All Posts, Tales from the Trenches,

Beware of Golden Handcuffs
April 29, 2009 at 06:40 PM | (0) Comments

goldenhandcuffsCan you have golden handcuffs as an Assistant?

Absolutely.

If you are not looking to be a career assistant, in our training we suggest before you hit your 2.5 year mark working as an assistant that you know where you want to progress to in your career. You then need to take this desire of yours and express it to your boss and human resource department well before an opportunity for you to make a career change presents itself.

If you don’t, you’re going to be type cast as an assistant and it will be much harder for you to make the switch to another position within your current company or at another company as something other than an assistant.

This is just a fact of life in the corporate world: become great at something and that’s what you’ll be known for. To use us as personal examples, both Stephanie and I have turned into career Executive/Personal Assistants. We both love our bosses, we have an immense amount of trust and responsibility placed on us from our bosses and we both get paid very well for our work which has afforded us a great life.

On the flip side though, we both say to ourselves, “What do we want to do when we grow up?”

This post is not meant to scare you away from being a career assistant, it’s just that we want you to be aware of how your boss, you co-workers and others in your industry will view your experience after working as an assistant for an extended length of time; we say four years or longer.

Lastly, we have to remind ourselves at times that our quality of life –which can’t be measured in dollars and cents– is very high for living in New York City AND that we have the time and money to do things like create this course outside of our day jobs… or write the next great American screenplay… or volunteer as a big sister… and having the freedom and time to do those things is very satisfying indeed.

 

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All Posts, Technology,

My First Office Friend
April 24, 2009 at 06:41 PM | (0) Comments

HandbandAfter graduating college, I was offered a job as an editorial assistant at a high-powered Washington, DC consulting firm. We edited and produced all of the World Bank and IMF’s publications. I was so psyched since I had always loved to write and this sounded like the most glamorous job. Me, working for the World Bank?? Suhweet!

My first day on the job, I arrived to find a huge stack of paper and a tape dispenser on my desk. That’s all. My new boss, the editor-in-chief, came over and told me to go in the conference room and hang each sheet of paper on the wall, in chronological order. And it had to be done before the client arrived in 30 minutes. I didn’t ask any questions, I just hung.

Of course my mind was a flutter: How far apart should the pages be? Will there be enough wall space for 196 pages? Why the heck am I doing this???

But then I got to watch my boss work his magic on the document and in turn, the clients. He drew all over the pages and renumbered paragraphs with a marker. There were scribbles on each page that meant something to him…and eventually to me too. It was his way of seeing the big picture and figuring out how the flow of the document should go.

After the first few “wall sessions” with clients, I began to see how the documents really transformed under his crazy artist’s hand. Despite the sniggers around the office at my paper hanging responsibilities, I secretly enjoyed being part of these meetings, where the pages were being transformed into important publications. More importantly, I learned that it took about 20 minutes to hang a 200-page document on the wall. But man, I hated those cumbersome tape dispensers. There had to be a better way…

Right before heading home for the Christmas holiday, my boss left a Scotch handband tape dispenser on my desk as a gift. He didn’t say much in the way of praise or feedback but I knew that he appreciated my hard work.

Moral of the story? There might be easier ways to “skin a cat” so either look for those ways or ask someone else if they have any ideas. As for my new handband tape dispenser? Let’s just say it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

 

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All Posts, Tales from the Trenches,

A “pat on the back” from us to you…
April 22, 2009 at 05:43 PM | (0) Comments

goldstarHappy Administrative Professionals Day!

Today is the day when bosses are supposed to pat their assistants on the back for a job well done. In fact, the whole week is supposed to be in recognition of administrative professionals but for us, here at ProAssisting, we’re just focusing on THE day which happens to be today! Happy Earth Day too, while we’re at it!

So please accept a “pat on the back” from us to you and just for good measure, you get a gold star too.

At the advertising agency that I work for, they throw us a breakfast and hand out $50 AMEX gift cards… very nice indeed and we all appreciate the fact that they take the time out and give a great gift to show us that they care but… we are the lucky ones.

You see, it’s the job of an assistant to remind their boss of all the important dates that busy bosses have on their calendars. And if you’re in a smaller company that doesn’t have an HR department to handle such events, the question then becomes: how do you go about reminding your boss that today is the day that they should appreciate you? Our answer to that question is: you don’t.

If you find yourself in this situation, don’t let the fact that your boss doesn’t have a clue that it’s Administrative Professional Day get you down. Take the “pat on the back” from us, the gold star up above and go about your day as any other. You know you do great work, we know you do great work and deep down inside, so does your boss.

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All Posts, Organization,

The Most Powerful Assistant in The World
April 17, 2009 at 06:44 PM | (0) Comments

Obama and LoveWho is the most powerful assistant in the world?

That would be Reggie Love; President Obama’s personal assistant or “Body Man” in presidential speak but a personal assistant nonetheless.

This reporting by ABC News does a good job of explaining what Love does for his job by listing some of what he carries with him to take care of his boss:

“…an array of small, everyday items, such as a toothbrush, mouthwash, cough drops, aspirin and wet naps.”

A graduate of Duke University and a varsity member of both their basketball and football programs (in addition to being on the Dallas Cowboy football team before being cut), I’m sure helped Love secure a spot working for then Sen. Obama.

What is interesting and relevant for anyone looking to be or already working as an assistant is to read all of the menial and mundane tasks that Love completes for the President of the United States contrasted with powerful politicians, heads of state and celebrities who want to be his best friend since he controls access to the most powerful man in the world.

The same holds true for any assistant. Namely, you will have to complete projects and tasks that you might feel are below your skill level or not worth your time but you need to keep in mind that with the menial tasks comes great access to information and interactions with superiors and outside contacts that will further your career path.

By not letting the small stuff get you down and keeping an eye on the big picture of your job and career path, you’ll be able to have a smile on your face when your boss asks for that wet nap.

You can learn more about Reggie and his job in this NYTimes profile done during the ‘08 campaign.

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All Posts, Organization,

Plans. Always. Change.
April 14, 2009 at 06:46 PM | (1) Comments

blue-printPlans always change… you can count on it & you should plan for it. What was that quote?… oh, yeah:

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” - Robert Burns from “To A Mouse” & used in the title of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”

And as an assistant, or future assistant, you would be wise to remeber that quote when making plans… meeting plans, travel plans, office plans… you get the point.

If you start from the point of view that whatever you’re in the process of planning has a high probability of changing, you can organize those plans in a fashion that makes them easy to change.

Whether it’s buying a refundable plane ticket instead of non-refundable, ordering food for two or three more people than are scheduled to be in the meeting, reserving a conference room when your boss says that their office is fine but you have a feelin’ they’re going to add more people to the meeting… all of these things are setting yourself up to add, subtract or delete as needed. You’re ready for those plans to change so bring it on!

On the flip side of that coin, sometimes plans change and there is nothing humanly possible that you could have done to expect the change or have prepared for it ahead of time. Weather delay which strands your boss in a city with no hotel rooms available; car breaks down; god forbid, a death in the family… each of these situations present changes that you don’t have any control over. And in these uncontrollable instances, if you’ve organized effectively, you’ll be able to have all of the information you need at your fingertips to alternate to a brand new plan “B” in the blink of an eye.

The take away? Think of how the plans that you are making can change, prepare for those potential changes AND be as organized as possible so when a change occurs that you could have never foreseen, all the information you need to implement an effective plan “B” is at your fingertips.

Last point: Accept the fact that plans change and don’t let changing plans get you down (especially when you put in a lot of work to make those plans perfect); such is part of your job as an assistant.

 

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All Posts, Interpersonal Skills,

Under Promise + Over Deliver = Success
April 02, 2009 at 06:52 PM | (3) Comments

overdeliverIf, as an assistant or intern, you are able to under promise but then over deliver on any task or project presented to you, you will be a success in your boss’ eyes.

This concept is simple at first glance but much harder to pull off in real-world work situations. You see, your boss always will ask for the world and you are there to give it to them… that’s just the way it is. When you have an assistant yourself, you’ll be the one getting the world but that discussion is for another post.

For now, we’ll explain our advice on how to under promise but then over deliver for your boss.

Following through on this equation, the first step is to communicate properly the obstacles that are in the way of getting what your boss wants… an example might be that the afternoon flight from NYC to LA is always booked in business and first class so getting one of those seats might be difficult when making a reservation two days before the trip. You need to communicate any facts like this to your boss so they realize that it will be an uphill climb to get that first class seat (or whatever it is that they’re asking for).

The second step is to find the first class seat. In the example above this could be accomplished by checking all three NYC airports for flights instead of just your boss’ preferred airport, La Guardia, AND you can have the flight agent search other airlines that your boss might prefer less but if there’s a first class seat, they’ll take it. When all else fails, you can take a look at your boss’ schedule to see if things can be moved around to accommodate an open first class seat at a less desirable time. Lastly, if you back is really against the wall, wait-list your boss in first AND business class on their preferred flight and keep your fingers crossed that one of those seats clear.

All of these tactics are a bit of outside the box thinking and that’s the whole point. The average assistant would not outline to their boss the difficulty of fulfilling their request and when they run into one road block in completing that task say that it’s not possible. You, on the other hand, set expectations properly and then use all of your skills and ideas to get the request filled.

Thanks to Network Performance Daily for the pic; they believe in under promising and over delivering in their customer satifaction so much that they wrote it on their wall… literally.

 

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