Hello friends! As more employers reduce their workforce and expect the survivors to do more with less, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. In this post, I share my strategies to manage feeling overwhelmed at work.
Trust me, I get it. From May – September 2025, I provided interim support to my org’s Vice President while continuing to support my Director. I have nearly daily panic attacks with the volume of work. I can’t take a day off spur of the moment. I’ve had to push through the anxiety and get shit done.
In this context, feeling overwhelmed is related to high work volume plus the expectation that the EAs deliver perfect work product 100% of the time. The stress amps up whenever one of us is out of the office for three or more weeks, due to medical leaves, unexpected illnesses, and taking the PTO we’ve earned. At this moment, we each support 2 Directors so when we need to cover for one of the team members, two of us have 3 Directors each.
Here are my go-to strategies to manage job-related anxiety and overwhelm.
Walk away from my computer
I sometimes get frazzled, and my mind fixates on some stupid, minor detail or mistake that won’t let go. When I recognize it, I lock my computer and walk away. The kitchen on my floor is centrally located and my desk is in a far corner. I will get a glass of water or make a cup of tea. On a tough day, I take the long way around and walk the perimeter of the floor. When I return to my desk, my brain has settled down.
Make a list
I take out my notebook and a pen and start making a list of everything I need to do: meetings to reschedule with dates and names, event planning tasks, project work, and reminders that occur in the moment.
Tasks are then stack-ranked by importance. If you’re unsure of how to rank tasks, I recommend using an Eisenhower Matrix, aka the Priority Matrix. Subscribers can find my post on this topic here.
Get a second opinion
Sometimes, I’ll come up with solutions and then wonder if my head is stuck too far up my own ass to see clearly. That’s when I reach out to my Lead EA, my mentor, or one of my team EAs and run my ideas past them.
There you have it, my top 3 tips for managing overwhelm at work. Sometimes you have to focus on the basics.
I hope these simple ideas help you the next time you feel overwhelmed at work.
What are your strategies for calming down at work? Drop a comment and share your tips. Sharing is caring!
Hello office pros. In today’s post, I’m sharing my results, thoughts, and philosophy of mentoring peers. It’s an article I’ve had on the back burner for a while, and is a bit more personal.
Being data-driven, I regularly update my resume and review my various trackers. The recent review was prompted by my application for Permanent Residence in Canada, which requires a current resume.
My career in a nutshell
In case you’re new here, I’m a career office professional with experience as a project manager and cost analyst in cancer research studies. I joined Amazon as an L4 EA in January 2020. In April 2022, I was promoted to L5 EA and received feedback to share knowledge with my peers. I received my first mentee in 2022 and joined the Amazon EA in Training Program as a Mentor. In 2023, I launched the EA Mentor and my coaching business. In 2024, I closed my mentoring business after moving to Canada on a closed work permit.
My mentees & results
I’ve mentored eight EAs since 2022; all were L4 EAs (entry level Executive Assistant) when we started working together.
Of these eight, five were officially mentored for 6 months – 3 years, with a regular cadence of meetings. Two operated at Level 2 (transactional); one EA left Amazon and the other is languishing at their current level. Two operate at Level 3 (transactions + strategic) with one being promoted to L5 EA in 2024. The fifth EA operated at Level 4 (strategic) and left Amazon to become the EA Business Partner to the CFO at a multinational software company.
The others were mentored on an ad hoc basis, and all operated at Level 2 (transactional). One left Amazon, and the others languish at their current level.
I currently mentor two EAs who operate at Level 3: my L5 EA is thriving in her current org and level. Promotion to L6 is not out of reach but she needs to decide if that’s her path. The other EA has been at Amazon for 6 months and needs another 6 months in the role before her manager can submit a promo doc. Both L5 and L6 EA roles are within her reach.
My thoughts
After reviewing my data and having a good think about all the EAs I’ve worked with, I’ve found high-performing EAs share the following traits:
Approachable
Asks questions
Takes notes
Takes ownership
Critical thinking skills
Sees the Big Picture
Detail oriented
Very organized
Identifies issues AND brings potential solutions
My mentoring philosophy
My role is to:
help my mentee reach their career goals
provide training and guidance
act as a sounding board for ideas
brainstorm solutions
be objective
serve as a feedback provider for their promo doc
to learn as much from them
I set the expectation that our conversations are confidential. Our sessions are conversational, with questions arising from the discussion. I try to understand their org, projects, team dynamics, etc., so I can provide effective annual and promo doc feedback.
When my Lead EA assigned my first mentee, I was excited and nervous. It was up to me to assess this EA and provide feedback to my Lead. Years later, I understand the purpose of this assignment.
At first glance, I felt I’d failed. In fact, I did my best. They were not able or willing to live up to expectations and quit abruptly.
My learnings
I’ve been an office pro since the dawn of desktop computers. I don’t pretend to know everything because, well, I don’t. I enjoy learning new subjects, skills, and ways to solve problems.
I don’t intend to be a global EA influencer, speak at admin conferences, or write articles beyond this blog. I know my strengths, and I’m at my best working one-on-one. I can and do speak in front of groups. I tend to be a bit silly – not that you can tell from these posts, thanks to years of technical writing.
What I learn from my mentees:
solutions I would not have come up with on my own
a new tool or mechanism
ideas for team events
looking at this career with fresh eyes
When I had the idea for this article, I thought my success rate would be around 20%. Doing the math, I find 37.5% of my mentees are successful. While I play a role in their success, it’s up to them to take responsibility for their career.
My younger sister and I love classical literature. Since January 2024, we’ve been reading Norton’s Anthology of World Literature Volume A. We meet online every week and discuss what we learned, liked and didn’t like about the reading. Clearly, this is how I operate best, so why fight it?
Data aside, I like everyone I’ve mentored and consider them friends, no matter how our mentoring relationship turned out. We’ve spent a lot of time together. They’re good people.
The Executive Assistant career isn’t easy, but it can be rewarding for both mentor and mentee. If you don’t have a mentor, I highly recommend finding one. If you’re more experienced, share your knowledge and help out a peer. There’s always more to learn if you’re willing to try.
In today’s post, I share stories of EA interview examples gone wrong and what to say instead using real interview answers that I’ve summarized. I’ll break down the answers, point out what went wrong and give an alternative answer for each.
Yes, interviewing can be nerve-wracking but we’re EAs. We expect the unexpected by planning for various scenarios. Interviewing should be no different. You’re answering questions about your own career.
The STAR method is a great way to craft your examples. STAR stands for Situation, Task, Actions, Results. What does Results mean for interviews? Provide enough data to back up the story and demonstrate impact. See my post on EA Interview Prop for more information and a Google Sheets template you can use for your own career accomplishments.
EAs hold confidential information that can’t be shared; interviewers get that. Phase the story in a way that gives enough context with data and impact.
Be prepared
Don’t over-simplify, use catch phrases or fluff words. Support examples with data. Be prepared but don’t over-prepare, which sounds rehearsed. Keep your answers crisp.
One candidate strictly followed the STAR format: “This was the situation…these are the tasks and actions I took…these were the results.” It was endearing that they took the instructions literally.
In this example, the candidate was asked about tough feedback they received.
“I was new to this team and asked to do tasks by certain timeframe sent via email from the leader to the EA team. I thought I understood the task, tried to get more detail from the leader and was scolded for the errors when the leader replied to all to this email.”
What went wrong
The interviewee threw the leader under the bus by telling me about the email scolding which came across as a tactic for eliciting sympathy or being manipulative, after stating they repeatedly nagged their executive for more information. They admitted to acting on incorrect assumptions.
Why the leader wouldn’t give out more information does not matter. What matters is the candidate hit the first wall and proceeded anyway.
The other EAs were not new. Some had likely done this task in the past. The interviewee could have gone to one of their peers and asked for help but didn’t. THIS was the take away from the experience.
EAs need to work with minimal instructions but, in this case, they were new to the role. As the newbie, you get to ask all the questions. This is the time because in 6 or so months, your leader and peers will be irritated by your basic questions. If the person person doesn’t know, ask them who can help you. For the most part, your coworkers want to help you. Excluding, of course, the office bullies and narcissists. This will show you who you can trust and who you can’t. It will likely be a painful lesson. Better to find out early than get a surprise knife in the back later.
What to say instead
We all make mistakes, small or horrifically large. We’re human. Own your mistakes and learn from them.
I completed 3 tasks by the deadline but found out 2 were wrong because I didn’t ask for more information. I realize now that I wasted 5 hours on the wrong tasks when I should have checked with the other EAs about the distribution of tasks and ask clarifying questions on what I was supposed to do.
Be succinct
Don’t ramble before getting to question at hand. Keep it short. Be specific. Anticipate follow-up questions and be prepared with details.
The candidate was asked about working against tight deadlines.
I agreed to take on a 2nd full-time role with no knowledge or prior experience; however, I jumped in, learned the role and managed expiring contracts, the RFP process, wrote company guidelines, provided regular updates to leadership, saved the company significant money, and successfully executing the new contracts on time.
What went wrong
The candidate took over 15 minutes to answer the question with no data or results. I asked follow-up questions for data and results and they were prepared with some data but fell back on fluff answers.
In the moment, I was mildly impressed with the answers but something didn’t sit right with me. Reviewing my notes later and talking with the EA who shadowed me, I was put off by this candidate.
The follow-up questions revealed several red flags. The candidate: threw their leader under the bus by saying he didn’t understand the program; they threw the previous person under the bus by saying the data were wrong; the candidate was supporting a half dozen other executives until they got assigned this second job. They disparaged one of the executives. In another question, they disparaged a peer.
This example came across as bragging: no one else was capable of doing this 2nd job so it was up to the candidate to save the day. They did not indicate if they wrote a procedure manual or trained the next person. All of their answers were self-centered, even though they claimed to be a team player.
Yes, the interview is about you, but we’re part of a larger team: our leaders, their directs, peers, everyone else at the company. When you’re in it for yourself or praise, this will show up in your answers.
It’s possible that none of that was their intention, but their non-verbal communication contradicted their words. The candidate’s body language screamed: their awesome resume and these half-assed answers should sell me on hiring them for an entry level EA role.
If I ignored the less flattering aspects of this interview, there was a risk this candidate would use this job as a foot in the door then transfer out at the first possible opportunity. This particular team needed a solid, entry level EA who could grow into the the next level.
What to say instead
Anything but what they said? Seriously, though:
Option 1: The candidate expressed no further interest in pursuing the second job. Accepting the 2nd job showed poor judgment on their part. They had more than enough EA experience to come up with a story that demonstrated their skills and ability to push back. I would take the second job off the resume and never speak of it again.
Option 2: Re-word the answer to a summary. Admit they didn’t have all the answers and omit the empty phrases. As part of the lessons learned: acknowledge they sacrificed their health and admit how many hours they actually worked on 2 full-time jobs.
Be humble
As EAs, calendaring, travel coordination and expense reporting are core to the role.
The candidate was asked how they manage their leader’s calendar. If this had been a phone screen, the answer would be perfectly fine. Not earth-shattering, but they were competent: time blocks, color coding, etc.
What went wrong
The candidate’s body language, sarcastic tone, huffing sounds and eye rolling demonstrated they were irritated at having to answering a “basic” question.
What do say instead
Great question! I put a 2 hour, daily time blocks on my execs calendar. We use these blocks for reminders with links to documents that need reviewing or training to take. I use color coding so my exec can see at a glance which meetings are top priority and which are optional. My exec loves being able to know at a glance which meetings are important. He loves the work blocks; they keep him on track and he saves time by not having to dig through emails or folders to find what he’s looking for. Our work block system saves him 2 hours per week.
Don’t be offensive
Never make racist, ageist, culturally insensitive, gender, weight or other such remarks. You know very little about the person you’re speaking with or what they’ve been through.
The candidate was asked to share a time they helped a struggling peer.
They created a mentoring program to help up-skill the EA team. Most were onboard, but one was old fashioned and struggling with the technology.
What went wrong
The candidate made the assumption that I was their age. I’m not.
In 2024, there are 6 generations in the workplace. Age has nothing to do with ability. I’ve met Boomer EAs who are advanced Office Suite users and EAs younger than me who can’t make a pivot table to save their life and actively avoid using Excel because of it.
What to say instead
Rather than complain about coworkers who less skilled than you are, explain how you coached the team on, let’s say Outlook. For example, you heard several peers complain about the hour they spend every week writing the same email over and over. After talking with a few other EAs, you identify 10 peers with a similar complaint.
I created a lunch & learn to teach 10 EAs how to create and use Outlook Quick Parts. My training saved the group 10 hours per week, or 520 hours per year. A month later, I followed up with everyone to see how they were doing and learned each was so excited about what they learned and the time saved that each one created 4 more Quick Parts. In total, I saved 10 EAs 50 hours per week or 2,600 hours per year.
For a sense of scale on the savings, the average work hours available per year is 2080 (assumes 2 weeks of vacation per person).
I hope these examples help you with preparing your interview answers. Conduct an honest self-assessment of your skills. Check out my post on how to conduct a SWOT analysis to find and bridge your knowledge gaps.
Hello there! In this post, I provide tips on how to prepare for an EA interview using my numbers as an example of how to collect, analyze and summarize data. Data management is skill that will move you from tactical support to strategic business partner.
We’ll focus on using data for interview preparation. If you’re not comfortable with spreadsheets and summarizing data, this is an easy, low-risk way to experiment with a spreadsheet and learn the basics of summarizing data so when your exec drops a data project in your lap, you’ll be somewhat prepared.
Make your life easier by getting in the habit of regularly tracking your work. You can create your own tracker or download a copy the EA Tracker Logs Template I created in Google Sheets. This worksheet is designed specifically for EA Mentor subscribers and is for Personal Use Only.
Collect data
It’s tough to remember everything you worked on over the course of one year. Don’t rely on your memory; set up a system to periodically review your work. Six months from now, you’re unlikely to recall every detail. As a back-up keep all the contracts, invoices, receipts, key emails from the past year. Check your company’s document retention policy and take steps to ensure you keep your important documents until the end of the year.
For example: time block quarterly career updates on your calendar and make a folder for the current year where you save executed contracts, invoices, receipts (after you’ve been reimbursed) and purchase orders.
The maths involved are basic algebra. Set up a simple tracker and use pivot tables to summarize data. Simple means: little to no formatting, dates, numbers, type, costs, descriptions and notes. When a column is formatted for currency, for example, do not enter additional notes in this cell. You won’t be able to use formula or pivot tables to analyze data. Instead, enter a comment or add a column at the end to enter notes.
If you plan to use a pivot table, do not leave skip a row or column. If you’re using formulae, you could skip a row, but then you’ll need to work on understanding how the spreadsheet app uses formulae. It may or may not work the same way you learned maths in school.
A spreadsheet is not a word processor
It is a tool to collect and analyze data. The more simply you enter data in your log, the more power you have to analyze the data. You’ll be able to combine formulae and pivot tables to great effect.
Get creative in how you present the data: copy and paste your summary tables into your word processing app and joosh it up there. In Excel, you can use the formatting tools on the summary table.
Solicit feedback
At the end of every team off-site I coordinate, I set aside time at the end for the group to discuss and share what went well and what could be improved. The pros & cons were written on the meeting room dry erase board and recorded in my notes.
For me, I collected feedback from the team, good and bad: food, venue, overall event, technology. Feedback is not who I am. It is a measure of how well I performed my job.
One of my first team summits was at a recently renovated hotel. The hotel was open to hosting conferences for a couple weeks (this was in the early days of Covid lockdown). The hotel staff were unprepared to troubleshoot their new teleconference system effectively during my 3 day conference and we had a lot to get through. I couldn’t afford to fuck around with tech, so I improvised. The result was suboptimal but it kept the conference on time. I expected and received negative feedback. As a result, I put together an off-site tech kit with a Jabra speaker for the next time I had to host an event in a hotel.
Analyze data
To demonstrate how to analyze data, I’ll share my experience coordinating team off-sites as if I were preparing the data for an interview.
My event experience from 2022-2023
At this time, I supported 3 leaders with three business units. Each business unit held team off-sites 3 times per year, which included catering, team dinner and team event. I was typically given 3-4 weeks to pull together events. This was during lockdown, so it was relatively easy to coordinate meeting rooms and lodging. Catering was a bit more difficult, but I managed. I attended these events to provide onsite support, take notes, participate and meet the leadership team in person.
Sample data and pivot table
The EA Tracker Logs Template includes a sample Events tracker and sample pivot table. I’m more versed in Excel but I used that knowledge to create a very simple pivot table to summarize event data by organization with total in-person and virtual attendees.
Play around with the pivot table or create one for your own data and play with it.
Using my tracker template, you can filter or sort your event data to get summary data. As the data in your tracker grows, pivot tables will become your friend.
Prep the story
I use the STAR method to prepare my interview stories: Situation, Task, Action, Results. In the post, EA Interviewing Tips, I use real-world interview stories to demonstrate the STAR method.
Using my own data from the past 5 years, I can demonstrate my ability to organize domestic and international events with globally dispersed team and negotiate contracts. Of course, I would tailor this story to suit the role I was applying for:
In the past 5 years, I’ve organized 17 team off-sites. Three of these were virtual, 3 were in-person only and 11 had in-person and virtual attendees. These events had an average of 21 in-person attendees and 8 virtual attendees. The smallest team off-site had 11 attendees and the largest had 80. The off-sites were held in 6 cities across the US with 14 team dinners in the US and 1 catered lunch in Edinburgh.
Benefits
Coordinating 9 events in 2 years on top of all my other responsibilities was tiring. I was running on fumes. It was at this point that I created an event-specific tracker. My goal was to persuade my leaders to schedule their off-sites at the same time and location, so I could effectively and efficiently coordinate these events.
Results
I presented my event summary data to all three leaders. They were all sympathetic. One leader wasn’t interested and the other two said they’d think about it.
By the time the other two agreed it was a good idea, I’d accepted the offer for the role I’m in. My efforts didn’t even help the next EA because these business units were split apart.
The point of the exercise is to try and come prepared with data. Sometimes, the answer is no.
Impact
I sometimes feel my events with 40 people are small when compared to other EAs who coordinate very large events. However, while my off-sites seem small (to me), they impact a lot of people. These team off-sites are used to help the team track projects and goals, develop the plan to move forward in the short term and set goals for future projects.
In the past 5 years, I’ve worked in 3 different organizations. It’s important to step back and get a sense of scale for how many people are impacted by these events. A key component of explaining your results is to demonstrate the impact of your efforts. Here are the numbers of people represented by my team off-sites:
Org #1: 8,000 employees, 5 business units, leadership team of 36 and 1 EA. While the group supported the larger, Operations team with tens of thousands of employees, the ultimate customers are the people who buy products from Amazon.com -over 300 million global registered Amazon users.
Org #2 had over 3,000 employees, 2 business units, a leadership team of 28 and 2 EAs, until 1 Director and their EA left in mid-2022. This team also supported the Operations organization and people who buy from Amazon.com.
Org #3 had 2 Directors who manage completely unrelated teams. The smaller team has just under 100 and the other team, my manager has 300 employees. Their work supports all Amazon employees of near 2 million globally.
Risks or sacrifices?
Risks and how I mitigate them:
Technology can fail. I bring my small tech kit and the contact info for the local tech support.
For one event, I’d negotiated room blocks for all attendees. Four people didn’t use their room and I had to pay for one night x 4 rooms as a penalty. The hotel agreed to release these rooms for the remainder of the off-site at no additional cost, with a total cost for unused rooms of about $1000. In deep diving why the rooms weren’t used: one person didn’t need a room, three didn’t show up and they had not responded to the invite. My lesson learned was to 1) confirm whether or not attendees needed hotel rooms and 2) contact each non-responded to confirm attendance. I updated my off-site tracker moving forward and did not repeat this mistake.
When I was in Org #2 with 2 EAs, I asked the other EA to help me find hotels and team event venues for 3 off-sites.
After the other EA in Org #2 left, I didn’t ask for help but should have and it cost my health: exhausted, crabby and heading toward burnout. This when when compiled event data to present options to leadership in an effort to change how we run team off-sites. We all need help from time to time and I would ask for help in the future.
Building relationships
I was unable to attend one team off-site in Dallas due to a mild upper respiratory infection (URI) and attended remotely. It was bad enough that I didn’t want to fly but not so bad that I couldn’t work.
Let’s say I’m in an interview and am asked: How effective was the remote support and why didn’t you ask another EA to attend?
With the EA team was scattered across the US, none were in the location of this off-site. My URI appeared late afternoon before my trip. I’m west coast based and everyone else was on the east coast. By the time I realized I should not fly, the others had signed off for the day and I felt I needed to ask attendees to help. I’d built relationships with my teams and key stakeholders. I asked a couple of people to do specific, small tasks throughout the meeting: pick up the catering, get AV assistance get to the event venue early. One onsite attendee reached out to ask where I was. They thought I onsite because I knew everything that was going on and were surprised to learn I was in Seattle.
Follow-up question: Could you have done anything differently?
I could have reached out to my peers as soon as I realized I was sick to ask if anyone could travel to the event. Even if the answer was no, at least I asked the EA team for help.
I hope this post helps you understand the importance of collecting and analyzing data to help you prepare for interviews, a promotion or update you job description. Managing and analyzing data is a key skill to help EAs transition to a strategic business partner.
Hello there! Today’s post shares a workbook I created to help people who want to become an EA but have no prior office professional experience.
It took me many months to land my current EA role. I had the experience, but lacked compelling interview stories and impactful data. My resume was in need of an update and my mentor gave me some great feedback.
Before you start, check out my post What It Takes to Become an EA and come back to this post if you’re still interested in the role.
If you’re already an EA, you may find the workbook useful to evaluate your current role and determine how your skills map to the next level or to other EA roles you’re interested in.
A disclaimer: there is no guarantee you’ll land an EA role by completing the workbook exercises. This is a competitive role and you’ll be competing against highly qualified applicants with years of experience as an EA. Don’t let this stop you. Just be prepared and keep trying.
Update: 2025/01/12: I’ve remixed the original email videos into one video. The new video has chapters, so you can watch each lesson then come back to it for the next one.
I’ve created this 7-day challenge workbook to help you. Take as much time as you need to do the exercises. Each lesson builds on the previous one.
This workbook can be printed or used with a pdf annotation app. It was created specifically for EA Mentor readers and is for personal use only.
Here are the sections of the workbook:
Identify your transferrable skills
In this lesson, you’ll make a comprehensive list of your current skills. Next, you’ll look at job postings for an Executive Assistant. You’ll select 3 that match some of your skills and create a skills map that compares your skills to the required/preferred skills in your 3 listings.
Complete a SWOT analysis
In this lesson, you’ll use a SWOT analysis, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The first three are pretty obvious.
Think of Threats as your obstacles. How much do you need to learn? How much will it cost to improve the skills you’ve identified as Weaknesses? Is Gen AI really a threat? If so, what do you think you need to overcome it?
Take stock and take action
This lesson is a bit of a break. Time to stop and reflect on what you’ve learned in the first two lessons before you move on.
Boost your strengths, overcome weaknesses
In this lesson, you examine both your strengths and weaknesses and determine what you can do to level up your strengths and kick your weaknesses to the curb.
Use a Priority Matrix to rank your opportunities
In this less, you’ll learn how to use a Priority Matrix to stack rank your opportunities to determine what you need to urgently work on before you apply for an EA role.
Create SMART goals to plan your strategy
Once you’ve completed the Priority Matrix, in this lesson, you set SMART goals to keep your progress going. There is also a bonus To Do list page.
Review your progress and celebrate!
The final lesson is another reflection: what you learned, determine next steps and why. And to celebrate. You did it.
Once you completed the workbook, you have a better idea if the EA role is right for you. Whether or not you pursue an EA role, you now have more information about your skill set and career goals.
Hello there! This is a follow-up to my Social Media Deep Clean, after spending time on LinkedIn recently to read some articles in my feed. I ran across about personal branding for EAs by making the most of your LinkedIn profile. I don’t recall the poster because frankly, this topic comes up every few months. In this post, I contribute to this topic and provide my top 5 ideas for managing your LinkedIn profile.
Back in the early days, LinkedIn was the upscale alternative to other resume and job posting sites. It was professional, allowed people to build their network, and provided an outlet to show one’s area of expertise.
Nowadays, it’s just like the other social media sites with sponsored content, messages from marketing/sales people trying to sell you fill-in-the-blank, and another algorithm to game, if you’re into that.
The term personal branding puts me off. It feels like a professional human is reduced to a marketing campaign for a fancy cheese. To make it more palatable to me, I prefer to reframe LinkedIn as a professional tool.
My advice is:
Look at your LinkedIn profile as if it’s someone else
Update your profile each time you change jobs
Update your profile headline and keep is short
Keep the descriptions of each role short
Pick 1 or 2 articles and post a thoughtful comment
What makes a “good” LinkedIn profile changes every few years. If nothing else, the RIFs of the past couple of years demonstrates that anyone can be looking for a new job at any time. Best to be prepared.
Finally, I recommend setting a time limit on how much social media you consume. My personal limit is 3 ads, then I walk away to do something productive or creative.
Hello EA pros! I hope you’re doing well. Today I have a quick post with a couple of updates.
Theme change
I had to change themes. The previous theme’s mandatory all caps theme bothered me. While I liked it at first, I felt like I was shouting and found I missed the minimalist black and white theme.
This is what happens when I come back to my site after a break: I find I’m bored with the theme and make a change. Yes, it’s busy work. I should actually be writing content, not fiddling around with the theme.
Plans
With 8 months in Canada under my belt and thinking about what I want this site to be, I’m going to stick with what I do best: share practical information, tips and tricks for EAs, including written journaling. I truly feel keeping a journal is one of the best things an EA can do for themselves
That’s not to say that other admin professionals can’t benefit from any materials on this site, but the focus is returning to the EA role.
What brought this on was a LinkedIn article I read about building your brand. I cringe whenever I read these “branding yourself” makes me feel like a fancy cheese or part of a skeevy marketing campaign. Semantic yes, but words matter. You won’t hear me talk about “building your brand.” You’re not a fancy cheese. You’re an EA and a dang good one. You want to present yourself as such. This probably makes me old fashioned. So be it.
Anywho, when I updated my LinkedIn profile recently, I thought: some of the now removed content on creative journals is not how I want to present myself. Hence the site updates. The great thing is that we can re-invent ourselves at any time. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.
What’s not changing: most site content will be restricted to subscribers. There are no fees or charges. Subscribing is the mechanism I use in place of newsletters. I like data, which is anonymous, unless, of course you leave a comment. I have to admit that not having the pressure of running a business has been a relief.
I’d like EA Mentor to be a safe place for EAs to visit, learn and be with like-minded peers.
Thanks for spending time with me today.
Are there topics you’d like me to cover? What are your plans for the next 4 months? Drop a comment and let’s discuss!
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!
Hello Chaos Coordinators! As you may know, I recently changed departments and support 2 new leaders. Both teams create intranet apps that impact all Amazonians.
Being new, I expected a return to more tactical work while I learn to work with these l leaders and teams. As an experienced EA and career admin, I’m impatient to dive into strategic work.
I remind myself to be patient and focus on the basics of scheduling, ordering catering, etc. Demonstrating the basics earns trust with my new coworkers. Taking on more strategic work will come in time.
It doesn’t matter how much experience you have. Each time you change jobs, you have to prove yourself to a whole new group of people.
I was at a turning point: after 4 years, I could stay comfortable with my leaders and coast for a while (as much as one can coast at Amazon). Or, I could take a chance on unknown leaders, learn something new and keep my skills sharp. With an opportunity to live and work in a new country?
Hello admin pros! I’ve started and revised this post several times over the past couple of weeks. I’ve been with my new team, at the Seattle office, for 5 weeks. This post chronicles my job transfer within the US and preparation for relocation to Canada.
On Feb 6, my work assignment changed to my new teams. These teams don’t overlap, so I have to learn two business units. They are similar in that they internal network resources for Amazonians, but that’s where the similarly ends. I’m enjoying getting to know my new leaders, teams and EA peers.
Both teams are pushing hard on goals due in Q3, so the pace is already fast. Contrasted to my previous team, Q1 and Q2 were generally slower following the fevered pace of peak holiday shopping.
In terms of moving to Canada, I was offered two relocation options:
a cash payout where the employee is responsible for everything: applying for and obtaining the work permit, finding housing, managing tax returns, and arranging for the household move.
Relocation support, where a team is assigned to manage the move: secure a move company, arrange for temp and permanent housing; tax return support; and legal support to manage the work permit applications.
After talking it over with my husband, I chose the second option; it was going to be hard enough adapting to new leaders. We didn’t need to spend every non-work, waking moment on organizing all aspects of moving to another country.
First lesson: know your limits and ask for help.
On top of moving, we had the Noir City Film Festival, Emerald City Comic Con and scheduling time with family and friends to talk about the move. All the running around resulted in a lot of stress and restaurant eating.
I gave myself grace for a couple of weeks then dusted off my scale for weekly weigh-ins, adjusting my food intake and adding in some low-key movement. Extra stretching, stopping to close my eyes and take deep breaths and eat more mindfully. Purposefully slowing down was a way to take control where possible in a whirlwind of a lot of Things That Are Out Of My Hands.
Second lesson: manage the stress eating.
The movers show up on the day this post publishes; we drive to Canada on Friday. Our home of 22 years goes on sale the following Wednesday. I’ve had to give away houseplants I’ve had for decades because I don’t know their countries of origin.
It’s a lot of a lot and all doable. Everyone has been wonderful and supportive. The Mister and I have treated this like a project, making shared task lists, setting timelines and helping each other through this upheaval.
At the end of the day, we’re moving 3.5 hours north of Seattle. I’ll be back in town regularly to support team events and visit Seattle friends.
