When it comes time for me to write my book, there will definitely be a chapter solely titled "DON’T PISS OFF THE ASSISTANT!!" For all of you high energy, STRAPPING YOUNG BUSINESS MEN (SYBM) who think YOU should be running the company, I’ll give you one piece of advice: YOU’RE NOT RUNNING THE COMPANY FOR A REASON!! And more than likely, it’s because of your attitude.
You guessed it! I’m an assistant and one of you strapping young ones has really pissed me off today!! So many times I laugh at the careless disregard for those that are put in place to help you.
Often times I joke with TGIWF that I have trained him to do things a certain way, but it is true. I have in a sense trained him and as a result, we have a system that works! Most that deal with us know the system and those that are just learning, catch on very quickly. When TGIWF catches on to someone that’s trying to beat the system, he’ll bump them back to me and say “I can’t do anything unless Angela says I can.”
Rather than just vent in this blog, I’d like to offer you SYBM some insight on WHY this “system” exists and why it is so important not to piss off the assistant:
1. We talk. We talk about meetings, we talk about schedules, but we also talk music, or cars or whatever else we decided to talk about. Hint: We likely talk about the SYBM that just called, barked his orders at me and then slammed the phone down.
2. I DO control his schedule. Since I have most of my SYBM trained properly, I rarely have to use this tactic, but I know other assistants that do. His availability MAY be reflected by your attitude. Those that are unkind to me will NEVER get another meeting rescheduled for matters of urgency and his hours of operations just shrunk!
3. Who do you think calms him down after YOU just made him angry?
4. The answer to “How do I get around you” is THROUGH ME!
5. Don’t dial TGIWF’s line, hit zero to get connected to me, hang up on me and dial his line back. YOU’LL STILL GET ME!
6. Pay attention. If I say you need to talk to the CFO and not my CEO, you’ll likely not talk to either one of them.
7. Don’t automatically assume that I have no clue what your “very important meeting” is about. I know his social security number, birthday, mother’s maiden name and personal credit card number. Chances are, I know more than you do.
8. If it weren’t for me and my SYSTEM you so despise following, you would never speak to TGIWF because he’d be too busy scheduling his own appointments!
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