Actual photo of me winning.

One Year Later

And I’m still trying to figure out how this thing works.

Lorenzo Munoz
Jul 22, 2017 · 2 min read

It was hot.

I remember asking myself why I chose to wear a full suite and tie in 90 degree weather. Thankfully you couldn’t tell, one of the advantages of wearing a suite I suppose.

I was one of the first interns to arrive at the check in desk. As much as I hate to admit it, my parents were right, first impressions do count and I wanted to be one of the first ones there to meet the recruiters.

After sharing awkward formalities with the other interns, the HR team sat us all in a big room together and took us through training for the rest of the day. I remember sitting there with an odd mixture of curiosity and excitement. This was after all my first day at a real job.


The weeks that followed were a crash course in advertising 101. I’ll admit, I had no clue what I was doing. My idea of presenting work to my creative director included riffing ideas I’d jotted down in my Moleskin, hardly a Steve Jobs keynote.

This showed up in my first performance review. I received what I thought was a pretty dreadful review. Most of the feedback included obvious comments like my need to improve my presentation and organization skills as well as other others that were less obvious like the need to differentiate between executional and broad concept ideas.

The root of this problem was sobering reminder that I needed to improve how I worked with others. I had plenty of group experience in college but none prepared me for the speed and chaos of advertising.

“Advertising is one giant group project” — David Dugan

This college/professional life divide goes beyond group projects. As I began to get more involved in my job, I started to see just how different work was

In school, if you didn’t have a project ready on time you generally could lobby for an extension. It became quite obvious that this isn’t how the real world works. Frankly, your client doesn’t care if you don’t feel well or that you didn’t properly prepare for a meeting. In the“real world”, there is no “next exam”.


This past year has, without a doubt, been one of the most stressful years of my life. But after everything has been said and done, I’ve managed to learn more about who I am as a person than I ever would have otherwise. This experience reminds me of a somewhat corny quote from C.S. Lewis: “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for extraordinary destiny”. Not that I have any extraordinary destiny in my future but hey, a guy can still dream.

Lorenzo Munoz

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Live a good story. lorenzotmunoz.com

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