Well, doesn’t time fly by when you’re having fun… It has been 1 whole year since I joined the team here at Pistachio, and what a year it’s been. Usually, I am tasked with writing the anniversary posts of other members of staff, praising their abundant capabilities and assuring them of what a wonderful asset they are to the Pistachio team. So, naturally, I have now been tasked with writing my own… which seems like a very sensible, and not at all sycophantic, thing to do…

I’ve really enjoyed being part of the team at Pistachio for the last year, and to celebrate my 1 year anniversary, I’m going to list all of the things that I’ve learnt since working here over the past 12 months…

1. Believe in yourself – I’ve learnt to believe in myself a lot more. Having spent most of my working life client-side, jumping ship to an agency environment was always going to be a big change and a possible risk, but instead of feeling overwhelmed and out-of-my-depth, I’ve been welcomed into a vibrant and flourishing team who’ve enabled me to realise that there’s nothing that I can’t do when I put my mind to it. And, if I can’t do it? Then I know that I can just tell a joke and everyone will forget about it anyway…

2. Stress is manageable – many people get far too stressed at work, and this inevitably spills over into their lives outside of work. Working within such a supportive team at Pistachio has taught me that you can leave work at work, and still be more than competent at your job. Yes, some days are more stressful than others, and situations can be tough to navigate when dealing with lots of different clients, but I’ve learnt to remember that issues, deadlines and frustrations at work are only temporary and are usually over before you know it. So, when the working day is done, I can switch off and enjoy life a little bit…and ignore those 27 missed calls from an irate client while I eat my 2 for Tuesday Dominoes by myself (that is a joke Paul, a JOKE).

3. Dieting is not possible in the Pistachio office – there’s just too many reasons to celebrate, and inevitably we eat cake. No matter how good you try to be at Pistachio, there is always a never-ending flow of biscuits, cake, baklava and chocolate to stem the flow of stress and celebrate a birthday, anniversary, successful project, surviving Monday, reaching Friday having not committed a murder etc etc. You know, all the usual human achievements that deserve a calorie-dense snack to mark the occasion. So, I have learnt that the only way to avoid an expanding waist-line at Pistachio is to ration celebratory snacks to only those weeks when our designer Rich doesn’t ask me a weirdly invasive question before I’ve even sat down for my morning cuppa, which, inevitably, is never – so I’ll be super trim in no-time!

4. Every eatery in Nottingham has 241 cocktails – despite our, not so stringent efforts, it just seems impossible to find anywhere to eat within a 2 mile radius of our Nottingham office that doesn’t serve 241 alcoholic beverages after 5pm. So, whenever I work from the Nottingham office, I’ve learnt that I’ll most likely be doing the conga around Wetherspoons with University freshers by 9pm, it’s just the way it is.

5. Pistachio is a family – a non-traditional and slightly dysfunctional one at times, sure, but a family none-the-less – which as we all know, is the perfect recipe for fun, laughter and comradery. So, I have learnt that no matter how busy, stressed or snappy anyone might get at work sometimes, at the end of the day, we’re all on the same team and we’ve always got each-others backs #TeamPistachio!

So, in conclusion, thanks for having me Pistachio, it’s been a great year and cheers to many more to come!

Someone’s bringing in cake today, right?