I'm not so perfect after all. But it's all a learning experience.

Since I'm finally where I want to be (except without the $$) I'm trying so hard to be perfect. I want everyone to be saying, "Oh, Danielle? She's amazing. I couldn't have gotten this done without her. We have to hire her."

That being said, I have high expectations and hopes for myself. When I do make a mistake, I tend to hold onto it as if it's the end of the world. I need to learn to get over the fear of making mistakes. Everyone makes them. Except I like to believe I'm not everyone.

I mentioned in my past post that I've had a tough month. I've been working on a major project at my internship that's winding down. My office is FULL of the BEST beauty products nominated by experts. I had my first run through with the executive editor, beauty directors, and photo editor. I've never done a run through before.

I had to lay out all the products -- about 200 of them -- in the conference room. In order. By page number. With stickies explaining what category each product won.

My editor reserved the conference for one hour before the run through for me to set up but it wasn't enough time. After half an hour I had only brought in the makeup and still needed skin, hair, and nails. She came in and said, "you're not going to be ready are you?" The beauty assistant, other intern, and herself began helping me. I was sweating at this point. I was also sick and had snot dripping from my nose and didn't dare stop to blow it.

It was about 20 minutes past the time the run through was supposed to start when we were finished. Most of the products were still in their boxes and had to be taken out, lids off, so the colors could be exposed. You don't realized how long that takes until you're in a time crunch.

A few categories had ties and the executive editor began examining everything. "There's no Estee Lauder represented, did it win anything? We need a lighter shade of this. This isn't a wrinkle laser, what else is there?" I forgot to bring a notepad and pen with me so I tried jotting everything down by memory. "Ok, Danielle, request that bronzer in the lighter shade, remember to look up runner-ups for that one lipstick...."

After it was over I had to clean up everything and bring it all back to my office. It was almost 6. I worked at 7 at Victoria's Secret. My editor said she wanted to talk to me but had several interviews to do. I ran off to VS around 6:30 and had no time to calm my nerves before hitting the floor....the floor I wanted to melt into.

The next day I realized I needed to redeem myself. I was running a conversation through my head all morning. When I went into my editor's office she asked, "so what happened yesterday? Did you not have enough time?" I told her it was my fault, I was not prepared, that I should have had all the products ready to go in bags before the conference was ready. I said it was my first run through and a learning experience...that I would know better for next time. Still, I wish I could have redone that entire day because it would have gone completely different.

But we all make mistakes. And I think it's more important that we acknowledge them and learn from them instead of going through life without messing up or caring.

I may consider myself detail-oriented, organized, and great with time management, but I need to recognize that there will be difficult tasks to learn from. I can only get better.

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