Slowly but surely I was getting the hang of my new dream job. Two weeks in and it felt as if I was getting somewhere, creating order from the chaos the last assistant left when she walked out six months before. My new boss wasn’t nearly as scary as I’d thought but it was turning out to be a full time job keeping her organised.
September 13 2012
Another manic day at Silver Helm but I think I detect some order slowly emerging from the chaos. I managed to fit in half an hour this morning to get to grips with all the unidentified files and folders littering up my desk. Now I even know what most of them are for. My pending file is down to a manageable size, one that doesn’t give me a hernia picking it up anyway, and I’ve deleted loads from my to do list. I had the luxury of a whole morning to get to grips with my inbox, filing and sending of urgent emails, plus I got on top of the list of missing booking forms and managed to chase everyone who was naughty enough not to have sent theirs in yet. Progress!
After lunch, I had an afternoon of dictation with Arabella, interrupted by the inevitable phone calls about a carpet situation and some calls from entertainers with their excuses for the missing booking forms. A couple of forms even came in. Arabella also signed off all the invoices waiting to be sent to accounts for payment, so that’s a weight off my mind. I was a bit worried about those, especially the bundle from one of the entertainment agents, none of which added up correctly and had missing receipts as a bonus. It took us a while, and a phone call, to get it sorted but I think he now understands, no receipt no payment. Der!
We were close to finishing the dictation when Arabella glanced at her watch and, with a look of horror, said, “Oh my goodness, it’s after half past five. I’ve kept you late again. Do you mind very much if we just get these last few done and the two urgent ones sent off? Obviously you will get paid overtime.”
Of course I said it was no problem. After all I’ve been used to working until eight so half past five seems like a half day, especially when I’m only doing three days a week. We were ploughing through them when the phone rang again. More carpet problems. As it seemed like it was going to be a long call, I went back to my desk to get the two urgent emails typed up and sent. I was typing away and I glanced at the clock at the bottom of my screen, it said five fifteen. Strange, last time I looked at the laws of time and space, the clock always goes forward. I checked my watch and the time was definitely five fifteen. After I’d got the emails off, I went back up to the mezzanine where Arabella lives. She was off the phone at last.
“Is your watch working properly Arabella?” I asked, “only, it’s only five fifteen. You haven’t kept me late at all.” It must have been four thirty when she looked at her watch and I seem to have lost the ability to judge the time at all since I started working for her.
In the end I finished just after six and I now have a nice big pile of emails to keep me busy on Tuesday. After a quick chat I left to try out another potential short cut home. Unfortunately I forgot to charge my phone this morning so I couldn’t use the Walkmeter, but I think I’ve cut a couple more minutes off by walking through the estate towards the big block of flats instead of round the outside. I must remember to charge the phone on Tuesday and check it out properly. Now I’m looking forward to a nice long weekend and an early start tomorrow to get a good walk in. I came home with half my lunch still in my lunch bag again too. This job is good for me in so many ways.