Weekly Iartner Update #1- Noah (Content Writer)

This is the end of my first official week at Pearl Lemon!

Crazy I know. Seems like just last week I was a wee little trial partner. And now I’m a full-grown adolescent partner.

It’s been a busy week learning all of my responsibilities, seeing how everyone works together and getting organized, all while still producing content.

I hope that doesn’t sound like I’m complaining. It’s been a lot of fun and I’ve already learned a TON. I can tell these next 6 months are going to be an invaluable experience.

My favorite part by far has been meeting my co-workers.

Got to do that at the start of the week during an intro meeting with Dee (our fearless leader), Sarah (the other brand new content writer going through trials and tribulations with me), and Tannishtha (the veteran content writer, whose wisdom and experience I hope to draw upon).

It started off as a fun get to you know type thing. The conversation involved a lot of laughing and joking and only a little mic issues.

(picture from the meeting. That’s me in the top right!)

Later in the meeting, we got down to business, and us three content writers were assigned the task of creating a blogger outreach strategy, which is basically the process of reaching out to other bloggers, website owners, etc. in order to get backlinks to content we have written.

I didn’t know much about that before so I was really excited to learn how to build backlinks to our page, and I’m very eager to start doing it next week!

I’m used to just writing something then sending it off, but I can see this being something I can use a lot in the future. It’s also something that will push me to grow and get me out of my comfort zone.

And then today (Friday) I was part of my first team video call. I’ve been in the Whatsapp group chat for a week, but it was cool to finally see everyone’s faces!

Some things I learned during the meeting were to say hello/wave in a timely and enthusiastic manner, make sure you actually are having audio issues and it isn’t Dee just messing up, and to keep the mics on even if your cat is meowing.

In all seriousness, the meeting was helpful because I got to hear more about what other people in the company have been doing. It also amazes me that I’m working with people from all over the world. I was literally on a call with people from England, India, Italy, the US and who knows where else! It’s just sick because these are people I would never get to work with at other places.

It’s also impressive that this all works given the insane time differences. I’m starting to get used to that aspect of it.

Currently, I am in Boulder, Colorado in the US (more on that later), but a lot of the team is based in Europe. So I’ll get up at 7 or 8 AM here for me, but a bunch of my co-workers will have been up for hours. So I wake up to like 50 texts and 10 new emails, and I start scrambling trying to answer everyone. But then 3 PM rolls around, and everyone’s day is over in Europe and I get lonely.

I’m getting better at it though. Today I organized my email inbox, creating labels and decluttering. I’ve also decided that I am going to set aside 20-30 minutes every day to go through new emails and texts, instead of immediately checking my phone when I wake up and having an aneurysm (I have an inclination for the dramatics sometimes).

Anyway, it’s been about 626 words and I haven’t really introduced myself yet have I? I mean it’s my first partner post so I probably should. How rude of me!

Here is a little bit about myself.

As you can tell by the title, my name is Noah.

If you want a higher quality picture to see what I look like, here is one:

And here is another picture of me with my dog. His name is Charlie and he is a good boy.

I am originally from upstate New York. Guilderland, New York, if that means anything to anyone. No? Ok 🙁

I graduated from high school in 2017 and have been going to the University of Pennsylvania (NOT Penn State) in Philadelphia Pennsylvania since then. Going into my senior year! Let’s get it!

At Penn, I’m studying English with a concentration in creative writing, and cinema studies, because who doesn’t love a major where you watch movies all the time?

I’m also on the track&field and cross country team at Penn. Yeah, I choose to run every day. I’m psychotic.

I love being on the team though. My teammates are my best friends, and I’m an extremely competitive person, so I like having an outlet for that. My main events on the track are the mile and 5k.

Running is actually the reason I’m living in Boulder right now.

I’ve been out here in Boulder for 5 weeks now for altitude training.

In simple terms, altitude training is living at higher elevations (Boulder is at about 5,300 ft. above sea level) where the air is thinner. Doing so makes running a little harder and more tiring, but trains your body to adjust and then recover faster. It also helps you crush some workouts once you go back to sea level.

If you want to learn more about altitude training, check out this article I wrote last year! It goes into a little more depth on the effects and benefits of altitude on running. I also talk about what my experience was like when I trained here in Boulder last summer.

But yeah that’s pretty much me! Hopefully, you’ll learn more about me as I write more of these. Can’t give everything away day 1!