I’m starting to think that working for people with six figure salaries is not doing me any good. I see their extravagant lifestyles of Mulberry handbags, lunch at the Ivy and holidays to Hawaii and feel resentful of my Pret lunch, weekend planned in Milton Keynes and Zara slingbacks (though actually, the shoes are fab).
I guess that’s just the way things are when you’re a lowly PA. I enviously process my boss’s expenses for the month that to me are the evidence of a month spent wining and dining in London’s most exclusive and glamorous venues, which for her, are evidence of a month’s hard work maintaining working relationships (and that stone in weight she put on ha ha). But I do wonder if they are completely oblivious to how the rest of us live.
For example…
This week, one of the directors told me that he might be able to ‘catch a lift’ with his friend to Scotland for a meeting, and to ring his friend to see if there’s room for him. He didn’t explain that this was in his friend’s PRIVATE JET. Honestly.
Then, the legal director kindly asked me where I was going on holiday for the various days I had booked off. I told him I was going to Devon for a few days and then to Valencia for a week. ‘How lovely’, he said, ‘do you have houses there?’
Oh yes, I thought. Didn’t I ever tell you? I won the Euro millions lottery last year, but I thought it would be good to get a job photocopying, filing and making coffee, you know, in case I lose my humility.
Later that day he came into the main office area and said ‘Ah. Now you’re all hip, fashionable, young people right? (Me, my 38 year old colleague and the spotty 19 year old German boy on an overseas work placement) ‘I want to pay for a night at a trendy hotel in London as a present for my daughter’s 21st birthday. Any ideas? Lydia – come on, your boyfriend is in a band, surely you must know about things like this?’
My boyfriend might be in a band, but our only parallel to Kate Moss and Pete Doherty is his love of the ladies and my love of Rimmel eyeliner.
‘I have no idea, I’m afraid’ I said. ‘But (with a smile and a wink) I’d be very willing to do some research, in my own time; all I need is the company credit card.’
‘Excellent’ he said (with a smile and a wink). ‘We could do it together…’
Oh my god. I think I found my humility.
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Observations and experiences of a London PA. My boss's perpetual demands for Starbucks coffee and boyfriend's preoccupation with his (terrible) band make me a PA beyond 9 to 5. Be it my colleagues' dating disasters, my babysitting nightmares or boyfriend woes, life normally has something interesting in store each week.
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- My boss's perpetual demands for Starbucks coffee and boyfriend's preoccupation with his (terrible) band make me a PA beyond 9 to 5. Be it my colleagues' dating disasters, my babysitting nightmares or boyfriend woes, life normally has something interesting in store each week.
3 comments:
I once worked for someone who, as small talk, told the lady who did the photocopying, and lived in a tower block in Lambeth with her 3 kids, how marvellous his children had become since they had started a private prep school in Sussex. I was so tempted to say "perhaps it's the fact that they're boarding, and spending less time with their parents, rather than the inherent merits of the school", but, well, he was my boss.
Indeed...I could write a whole post on the things I'd like to say to my boss!
it's not all bad. i love a pret sarnie and my new zara heels are the comfiest yet (might be something to do with the platform that cushions the ball of the foot!). Perhaps life of an entrepreneur will pay off some day! :) Love the blog... would love to swap links...(info@sheerluxe.com)
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