What do I do exactly?
Tumblr commenter oomb: What does this mean, "creative research analyst"?
Mallory: It means I work for a qualitative market research company, not a quantitative one as many most likely assume when they hear market research. Our company specializes in both product and brand development so I assist in planning the studies, executing them, and conducting assessments and reports. While it is a "suit" sort of job, branding research takes a lot of creative work ("thinking outside the box" sort of mantra) which is why our half of the process (as opposed to say, recruiters) is deemed "the creative" team. **I do my fair share of recruiting when it's needed, too, of course.
Tumblr commenter oomb: neat. why do you have that job at 19? are you the doogie howser of creative research analysis?
Mallory: A lot of hard work and a little luck. I'm lucky enough to have employers who value ability, interest, and intellect over age and to be able to work in an environment where I'm constantly intellectually stimulated and get to travel to cities I've never been to before. While I understand that it may seem nontraditional for a girl as young as myself to be offered as much responsibility as I am, I have always been one to value work over play. A bunch of entries back there's a short conversation between Peter Berkman and I where he asks me to hang out and I reply with, "Sorry, I have no time for friends-- we can hang out here on the internet though" which was while I was not only working my job but also going to school, starting up a new record label, booking the concerts for NYU, helping to put on shows at various venues in the city, and doing stuff for MTVu here and there. Recently, I sort of took a step back and realized it's probably unhealthy to try to do everything and that I've got some time. While I've worked 10 hours every day for the past 2 weeks (including Saturday), lately I've been making a really solid effort to force myself to hang out with friends afterwards and, surprisingly, it's not as tiring as I thought. It's actually really rewarding. Now that I sound like a total bore, I guess I'll make this into a tumblr entry in case the question comes up again.
Aug 29th