Blogs: Danielle signs off

Post 7, February 2013

Danielle King graduated from Aston University, Birmingham, with a BSc in English Language. She now works as an editorial assistant

Two, zero, one, three. 2013. It's not the usual way we view those numbers and I've certainly not got used to it yet.

One of the things I have got used to over the past 12 weeks is settling into my job, and now that my trial period is over and I've got a new working year ahead of me, it's time to set some new year's resolutions.

The biggest resolution on my list by far is to adjust my publishing schedule to fit around a new system implemented in the company; this is one of the main things that I've been involved in since starting my job and, as most of the testing had been completed before I started, it's accurate to say I dived in at the deep end without much knowledge of what I would find at the bottom.

I always enjoy a challenge and believe that the less you put into an ambition, the more likely you are to fail. Luckily for me, we have an amazing production team who have answered all my questions (no matter how silly) and when errors arose, they were there as quick as a flash to help.

In fact, with a little effort, I found the system was so easy to grasp I am already working on a new plan and hope to have this up and running successfully within a month!

After this comes training to perfect my skills. I have a lot of the right skills for my job, such as proofreading and time management, but little formal training. Part of my induction in my new role was to monitor my copyediting skills against one of our trained freelancers and, although there wasn't a huge difference, I wasn't picking up on the inconsistencies against the house style and I found myself going back to the style guide I was given on my first day. This resolution should enable me to copyedit more thoroughly, whilst forming a solid base on which to build my career.

And build is exactly what I plan to do. Although new year's resolutions are usually made with fate inevitably coming in to break them, I plan to complete the above and hopefully exceed them (although the same can't be said for my resolution to put on my running shoes).

This is my last blog post for Prospects but the beginning of a new chapter in my life; I hope my words of wisdom have helped you as much as they've helped me cope with the past seven months and, you never know, we might meet again someday.