5:30AM - My alarm rings, then Rings, then RINGS! I slap the snooze button several times.

6:00AM - I crawl out of bed, stumble to the kitchen, turn the coffee pot on and head for the bathroom.

7:15AM - Having managed, through bleary eyes, to shower, slap on some make-up, do my hair, empty the litter box, feed the cats, make the bed, clean out the coffee pot and dress myself, I climb in the car for the morning ‘crawl-hour.’

8:15AM - The traffic gods have smiled on me. I pull into the parking lot at work, run in to put the coffee on, grab a bowl of oatmeal and take a quick scan of personal e-mail, BP, etc.

8:30AM - I turn on the switchboard and begin going through my office e-mail. This being a Tuesday after a long weekend, there are 86 messages stacked up and I start wading through them one-by-one.

9:00AM - The CEO takes a seat at my desk and goes over some reports that are not getting handled properly by Accounting. During the course of this conversation it becomes apparent that the CEO feels I am at fault for this Accounting error. I bring up a way to avoid the same problem in the future (Communication, folks. For god’s sake, c-o-m-m-u-n-i-c-a-t-i-o-n!!!). The CEO seems to feel that I am placing blame at his door for the issue and continues, ever so pointedly, to explain to me why I am wrong.

9:25AM - I go back to my e-mails - 37 down, 49 to go. Woops, there are now 58 to go. These are mostly daily deposit slips from 41 properties that must be recorded and balanced. Naturally, at least one third of the properties will have missed a day and I will need to begin the back and forth of trying to drag that missing deposit slip out of them, all the while playing the bad guy so that the Regional Managers can remain the good guys.

9:45AM - In between making copies for the VP of Retail, answering phones (100% telemarketers), signing for Fed Ex and filling the fax machine with paper I begin work on the monthly property reports for May; 41 reports that begin and end with me and must be ready to go to Accounting by next Monday. Because this Monday was a holiday, I have one day less in which to get these reports ready this month.

10:00 to 11:30AM - In between working on the monthly reports I: tell 6 people that I don’t know what we are having for lunch, tell 2 people that I don’t know if a tornado is on the way (but the weather outside sure looks ripe for one), tell 5 people that I don’t know where 3 other people are (all at different times, of course), give a detailed list of which of the bosses are here and which aren’t, and where they all are (I’m just guessing here cause no one bothered to tell me), to several people (I lost count of those), make changes to an Investor presentation for the 5th time, listen to the CEO talk about the color choices on PowerPoint and mess around trying to make a custom color that he likes, make changes to the Org Chart for the umpteenth time and spend more time trying to make a custom color that the CEO likes for the Director’s level, give a progress report on the monthly property reports twice, distribute the mail, check in and store an office supply delivery, take a dozen more phone calls from telemarketers, grab a cup of tea and make a run to the bathroom where I realize what this horrible humidity has done to my hair (Oh my god!) and tell at least 5 more people that I don’t know what the boss is bringing for lunch.. I have gotten three-quarters of one report completed. Hmmm….not bad.

11:30 AM - I begin lunch preparations, make tea and lemonade, set up the table, etc., etc., then make 3 trips up and down the stairs (no elevator in our building but that’s ok cause this is great for my sagging ass) to carry lunch up – realize that the boss has brought rippled potato chips (I’m gonna hear about that) with the sandwiches. Go back to work on my monthly property reports.

12:30PM - Time for lunch and time to put a few thoughts to paper.

I started all this because I’m still smarting from that talk with the CEO this morning about that Accounting error. Those reports are not my responsibility and I have never been assigned to watch over them. We have two (2) controllers who should be monitoring those things, which are supposed to be done by three (3) property accountants. I’m the Executive Assistant/Receptionist/Mail Clerk/HR Assistant/IT Helper-Outer/Office Gofer and Deputy Cook & Bottle Washer. Investor reports are not within my bailiwick.

That’s not to say that I’m not capable of doing them and I certainly would not refuse to take on the responsibility. Hell, I have access to all the information that goes into them and I am an expert in Excel. But those three (3) property accountants are pretty damned territorial and whenever someone asks me to encroach onto their territory I always come away missing some skin. So, I don’t encroach unless I can honestly say, “So-and-So told me to.”

It was completely unfair and wrong of the CEO to take me to task over those reports and it was a really shitty start to my day. It was also completely wrong of the CEO to take offense to my suggestion that an e-mail be sent out detailing responsibility for all facets of these reports. My god, not only is it fully within my realm as an Executive Assistant to offer this type of suggestion, my 25+ years of experience demand that I bring up the lack of communication in this office whenever a problem like this arises. And these problems arise often because the communication in this office is practically non-existent.

After that little conversation I wanted to pack my little ditty-bag and crawl off home to hide under the bed and just stay there until someone came along to foreclose and toss me and my cats out into the street. It’s very hard to have no choice other than to be the goat for a boss who likes to take his frustrations out on me. It’s very hard to try and fit into an office where the people have all been working together for years, where I’m the new person and have been given the responsibility of making the office run smoother and more efficiently, which means trying to introduce change (Oh god, no! Not that!). It’s very hard when I go for weeks without any appreciable success, beating my head against brick walls day in and day out, even though I knew coming in that this would be a long, slow and painful process.

And then I think about the alternatives; temp jobs that pay a fraction of what I am now making or no job at all. I think about the fact that I actually got paid yesterday while I took off work for Memorial Day. The uncountable times that someone in this office, most notably the owners, have told me how much they appreciate me and the work I am doing. The wonderful smiles and sweet words with which I am greeted each morning as each person walks in the door. The laughter that I enjoy several times a day while talking to people in the office and on the phone. The feeling of being a part of something, of being a member of a team. The free lunch every day of the week. And back to that paycheck; I think about the feeling I get when I pay my bills on time, the satisfaction of whittling down the enormous debt I ran up while I was out of work, the feeling of security when I fall in bed at night, knowing that I have enough money to pay bills, put gas in my car and eat.

That CEO will always dump on me first before he goes to anyone else in the office over a problem. It’s his way of building up the courage to deal with the people in upper management who probably aren’t nice about him butting into their stuff. The CEO is pretty new to the office, too, being another part of that strategy to make the office run smoother and more efficiently. So, he’s got his own tough row to hoe and I’m betting it’s a little tougher of a row than mine. And this same guy is the one that hired me and agreed to pay me that nice little salary. Not that I think that gives him license to be unfair to me but it does help me see my way out of a funk like the one his behavior sent me into this morning.

Ah, yes, the good life! The working life. The getting paid life. The feeling productive and, sometimes, being appreciated for it life. If you’re smart, you take the good with the bad and, like as not, you get more good than bad. At the very least, you get your bills paid and that, my friends, is a whole lot of good.