A Typical Day @ Hotwire London

Getting into work is nothing like back in Dubai. In Dubai I wake up at 6.30am and get ready to take my crazy Jack Russell, Troy out for our weekday hour long runs would then have a quick shower, grab a taxi and head into work for 8.30am feeling energized and refreshed. Even though I wake up at the same time in London my morning routine is completely different. So, I wake up at 6.30am, I shower, I get ready and I get my cardio by walking to the tube station, not too bad, a 15 minute walk, but when you come from the desert 12 degrees can be chillingly painful. Once I’m in the tube it’s a mad dash to make sure I don’t miss the Northern Line to Moorgate, which I have to make sure goes via Bank and not Charring Cross, fewwwww…that just made me tired. WAIT – it’s not done yet. I’m still not in the office. Once we get to Moorgate it is another mad dash, almost like a race, who can get out of the tube station the fastest, shoving allowed, and a nice 5 minute walk before I arrive at Hotwire London offices. I have to confess I do tempt Beth for a quick morning stop at Starbucks so I can get my morning Latte fix.

Let me say, before I continue, Hotwire London offices are insane, in a good way. They are massive, at least compared to Active PR, as we are a much smaller team. The atmosphere is buzzing, people are friendly and the M&M Team is gearing up getting ready to kick start whatever manic tasks they have lined up before them for the day.

Even though I am not used to the tube journey into work, I still arrive energized and ready to tackle whatever the day holds. I have to keep in mind that I am three hours behind my offices in Dubai, so I log on, and catch up on everything that has been happening at Active PR. I make sure I am on top of the activities taking place for each of my clients and I have a look through my Hotwire agenda for the day and start to prioritize and organize my day.

Once I have done all of that – I go through a number of the regular dailies back in Dubai just to make sure I am on top of my regional news for my clients and then I have a browse through the UK Nationals, such as The Guardian, The Telegraph, Financial Times and the BBC.com. I find it really interesting reading the news on both sides as there are some similarities and a number of differences. While we focus on local as well as regional stories, the UK focuses more on local stories as well as governmental issues, with some interesting bits and bobs about the Middle East and what it ‘going on’ there – which is always funny to read.

Once that has been done, I get cracking away on some Dubai work – make sure I am in touch with my team and we have divided the work in order to ensure that we do not double up. Tasks on my agenda for the day for Dubai clients include, drafting bi-lined articles, scheduling in some interviews for my clients, finalizing Q3 reports, helping out on new business pitches and making some client calls to go over activity covered and pending.

In between all of that I am really trying to maximize my time at Hotwire to learn how everything works over here and everyone has been great in including me in a number of different activities. Some of the things I have been a part of are, media sell ins with the Fits.me and McAfee teams, learning all about the WiP, training sessions with Thirty Three Digital about the Listening Post, brainstorming session, meeting the Ciena Hotwire Team (as one of the clients I work on is Ciena) and an extremely interesting chat with Emma Hazan, Deputy MD over here at Hotwire London.

As the day progresses and it approaches 3pm in the UK, the team emails from Dubai start to come to a halt as it is the end of the day for us over there. This gives me some of the time I need to ensure I am getting all my client work done, it allows me the scope to email the team back home and ask them for any updates or briefings that I need to be aware of that happened throughout the day. At this point it is approaching 6pm and the Hotwire team is winding down and everyone is getting ready to leave. However the day doesn’t end there – I am, in fact, only in London for two weeks – so post work, Beth and I maximize our London site seeing, which has been lovely.