It’s Fine, It Really Is

What does stepping up mean? Ok, let me rephrase my question. How do you distinguish between stepping up and stepping on someone’s toes?

While I feel the answer to this question is ‘subjective’, just like everything in the ad world, there’s something in it ;) (if you know, you know)

Today, I went into an internal presentation prepared to present my work. I was feeling confident, spoke to my AD partner about the flow and we were all set. Just when I thought I got this, boy oh boy did I have a rude awakening. I did not check in with my manager before the call. Turns out, he was prepared to present all this time.

You see, I’m coming from a toxic workplace. There, I was expected to know and do shit on my own. Here, I have mentorship and people actually want to give me the time to learn. Ain’t that crazy? NO, IT’S NOT CRAZY. IT’S NORMAL!!!

Anyway, so I went in there, did my thing and my manager followed after me. I think I handled it well, but because I’m penning this down on a Friday night after smoking weed and eating my McDonald’s, you know I’m overthinking this.

So more for me than you, it’s fine. It’s fine when some boundaries are blurred. It’s fine if you overstep when you’re just trying to step up. And as they say, sometimes it’s just easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

- V