Hello office friends! In today’s post, I pontificate on what motivates me as an Executive Assistant and career office professional. TLDR: helping people.
Initially, my motivation was being able to play with office supplies and equipment. My mom used to take me to work at the bank. I was around 12 years old, so not old enough to get a job. To entertain me while she tackled the commercial lending operations, she had me shadow her team members.
I just loved all the office supplies, carbon forms, telexes, and multi-line telephones (remember those?). Yup, I was that weird kid. By the end of the day, I’d learned those jobs. Not that I remember all that now because it was like 400 years ago and I’m not in banking. I loved the office vibe: the energy, the meetings, the jargon, and all the banking customers coming and going to the tellers.
After high school, I didn’t have immediate plans to go to college due to lack of funds. I took my 80+ words per minute typing certificate and searched for office jobs. Weirdly, no one wanted to high an 18 year old kid to run an office. I signed up for several temporary employment agencies.
At first, it was light industrial work, the most memorable being the assembly of hospital inpatient bins. It took several months to get positive feedback from my temporary employers, which helped me make the jump to temp office work.
I loved temp work so much, I did it for 7 years. Admittedly, this was due, in part, to joining the workforce in the Reagan era. I enjoyed avoiding office politics. I could just go to work, rock whatever assignment I was given and leave at the end of the day. As a temp, no one micro-managed me. Expectations were low and my work ethic is high, so the offices I worked got their money’s worth and then some. I didn’t care if it was filing all day, stuffing envelopes, faxing, copying or answering the multi-line phone. It was all good to me. I was helping them and getting work experience.
Temp office work is the ultimate Lazy Girl Job. Being a full-time Executive Assistant or any office professional is NOT a Lazy Girl Job.
As I gained office experience, I found joy in helping my teammates by utilizing my skills to support them.
I grew up working in the office 5 days a week, where everyone sat in the open, taking calls, and having side conversations. You make connections in the office that are not possible when working remotely.
While some days are tough as an EA, I still enjoy helping people solve problems.
Hello office pros. A lot has been going on in my work and life lately. It’s a long post, but this was my first chance to take a breath and provide an update on the latest news from British Columbia. To break the blathering up, I’ve included photos I took from walks near my temp housing.
To recap events: I joined a new team at the beginning of February, supporting two Directors who manage software development teams. One Director has 4 charters, so it’s really like learning 5 teams. In late March, my partner and I moved into temp housing in Vancouver, BC. In April, I spent 3 weeks at the Seattle office for 3 different work events.
May was spent in Vancouver, working and visiting rental properties. We moved into our permanent housing about 2 weeks ago in New Westminster, just off a Sky Train station. My job requires me to be in office 3 days a week. The commute takes about 45 minutes door-to-door.
Relocation services. Overall, the company-provided relocation services were ok. The legal support for getting work permits was very useful. I am on a closed work permit, as an Executive Assistant at Amazon in Vancouver. Every other form of income-generating activities is prohibited, which is why I shut down my coaching services for the time being.
The move itself was mixed: while it was nice to have help, the movers were rigid about packing and unpacking. It turned out to be not as helpful as it sounded. Three weeks into our permanent place, we are still unpacking.
We met with a tax advisor. It sounds like it will be helpful, given we’ll have US and Canadian tax returns to submit for the next 3 years, due to my US Amazon stocks. More to come on the tax front. Interestingly, taxes are submitted for individuals, not households or couples. Probably due to their tax structure, which is based on one’s annual salary.
Cost of living
Holy cats. The cost of living in Vancouver is very high. Housing, mobile service, internet, and food is more expensive than my Internet research led me to believe. Talking to one of my Vancouver peer EA’s recently, costs skyrocketed in the past 5 years. We’ll manage, but it was a shock.
Seattle property
We didn’t want to manage a rental property, so our Seattle townhouse is on the market. Our place is middle-of-the road property for the neighborhood: not fancy enough or have a stunning view to be considered luxury but not entry level either. And there’s the impending announcement from the Fed about interest rates that impacts our potential buyers..
Car import
We like our VW Jetta and are importing it to Canada. This is not covered by the relocation package. US Customs requires the vehicle to be in the US 72 hours before importing. The options for importing the car were: set up the paperwork before we landed in Canada, hire an import service that would transport the car, or do it ourselves. The job change and move happened very quickly and there wasn’t time to set up the import before we left.
My new team
I want to share a bit about the scale of my previous orgs, to help understand my new one. I started Amazon in 2020 supporting 2 leaders in an org spread across the US and Canada and about 8,000 associates. Eighteen months later, I followed one of my leaders to another RME org with about 3000 associates and supporting 3 leaders. The larger org reporting structured changed several times. In my first 4 years, I experienced everything from no Lead EA to very engaged Lead. My current leader’s orgs total about 200 associates and the larger orgs is around 600 associates, with 6 EAs, with 2 Lead EAs, who are both very engaged.
After 4.5 years as an EA, I find I prefer smaller organizations with an engaged Lead EA to provide structure and guidance. I may be an experienced administrative professional, but there is always something new to learn. Changing teams, at least at Amazon, involve learning different processes. Not radically different, mind you, just different enough that it adds to the emotional toll of relocating for the job.
How I stay organized
This job change involved a lot of firsts for me: a new team at Amazon, a new team of software developers (I’m still learning what it is they do), relocation for my job and moving to another country.
My partner and I have been using Google Keep for our shared shopping lists for quite a while. It made sense to create a new shared list to track move-related tasks.
The email exchanges with my Amazon relocation partners primarily used my work email, so I added a color category and inbox folder for Canada. My general rule of thumb is to over-communicate with contractors. I give people the benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise. One of my contractors vanished without warning shortly after we moved into temp housing. This delayed getting in touch with the local contact assigned to help us find permanent housing. Further, we had to spend an extra month in our temp place, on our dime.
Once we got in touch with our local contact, we discovered we should have been introduced before we landed in Canada. They had a plethora of moving resources that we didn’t get to take advantage of.
As for work, I’m focusing on the core skills as I learn my new leaders and teams. I stuck with my tried and true methods of organizing: color categories, Quick Parts, Quick Steps. I added task management with Asana to the mix and created a meeting request form for my leaders.
How Ya Gonna Pay for that?
While we had company resources and limited funds to help with our relocation, we still needed money to set up our temp and permanent place. When my partner and I reviewed the pros and cons before I accepted this role, we discussed the state of our finances. I had money in savings from my mom’s estate and used that as seed money for the move. While we could have done it without these funds, it would have left a large dent in our savings.
Life in Vancouver BC
We’ve been in beautiful British Columbia for 3 months. Vancouver is a gorgeous city. Everyone is friendly. People are happy, apart from the cost of living.
The sunlight (when the sun is shining) is amazing – my hubby says it looks like Golden Hour all the time. Downtown Vancouver is close to mountains, a couple of rivers, and I hear, the Pacific Ocean, but we haven’t ventured that far yet. On a clear day, I can see Mt. Baker from my desk at work. As I write this post, we’re in June-uary: it’s sunny and glorious for a couple days with temperatures in the upper 20s/lower 30s C. Then it’s cool and rainy for a couple days. And the rain. Like Seattle, there must be 30 different kinds of rain here.
Then there are the little things. The first time we asked where the restrooms were located, our waitress asked, “You’re Americans, aren’t you?” Parking lots are called parkades (thanks, Deborah for the head’s up on that). Garbage disposals are called garbertators.
I downloaded the Smart Tools to convert imperial to metric.
CBC1 radio plays entire an entire song every morning. One morning, it was a Klaus Nomi song!
Civil servants are both happy AND helpful.
ATM cards work almost everywhere. Restaurants are not allowed to take your card. Instead, they bring a card reader to your table.
We are living in a civilized country.
The traffic is crazy at rush hour. My 33 minute train ride home would take close to an hour in a car. There are Downtown Vancouver streets that are reserved for commercial vehicles. Public bus drivers honk at everything (guess who took a wrong turn down a commercial-only street?) At least 2 cars run every red light. Blinking green lights means pedestrians can push the cross walk button and stop traffic. Malls are everywhere, huge and crammed with people.
What’s next
Driver’s license. We have our temporary BC driver’s licenses, which involved the ICBC (Canadian version of the department of motor vehicles), taking away our state driver’s licenses. Yes, that was a terrifying moment. We got US Passport cards, which turned out to be good so we have a valid photo ID with us at all times until our BC licenses arrive…in 3 months. Our BC IDs allow us to get BC library cards, which will be great for saving money by borrowing audiobooks and ebooks.
Car import. The car will be imported at the end of June. It’s not required but is recommended when staying in Canada more than 6 months. Plus, it is the only way to get our car registered.
Settling in. We’re still unpacking and settling into our new home. We lived in our Seattle place for 22 years and completely remodeled it during our time there. We have all our belongings but they are scattered around, so it’s like our home and yet it’s not. We think everything made it here, but won’t know until we get through all the boxes and bins. Our offices are set up just enough to work remotely. New Westminster is a lovely city and we are within walking distance of restaurants, movie theater, coffee and tea shops, and, yes, a mall.
Finding health care providers. We have temporary health insurance through out employers but in BC, a health card and residence for 90 days is required to sign up for a primary care provider. So it’s walk-in clinics (that still require an appointment…?) and virtual medical care for another month. Once we get our health cards, we’ll get on a wait list for a general practitioner. Like the States, Canada has a severe shortage of primary care providers.
Making friends. We didn’t know anyone (apart from my manger) before moving here. The 6 Amazon EAs in Vancouver have a monthly coffee chat and I’m making time to join the group whenever possible.
IAAP has a Western Canada branch. There are no events on the calendar right now, but I’m keeping my eyes that. I just found the Canadian Association of Administrative Professionals; members based in Western Canada are considered members-at-large but they do have events and a conference.
For my hobbies, I joined the Vancouver ball-jointed doll group that has a lively Facebook chats I’ve participated in. I’ve considered joining a local photography club, but haven’t investigated options. Vancouver has a film festival that I’m sure we’ll get to at some point. We’re also planning to get out and hike this summer – this area is gorgeous and great for day hikes. All great options for making friends.
You know, as soon as we put ourselves out there. We’re still feeling a bit raw, homesick and a touch overwhelmed after 2 moves in as many months.
What’s the worst that can happen? We talked about living in Canada for so long and couldn’t pass up the chance to try. After a couple years, we could decide we don’t like it and move back to the States.
Although it has been difficult at times, I’m grateful for this opportunity. It will take effort to build a local network but will be worthwhile. The Mister and I took a big risk moving to a new country and starting over, but taking risks is where growth happens.
What risks are you taking in life and your career? Drop a comment and let me know. I want to know what you’re up to and cheer you on!
