I am currently the worst PA in the world.
Actually scratch that, there are probably PAs who are worse than me.
But I'm doing a pretty good job of making a lot of stupid little mistakes (well, two recently) which are doing nothing to endear me to my boss.
Last week, I was given a list. Some names were highlighted in bright yellow. After being handed the list, I was given very clear "repeat-back-to-me-so-I-know-you've-got-it" instructions for who to send invitations for this important event out to. ONLY, he repeated, ONLY the ones in yellow. The ones in yellow were then given black ticks next to their name - just to be ultra clear. Just yellow. Got it?
I sent the invites out. Then on Friday, me and my boss were going through the responses, at which point he noticed a rogue name and questioned why this guy had been sent an invitation. Sure enough there he was, on the initial list - un-highlighted, no yellow, no tick. I have no idea how I managed to include him. Strike one.
This afternoon, my boss is currently on his way up North for a meeting. Or, at least, he would be on his way to a meeting if I'd put the correct train time in his diary. I'd booked him seats on the train, put the information in his diary, given him the tickets - yet for some unexplainable reason I'd put the times for the one after on his blackberry. As a result, he can get on the train, but has no reserved seat - the thing he was very clear about needing. Again, I have no idea how I messed up. He was not happy.
These things might seem quite minor, it's just I hate it when I get things wrong. Particularly when someone relies on me to run their schedule and make sure they're in the right place at the right time. I hate making mistakes and I hate it even more when half the time I'm sitting here with nothing to do, then when I am given something to do, I can't get it right.
It makes me feel like a right thicky. Mrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I'm so annoyed at myself.
10 comments:
I hate it when that sort of thing happens. It's just sucky. x
These things might seem quite minor…
Charles Bukowski has a great poem about how it’s not a bomb or disease that kills someone, it’s the accumulation of small indignities that pile up and finally break us down. Nietzsche also speaks of the “death of a thousand pinpricks.”
I need a new PA at the moment (I promoted my old one), I may now not call upon your services ;)
Fingers crossed your boss is okay with you!
I'm fingers crossed that it will all pan out OK too.
BTW, my wife is a worse PA than you. Well, she's an ex-PA but the comparison is still fair.
Clearly he needs you in order to exercise his innate sense of superiority - invisible to everyone else, but palpably there.
Don't worry about it thicky ;)
At least you know how to do these things (if incorrectly)...he clearly isn't clever enough to make his own arrangements...
I too hate those days when I define the word incompetent.
soup - Sucky mucky poop. Yeaah.
unbearable - I can certainly relate to that at the moment. It's definitely the little things that grind you down.
perpetual - I'd be a supremely resentful and grumpy PA. Better off without me, I say. Unless you want a train ticket to the wrong place booked or something. Variety is the spice of life!
Brennig - That makes me feel better. As long as I know someone's worse. Although, apparently the girl before me booked my boss and his male colleague into the same hotel room once.
Madame DeFarge - That's men all over, isn't it?
cynical - Dohhhhh duhhh dohhhhh etc. Oh he's clever, just busy. Luckily he's got me to keep things ticking over. Hmmmm...
Ella - Hurrah for incompetancy! Wooop woop for being rubbish!
We've all done them - I've made some humdingers that have cost thousands to put right just like the time I managed to get the decimal point in the wrong place when setting the gradient on a run of drainage pipe....
Don't worry about it and your boss will both forgive you and also forget about it in a few days.
Ohhh my god...re: the decimal thing, don't you just hate that funny feeling in your stomach when you realise the mistake as well? EURGH.
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