usa job typing

Nowadays our bosses are busy almost 24/7 and in order to cope they need our help managing their e-mail account. This in turn makes us very busy as well. I can hardly keep up with my own e-mails at times let alone someone else's account, but that is part of my job. Having access to your boss's e-mail account is a big responsibility and keeping things confidential is very important. It is a trust we have been given and shouldn't be abused or shared with anyone. This is particularly important given the ease in which we can share information on social networking sites.  If you don't keep it confidential, you won't be keeping your job very long. Below are some things I try to do to carry out the management of my boss's e-mail account: Meet with your executive and get on the same page on what they are expecting you to accomplish when going through their e-mail account. Do they want you to monitor their Inbox and bring urgent things to their attention or do they want y...

I hate waiting! Sometimes I need to do a job, but I can�t move forward until I get an answer from someone else. For instance, waiting for a meeting participant to choose a date, waiting for someone to order something that I need to do my job, waiting for someone to call me back, waiting for someone to get back from holidays and then to top it off they don�t put their out-of-office assistant on so you have no idea why they haven't gotten back to you. A co-worker once commented that I was like a dog going after a bone when I wanted information -- she said it as a joke, but it's true! So how do you word your follow-up e-mail so as not to come across as impatient? I use the following phrases that seem to get the message across, but in a more gentle way than screaming: I am following up on my e-mail of� I look forward to hearing from you regarding my e-mail of � I have not heard back from you regarding my request for... It is OK to follow up, but be nice...people have a lot on thei...

There used to be a t.v. show called Lost in Space . The space crew had a robot that waved it's mechanical arms and yelled, "Warning, Warning, alien approaching" or such other thing to protect and inform the crew. Sometimes I wish I had something to warn me when I am with someone with a cell phone so I can know that we are going to be interrupted. I find it frustrating when people either text while in a conversation or are constantly taking phone calls. Doesn't it make you feel as if you are not important? But isn't it rude to interrupt? Apparently not, when it's by phone... A person I know does this all the time. I am sure it is not intentional. She just thinks she has to answer her cell phone every time it rings. My boss, like most bosses these days, is very tied to his BlackBerry and if we are having a meeting and his phone rings, he just can't help but look and see who it is. At least in his case if he has to answer it he will ask if I mind if he takes...

Remember when you were younger and got a new pair of running shoes? I do! When I put those new runners on I felt I could run faster than I've ever run before. School will be back in full swing soon. I recall the first day of school feeling so smart in my new clothes as I proudly walked to meet my friends. I was eager to open my brand new book bag and get my pencil and write the first words in my new scribbler. You can be sure my writing was neat with no spelling mistakes in those first few days. What about when you go to the hairdresser and they work their magic and you come out of there with your hair all shiny and bouncy. I love it when I can feel my hair bouncing as I walk and for a brief moment I feel like a model. Sometimes it is all in how you feel isn't it? It can be that way in your professional life as well. How you present yourself and what you wear to the office can help how you feel about what you are doing. If you are in a smart suit with appropriate shoes and hair...

One of my former bosses said working with me was like being in a Monty Python movie... My current boss says we get along like a house on fire. With references like these how can I lose? It's not that I'm funny, because I'm not, but I find a lot of things funny. Both of these positions were in the busiest offices I have ever worked in, but when the going gets tough, humour seems to abound! Humour is a powerful stress reliever if done in good taste, but timing is everything. I think because I am over 50 I am not afraid what people think as much as I did when I was younger. I actually have fun at work, but I work hard and consider myself a professional. Really? Even though I don't consider myself funny, funny things seem to happen to me. For instance, I went to the gym after work on a Friday evening, worked out and went back to the office to get my purse. I always take my gym laundry home on Friday to wash over the weekend so on Monday morning I was madly trying to find th...

It is sometimes hard to determine what needs to be taught or shared because what I might take for granted as basic, others may not know. We as assistants probably know a little bit of this and a little bit of that because we work with so many programs and in some programs we know a whole lot because we use it regularly, such as Word and Outlook. Recently I was working with someone on an Excel document. They sent an e-mail wondering if any of the assistants could help them export a document from Excel to Word. Sometimes I find a simple procedure can be made more complicated than it really is so responded that a cut and paste from Excel to Word should do the trick. It worked and through explaining the process to her I added a column at the end of the table in Word by tabbing over, which automatically creates a new row. She was amazed. All this time she had been right clicking and choosing Insert row each time she needed another row. She did not know how simple it could be by just tabbing...

It is always weird for me to see myself on video. I can't believe I look and act like that. I was in a workshop today on presentation skills and one of the things they had us do was present something to the group while they filmed us. I just finished watching the DVD they made of my presentation and came to the following conclusions: I should have started my diet six months ago rather than only last week; I will never wear a sleeveless dress again without a jacket; I really need to spend a little more time styling the back of my hair and not just the front. Other than the reality check of the above three items, it was a great way to see how I project myself and how other people see me. If we could all see how we act with each other, I wonder if that would change the way we behave in the office. At times I have wondered why a colleague has taken something I've said the wrong way or gotten a certain impression about me. Now I think I have a better understanding of what may have h...