Would you be a PR genius or devil?

...well, both actually, for successful career!

„PR is manipulative weapon” – it has been said by a lot of people. 

So that’s why I wanted to write here some jokes I read about PR manipulators (that means, about us), which are confirming this statement are behind this humor there is a truth –  in nowadays world PR people often are crossing the line, because they have the power and knowledge to make things much bigger than they are. And sometimes they go too far. But on the other hand, can we say that only PR is an industry, which manipulates people? Think about it!

Well, here is the first one: 

A mathematician, an accountant and a public relations officer all applied for the same job with a large company. The interviewer called in the mathematician first and asked, "What does two plus two equal?" The mathematician replied, "Four." The interviewer asked, "Four, exactly?" The mathematician looked at the interviewer incredulously and said, "Yes, of course: four, exactly."Then the interviewer called in the accountant and asked the same question, "What does two plus two equal?" The accountant said, "On average, four - give or take 10 per cent; but on average, four."Then the interviewer called in the public relations officer and again posed the same question, "What does two plus two equal?" public relations officer got up, locked the door, closed the shade, sat down next to the interviewer and whispered, "Well, what do you want it to equal?"

I liked that, because it brings out one of the main questions in public relations: what kind of image would you like to create? -  Quite often it will be our job to create “something“ from “nothing“. Yes, maybe we can use the word “manipulative weapon“, but hey, that´s life! And we can get money for doing it.

Of course another situation is acting unethical way. This is something which any educated person shouldn´t do. But for example, in the process of creating this “something“ we should make things better than they are, otherwise we won´t succeed. A good point is that it´s hard to make your product successful, without using PR service. So let´s talk things better!

"I'm thinking of leaving my husband,” complained the wife of a well-known public relations expert."All he ever does is stand at the end of our bed and tell me how good things are going to be.

Probably we are doing the same thing in the future – telling ALL THE TIME how good things are going to be. But the truth is even if we supposed to be manipulative geniuses. Sometimes we can still make a mistake, or two, or create a total mess. It could happen to each one of us, right?

The doctor stated that God had created Eve from Adam's rib. This, of course, had been a surgical procedure. The engineer argued that, earlier, God had created order from chaos. This had clearly been an engineering feat. "But," asked the public relations consultant, "who do you think created the chaos in the first place?"

Everyone knows that PR people have to fix several problems. Well it´s their job and they have to be responsible for it. But the funny part is that if something goes wrong, still a big amount of people (also journalists) are blaming PR people for it. So I believe that through these three (or five?) years we are studying here, we should also grow a „fat skin” (as Estonians would say)

And here is the last one, which I liked:

The two young sons of a public relations professional were walking home from Sunday School when one turned to the other and asked: "What do you make of all this business about the devil that we studied today?"

The other boy replied thoughtfully, "Well, you know how Santa Claus turned out. This is probably just Dad, too."

Jokes are taken from Public Relations: a Matter of Spin by N. E. Renton