Six weeks to six months.

I arrived at Idealogy in the midst of winter for a six week contract, and I left six months later at the height of what the British laughingly call summer. I came with little knowledge of how a website was built and left knowing that within a CMS simply because B followed A on a Monday morning there was no reason to believe that it would do so on a Tuesday afternoon.

Prior to working on this contract I had rather assumed that a website could be constructed in the same manner that a Word document can be put together with pictures simply being dropped in and squeezed to fit as appropriate. I soon learned that this is far from the case and the website which a visitor sees is composed of numerous elements which need to be created in the right dimensions or everything very quickly looks awful. Worse still, resolving it can be extremely time consuming. Just a few pixels in the wrong place and suddenly pictures are overhanging text and the whole site looks terrible.

It was to solve such problems that I sat in the 'digital' basement for six months with very little access to sunlight. I also had to learn how to use a Mac, which was seemingly designed to operate in ways that are sufficiently different to a PC to make life very awkward. At times it felt rather like learning to write left- handed, in principle it should have been exactly the same as I was used to but, somehow, things just would not happen, as I knew that they should. This resulted in far too many question of how to do things, which in the sane world of Windows I have been able to do for twenty years.

Working within a market company was a very different environment to other places in which I have worked. The deadlines appear to be shorter and the hours longer. As most of the people I was working with have been in their jobs for many years it appears that they have survived the pressure of it all – although some of them do look like they are fraying at the edges just a little.

In what way it aids the creative process I can’t say, but the atmosphere in the office was very relaxed. The joys of not having to wear ‘business dress’ to work is one of the simple pleasures in life, which should not be underestimated. Exactly what the benefit of wearing a suit is I have never really understood. Do people really work harder when forced to wear uncomfortable clothes? Instead at Idealogy I found that it was not only in clothing that people could be creative, but also in the use of language, it’s probably for the best that there is no HR secret police there.

So over all these months it has not only been how to manage a CMS programme, or indeed a vast dislike for Radio Two, that I have learned. Perhaps the key piece of knowledge I gained was actually at my initial interview! Never again will I make the mistake of when asked a question, thinking that my throat is a little dry and before answering I should have a drink of water but deciding that it is best to maintain eye contact. It's not a foregone conclusion that by not looking directly at the glass it will be knocked over...but inevitably I watched it spill its contents all over the boardroom table anyway.

Andrew Brearley

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