Just a really quick one

Just to say how much I've really gained from peoples comments on here, it's helped me loads!  Having a great (but busy) week, I'll write again next week!

Enjoy the rest of your week guys and have an amazing weekend!!

x

Things are heading in the right direction!

Lena’s like my new best friend.  When she comes in in the morning, she smiles. And she went out of her way to ask me to have a good evening. Seriously. This is an improvement.

We had a meeting yesterday and went through the submissions she’s got coming up which were pretty full-on, to be honest.  She’s not quite as organised as I would like so it was difficult to figure out what submission was at what stage so I suggested we build a proper log where we could track and monitor things.  I’ve been working on that the past week while she works on getting the submission done this week which I’ve asked to check before it goes out.

I’m feeling weird about it all, though.  Like I’ve gone behind my bosses back. Am I being paranoid? 

Unfortunately, when I wrote last week I forgot that Jeremy was going to be away for our Monday meeting this week and I didn’t really want to open the Can O’ Worms on the submissions and Lena’s workload without him.  Still, Telepathic Kate asked me if everything was okay with the sort of expression that implied she knows things might not.

While I was kind of desperate to tell her what had been going on – just to get it off my chest if anything – I said everything was fine and felt guilty instead. Still, if things improve over the next week with Lena, then the suggestions I’d like to make about the submissions may be better received.  Fingers crossed.

In my day-to-day stuff, things have been quieter as Jeremy’s been away in Scotland since Monday doing some intensive work with one of our higher-profile clients.  Thinking about it,  I’ve always had an irrational fear of organising travel before all this – whether it’s booking train tickets to Bournemouth or a flight to Abu Dhabi, I always get burning angst when I press ‘Buy’ that I’m ordering them on the wrong day or the time’s in 12h rather than 24h clock.  There’s always a faint slick of sweat on my mouse when I’ve finished, I can tell you.

But when I organised Jeremy’s flights and pick-up to Glasgow, I was so distracted by the stuff going on with Lena that I pressed ‘Buy’, prepared the itinerary and collating the travel pack without so much as batting an eyelid!  In fact, I’d say that organising travel without being a sweaty freak-pot has quickly become one of my favourite things to do at work!  Every cloud and all that, I suppose!

In other news: one of the friendlier designers is having birthday drinks after work on Friday and has invited me along.  I actually, for more reasons than one, cannot wait...

So what happened last week...

I spent a week last Friday afternoon checking through the earlier pitch documentation and my stomach sank with each file.  These documents are to get shortlisted for projects, rather than devised for presentation to a client – that’s the next stage.  So while the Directors sign off the documents, they don’t have time to read them all the way through, especially if there are a few to go out at short notice. 

I think the policy needs to change based on what I saw and will be one of the things I talk to Kate and Jeremy about next Monday at our weekly catch-up.

So with that rattling around my head and the fact that I was going to have it out with Lena, I bet you can imagine just how restful my weekend was – oh! What a Sunday night I had J.

Anyway: Monday.

Lena arrived a few minutes after me full of beans and slightly baffled that I still wanted to meet.

“I thought it was just last week,” she said.

“No,” I said. “I’d still like to meet.  We need to go over a few things”

She shrugged. “Fine,” she said making me think that maybe it really was just me!

The coffee shop’s just a few metres away from the studio.  I ordered the coffees from the counter and my hands were so sweaty with nerves I left little damp paw-prints on the glass.

I had had plenty of time to think about what I was going to say, and the feedback from people on here was really helpful. [THANK YOU!]  I had made a decision to address the performance issue only at this stage.

I kept it short and focused entirely on the submission.  I had taken a couple of her submissions with me and showed her the errors.  I tried to be as sensitive as possible – no-one likes criticism and Lena’s proven herself to be quite unpredictable at the very least.  I asked her why she thought she’d made those mistakes and a torrent of emotion poured out.

What I gleaned from nearly thirty minutes of tearful exposition was that apparently, the PA before me had originally done the submissions but had found them too much (haha! Not so perfect after all, eh Outgoing PA!) so they had been passed onto Lena.  While she’d liked this responsibility at first, she started to resent it when she realised the amount of work it involved – especially when she was stuck in the office and the PA was leaving on time.

I sympathised and told her I would do what I could to resolve this issue as it wasn’t right for her to be overloaded. 

But I also told her gently that it would be healthier for all involved that she talk to me if she’s feeling overwhelmed rather than act out. 

She smiled.

I smiled.

Basically, the meeting finished with us all but hugging: I draw the line with physical intimacy at work.

Next steps:

• Speak to Directors about resolving the workload issue and meet again with Lena tomorrow morning to review the upcoming submission list.
• I’ve decided to leave the behaviour issues for now and see how things go - I’ve done a quick Back-To-Work catch-up note on her absence through sickness (some ambiguous stomach thing).
Result: I feel much, much, much happier with the situation. And Lena even made me a cup of tea this afternoon.

I just hope this is the end of it.

So this is what happened...

I’m sorry – I had to cut off on the Lena update there as I was minuting all afternoon after lunch and have been so busy that I haven’t been able to write until now!

So, the email from Lena sent at 10:45pm on Monday night said:

She’s very sorry, but she won’t be able to meet as she’s not well and is taking today as sick.

Can you believe that?

And now it’s Friday and we’re supposed to be having our meeting and she’s still off sick!

I guess, though, while this is a bit ridiculous, I have to face reality: this is no longer just a bit of conflict, this is a performance issue.

Which raises a whole other question: do I have a duty to report it to my bosses? Or should I wait and try and resolve it first?  If I tell them, am I a tittle-tattle?  Should I at least try and figure out what the Dickens is going on with my Proj-Co before landing her in it with the Big Cheeses?

One lovely commentor last week suggested that perhaps Lena had applied for my job and not got it which was why she was being difficult.  Is that it?  Or is she just not getting the right support in her current role? I mean I was stuck here until ten doing that documentation – does that happen with Lena a lot? Not the poor quality, but being stuck on her own in the office until late because, at her level, that’s not on at all.

Or is there something else going on underneath it all. Maybe something’s going on in her personal life...

I’ve moved our meeting to Monday at 11am, but which aspects to I tackle first?  And should I even be mentioning the personality issues and just focus on the performance?

Wow – who would’ve thought I’d have SO many questions this soon in!

On a good note:  with all the other crap, I’m not stressing my butt off about being a good PA.  I’m just getting on with it and Jeremy and Kate appear more than happy – indeed, Kate’s talk went down really well and she bought me a muffin to thank you for all my help.  Every cloud and all that!  Thank HEAVENS for good bosses...

I am actually going to scream!!!!!

Last week, after I wrote, I thought to myself: maybe I’m making more out of this than it really is. Maybe I’m projecting my anxieties onto her when actually; she’s just one of those people I don’t naturally gel with straight away. Maybe it’s... ME! (ha ha, as IF, I’m perfect!)

And then, as I began to think that maybe I didn’t need to talk to her after all, that actually, it would all blow over and we’d soon be dancing through meadows full of mutual respect, she left me with no other option.

Yesterday was pretty quiet in the office so when she asked to leave early to make some appointment, as a gesture of goodwill I said that if she’d done everything, that was fine.  She said she was just waiting on some final bits for a submission for a potential job which would then need to be printed and sent out.  It was quiet and, because I’m an AMAZING boss, I said I’d do it for her.

Stupid, stupid me because I was sweating and panicking over HER job until TEN O’CLOCK last night!

I’m still steamed as I write this, but she basically landed me right in it.  Lena had done such a poor job (misspelt the potential client’s name and even used the wrong one on several occasions, duplicated chunks of text, low res images... the works!) that I needed to rework the whole thing.

I mean, even without the current economic climate, I’m keen for our company to look professional, high-quality and definitely the sort of people you want to work with.  Not one that lets chimps work on its pitch documentation.  But maybe that’s just me?

And, because I couldn’t get it in the post and the deadline was noon today, I had to – in all this torrential rain and wind – go all the way across London to hand deliver it myself before work THIS MORNING because the courier couldn’t confirm a midday delivery when I rang them last night.

At 10:30 last night, as I switched off my lonely lamp, an email whizzed out of my account to Lena saying that instead of us meeting on Thursday – our specified Big Talk Meeting - we needed to go and have a coffee as soon as she was in.

So... when I got in this morning after my hellish journey in, there was an email sitting in my inbox, sent at 10:45pm last night from Lena ...

The 'Lena' issue

Lena came back from her holiday on Tuesday, brown and smiling and carrying Italian biscuits.  This joyous return lasted for … ooo … about an hour before we the familiar thwacking sound of the filing being rammed home filled the air.  The tan was still there, but the smile was most certainly gone (as were the biscuits, mostly into my belly).

I know I’ll have to speak to her soon as I’m her line-manager and she can barely string two words together without spitting at me.  I need to show I’m a good boss too and helping Lena has to become my priority.  I know that makes sense, but it doesn’t stop me from being really quite nervous.

I’ve been thinking about the best way to approach this.  I feel too new to go wading into something, but equally, I need to nip this in the bud if we’re going to work together.

This morning, for example, I had to ask her about a document she’s compiling for a design competition.  She was texting on her phone and I waited until she’d finished.  She snapped at me, however, that the text she was sending was work-related and showed me the screen of her phone.  I didn’t care whether or not it was personal or work.  I just wanted to know if she’d done something.

My sensitivity is often a problem.  Like when Jeremy yelled at me the other week, I tend to take things to heart.  When Lena snaps at me, I walk away with my tail between my legs.  But I also feel angry and I’m worried that I’ll end up losing my temper with her. I don’t want to be pushed to the point where I confront her when I’m angry.

Right. After working closely with Kate last week, I need to start using some of the inspiration she’s giving me.

I need to approach this with: What Would Kate Do?

And I know that Kate would call a meeting and sit down with her and check that everything is okay.  I know that Kate would resolve this in the blink of an eye.

So why can’t I?  Why is my new job suddenly becoming all about this rude girl?

Tadaa! I bit the bullet and have just sent her a meeting invitation for Thursday afternoon and my stomach is churning already.  But resolve this I must. If I’m going to do a good job here, I must be prepared to take the rough with the smooth.

Watch out Lena: I’m going to make you happy here if it kills me!

Feeling happy!

So, this week I’ve felt a lot happier. I’ve been here for just over two weeks now, and while I’m still definitely the new girl, I’m beginning to relax a bit more.

Last week, getting that telling off, was definitely tricky but then I realised that I have it easy compared to some of my friends who work for tyrannical monsters and, really, he was right.

The diary behaved itself this week.  I didn’t make any major gaffs which I think we all felt better for.  Instead, I worked more closely with Kate, developing a PowerPoint for a talk she’s giving next week, which I really enjoyed. 

As a woman, this is a hard thing to write, but I have had two not-so-good experience with women bosses before.  In my experience, men cope better with having a woman work for them – for lots of them it’s all about status and what’s more of a status than having a Little Secretary.  They also, generally, are well used to having women in subordinate positions because that’s how things have been for trillions of years.

I think that while the majority of female bosses are good, some women struggle to have a decent relationship with their PA for loads of reasons, usually nothing to do with the PA herself and all to do with the pressures of her role. And, on the flip side, sometimes, it’s the PA who finds it difficult simply because men can be easier to establish a working relationship with.  I mean, I’ve no interest in adding to the ‘Women Bosses Are Bitches’ debate, it’s just that, not everyone’s a nice person so, of course, some women aren’t going to be fun to work for. Just like some male bosses are rude, inappropriate or impossible. 

Kate, on the other hand, completely negates all that nonsense. She treats everyone as an equal and brings all that’s good about being a woman to an industry which is notoriously egotistical and male-dominated. She is a damn-good designer, a killer negotiator and tenacious when she wants something but she also uses her emotional intelligence and resolves staff issues with sensitivity. The practice is a 50/50 split between men and women and there is a real family-friendly vibe.  Thanks to Kate.

I’m so pleased I work with someone so inspiring.

Getting to know you...

One of the things you forget when you start a new job is that everyone has a personality.  I mean, when you meet them at the interview, it’s all smiles and ‘JOIN US’, but then when you’re there, after the novelty’s worn off you begin to see the Real Them and sometimes it’s not quite as pretty as you imagined.  Or, vice versa. When you finally begin to relax, will they like what they see?

Yesterday I had a little taster of the other side of Jeremy.  Remember the other week when I gave him the wrong address and he was really lovely about it? Yeah. That was him being nice.  Yesterday, he was late for a meeting because he hadn’t put it in the diary and I didn’t know about it. And somehow that was my fault.

Jeremy has always got one eye on the next project and, as such, his mind is always whirring.  What he forgets is that I can’t read his whirring mind and that while he may be happy putting something into his own diary when he’s at another meeting, if he doesn’t tell me, I really won’t know. 

His previous PA, he tells me, always knew to check with him when he came back from a meeting.  His previous PA knew that he put things in and sometimes forgot to tell her.  His previous PA kept on top of the diary. His previous PA was amazing and brilliant and all the things I apparently am not.

Still smarting from what I think is a misplaced telling-off, I try and turn my frown upside down and look at what I’ve learnt: that Jeremy can sometimes be a bit too direct.  And that I must check with him whenever he comes back from a meeting to make sure our diary is completely up to date.

And I guess, above all, I must try not to take things personally.  I know he was just annoyed.  Yes it was sharp, but it wasn’t necessarily about me. I must focus on listening, learning and not taking things personally.

Apart from that, Lena was on holiday this week and the atmosphere was noticeably lighter.  And, in other news, one of the designers I haven’t met before has just come back from holiday.  He has a nice smile. :)

I've got through the first week!!!

So the stabilisers are off and I’ve done it – my first week as PA to the Directors all on my own!   

It’s been a fabulously … okay week. Jeremy and Kate have been very patient. They have high standards and I’m enjoying their demands: I love being kept on my toes and I certainly won’t be given much chance to slack here!  But it’s so strange being the newbie and I’ve found myself missing the comfy familiarity of my old work friends.  Particularly when I hit my two stomach-sinking issues this week and had no-one to go freak out to. Still, I suppose that’s not such a bad thing when I’m still trying to convince everyone here how wonderfully cool and professional I am.

My two stomach-sinking issues this week have actually turned out to be valuable lessons, although they were both pretty tough love:

1.      Lesson One: Always double-check every detail of every diary entry!

On Tuesday morning I sent Jeremy to an important meeting in completely the wrong part of London.  The company had moved and no-one had updated the contacts database so while I rang up and checked that the meeting was happening, I didn’t double-check the address.  Jeremy was completely fine and reasonable about it, but it felt like a terribly inept start.  As a result, I spent a good chunk of the afternoon checking that all the meeting locations and the meetings themselves were correct for the next few weeks, and updating the database when I found errors.

When I ask the Project Co-ordinator, Lena, when the database was last updated, I faced Lesson Two.

2.      Lesson Two: Not everyone will like you. 

It’s hard when you come from somewhere where you have good friends and colleagues who know, respect and trust you, to go into an environment where you are the stranger. Most people are open to strangers, but some people are wary.  I’m hoping that this is what the situation is with Lena because when I asked her about the database she actually snapped at me.  I’ve not had anyone snap at me at work before and while I didn’t react, it stung.  I’ll have to keep an eye on things next week. It’s tough but I guess this is what comes with being a manager.

Apart from that, the Shared Diary and I are on better terms. While I don’t think I’ll ever prefer this over individual diaries, I can see it makes some sense: everyone can see what everyone is doing so it minimises clashes.  However just now I noticed that someone had put a meeting in with Kate without checking with me first.

I’m sensing that some things are going to have to change round here …

First day on the job!

So it’s my first day and I’ve already boobed: I completely forgot how cool the office is and now I’m totally regretting wearing the heels. 

It’s mid-sized practice consisting of about twenty-five achingly cool people.  And now me.  In my stupid heels.  Why didn’t I pay attention at interview?

The outgoing PA is friendly – she’s off travelling for a year so of course she is.  She takes me around and introduces me to all the Creatives – me clopping around after her like a pit-pony while she glides around in flipflops.  The office is completely open plan apart from a long, glass meeting room on one side. Four long rows of white desks run the width of the central space with Creatives sitting either side in front of their huge Macs.   Most of them say hello.

I am the only PA in the company but there are two other admins who I will be directly managing: a Project Coordinator, Lena, who supports the Creatives and a Receptionist/Finance Assistant, Natalie. Natalie also works alongside the Finance and HR Manager, Tiff, who is on holiday this week.  Worryingly, while everyone else has been quite friendly, these two have appeared a little standoffish. I sense a hint of animosity between them and the outgoing PA which I’ll need to nip in the bud:  I want to start my role with a clean, fresh slate and need to be sure not to absorb other people’s issues during my handover.  I resolve to tackle this next week when I am on my own.

And of course, there are my new bosses: Jeremy and Kate. They’re married with two teenaged daughters and started the company together twenty years ago so they’re very used to working together.  We met at my second interview and seemed to get on well, but you never can tell: even I find myself irritating when I’m nervous …

Jeremy is very tall and comes across as slightly aloof, while Kate is a petite brunette and appears to be the complete opposite: she beams at me constantly and laughs generously when I make a lame, nervous joke.  I am to sit between them.  This will be interesting …

However, within minutes of me being re-introduced, they are both called into a meeting and then I only catch flashes of them for the rest of the day.

It all passes in a blur as I’m taken through the electronic filing system, the marketing library (I am to co-ordinate the marketing too, apparently, which is very exciting!) and the email. I am introduced to the diaries – they run an office wide diary rather than individual ones which will take a little getting used to.

And then it’s 6pm and I’m prepping Jeremy and Kate for their meetings tomorrow, enjoying a surge of confidence and acceptance.  Indeed, I’m feeling so pleased with myself as I switch my computer off, that I find myself thinking: I’m going to like it here.

As I walk towards the stairs, I say goodbye to Lena, the Project Co-ordinator, who’s on her way back to her desk looking harassed and annoyed.  She ignores me.

Whoa there - I've got a new job!!!

My grandmother once told me that the greatest sin is to be late.  She also told me that carrots would give me night-vision and if I pointed at her goldfish one more time it would die, but while those proved to be less reliable words of wisdom, her advice on tardiness has always stuck with me. 

Which is why it’s 8.30am and I am an hour early for my first day.   In a desperate attempt to allay my nerves, I was showered, dressed, redressed, redressed, breakfasted, redressed and on the tube before my alarm had even gone off.  

Because this is a big deal.

I am now, according to my signed contract which is very carefully nestling in my bag, PA to the Directors of a cutting edge creative firm.  It’s a bit of a coup. Since coming to London five years ago, it’s been a fantastic journey.  I started off in a junior admin role in the City where everyone socialised very well on expenses and I developed some great all round skills alongside some enduring friendships and blurred memories.  Then I got serious and, after two years, stepped up into a mid-level PA role for three senior execs who were notorious for their demanding natures.  It was do or die. I clearly ‘did’ because here I am:  a PA to my very own Directors.

Of course, I’m terrified.

While I sit there, nursing my over-priced coffee in the little café around the corner in this unfamiliar part of town, all I can hear is my pesky inner critic reminding me that none of my new colleagues will like me. Agonising over such key questions as: are the heels too much? Would flats have been cooler? And then there’s the loudest voice of all:  the one that’s bleating on about how I’m a terrible PA, and really what was I thinking taking on such a challenging role?

And then, as I’m about to combust with angst, it’s 9.20am and time to shift it. The office is on a side street off the main road.  I stand before its huge wooden doors, my heart in my mouth. I’ve been here for two interviews before, but was then so excited at the prospect of the role that I’d barely taken anything in. Now, I drag the door open. My heart pounding, I climb the stairs and then I emerge straight into the vast, bright, open-plan office and my new life begins …