Assistant’s Path In Russia: A Guide For The Profession. A book for and about Personal Assistants

Despite all the complexity of the secretary’s work, I always remember my first job with a smile. At least because it gave me an understanding of the processes and devices of work.

Although, no, there is something else. I found out exactly who the most important person in the office is. More precisely, there are three of them. The secretary, the driver and the cleaning lady. Do not laugh!

The work of the first person is actually unrecognized and unrewarded. And before you challenge me on this statement, let’s remember together how each of you started in your administrative career.

And if you say that your way up has always been strewn with roses on the red carpet, and then in advance please forgive me if I do not believe you.

One time on Reception, my colleague and I were told to await the arrival of some tickets for one of the Vice- Presidents. This fact was controlled personally by the administrative director, and we had to immediately report on their delivery.

The next morning an uproar broke out in the office. The tickets were nowhere to be found! We searched for them everywhere: at the reception area, inside the office, and at the desk of the assistant to the President.

Although at the time it was obvious to me that it was pointless to look for them, since we registered the receipt of all incoming correspondence, and since there was no mark for the tickets in the registration journal, then there could really only be one conclusion – they were not delivered to us.

There was always a slight chance that someone took the envelope from the courier, forgot about the registration, and even forgot where they put it or to whom they gave it, but that chance was extremely small, because every pair of staff working on the Reception followed the same rules. And the probability that we amicably spit on the orders of our superiors was, to put it mildly, insignificant.

Be that as it may, a verdict of «You lost them!» was issued and, although my colleague and I were not fired on the spot, which seemed absolutely inevitable in such a situation, it was not very pleasant. Our supervisor herself took up organizing the reservation of new tickets, and all would be resolved, but that was not the end of things – the story continued.

After lunch, a messenger arrived from the courier company with the apparent «lost» tickets.

It turned out that they simply did not have time to deliver them to us the day before and did not bother to contact us to let anyone know.

It is not difficult to guess that there was another uproar at this! Only now the uproar was directed at the leadership of the courier service.

Towards the end of the day, when I made tea in the kitchen, the driver of the President of the bank came into the room. Of course, he knew about the epic story about the tickets. In general, news items like this are always spread with the speed of light in any company.

The driver was a man of a certain age, and from his point of view, when employees are accused of slipping, and then it is discovered that they were accused unfairly, then at the very least, they should receive an apology.

The whole story is to ask: how often do we notice people who by definition should be invisible?

We come to the meeting room after a meeting, and there should not be dirty dishes and crumbs on the table.

We arrive in the morning in the office, and under the table we have empty trash bins with a clean bin liner inside.

Once, however, the baskets were not empty, because there was some failure in the schedule of cleaning workers. At that time, I was already working as an assistant to the head of the department, and I took care of the situation myself, as it happened in my department.

Normally, when there is no rubbish, we take it for granted, but if the garbage builds up or appears where it should not have been, it is often only then that we sincerely begin to wonder, what is the problem? But it is nothing, it is just garbage. You, apparently, just forgot how it looks.

At this point, may I introduce you to Svetlana, the cleaning lady, about whose existence in your office you probably did not even know?

Next, we leave the house in the morning, and the car with the driver is already there, ready for us. And we do not need to wait, call an assistant or call the driver. Because they have already agreed among themselves, and you only need to get into the car.

And what if the person who is always driven by a personal driver, suddenly finds themselves having to go instead via the subway? I have seen this happen – and a more miserable creature was hard to imagine.

Although, you must understand that I tell this story with reservation: not everyone sees this as a tragedy of a global scale!

I think that the main thing is: when you got to the top and you are somewhere comfortable and you feel good, do not forget where you first started.

It will not change much in your life; it will change very little in the lives of subordinates, as their mistakes will still be noticeable. But it will help to save the human face and will not turn you into a soulless business card!

In one job interview when I asked about the personality of the CEO in the context of other things, the HR Director told me that the CEO’s current assistant tried to warn colleagues when the manager was about to come into the office: which was reminiscent of the very famous movie «The Devil Wears Prada».

Respect has nothing to do with servility.

And the management style, in which the manager’s door is always open to everyone, is much more effective than the one in which, despite the open door, no one enters it.

Main qualities of the perfect assistant

ATTENTION

Attention, attention and again attention. Especially in details. From «what kind of coffee your manager drinks» to «what time is better for board meeting». Of course, you will not find out everything straight away.

And what is more important, you will not remember everything. So, at first is better to write down everything.

Many people think that they have great memory. Yes, it might very well be, but this will not help you. Because at one moment the volume of what you should remember will go out of all possible limits and you will start to forget things.

Your diary and your notebook should become your best friends and partners.

Better to write down and then clarify if you didn’t understand something. Because there is a huge difference between clarification and repeat.

If you manager finds out that you tritely forget what he has told you this will cause irritation and concern that you cannot work efficiently.

Besides, top managers don’t have enough free time. And what they have, will not allow them to fight with your forgetfulness.

My first mistake – which will stay in my memory forever – was when I had forgotten to order a taxi for my boss. My career just started, I was very reliant and thought that I could remember everything.

Years have passed and now my table is full of color-coded notes with reminders. This doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with my memory, but, first there are a lot of very small details which you simply don’t need to keep in your head, especially when you can write them down.

And second, there will be so many more of these small details that it is a simple fact that you’ll never be able to remember everything.

So, the best thing is to resign yourself that you have a great brain, but not the supercomputer with terabyte of operational memory – and make notes!

ACCURACY

Mainly this is related to documents: letters, meeting minutes, presentations, etc.

There is nothing worse than chaos in documents, so my main advice is to keep your documents in order, both on your desk and on your computer.

This will help you to find any important information quickly, for example if you need to re-print a document, if the existing one cannot be used.

Also – make backup files of all your documents.

In your role you are likely to also deal with some of your manager’s personal documents, such as their passport and insurance documents (as a minimum).

I have saved images on my iPhone of the most important part of such documents, so that I can have the access to them at any time and any place.

I’ve also marked in filing folders to list what is where. There have been situations when this ordering system has helped me a lot.

Take the following as a simple example: imagine you are out in country house. There is no Wi-Fi. So, you didn’t take your laptop with you – why would you, if there was no internet? This is a normal situation: we are all people and we need rest.