To worry about my career in PR? No management, feel stupid - don't know what to do

[Whatpathtotake]

I am in an account executive role with an agency. Have been there almost a year, before that I was a PR assistant in another place. I love it and my colleagues are are very nice people, but there is almost zero management and frequently nobody to ask for help with stuff I am unfamiliar with. Stuff is thrown at me and I'm expected just to produce the work and that it will be ok. In a way this is exciting and stretches me because I have to think on my feet and just go for it and I've got some great experience.

However, my luck is running out and I made a mistake with a pretty crucial email I had to send round last week. I had told my manager I was uncertain about parts of what the email was meant to contain, we had a twenty minute meeting before he left the country again where he rushed through the information and I thought I would be ok but obviously not. My manager has sent me a catty email this morning and I'm also worried about losing my job now. He is virtually in charge of the business, answers to no-one so nobody higher up the food chain. If he decides I'm too shit, he can let me go.

He also knows for example that documents I need aren't being made available to me on a regular basis and it inevitably takes some hours to get them to me. This means wasted hours in the office where I can't work on my crucial projects and is very frustrating.

Honestly, I can't tell if I'm just very stupid and not able to keep up, but I also feel there just isn't any structure or management to help me develop into my role and no guidance with the new levels of responsibility expected off me. Is that being a bit precious? I like a fast-paced environment but it all feels really chaotic and messy.

I feel like I'm good at my job/ have a flair for PR but sinking a bit with no support.

Please help.

Sounds like a crap agency tbh. I used to work in PR and - at the level you're at - everything was checked and rechecked before it got sent out. Even at management level I usually had someone I could run things past before distribution.

Is there any chance of applying for roles elsewhere? PR tends to be a chop/change career because of the number of short contracts so you could move to another agency without adversely affecting your CV.

Are they actively offering you training?
At your level, you should be getting some sort of mentoring from a more senior member of staff, and the options to be doing PRCA-type courses.

Is there anyone else at your manager's level you can 'sanity check' documents with? I've been in PR for well over a decade, but still get other members of my team to check over crucial documents and emails before I send them, because it is well known that you can get page blindess when you've edited the same thing to the Nth degree. No one would or should think less of you for it. And a very large part of being good at PR is having the confidence to speak up - this would be a good area to work those skills!

If everyone is just too stretched to be offering support to junior team members, and/or give time to proof things before they go out, then there is a resourcing issue at the agency. It sounds like this is a small/start-up agency, but you might be better off in a larger agency that can offer a more structured training programme at this stage of your career.

Thank you.

Yes, there is a definite problem with not enough staff and too much taken on. I am worried because I keep getting tasks that aren't even really on my PR track because of this also.

I'm so torn. The people I work with are so nice and it could have real potential, but there is no structured training at all.

I do have the confidence to speak up for myself, but it's incredily irritating to be ignored by my manager when I try to find a suitable time to speak with him because he's so busy he doesn't have time. Email I feel is not the best for resolving stuff like this, it needs a bloody conversation.