by Toma HabashiThe Silvertoad Team had budding writer and student, Megan Bell, join us for a week of work experience. We loved having her here with us and were pleased to be able to show her some tricks of the trade! Read her account of her time here:
In June 2019, I had the pleasure of having a week of work experience at Silvertoad. I have always wanted to be a writer since the day I learned how to pick up a pen, and now at the age of 17 I know I want to write to make a living. Therefore, spending this week with the friendly team at Silvertoad writing for their blog was a key insight to what my future could be.
My mum insisted on accompanying me on my first day, I think she had it in her head that I was leaving the country! We walked up the gravel path to the Silvertoad offices. Instantly I was met with warmth by the managing director Toma Habashi and the office manager Lucy Gaskell. We went into the meeting room to delve deeper into what I wanted to get out of this week, and though my comedic responses to Toma & Lucy’s harmless questions were an effort to mask my butterflies, I don’t think it was successful. Then I was taken to my desk, and I thought ‘so this is what it’s like to be an adult in the workplace’. Very glamorous and exciting!
Later on, I met my view for the rest of the week, web designer Lucy Standbridge – as her desk was opposite mine. She’ll be happy I spelt her surname right because ‘everyone forgets the ‘d’ in the middle’. I also met the talented web developer Mark Thompson, who enlightened Lucy and I into the benefits of listening to Radio 4.
In that first day alone I had written three blog posts about the battle between traditional and digital advertising, design tips to catch a client’s eye and emphasising on the importance of Pride as June is Pride month. As first days go, I would say this was successful!
On the Tuesday I met more of the friendly Silvertoad team, Amy Habashi and Keir Nicholson – and I wrote 3 more blogs. I focused on advertising methods for different businesses, analysing why a logo is important to a business and a list of social media business influencers that everyone should be following. In addition, I was also set out to read through the entire Silvertoad website and find any issues with the content or styling. A very productive second day!
As the week progressed, I was given more and more work to keep me busy, from editing Lucy S’s blogs that she had written previously to writing more of my own. Overall this week, I have written 10 blog posts (this one now being my 11th) and it’s clear that everyone at Silvertoad made sure I had something to do. Toma mentioned that his own work experience was rubbish and uninspiringly spent making drinks and photocopying the entire time, so he genuinely cared about what I was going to get out of this experience and that I didn’t feel like I was wasting my time.
My week was accompanied by an endless supply of tea by our self-named ‘Tea Boy’ manager (I have never met someone who drinks so much of it!) as well as the regular Diverse FM adverts for Silvertoad playing in the background, and the one time that the Amazon Alexa decided to randomly change the radio station to Latin Pop. It was… interesting.
But as my week comes to an end, I can truly say that I cannot fault the Silvertoad team! They are hardworking, driven individuals who work very well together as a team and under immense pressure. The constant support I received from all of them made me feel at ease during my week here. It’s made me realise how much I truly enjoy writing. So to you all, thank you, and when I’m an established writer living the millionaire high life, I’ll remember you!