A Day I Will Never Forget: Crying My First Day as a Digital Marketer

After working in the screen printing industry for 12 years, I will never forget finishing my first day as a professional digital marketer, staring at my computer and breaking down into tears. It was at this point that I really started to question myself and my career switch. On top of being a completely remote job, which in and of itself was a huge change, it was also my first new job in almost 12 years. I thought 20 years of design experience would set me up for success in my first job as a marketer, but in reality, I walked away from my first day feeling like a beginner again.

After spending the first day in tears, the next few weeks were a blur of new programs, processes, and terminology I was either learning in real-time during school, or Googling on the side during meetings. I remember being asked to expand on the best practices for location tagging during a meeting with my boss, and for the rest of the day I was one Teams notification away from a complete panic attack.

While my nervous system was filing for early retirement, I persisted. I leaned into what I knew how to do best (graphic design), and spent extra time learning how to be a marketing professional and not a marketing student. There were several moments when I felt intrusive thoughts about if I could be successful at this. I wondered if I was a one-trick pony, destined to make t-shirts for the rest of my life. I didn’t let the imposter syndrome stick around though, and took every opportunity I could to give myself grace as I transitioned.

Surviving day one was harder than I expected, but I’m glad I never outgrew being stubborn, and persisted. Now I can (almost) confidently say I am a professional marketer and I’m scary proficient at Googling “what is a KPI?” Follow my journey on Instagram as I continue building on my professional life changes: @amandahinesdesigner.