By Jesse Sharp-O’Hare

Life Partners

At first glance, one of the major things that jumped out at me about advertising as a career was (I thought at time) the odd concept of having a partner. Sure, in most jobs you need to be able to work as a team and get on with your colleagues, but here was something completely different. A partner so close you were hired and fired as a package deal? Someone who, from only knowing for little over a year, you could eventually be spending more one-on-one time than most of your friends? It was a strange notion to wrap my head around at first.

After thinking about it for a while however, the idea began to make more and more sense. Who wants to sit at a computer all day, neck craned over, headphones in, typing feverishly until the clock strikes 5 and you nod a brief goodbye to your coworkers? I’m guessing that avoiding this particular day-to-day must be one of the reasons students apply to come to SCA and to eventually work in advertising – to engage with people more than in the average office job and hopefully enjoy doing it. 

As an industry with a not-unfair pressure to be both original AND clever, having someone to help you be as creative as you can (and vice versa) sounds like no bad way to go about it – from the inception of the most abstract beginnings of ideas, all the way to the final presentation of a pitch. From reading some of SCABs of last years intake, your partner becomes both your sounding board and your greatest critic, pushing you further than you would ever get on your own. With all that said, a partner is also someone you can rant and rave with when things inevitably get stressful. A problem shared is a problem halved, after all.