I work as an executive assistant (EA) at a tech company and I’m part of this GOD AWFUL ea team. I don’t care for the profession but the pay is good. I’ve been with the company for over a year and because of my experience I can’t even look at another ea posting without feeling sick now.
My manager (sr. Ea) and her manager (chief of staff) are literally the worst and should be managing no one. The COS supports the founder- at least she’s supposed to. Every time you ask her a question regarding her executive, she never knows the answer. She’s basically getting paid to twiddle her thumbs. The sr. Ea is..I don’t even know what. I’m not sure exactly what she’s “managing”. The ea team members never work with her or communicate with her outside of sending a message to schedule a meeting. She can’t speak to our abilities, so I see no reason why we report to her but here we are.
The two of them came up with these “rules” and they don’t even follow them themselves. This is one example of many: we’re supposed to go into the office whenever our executives are there. The cos moved “temporarily” to Miami last summer and was supposed to return back in September of last year – as I’m typing this, she is still living in Florida. The founder is in the office everyday and she’s nowhere to be found. Another team member was specifically hired to work out of the NY office. She was supposed to relocate from DC to NY over a year ago – favoritism much? And this favoritism really isn’t well disguised. HR is still waiting for them to move . Another “rule” they have is we have to answer emails and messages on the weekends, even if it’s not an urgent message. The sr. Ea told one of the team members one day it wasn’t appropriate to send her a message on the weekend. Wtf? Do you not remember your own rule????????
There’s also this weird ass thing where everyone is the company is expected to drop everything they’re doing to cater to the founder’s needs (who has the tendencies of a child). Absolutely fucking not. If that’s the case give us the cos salary but until then eat a dick. I was hired to support specific individuals and none of them are the founder.
This past Wednesday was admin day. A team member who is on maternity leave popped in to our team channel to wish us a happy admin day. The sr. Ea said she forgot about the day but she appreciates us. Right. We were shown more (actual) appreciation from people outside our team.
In the past 1.5 years. 2 assistants have quit and 1 was fired under very questionable circumstances. The ex assistant spilled the beans one drunken night about the events that happened prior to her termination. I just received an offer to work in a different career path – one I’m actually interested in. In a few days I will be the third assistant to have quit immediately. I will most definitely enjoy handing in my notice especially after the shitty ways she’s spoken to me over the past few weeks. There are so many other stories and examples, but I’d be writing a novel if I listed everything.
TL;DR: the sr ea and cos are absolute trash and I can’t wait to hand in my resignation next week.