space), then I would. Again, this isn’t sponsored, but I’m genuinely in love. You know the movie ‘The Internship’ where Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are living their dream life at the Google Global Head Office because the building is like a five-star resort mixed in with an amusement park mixed in with an office space? Well, it’s pretty similar to that, I just wish they had slides as well to get down from the rooftop or between levels, maybe one day?

But seriously, there’s free beer and apple cider on tap, professional coffee machines, amazing kitchen facilities, yoga & meditation classes?!!! There’s literally a pool table, an arcade machine and darts!! They always stock up on fruit and have so many milk options!! It’s just such an amazing place to come to and call your workplace, and we have access to all their different buildings across Melbourne and Sydney too which just adds to the amazing flexibility the Creative Native’s team has!

There’s no ‘I’ in Team, however, I LOVE THIS TEAM!

When joining any new job, the corporate culture and your teammates can be “make or break”. Thankfully, I got the chance to meet my team in a party setting on the rooftop, so it was such a chill way to get to know everyone! They’re all very lovely and have made individual efforts to make me feel included. 

Just like so many, I have been feeling some feelings of imposter syndrome kicking in, and have only recently shaken off the thoughts that one day everyone is going to laugh and tell me that this has all been a prank and that I’m not actually working here. 

I’m still getting to know everyone, but I’m starting to pick up on everyone’s quirks, personalities, interests and work styles. There have been some talks here and there about #MAFS which I sadly dont watch, but I just know that my sister would love what they’re talking about. When I usually go out drinking, my drink of choice is something more on the sweeter side. But on the rooftop party, the boys introduced me to some beer. While I won’t exactly come running back to beer, it was still okay! It mainly just felt nice being a part of something and feeling included, but you can still usually find me by the Margaritas 😉

Some cute moments I want to share

I of course am going to start off with something that actually JUST happened as I am writing this. My birthday is going to be on the weekend, and after being invited to a Friday catch up e-meeting with the whole team, I was told that “something’s at my door”. Of course, I knew that something suspicious was happening and playfully asked “What did you do?!”, everyone laughed and said that they would wait for me while I went to see what it is. 

Annnnd… dun dun dunnnnnnnn… They surprised me by arranging for a cake to be delivered to my door courtesy of The Cheesecake Factory! And the best part? I could actually eat it! That’s right, they remembered I was vegan! It’s just little things like this that really remind me that the people I work with truly are the nicest bunch and I feel so so welcomed around them.

Now, let’s switch to another cute story involving two strangers at the Richmond office. While I was having lunch one day, I overheard an old man who came in early for a business meeting, he was a freelance graphic designer but hasn’t worked in a while. He came prepared with a huge binder full of organised paper, one single pencil to his right and a business card in hand. I watched the person scheduled to meet him come in and sit down with his fancy iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, they shook hands and the man gave his business card while saying “I heard people don’t give these anymore, but I thought I’d still bring it”. It was so wholesome to hear this interaction, as it reminds me of my grandfather who was a tiler and was still happy to do more work if someone called despite him passing retirement age. I didn’t listen for much longer, but I was happy when I heard “I look forward to working with you” as they shook hands.

And finally, when my colleagues saw me making a coffee in the machine without touching a single pod, I accidentally let it slip that I made many hot drinks for customers in my old job. And not just that, but I trained new staff on how to use the machines and even attended a training seminar on behalf of the company so I could make a booklet and training video for our work intranet. Now, making this comment roped me into agreeing to hold a new training session so I could show them how to make barista-style coffee’s too. Hasn’t exactly happened yet, but I know it will soon!

What I hope I never take for granted:

As you would’ve read earlier in this piece, I’ve had the best of both worlds coming from working at my dad’s pizza shop, to the cinema, and now being an in-house Marketing & Public Relations Coordinator at Creative Natives.

I’ve touched on this already, but the cinema I worked at had me training our new and existing staff, working front of house serving customers and making sure that the store looked presentable.

Today, my job is considered ‘Skilled Labour’, but as I sit in this luxury office space, my job so far has been writing emails & joining meetings, working on creative designs & video projects, writing up job ads and blogs for the website, and conducting interviews with CEOs for some fun video content. This is SUCH a huge difference, isn’t it?

A bit controversial, but I think that working at the cinema was a lot more stressful and took a lot more emotional intelligence for me to do, yet I was paid so much less. I’ve seen that there is a clear difference between ‘Unskilled’ and ‘Skilled’ labour, and one being that I’ve had to devote years of study and practice during my university courses and internships to even be able to apply for this job. When the pandemic started and we got to see the love being spread for essential workers, we all started to notice that the work of these “unskilled” and yet still “essential” people should be appreciated and supported, and that they deserve liveable wages. I’m hoping we continue to see recognition and support for those working hard regardless of their status as ‘unskilled’! 

The money you make doesn’t reflect the amount of work you have on your plate or the stress you should be under. Just because someone works an ‘Unskilled’ job, doesn’t mean it doesn’t actually require any skill.

Some parting words 💙

I’m loving every moment I spend in this new position and am so grateful for the opportunities that I have been receiving from it, but I also can’t help but look back and recognise how different things were. Every moment I spend doing this job, it feels like I’m being unproductive and that I’m actually supposed to be sweeping toilets and cleaning customer-facing displays as I have done before. I know this will fade with time, but I hope I never forget where I came from.

Hopefully, I can be a part of this team for as long as they’ll have me.

Hopefully, I can keep working on amazing projects that help make a difference in the world.

Hopefully, I can continue to meet new people and learn new things. 

And my final hope is that you have an amazing day/night/week/life!

I hope you enjoyed this more informal piece of writing, and got a sense of how I’m finding my time here so far! If you wanted to reach out to me about anything, you can find me on LinkedIn here, I’d love to hear from you!

Thanks for taking the time to read 🥰

Michael Saliba

michael@creativenatives.com.au