Take Your Friends To Work, Because Why Not?

As a little girl, I loved Take Your Daughter to Work Day. Partly because I got to see what my mom actually did all day, but also because I remember thinking: Wait, you can work and hang out with people you love at the same time? Why wouldn’t everyone do this?

Clearly, this stuck with me, because decades later, I am a notorious “Can I get a +1?” responder to publicist emails. But let me backtrack a bit.

Something I didn’t realize before entering the wild world of “creative” is that so much of your success in it involves some combination of connections, being hot and smart at Instagram, and good old-fashioned in-person networking. As a writer and content agency owner, my most lucrative contracts have come through referrals and word of mouth, so the more people I know — and the more people who know what I do — the better. My network is my net worth. (Ew, I know.)

This is where my personal problems lie:

1. My friends have Very Real Adult Jobs. They are teachers and nurses and insurance brokers. I would die for them, but they get me nowhere closer to Vanessa Friedman or Gillian Flynn or even my lord and savior, R.L. Stine.
2. I don’t post anything on Instagram other than my son’s feet, sometimes. The ship of marketing myself on the internet sailed after it took me 2.5 hours to snap a review selfie of Glossier’s Boy Brow for a social account of my former employer back in 2018.

In creative industries — marketing, fashion, beauty, writing, film, TV, you get the picture — this means going to events. Lots of them. These awareness-raising events, often thrown by brands, are usually pretty fun and tend to involve free drinks and gourmet versions of your favorite foods off the kids’ menu, sometimes with an activity like, say, arranging flowers or trampoline cardio, and perhaps a gift bag. On my end, I get to meet brands that might want to work with the talent I represent, or talent that needs a content agency.

Seeing it through their eyes reminds me that it’s actually kind of wild that my job sometimes requires me to go to a burlesque show in Times Square on a random Tuesday.

But the reality is, I am quite introverted, and while I am deeply grateful to experience Emily in Paris outside of Netflix, the state of the world has turned me into an iPhone 11 in that my social battery is always dying. This results in me going to an event, standing in the corner with a glass of luxury seltzer, and checking my email in the corner as if anyone needs me that urgently.

I’ve found that the best way to rediscover the joy — and absurdity — of my career is to bring along a friend who doesn’t work in my world. Seeing it through their eyes reminds me that it’s actually kind of wild that my job sometimes requires me to go to a burlesque show in Times Square on a random Tuesday. Which I have done. More than once.

And so I’ve started relying on my group chat as wingwomen, friends who don’t mind saying “huh?” to another publicist because they can’t hear small talk over the sound of the DJ. It gives me a boost of confidence and, if I’m being honest, the inspiration to appear that I am competent. And if I go to talk someone and it’s an epic fail? Well, there is [insert friend] to laugh both with and at me. It makes the whole having-to-network-past-the-age-of-30 thing feel more fun.

In a lovely twist, this week, I got to become the +1 to not just one event, but two, and it made it all the more obvious to me that more people should just invite their friends to career obligations when applicable. The more the merrier, eh?

For me, being her +1 was a pretty sweet gig, though for her, it was not just “drinks with AnaMaria” — it was part of the job, a normal after-hours networking requirement.

On Tuesday evening, mere hours after my son’s daycare called on his second day of enrollment to tell me I had to pick him up immediately because he was sick, I left the house, both guilt-ridden and excited, to see Charli XCX. My friend who works in media had invited me weeks earlier as her +1. A brand had installed photo activations throughout the venue and reserved concert seats for editors and their guests.

I hadn’t seen her in months, and our reunion was made all the better by: a) a calendar hold that couldn’t budge because it was a ticketed event, and b) Charli f*cking XCX. I told her multiple times that I couldn’t believe she asked me omg. It felt like being picked first for the middle school volleyball team in gym class. (Something I’ve never experienced personally, but I imagine it must feel nice.)

After a round of margaritas, we arrived at the venue. We chatted with the publicist who invited her, and I told my friend how damn cool it was that this is basically a normal work perk for her. She has seen Olivia Dean, Ariana Grande, every singer you can imagine. For me, being her +1 was a pretty sweet gig, though for her, it was not just “drinks with AnaMaria” — it was part of the job, a normal after-hours networking requirement. But she got something out of it, too, by knocking out two obligations in one night — showing face for the brand and, of course, seeing little old me.

Getting to experience it together made us feel like tourists in someone else’s universe.

Scenario #2 was a slightly different version of “take my friends to work” day: This time, the work obligation belonged to my cousin, an aspiring musician giving his first-ever performance of a single he’d just released on Spotify. His friend, a designer, had asked him to perform it during his NYFW show, so I became my cousin’s unofficial +1 — and, as a bonus, got to bring a +1 of my own: my college best friend, who works in insurance.

We pulled up to an old church on Park Avenue, where there were so many people in leather you’d be surprised that holy water wasn’t hissing off their skin. This was a crowd of people who live and breathe fashion. And while we wore the right clothes, my friend and I looked at each other and knew: These outfits are a mask and we do not really fit in.

I’ve found that the best way to rediscover the joy — and absurdity — of my career is to bring along a friend who doesn’t work in my world.

We didn’t mind! It made the whole thing more fun. Neither of us normally gets to spend a Saturday night inside this very bizarre corner of the fashion world — especially my friend, whose day job could not be further from it — and getting to experience it together made us feel like tourists in someone else’s universe. We whispered commentary back and forth, cheered when my cousin came out, and made up fabulous stories about the fabulous people sitting to the right and left of us.

Sure, you might be rolling your eyes and thinking, Charli XCX is NOT an obligation! THAT IS A TREAT, YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE GIRL! And I get it. But even the coolest work thing is still a work thing when you’re expected to show up. And I’d argue that the easiest way to make anything you have to do more fun… is to bring along someone who simply wants to be there.

It doesn’t matter if your 9-to-5 takes place in the most boring cubicle alive: Everything is enjoyable when you can curate the crowd to your liking… and meet new people along the way.