Joel Frey: My Day Job

About Two Sides of a Cypress Wall

Despite a solid GPA, several glowing letters of recommendation, and being named “Outstanding News-Editorial Graduate” by his journalism professors, no one seemed to care about Joel Frey after he completed his undergraduate studies.

With no employer seeking his “semi-professional” services, he left school behind and crashed with his mom and dad. He worked a couple of jobs that did not require a degree. He drank too much and escaped to the comfort of old friends whenever the opportunity arose. Most of all, he wondered what it was going to take to shake off the desire to be nothing more than a carefree college kid.

Two Sides of a Cypress Wall is a bittersweet story of coping with the discovery that life in your early twenties is more than just finding a real job.

• I work for Travelocity, a leading online travel site.

My title?
• Public relations manager

My responsibilities as public relations manager?
• I have many, the most important of which is perhaps providing talking points to our executives when they conduct interviews on behalf of the company.

Why do I provide talking points to executives?
• To help them always stay on message.

What does “on message” mean?
• Believe me, if you ever get a job in corporate PR, you’ll find out.

What else do I do?
• I take Polaroid pictures of unsuspecting travelers with our company mascot, the Roaming Gnome;
• I talk about the Roaming Gnome during an occasional newspaper interview.
• I travel to exotic locales like Detroit during Thanksgiving and report on how long travelers are waiting in line.
• I talk about lost luggage during an occasional TV interview.
• I write, edit, and proofread lots and lots of press releases.

My tenure with Travelocity?
• As an employee since July 7, 2003;
• As a consultant since April, 2002.

Do my colleagues at Travelocity know that I’ve written a book and launched a Web site?
• Yes, and I’ve even read parts of it to a few of them!

Cypress Walls Pics