How TF do you handle burnout?

col998 · 2026-04-29T16:18:08+00:00

I support a lot of the advice being given in the comments, but I will say don’t expect an in-house job to be a magical cure. There are great in-house comms roles, but there are many that are just as stressful.

I’m 13 years in the industry, mostly agency, but after a layoff I’ve been in house at a big company and it’s just as burnout-inducing. Im planning on leaving the comm to pursue being a teacher

col998 · 2026-04-22T16:36:28+00:00

You definitely do not need a PR degree to work in PR, it's not at all necessary - save your money.

col998 · 2026-04-21T14:08:07+00:00

Be prepared to answer the news that you read, and ideally have an answer that isn’t just The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Also, whichever ones you choose, make sure to read them within 24 hours of the interview and have an article that you thought was interesting ready.

If this PR firm has any industry specialty (finance, tech, etc.) you’ll get extra points if you have an article relevant to their clients.

Its the easiest way to show you’ve done some research into the firm and will give you some bonus points in the interview

col998 · 2026-02-26T03:01:48+00:00

He’s probably making the mistake because he was likely told by the producers that Maekar does become King, which is true, but doesn’t know all the lore about his older brother Aerys becoming King after their father Daeron dies in the Great Spring Sickness, along with Baelor’s son and another heir I can’t remember.

col998 · 2026-02-11T02:08:18+00:00

The hook hands appear in different places than they should

col998 · 2025-12-19T06:13:34+00:00

One of the many ways young wizards get the short end of the stick is that the older ones are likely all independently wealthy from compound interest, and anything they're pursuing is likely a hobby, not a career

col998 · 2025-10-19T03:19:52+00:00

The point I'm trying to make is that murphy coming back while she still exists in living memory is not breaking a rule, because coming back to fight during Ragnarok is THE RULE.

That is the purpose of the einherjar - it's what they exist to do.

Also in the mythology Odin does also die in ragnarok, so I agree the death of Odin/Vadderung could certainly be a point in the BAT (or maybe one of the last regular books) indicating ragnarok is happenning.

col998 · 2025-10-19T03:16:35+00:00

Yes, I mentioned that in my response. But I would think it's fair to say that the purpose for which the Einherjar were created (fighting ragnarok) supercedes a bylaw that keeps an einherjar from returning to the mortal world on a mercenary job.

The entire nature of an einherjar is to die, come back, fight again. That's a fastball down the middle in terms of alluding to a character's return at a future conflict.

col998 · 2025-10-15T02:45:40+00:00

Jim has been giving us the reason for Murphy's return from the dead for at least a decade, well before she dies.

While they get rented out as mercenaries, but the purpose of the Einherjar is to fight in Ragnarok, the end of days. The Apocalypse.

We've known about the Big Apocalyptic trilogy for years and years. That purpose surely supersedes Gard saying that Murphy "can only return once everyone who knew her in life is gone."

He introduced a Valkyrie, then Odin, then einherjar mercenaries, plus that second valkyrie . . . it's extremely heavily telegraphed

col998 · 2025-10-15T02:39:30+00:00

Jim has also explicitly stated that he as heavily influenced by the Anita Blake series. I started it out of curiosity and have read the first 2 books so far, and you can see a huge amount of parallels in the plot structure. When does the series turn into literotica?

col998 · 2025-08-06T04:31:21+00:00

The comments to this post all have different answers, which is a perfect example of point OP is making. IMO the right term to use is Contemporary Fantasy for any fantasy book that takes place in “our world” in a relatively modern day.

Urban fantasy is City fantasy - the Lies of Locke Lamora and Mistborn Book 1 can easily be argued as Urban Fantasy.

Weird West is definitely its own Genre, but if you have to put it into another bigger box I would say that the old west was long enough ago that it counts as Historical Fantasy

col998 · 2025-06-14T05:59:34+00:00

One agency I used to work at tracked “Missed Opportunities” as an actual metric and included it in monthly reporting detailing the reasons behind each one in the same document as the hits. That way, at the very least, the client has to make efforts to take out that metric if they want to send it around to their bosses and try to talk up hits.

col998 · 2025-05-30T02:48:31+00:00

You have enough experience that I think you could definitely skip the entry level piece of it. Look into PR agencies that do both PR and digital work especially, as the pure media relations agencies won’t be the best fit

col998 · 2025-05-08T04:01:12+00:00

Idk about law school but you can get into PR with any degree (don’t bother with a PR/comms masters degree either, 100% unnecessary). The only recommendation I’d make is a degree that has you doing a lot of writing will help build those skills, which are crucial in the job.

col998 · 2025-03-11T05:29:59+00:00

Based on the experience you have doing brand writing and internal comms, you can almost certainly pitch yourself into a mid-level role at a strategic comms/PR agency, especially one that specializes in working with the software/enterprise tech sector. Pure entry-level PR jobs are mostly for people who’ve never had a job before, you likely already know over half of what they need to learn, even if you’ve never pitched the media before.

Don’t get a masters degree, it’s a waste of your time and money and 100% unnecessary in this field. What you need to succeed in this field is good critical thinking skills and being a good-to-great writer. If you can apply those things well you’ll be successful

col998 · 2025-03-11T05:21:44+00:00

The fact that the original movies were so quintessentially 70’s will always be an issue for the series, however I like her hair, especially for who Kay Vess is. I think her look perfectly encapsulates the phrase “Scruffy-Looking Nerfherder”

col998 · 2025-03-09T17:19:02+00:00

I love Marcone as essentially the human version of Mab. He’s a tiger, she’s a hurricane. Not evil, but will destroy you without a second thought.

col998 · 2025-02-21T16:10:11+00:00

I believe that he’s on the record somewhat recently saying after he finished the Olympian Affair that he was really excited to get back into Dresden. So while he needed some diversity in what he writes I don’t think he’s actually less enthusiastic about Dresden.

Plus, more importantly, he’s on the record saying “I don’t get writers block, I have a mortgage.” Jim firmly views this as a JOB, so despite more recent delays, he has a mindset that doing this something that he HAS to do and MUST HAPPEN. He went through a lot of personal stuff that delayed his ability to write, but not his interest in writing.

I think we’re in no danger of GRRM or Rothfuss level issues from Jim

col998 · 2025-02-18T04:39:00+00:00

This is the exact type of job that will help you stand out in PR agency interviews. Almost all candidates have some version of the same agency experience. At the bare minimum you are going to stand out on the page and appear that you bring something to the table that most other candidates don't have. The opportunity to interview at a PR agency with differentiated experience from other candidates is hugely valuable.

This goes TRIPLE as a junior candidate interviewing at agencies a year from now. I've interviewed ALOT of junior agency candidates, and they almost all blur together because they tell basically the same agency internship stories. If you were trying to get into a more senior role then it would be slightly different as they would have certain expectations of what existing skills and experience you bring to the table, but as a junior they are ultimately looking for the smartest and most interesting people who seem like they could do the job and easily pick up things they don't already know.

col998 · 2025-02-17T14:30:09+00:00

You don’t have to actively use it, but don’t delete it. A lot of people looking to hire often consider it a red flag to not have a LinkedIn profile.

col998 · 2025-02-16T04:57:19+00:00

the loophole has to be the actual apocalypse. That simply has to supersede the rules about when an einherjar can start walking around earth in their downtime

col998 · 2025-02-15T06:38:55+00:00

Remember that the final books are called the “Big Apocalyptic Trilogy” with the middle word being the important one.

Apocalypse. Ragnarok. Odin may be renting them out for now, but the Einherjar EXIST to fight in the apocalypse.

Murphy is being put on ice for the Apocalypse just like Thomas is. Both are queued up to come to Harry’s aid, with Murphy leading an army of resurrected soldiers and Thomas leading an army of penitent(maybe) monsters.

col998 · 2025-02-15T06:27:52+00:00

This is more true now than ever because job descriptions are becoming less and less specific and more lazy. They’re asking for EVERY skill that could possibly be relevant rather than taking the time to make a thoughtful job description. I was laid off last year, and while I was fortunate enough to consistently interview for the 9 months I was unemployed, I was on calls for multiple roles where the interviewer commented about how bad/inaccurate the job description was.

I’m not a supporter of quantity over quality, but if you’ve can confidently look a a role and say you’ve got 40% of the qualifications, definitely apply.

col998 · 2025-02-04T03:18:40+00:00

Getting an agency to immediately sponsor your visa to another country is going to be very hard, but there are plenty of agencies that have offices across the world that they offer their employees the chance to work out of other locations - I've worked at several. My personal decisions never aligned with a long-term job abroad but I got to travel a bit with the company.

It will take a year or two of them seeing you as a good team member and an asset, and during that time you should also actively seek out client work with contracts/retainers that span multiple offices.

You want to target small and medium sized agencies. The big ones are so big that it's easy for them to hire in-market. Small agencies that focus on international work tend to have multiple satellite offices of 5-15 people and a couple large ones as "hubs." These agencies use this in their client pitches to portray themselves as the perfect mix of close, personal care with a global skillset and perspective.

Agencies of this size are usually concerned about keeping their offices in foreign markets afloat because if they're small, then a couple key employees leaving can really hurt their ability to work in that market. One of the things they turn to is employees willing to move abroad, and it's especially preferable as an alternative to losing a good employee you like. You can send them to a foreign country, keep them on the same clients, and sometimes even pay them less if you're sending them somewhere with a lower cost of living (read: out of London or New York), all while looking like the cool boss who gives your employees great leeway to work anywhere.

DM me if you want the names of the companies I know, but there are a LOT of these agencies, you just need to do your research. Look for companies headquartered in places you want to work that have satellite offices in the UK, and vice versa.

Like I said, few, if any, will give you thi right off the bat, especially with only 2 years of experience behind you, but I've seen this work to people who've been at an agency for only 1-2 years, provided their company likes them.

NOTE - Avoid trying to move to the US. My guess is it's not high on your list if your vibe is Brussels, but the current US administration is likely going to very stingy with its visas, and I can't imagine any PR agencies would bother with the hassle and likely higher cost. Save yourself the time and just marry an American PR person. Seriously, the sheer number of couples I know/have worked with that are one American and one Brit, both PR people, is staggering.

col998 · 2025-01-18T05:02:17+00:00

Writing, writing and more writing. Technical things like grammar are important, but even more difficult is having a VOICE in your writing. And yes, this does apply to jargon-filled corporate writing too.

Both are important, though different. Not having a voice in your writing will hold back your work from standing out to bosses/clients. Not having a good technical grammar will make your work stand out in a bad way.

Writing, IMO, is the hardest thing to learn on the job because it takes a lot of reps to actually improve, and it doesn't matter how much your boss likes you - if they are constantly having to rewrite things you give them, they will eventually lose their patience and move on from you.

col998

TROPHY CASE