#CV10Years – A Day in the Life of a Junior Administrative Assistant
By Lucy Hamilton, Junior Administrative Assistant
Just call me Lucy of all trades, master of all! My job title might officially be Administrative Assistant, but on any given day I need to wear what sometimes feels like a million different hats. From office manager to travel agent to receptionist to meeting coordinator, I do it all. It’s my job to provide support for the operations, technical, sales and marketing teams and keep the London office running smoothly.
A typical Monday morning is kicked off with a pit stop at the local Tesco for milk and a feeble attempt to resist the chocolate aisle. Christmas is coming? Bring in some Galaxy Minstrels. Devoured the last of a colleague’s baked goodies last Friday? Galaxy Counters. Accidentally left a co-worker off the recipient list of the Tube strike email? Magic Stars should do the trick. Sorted.
Sitting down at my desk with a coffee and donning my rather unattractive glasses marks the start of the work day- after all, how else am I going to follow how Jeff’s weekend was from the other side of the room? (Note to self: time to schedule an eye test!) The first things I see in front of me are sticky notes – my desktop window is covered with them. Meeting reminders, birthdays, upcoming events, you name it they’re fighting for attention in various sizes, colours and fonts. A quick click with the mouse to make them disappear and I am able to remember that I actually once had a desktop background. Next in my morning routine is logging on to Skype – my gateway into this global company. It’s not unusual for me to be simultaneously holding conversations with Avinash in Mumbai, Björn in Germany and Jimmy sitting across the office (face-to-face is so passé!) at some point during my day. Then, of course, it’s on to my email Inbox to tackle all the new questions and requests. Six months into this job and the inevitable transition into a multitasking mastermind is more or less complete – as long as I remember to change my Skype status to ‘AFK’ when wandering off to make a round of tea and coffee!
I have to admit that the favourite part of my day is Nathalie’s legendary capsule coffees. If she’s in the vicinity of the kitchen area I can guarantee eye contact and a hopeful look in her direction – regardless of whether Skype is going wild or I’m currently on hold with a supplier to request an upgrade.
The perfect way to deflect an unwanted sales call? I’ll let you know when I find out. Do we have any writing pads left? Now that I can help you with! We work hard in the office but have a lot of ad hoc fun too – much like the MSN phenomenon in 2003, we still manage to take a childlike delight in enlightening each other with recently discovered Skype emoticons.
Of course the best part of the job has got to be that after settling in you realise that you know exactly who to go to with things, even if that person is five hours behind in the USA. With so many time zones it feels like Creative Virtual is always moving, and this is the kind of company I’ve always wanted to work for.
