catch up part 2: All Work and All Play...

...is what my life in London seems to be all about!

First, BBDO stories, because BBDO=the best workplace and internship ever and I love it like nobody's business.  Then, lots and lots of gushing about one of my new favorite places to shop: Primark!

I know I kind of stopped giving the general rundown of how everyday life at BBDO has been going, but that hasn't been because it got boring, it's been because life has been so nuts.  This week I spent a lot of time working with Tom Krailing on Mars accounts again...always interesting.  Yesterday I cross-checked advice notes for what agencies should bill with what they did bill, then started bonus-payment calculations review. This was done based on Mars agencies' individual evaluations of the BBDO agencies who they deal directly with...each agency receives an aggregate score and the bonus is assigned accordingly.  It was a fun morning reading over each agency's reviews...and I caught a few significant errors so Tom kept calling me a genius.  It was nice :) even though catching basic math errors hardly qualifies me as a genius.  Still, I wasn't going to argue!

The other noteworthy comment on BBDO is the camaraderie that has developed between both the interns (Kayla, Kaitlin, Katie and me) and between Kaitlin and I with Steph.  I love coming to work because Steph (and the others in the office, but Steph especially because we work most closely with him) is so much fun to work with.  He's only 25 and has a wickedly funny sense of humor, and makes our cubicle the office hotspot for stopping by to chat.  Yesterday Kaitlin and I were having our lunch out in the café and he was sort of lingering by the food bar looking ove, it was so transparent he was hoping for an invite...so we asked him to join us and had the most ridiculously fun lunch break :)  Sometimes it's easy to forget that he's so close in age to us since he is technically one of our bosses, but the whole office environment is just great.  I hope someday I can work somewhere as fun again...this has been the best first office experience ever!

Now...Primark.  Aaaah Primark.  American readers are all familiar with Forever21, of course, as the biggest discount/trendy clothing retailer in the States.  Primark is the English equivalent to Forever21 only cheaper, better quality, and way more varied.  Kaitlin, Tess (a new London Program friend) and I went on Monday night after work...it's right on Oxford Street, near Baker Street!  It was absolutely insane in there...super crowded, fitting-room lines that stretched half the length of the store (which stretched almost half a block) and just general mayhem.  To be honest, not my kind of shopping experience...but I sipped the Primark kool-aid and went to town.  I ended up leaving with two pairs of flats, five pairs of tights (I needed them REALLY badly), a few shirts, a sweater, and a bag...all for under 30 pounds.  Yup.  Primark is dangerous.  Dangerously good deals, dangerously cute merchandise...I need to just stay away.

So that's London catch-up for the time being...time to go keep living life now!