Confessions of a personal assistant

PAs in the UK know only too well the demands made of them by hard-to-please bosses, but news reaches PA Life from across the pond that managers in New York expect help that goes well beyond the call of duty. One executive assistant reports that he was constantly called upon to invent excuses for his boss, who was seeing several women romantically at the same time. 

Another NY-based PA was asked to abandon her own personal life entirely and move to India for four months to help out the executive she was working for, while a third ended up accompanying her manager to a series of medical appointments at an IVF clinic, according to online neighbourhood news site, DNAinfo.com. The traumatised admin professional recalls that she “had to hold a human egg in the test tube for five minutes and stay by her side during every doctor’s visit” as the executive’s husband was unavailable.

Meanwhile, New York-based EA recruitment agency SilverChair Partners describes the pairing of executives with their assistants as being akin to “casting an actor in a film” and notes that the key to a good match is chemistry. Agency founder Chantal Russell is quoted in the dailymailonline as saying she asks herself several questions prior to the hiring process.

“Does this person need a ’mom’ assistant? Does he need his address pinned to his lapel? Or is he someone who goes, “I answer my own emails, I answer my own calls, just do this, this and this?” That’s what makes [the job] interesting.”