I meant to update this site with some of my more interesting assignments from my PR course, but unfortunately, the last few have been decidedly uninteresting. However, this week, we were charged with interviewing a PR professional about what an average day is like for them, and some of the challenges they face. Since I interview people for a living, the thought of doing one “for fun” was a bit uninspiring, until my boyfriend suggested I use the opportunity to speak with someone I already know and think has an interesting job. So that’s what I did, speaking with my friend and professional colleague Janice Nickloff, PR Manager with Burton Snowboards. I work with Janice quite often to secure interviews with Burton athletes and executives and knew she worked hard, but until now, didn’t know quite how much she juggles every day. That girl is busy! Between evaluating the hundreds of product requests that Burton is approached with all year round, she also coordinates in-store events and appearances at Burton flagships, works with stylists and approvals for product placements, and is the main media contact for all of North America.

It’s easy to think of a job such as Janice’s as super glamorous (heck, I certainly fantasize about having such a job), but that Burton PR team works hard. Like, really hard. Sure, the benefits are many and most people in the profession would love to have an industry leader like Burton on their resume, but they certainly, in ski-resort terms, earn their turns. It’s one of those things that can be easy to forget when you’re drumming off emails for a story, that someone like that probably has 50 similar requests a day. So it was definitely nice to touch base with Janice and get a sense of what it’s like on the other end of the phone, on any given day of the week.

If you’d like to learn more about Janice and her day-to-day, SBC Women’s Annual did an interview with her on the website here.