The bottom line

A lot of people ask me about the pay decrease I am supposedly receiving from “switching careers.” I quickly reply that one of the best things about working in PR right of school is that I didn’t make a lot of money, so I don’t have much lower I can go on the pay scale. I also let them know that my friend who is a full-time nanny makes as much as I did when I moved to New York City. Surprised? Yea, I know, it is crazy.

The whole low pay thing is ironic considering that my clients were billed close to $200 an hour for my time. However, even though I wasn’t making six figures like my friends who graduated with engineering degrees from Georgia Tech, I did have a lot of perks.

1) Meeting celebrities – I definitely worked with and met my fair share of celebrities, such as Elizabeth Moss, Marlo Thomas, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jennie Garth, Michael Phelps and the Duchess of York - Sarah Ferguson.

2) I definitely acquired quite a lot of free stuff – the newest Kodak camera, Trident gum, Swedish Fish and pretty much any new and current Frito-Lay product.

3) Working in PR definitely requires that you are up on all the news and trends.

4) Traveling for work definitely allowed me to acquire a hefty sum of frequent fliers miles and hotel points. Those definitely came in handy during our recent travels to California, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.

5) The dress code at agencies are definitely not near as strict as at most other companies or corporations in “Corporate America.” Going to work was like a fashion show everyday…everyone (well almost everyone) always looked cute, and the “loose” code came in handy when it was summer and you wanted to wear the cute sundress to work since you were going out right after work.

It wasn’t all perks, there was some bad stuff, too – constant 100% stress, clients own you and your time, insanely fast pace and my development of ADD. Working on ten different clients, having voicemail, email and IM constantly caused my attention to switch…not to mention the insanely fast pace made so you never had free time. I can barely sit still and focus on one thing nowadays.

Like PR, nannying has some serious perks and some serious downs.

Perks:
1) A nap every single day. When you come back to the office after lunch with friends, there is always a drop in that blood sugar and you would kill for a nap. Well, in nannying, there is almost always time for a short nap when the kiddos are napping. It is amazing!

2) Nannying is a pretty stressless job…or at least it doesn’t have the same kind of stress as other jobs.

3) During the summer you pretty much get to be outside and at the pool all the time. I have an amazing tan this season thanks to taking my nephews to the pool almost every day.

4) In nannying, you are in charge and get to make the schedule. It rules so much!

5) Another big perk to nannying is hanging out with friends. One of my good friends is a nanny, and we get together weekly with the kids. It is great, we get to catch up and the kids get to play with each other. Also, sometimes we have other friends who are jobless come meet us, and they help with the kids and we all get to catch up. SO AWESOME!

6) Dress code…what dress code…in nannying you pretty much just dress for the activity, so it can mean cute sundress or shorts and a t-shirt.

7) The kids...they are just so darn cute and fun!

Downs:
1) In PR you definitely started out making nothing, but your raises came regularly and were often quite hefty. In nannying…not so much.

2) No insurance or 401(k)

I think that is it. I will let you know when I think of others.

Well, as you can see, nannying and PR pretty much equal the same in pay, and there are perks and downsides to both.

Stay tuned for the next topic…managing expectations. It is going to be a good one!