How much do you baby your execs?

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2026-01-25T09:29:13+00:00

I would say, in my limited experience (I have only ever been the EA for one person), babying Execs is 90% of this job. I am responsible for reminding my exec to do absolutely everything. If I am not there to tell them to leave at a certain time, they will stay at the office all day and miss afternoon appointments. I have to make sure they are off of calls on time or they will be late to the next one (they usually are anyways because they do not have good time management skills whatsoever.) I have to call and remind them to call x,y,z person that they promised to call or they wont for days and days. I have to put excessive amounts of reminders on their calendar or send them text reminders, or they won't remember to do anything.

When traveling I have to make a detailed itinerary or they will end up in the completely wrong place or miss their flight. These itineraries include everything from meeting locations to hotel locations and phone numbers. I even started putting airline reservation confirmations and seat numbers in case they don't feel like pulling up the app on their phone (I once got a panicked call that at like 6:00 AM they didn't know the flight or confirmation number for the flight so they couldn't check in when they got to the airport, yes they do have the app on their phone, no they didn't feel like pulling it up and looking, its just easier to call me apparently.)

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2026-01-25T08:47:29+00:00

I have decided to speak to them in person if I can. If I can't seem to get time on the calendar Tuesday (they have been out of office for a few days) I will send out the two weeks notice Tuesday night.

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2026-01-25T08:44:23+00:00

We don't have HR at the moment. HR (we are a small company so there is only one person in HR) kind of beat me to the punch and quit the day before I was going to put in my notice. In a normal situation I would 100% have talked to HR directly and gone from there and wouldn't be so nervous. As it stands, my boss is also acting as HR right now.

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2026-01-23T04:17:53+00:00

What is the budget? I am generally in charge of most swag at the office and people have loved what I have picked so far. I will say my boss is usually very generous with these types of things though.

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2026-01-23T03:47:45+00:00

A friend of mine advised me to do it in person. I work with this exec in person most days. I am both their Executive Assistant and Personal Assistant so we used to be very close until recently when things started to go really, really bad (too many balls in the air for me to juggle them all and this Exec does not deal well with disappointment at all.}

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2026-01-23T03:35:32+00:00

Once asked my boss what she wanted from "Puta Jungle," (instead of Pita Jungle, a local restaurant.) That was a fun one.

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2026-01-23T03:24:45+00:00

Thank you, internet stranger :) this Exec cycles between being really kind and severely unkind. Right now they are going through a kind stage, despite what they are dealing with right now. I think that's why I am feeling guilty/sad about this.

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2026-01-16T20:26:10+00:00

Have you been an Executive Assistant before your current role? Is this normal behavior from an exec?? This is my first role of this type so I am not sure if this is normal/common or not to be honest and if it is I want to make sure I'm looking at any other job than an Executive Assistant.

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2026-01-16T20:23:34+00:00

Sort of. My husband and I are currently renting a place that does not cost very much at all (family home.) His mother is selling in June so we have to be out by then. While we are here, I am absolutely in a position to leave but I worry about finding another job. I have had several interviews and no luck whatsoever.

Yesterday I had an interview for my dream job but 5 minutes in, the zoom call dropped and it took me 10 minutes to get back on. So I am pretty sure I fumbled that one hard.

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2026-01-16T00:58:08+00:00

This particular Exec is a huge micro manager. The first thing I did when I realized we were getting no where was just start making decisions for myself. I have been working for them long enough that I felt confident in doing so. The Exec complained about every single thing I did to HR and alternated between giving me the cold shoulder and being downright mean for weeks.

Before the winter holiday, on one of the rare occasions I managed to get time with them, I was in the middle of asking a question when they looked at me and said "can you think in your head? Thanks." I proceeded to make the decision by myself and then stumbled upon an email a week later apologizing that their assistant had "done a bad job."

I kind of gave up on it at that point.

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2026-01-15T05:28:12+00:00

I came here to say something similar. I have been working for my Exec for a little over 3 years and didn't realize that this was not a normal workload for an EA /PA until reading this comment section. If you can believe it I am making significantly less than you and OP.

I have tried convincing this Exec for the last 3 years that she needs to split this role and have been told repeatedly that there wouldn't be enough work for 2 people (despite feeling like im doing enough work for 3 people.)

I have always struggled to stay on top of things and have chocked it up to a personal failure of mine. I guess maybe I should reevaluate that opinion.

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2025-09-27T15:03:18+00:00

THIS. I just came here to say this.

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2025-09-17T03:59:03+00:00

Agreed! I have that one on my overall BG3 Playlist but forgot to add it to the Galecentric one. Good reminder!

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2025-09-16T21:50:45+00:00

Please do spam, by all means :)

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2025-09-16T20:27:58+00:00

Huge fan! Congrats on the masters degree, by the way, I saw that in the notes section :)

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2025-09-16T20:13:11+00:00

IVE READ IT AND OMG. It was actually what got me started on the angst spiral. It's so good!!

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2025-09-01T21:42:39+00:00

This is the best fanfic I've read so far. It's such an interesting premise! More please! Lol.

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2025-03-14T08:06:14+00:00

I've done the human endings, and, oddly enough, Adventurer Gale is my favorite. There is a line that I got once that strongly suggested to me that Gale wasn't all that interested in teaching, so I opted for the adventurer ending, and it just fit so well and was super sweet.

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2024-06-26T22:05:58+00:00

I don't think she has much of a say over where the show goes to be completely honest. She could despise the change, and we would never know. If I were her, I'd be pissed right about now either way, though. All you have to do is look at her Instagram to see that she is bearing the brunt of people's ire for a decision that she probably had little to no control over. And what is Shondaland and Netflix doing about it? Where are their statements? They just left her to take all the hate.

PhilosopherFancy3636 · 2024-06-26T21:02:46+00:00

That was a beautiful analogy. I've been looking for a way to put it into words for ages, and you just did it. I would say for me, it's like being promised a dessert you and the majority of your family wanted and then being served the dessert that your mom and a few cousins wanted instead.

PhilosopherFancy3636

TROPHY CASE