70 Things Only An EA Would Understand

You'll be expected to know the timetable of every mode of public transport in every city of the world, and have the ability to influence it when your Exec happens to be there

The panic when your Exec decides to work from home randomly and people show up to the office for their meetings

Fitting in 25 hours of meetings into an eight hour window without breaking the laws of physics

When your Exec decides to move their meeting themselves, but moves it in only their diary and you’ve got to deal with the aftermath of that

The fear when you receive three separate “where’s the link?” emails from people five minutes AFTER the call is supposed to start

Wondering to yourself, at least once a day, how certain members of your team manage to dress themselves each morning

Developing the ability to decipher your Exec's handwriting on expense receipts, even when it looks like it was written during an earthquake

That urgent phone call on a Friday evening from your Exec saying that they absolutely must be on that packed flight from Heathrow to Tokyo on Sunday night for the most urgent of urgent meetings on Monday

Followed by that call on a Sunday morning asking you to cancel the trip

Developing an impressive ability to make printers, Zoom calls and the internet start working again just by being near it

Every one of us has a memory of that most ridiculous job we had to do (running across London to pick up a pair of children's ballet pumps)

Mastering the skill of crafting polite emails that essentially say, "Please read the previous five emails I sent you about this exact topic."

Plus thousands of others which now seem normal compared to that one (install a doorbell - check; complain to the council because the drilling was too loud for someone to hear the tennis on the TV - check; request extra copies of business cards from every person your Exec had ever met so that they could be filed in two separate Rolodexes - check)

That everything which breaks at the office is your fault - the internet; the shower; the kitchen worktop when someone sits on it; the bushes in the street outside…

Organising a meeting between the other EAs in the company to discuss the Travel Management Company, and it just turning into a bitching/therapy session about everything you hate about your job

simultaneously devising three alternative travel plans when your Exec asks you to book a flight that left an hour ago

Being expected to take notes in a meeting “in case OtterPilot doesn’t work”

Crawling under the Boardroom table to plug in the cables which have come loose, questioning your life choices, then contemplating hiding under there for half an hour, and making a note to yourself to hide some biscuits under here for the next time

That of course your Exec has now started doing the school run on a Tuesday and now can’t do any meetings before 9.30 so you’re going to have to rearrange everything until the end of time

Crying in the toilets

Having to print out and bind that 300 page document because your Exec simply MUST have a hard copy, only for them to leave it in the back of a taxi and ask you to email it to them instead

When you and the other EAs all schedule your Execs to be out of the office at the same time so you can all work from home

Accidentally on purpose cancelling the breakfast too late so that it turns up anyway and you bask in Office Hero glory as everyone tucks into their cheese and ham croissants from Gail’s

Being asked to decorate the office for the World Cup, knowing full well that barely anyone will be in the office to notice

Learning to accept blame for all traffic jams, delayed trains and cancelled flights, and already have a Plan B, C and D in case of alien invasions or food dropped down a shirt

Knowing exactly what those "private appointments" on your Exec's calendar really are

What it's like to be stressed out by people complaining that the pens you bought aren't comfortable enough

Having to deal with someone losing their laptop, even though you explicitly told them not to take it out in Soho that night

When the new joiner turns up and doesn’t know how to use Slack

Being asked to sort out the Christmas party on 3rd December, and having already done it back on the 3rd January

Pretending to be interested when someone comes to you with gossip that you've known for several weeks

Having at least 10% of the office forget their door pass on a daily basis and wonder why you don’t have hundreds of spares that you can just hand out

Considering getting an A4-sized keyring for the one Visitor Pass that you do have, and making sure it has flashing lights and an Air Tag on it

When someone reports that the camera in Meeting Room 2 is broken you know that they’ve just forgotten to take the cap off the lens again

The horror and uncomfortable feelings of having a conversation with a colleague that you know is about to be fired but they have no idea

Knowing full well that when your Exec says that they don't want the report you've just produced for them, they will change their mind in a week when the CEO asks for it

Resending that DocuSign for the eighth time and wondering if your Exec has blocked the reminder emails accidentally on purpose

That no-one will ever know how to Chrome Cast without reading the instructions, ever (including you)

That Amanda Priestly's request to get that flight in the middle of a hurricane in The Devil Wears Prada is real and has happened to all of us ("what do you mean there's no direct flight from Cuba to Shanghai? Call BA and check!")

When you organise the company offsite and suddenly half the office decides that they have the right to a say in what's for lunch (sorry, that's EA's privileges) and three more people have a food intolerance that they hadn’t mentioned before

Looking at the job description for a new role, seeing "standard admin duties" and rolling your eyes

Seeing the fourth “can someone let me in?” messages on the General Slack channel on the one day you are working from home

Knowing that even though three people have declined the Christmas party, they will turn up anyway and want to know why there's no place for them

Getting that call when your Exec is on the way to the airport ten minutes early and wants to know if they can get on an earlier flight, even though it's still tight that they will even make the one they are currently booked on

Wondering how "I've got no money because it's the last week of the month" became a legitimate work from home reason

That feeling of power that you have, knowing that the company would literally fall off a cliff without you

Looking at your three-year-old job description and laughing

Looking at your ten-year-old job description and dying inside

Knowing that "other ad-hoc tasks" can literally mean anything on the planet, including having to clean the communal shower

Becoming an expert in time travel when your Exec asks you to schedule a meeting "for last week" with someone who's on vacation for the next month.

The login details for 25 different systems and applications that your Exec fancied trying out

That a free lunch, ice maker, beer fridge and standing desks won’t entice people into the office if they don’t want to be there

Mastering the art of diplomatic email writing when explaining to a client why your Exec is "running late" (read: still in bed) for the third time this week.

That when the fire alarm goes off at 10am on Wednesday - like it does every week - people will still stare at you in bewilderment until you confirm that it’s a drill

When you’ve meticulously arranged a workshop for 20 people and found a room large enough, only for five of them to ask for dial-in details an hour before it’s due to start

That even if you have tested the VC equipment three times before the Board meeting, it will STILL cut out half way through and you'll be forced under that bloody table right in the middle of it to plug something back in

Knowing that a company away day will ALWAYS result in someone missing the train back to the office the next day and convincing yourself that they are an adult and therefore not your responsibility

Wondering if your Exec has ever ordered anything in their life when they ask you to get some football tickets for a huge game that weekend

The fact that it really can take a whole day to do one expense claim (especially if your Exec has ‘helpfully’ started it themselves)

That your Exec could have a complete meltdown about literally anything, including not being able to open a box, or the fact that Pret have changed their menu, and you have to sit there and listen and pretend that they are being reasonable

That you will get requests in the middle of December to send corporate branded gifts and cards to all your clients

Knowing that when your Exec says "I'll look into it", it actually means "Please handle this entirely on your own and make it look like I did it."

That horrible feeling when your company wins an award, you are missed off of the celebratory social media posts, even though you were the one who nominated the company for it and filled out all of the forms. And arranged all the travel and accommodation for your colleagues to attend

That even if you get a promotion and everything that comes with it, you'll never ever be able to shake the responsibility of ordering the toilet paper or fixing the printer

You will be expected to know what that “hold” is in your Exec’s diary, even though they were the one who put it in

That you will have keys for all kinds of things in your drawer, have no idea what they are for, but you keep them anyway in case a mysterious new cupboard appears out of nowhere

That you are wholly responsible for the price of food in a restaurant that you have never been to

That you are also responsible for the weather, currency exchange rates, and traffic in every city that your Exec will ever visit

Realising that some people really will complain about anything, including the free lunches on a Tuesday and volunteering days

That in spite of all this, you couldn't imagine doing anything else in the world ❤