Another day as a Personal Assistant

Another day as a personal assistant

As a Professional Personal Assistant for a local Atlanta company; I have 4 – 5 clients at a time and that is because most of my clients do not need a full time personal assistant but need someone that can help them on a part time basis.

My clients are not celebrities but successful people in their respective industries. The one thing they have in common is that they value their time and have no problem delegating tasks or chores that take away from their valuable time.

The main purpose of my job is to make my client’s life easier. My clients requests can vary from simple tasks such as dusting the furniture to more complex requests like “I am having a dinner party for 20 Friday evening, make it happen”. No matter how strange or ridiculous the requests are I am always up for the challenge.

This week my more routine requests were ironing clothes, taking the pet to the vet, placing an ad for rent. My more interesting requests were making travel arrangements to Paris and buying a gift for a 21 year old college kid.

One of the most common questions I get is how do you make so many things happen in such a limited time frame. My answer is that I rely heavily on my extensive list of contacts with various local and international service providers.

Comcast…not so Comcastic

Comcast…not so Comcastic

Sometimes the more routine requests from my clients are not so routine. When my client requested that I wait for the Comcast technician to install an additional outlet in his home I was certain that this was going to be an easy job. I was going to complete the light housekeeping tasks and make some appointments for him while waiting for the Comcast guy between the hours of 8 – 11am.

By 10:30, I had completed all the tasks that had been delegated; I called Comcast to make sure that the technician was still on the way. After been on hold for a couple minutes I was connected to a customer service representative that informed me the job order was still open and the technician would show up any minute. She said that I should call back at 11:01 if the technician was not there yet. At 10:45 I got a call from a Comcast dispatcher and he informed me that the technician was going to be a little late because his first job ran late and he gave me a new time frame from 11:00 am to 1:00 o’clock. I asked if he could narrow down the time frame when the technician would come and he rudely explained that he had more than 200 customers that day and he did not have the time of day to call the technician to get a better time frame, he also rudely remarked that I could always reschedule the appointment for another day the following week between 8 -11am….yeah right.

I called my client and explained the situation and he asked me if I could stay and I could work on his laundry. At 1pm the first load was done but the Comcast technician had not arrived I called customer service again and they informed me that the technician was still at the first job and he would be there shortly. At 1:45 pm the Comcast guys arrived…wait a minute they were not Comcast employees but sub-contactors dressed in low hanging jeans and semi-clean t-shirts. They also arrived in an SUV not the Comcast van. They walked into the house and made no apologies for being late.

The taller one immediately asked if I would like cable under the table for $150 for the year. I politely declined and he continued to persuade me that this was a great deal and if I experienced any problems I could always reach him on his cell….ah huh. I firmly declined and he got noticeably angry that the deal was not closed he hurried installed the outlet and then he called the dispatcher to say that he is running late because I requested 4 additional outlets to be installed. I am still stunned when he gives me the paperwork to sign acknowledging that he installed 5 outlets instead of 1. How can this be? I signed the paperwork and on his way out he asked where his tip was and I had a few things I wanted to say to him but I said that I was not going to tip them because they were late. Once they got to their SUV they decided to clean it leaving trash on the driveway…. called Customer service and explained my experience….I got the trained answer of “I am sorry about the service”...but I was able to get the 4 fake installations off the bill.