Interviewing managing director of the London RGA Office, Rebecca Bezzina was an incredibly rewarding experience for me as an aspiring young visual designer.
So first and foremost Rebecca is my cousin. In my case this connection made the interview quite rewarding as I was able to view her professionally. I tried to detach myself from personal conversation to allow for a new outlook. Through this process, I was able to unlock not only how Rebecca was as my person but how she is as a professional.
I started with understanding her professional journey. Throughout her career she's worked in five different agencies, always working with a wide range of clients, she worked with commonwealth bank, telstra and nestle so lots of different types of work, challenges and projects. She then joined RGA which is where she is now and coming up to seven years in. she helped set up the offices in Australia in Sydney and in Melbourne and now running the London office.
I was already able to reflect Listening to her experience and understanding that within her career journey she’d need a job that aligned with her values and desires. I found this most important that she moved jobs no matter the pay because she wanted to feel good each day. When core life values are compromised by the values represented within your workplace’s purpose or culture it can become morally conflicting. I could see this in her career story, When values are persistently disregarded and ignored daily people are more likely to act with a sense of compliance and without commitment (Beechey, K. 2018).
After living overseas for 5 years, Rebecca gained a huge social circle with connections all over the world because of her work. She had mentioned covid hitting was the most detrimental to her social health as she wasn’t able to fly home for things like Christmas and important family events but she had friends that have become a sort of family for her.
Listening to Rebecca tell me stories of these people I was able to relate it back to the term the term ‘Re-membering’ which, calls attention to the reaggre-gation of members, so the figures who belong to one’s life story.
These members of her ‘club of life’ being unintendedly ranked or given status within the ‘club’.
Being her closest family to friends to work acquaintances. And as a result of being overseas for so long probably rearranged this club often. But overall she was able to see the individuals she worked with and those that surround her with support influenced her life and the choices she makes.
I found listening to her answers I was really immersing myself into her stories, its abit bias because I'm her cousin but I really think she's amazing. I was questioning further into what she was saying. Really being an outside witness to her stories.
I conducted the interview with intent to use the absent and implicit theory so that I was taking her experience in the story and relating it to my own. We can describe the absent but implicit as the idea that we make meaning of any experience by contrasting it with some other experience.
I was able to really buckle into how her answers for the whole interview related to her journey and then also contrast it with my own experiences. The theory really guided the interview as I was able to ask relevant questions for the interview purpose and let her answers guide my questions it was a mix between formal and informal which was great to just catch up with her too. Overall the interview was really rewarding not only to have a personal conversation with Rebecca but see a side of her I never would ask her about.
Until Next Time, Live and Laugh,
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