A Day in the Life...

Being a PA is one of those jobs that cause people to put their heads on one side and go "So what do you actually do then?" I will fully admit to being one of those people and I've gots to tell you - if I knew how mental this job was going to be at times I don't know that I would have gone for it.

The trouble is it's hard to tell people what you do because, mega cliche alert, there really is no typical day for me. I can have days where things are relatively quiet and I can bumble about and not feel too pressured. Then I can have days which make me eyeballs hurt and my brain swell to twice its normal size.

Today's BEDM topic is "What's in your Fridge" but given that a) my fridge isn't really my fridge seeing as I live at my sister's and b) I don't wanna do that topic, I'm going to go back to one of the first topics that I missed which was to describe a Day in Your Life.

I tried to do this and put times on it but it just wouldn't work like that - so instead I have jotted down a list of the tasks which can, and do, take up my day:

• MD going to visit business in Sweden next week - sort flights and hotel in Stockholm
• Email travel department for quotes for Milan flights for the Business Development Director
• Get stopped by someone in company – do I have the details for a company that deals with First & Business Class travel? Find details and e-mail them over.
• Arrange transfers for someone from office in Ireland to get from airport to office and back again.
• Send out telecon details to people in Japan for meeting the next morning
• Send details of golf team, handicaps, mobile numbers, dietary requirements to people arranging a charity Golf Day
• Go to Tescos and buy 100 Crunchies for the staff
• Email American part of the business, re arrangements for MD’s stay in America next week
• Email Sweden to let them know documents have arrived and I will get signed and sent back to them once MD is in the office
• Call from MD – need to look through his travel for the year and estimate flight costs for upcoming year for the budget - spend hours on Skyscanner working out different prices from various airports in the UK to Belgium/Sweden/Denmark/Turkey/Japan and the US.
• Try and get tickets for Wimbledon for a client
• Fail to get tickets for Wimbledon for a client
• Email from America – need to book hotel and transfers for meeting on 28^th Transfers needed from Manchester to hotel near office, from hotel to office, and from office back to Manchester. Hotel room in Manchester needs booking
• Research Ice Driving Experiences on the internet - there are a surprising number of them - make up spreadsheet showing costs/location/what's included etc
• Put together Powerpoint presentation for the UK Staff Update - e-mailing everyone asking for info, putting together slides showing new starters, employee of the month etc 
• Get together Board Packs for the Board Meeting
• Sit in Board Meeting (1pm-5pm) and take minutes - type minutes up
• Ask for MD's credit card receipts in order to code up sheet for finance - handed fistfuls of paper to sort through
• Get all mileage/expense forms for the Directors filled in and passed to finance
• Organise Charity Day for company
• Order enough paper for the company (we go through about 60 packs of paper every 2/3 weeks) and make sure the ink levels in the printers are ok.
• General diary management
• And on and on and on and on and on and on