Alexandra Branzan

I’m at the office, doing some follow-up and I’m supposed to call journalists from all over the world to ask them with a very soft, PRistic tone in my voice, if they received our press release, if they published it, if they have any intension whatsoever of publishing it any time soon. I’ve been doing that for the last two days, experiencing acute understanding disorders due to the large variety of accents. This is, of course, not a very difficult thing to do. You just have to be really good at spelling and make peace with the idea that some of the conversations may entirely sound like a spelling contest. So, please let me know via email when it gets through to the senior editor. My addresss is alexandra.branzan at porternovelli.be. Yes, of course I can spell it for you. a-l-e-x-a-n-d-r-a dot b-r-a-n-z-a-n at porternovelli.be. Porter Novelli, too? Sure. p-o-r-t-e-r n-o-v-e-double l-i dot b-e.
Anyway, I have been waiting for the hour to turn 4 so I can get hold of the American journalists. I finally get to talk to one of the editors. See conversation below:
‘Hello, this is Alexandra Branzan, from Porter Novelli Brussels. May I please talk to someone in the editorial team of zzz magazine?’
‘What do you want to know?’ (What do I want to know? Well that’s not exactly the cordial addressing I’ve been used to, courtesy of the British journalists I’ve been on the phone with the whole day)
‘I would like to know if you’ve received the press release I sent you on behalf of our client, yyy, concerning the launch of innovative compounds for the footwear industry’
‘Where did you send it?’ (where, not even to which address, to what editor)
‘vvvv.zzz at….’
‘Yeah, that’s me, let me check…Yeah, I got it’
‘Is there……’
interrupting me ‘It wasn’t published. I’ll let you know when it is’
‘Ok, I appreciate it. Could you please tell me when is the deadline for…’
She hangs up on me! Just like that! In the middle of the sentence. While I was still talking!!!!
‘…your next issue’. I wanted to know when is your deadline for the next issue, so I can call you again, and ask you again if you plan on publishing anything, so you can interrupt me again, so you can hang up on me again. Vita dubla! (That’s just something nice in Romanian, don’t bother to look it up) So, see? I was just bonding. Making sure there’s continuity within our relationship. I know that’s why you don’t like people like me. And that’s why I don’t like people like you, either. But I guess we’ll just have to live with it. And make money out of it, too.
Good thing I have a blog at hand, to ’shout’ at. If I were telling you all this, Mrs. vvv zzzz, you’d probably interrupt me right in the middle of my outburst, wouldn’t you?