July 19, 2022 marks one year since my first day at Snowball Print Marketing. It was important to me to pause, reflect, and appreciate the path that got me here. My journey to get here was bumpy, but I’m happy to say that joining Snowball has been one of the best decisions I have made in my career. The last year has been challenging, memorable, at times stressful, but most importantly, rewarding. I wanted to share a few (of many) things I’ve learned over the past year.
- It’s important to be transparent, and stand up for yourself and your working style. I grew exponentially when I had conversations with my manager about how I preferred to be managed and the ways I work best. A good leader will work with you and try to understand your needs so that your working relationship can be even more productive.
- Great company culture takes effort from the whole team. Cultivating a workspace that you and your coworkers want to be in takes time and trust from everyone. Lunches and team dinners, volunteering days, and holiday parties are where I’ve seen the relationships at Snowball flourish.
- The importance of PTO! Rarely do I ever feel burned out or stressed to the point where I can’t function anymore. I feel empowered to take time off because I know I can lean on my team to support me when I’m out. We even take days off in observance of holidays that are important to us like International Women’s Day, Pride/Stonewall Riots, and Indigenous People’s Day.
- No matter what stage of life you’re in your career, it’s important to always be in a learning mindset. The moment you say you know it all is the moment you stop learning. This comes from the top down at Snowball. No one on our team thinks they’ve reached the top and know better than anyone else. We continue to learn and grow from each other and all the resources we have around us.
- Practice what you preach. If it’s one thing I tell other people about Snowball, it’s that this business cares. About each other, their clients, their partners, and the environment. Snowball doesn’t just post our values up on our website to make us look good, we show it. Snowball volunteers by planting and offsetting trees, Snowball gives employees raises because inflation has gone up astronomically, Snowball enrolls us in marketing career opportunities because they want to see us grow into even better project managers. Snowball carries through on its mission and values.
- Relationships are key in the business that we’re in. The last year has been quite the journey as a print buyer – it seems like there were so many factors going against us – the scarcity of paper, press time, increases in postage, and cost of goods. The relationships that we’ve built and continued to build with our clients and our vendors are what got us through. Our clients trust us when we have conversations with them and our vendors help us figure out creative solutions when we’re in a bind.
- Last but not least – anyone in the print industry knows that Print is a small world! There are connections everywhere so it’s important to keep up these relationships because you never know what may come of them in the future.
I’ve met and worked with so many incredible people since I started here at Snowball. Whoever may be reading this, please know that you also deserve to work at a company that cares and puts in as much time and effort as you do.
Cheers to one year!
Written by: Amanda Ornelas
