I would love to work 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. I think it would be amazing. Why?
Because my morning hours are VERY slow – it is very rare that Mr. BIL has a morning deadline. VERY rare. However, 90% of the time the hours from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m. are a mad dash to get things done. And invariably I stay late (which is nice OT, sure) helping him get things out.
He came to me this morning and gave me a list of four things he “absolutely had” to get out today. Of the four you wanna know how many he’s gotten done? Nada. None. Because he gets caught up in OTHER projects and creates NEW deadlines for the other projects. And then I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off when he panics and tries to get ALL projects done.
Add on to that, he keeps letting people interrupt him in his office and sit down for pow wows. Just now a paralegal came over and said, “Do you have a minute?” What he SHOULD have said is “Not right now,” but instead he said “Sure!” and now they are meeting about something that does NOT have to be addressed today. It’s very frustrating, needless to say.
And don’t get me started on billing. Last month he yelled at me for not getting billing done at a reason time of the month. So a lot of bills got put on hold to this month. So at the beginning of the month I rode him about getting them done. He did well – he got about 50% of them out. But then he sat on the other 50% claiming he wanted to write custom letters for those. So now it’s March 26 and he’s panicking about not getting the billing out. But I can’t say, “Well dude, maybe if you’d stop letting people in your office, or stop creating crazy-fast deadlines on your projects, you would have TIME to do your billing.” For April, we’ve already scheduled a two hour block where ALL we do is billing. What do you want to bet we DON’T meet and they get pushed to the end of the month AGAIN???
let me start by saying… I am not telling you how to do your job. 🙂
This is just a suggestion.
Maybe you can control his calendar, go in and tell him that you would like the right to have everyone come to you before they go to him. If Paralegal needs to speak with him.. make an appointment. Especially if he is “yelling” at you over things that aren’t getting done, because he can’t manage his time. You should manage his time for him. Maybe that’s what he needs. Not to mention have him tell everyone that they need to stop at your desk first before entering his office. I mean you are his assistant. My boss understands that nobody sees her or even gets to talk to her on the phone or book any meetings without going through me first. Just a suggestion. kisses
Tried that already, Ace! But thanks. =)