Around 15 days after my previous post went up, my colleague and I asked to have a meeting with our boss. Since the two of us run the shop in Ghent by ourselves, he had to swing by especially to meet us, and during this (two hour) meeting we were able to negotiate somewhat of a promotion.
We noticed that there is currently no active company website, and from what we were told, there hasn’t been one for quite a while. So we pitched an idea to do the research and content writing as well as the photography and photo-editing for a company website. He agreed immediately. Shortly after that, we were able to meet with an independent graphic designer who had already worked out a beautiful lay-out a few years back, but due to lack of content it never went live.
So I went from working three days/week to working full-time. Three days of my week are dedicated to shop duties, and the two remaining days I come in and work on the website (as does my colleague, but in a mirrored schedule). We transformed the space behind the shop into a make-shift office, where we now have almost everything we need.
With the website, things are coming along quite well. The Dutch version should be going up at the end of this month, after which all the translating work begins. I speak fluent English, and my colleague is fluent in French and German – handy right?
The largest portion of work left to do is gathering and editing photo material of every product the company offers.
When the website is finished, we will be adding a web shop, doing the web maintenance, as well as setting up and maintaining some social media pages. I will link all of those to this blog once they go live. The boss also has some other projects lined up for us to do, from working as a company representative to product management. It’s nice that I’m at least doing something related to my degree now, and that there are still some growth opportunities within the company.
My personal writing projects have been put on hold a bit, since I’m somewhat busier. On top of working full time, I also try and squeeze in two to three runs a week (as well as playing volleyball). I also recently joined the board of my volleyball club.
Financially things are finally becoming a bit more stable. After a few months of unemployment and a few unexpected costs, earning a full wage rather than 60% does make a difference!
(pro tip: do not park somewhere you shouldn’t and get your car towed if you’re having financial difficulties. This is not a cheap event.)
– R.