After working in public relations for around a year now, I’ve noticed some unique aspects and dare I say- quirkiness- about the industry. I find myself using certain PR terms, reading the latest MediaWeek article and noting what reporters are tweeting about outside of the office. I thought it would be fun to ask my great colleagues here at PAN what they have come to know as interesting parts of our daily lives as insiders within the PR industry. Whether fairly new to agency life or an esteemed PR Veteran, many had undeniably true (and pretty darn funny) ways of displaying their profession in public relations. I’ll be the first to say after reading this list that I’m proud to be part of the quirkiness.

 You Know You Work in PR When…

• You don’t call or email people, you “ping”, “circle back,” or “follow up” with them.
• You receive more Google Alerts than emails in one day.
• You can’t help but put things in the form of a survey.
• You consider the AP Style Book your bible.
• You find yourself using acronyms nobody outside of PR has ever heard of (such as SaaS, SEO and SOA.)
• Your friends and family have no idea what you do for a living. (“Oh, so it’s like advertising?”)
• You end an email to your significant other with “Best regards” or your Twitter handle.
• You see a celebrity or politician on TV and can tell whether they’ve had media training or not.
• You call a magazine a ‘pub’ or ‘outlet’ when in your local bookstore.
• You schedule a conference call to make dinner plans.
• You spend forever thinking of a way to get your client’s message down to 140 characters or less. (Bit.ly link included).
• You correct your friend’s grammar.
• You can’t help but to point out every product placement when watching a movie.
• Your only conversation with someone has been via Tweet.
• You consider posting a Twtpoll for personal advice, but end up not going through with it since nobody outside of your colleagues knows what a Twtpoll is.
• You wake up at 2 a.m. worried about metrics.
• You keep track of your hours– even on weekends.
• You know what “billability” means.
• You get excited when IT Memos, HAROS, or Profnets come in.
• You get excited when you find a new blog to add to your feed.
• You’ve pitched family members (and have been successful!)