The new assistant was only making my job harder

Toby: We know what works — why can’t you just accept direction?

Aviva: Why can’t I have the opportunity to make real change without being met with criticism?

Toby

People are always asking me what it’s like to work in PR.

“Basically, you put out ads and stuff?” was how my sister-in-law once tried to summarize it.

I thought about the myriad tasks that popped up in my inbox every day. I thought about website maintenance, social media presence, event organization, endless back-and-forth with designers and marketers, and the tight-fisted financial department that always needed convincing to part with money in order to make more. But my sister-in-law is a second-grade assistant; she’d never understand.

“Not exactly,” I told her.

I was thinking of that conversation when I pulled into a parking spot a block away from the office one morning. I loved my job, but there was no doubt that it’s hard work. It needs concentration and alertness, and at that moment, I was sorely lacking in both.

First thing I did when I arrived was make a coffee. Lani, my line manager, was occupied with the same thing, and she offered a comradely grin when I came over.

“Long morning, huh?”

“Long night, too,” I told her. My daughter had moved in with her newborn, and I’d been up at night to give her a break. To make matters more complicated, my mother-in-law hadn’t been feeling well recently, and my husband Aharon, who had been busy all evening helping her out, had to rush back there early in the morning to make sure things were okay. The baby was now safely asleep (at least, I hoped so), and so was my daughter. But I had to find some energy to get down to work for the next eight hours.

“Good news for you, Toby,” Lani chirped, after I finished my tale of woe. “I just got approval to hire you an assistant for the PR department. I even have someone in mind for the job. I’ll let you know if it all works out. In any case, hopefully we’ll have someone in place to work with you soon.”

“Really?” I’d been asking for an assistant for months. This was really perfect timing.

Lani confirmed it, and I settled down to work with new energy. An assistant — that would totally change things around here! For a moment, I daydreamed about sharing the burden — having someone else to take calls, answer e-mails, order supplies, brainstorm new ideas — and then I shook my head.

Right now, I needed to focus, not dream. But the assistant — whenever she appeared — would be more than welcome.

Aviva, when she arrived one morning, seemed sweet enough. I had to show her the ropes quickly. I had a meeting that morning — of course everything would happen at the same time — and I wanted to catch a moment to call Aharon. He’d taken his mother to the doctor this morning.

The meeting dragged on forever, like it always does, but this time it didn’t bother me so much. I’d left Aviva preparing a mailing campaign, which meant something was actually getting done even while I had to sit there and listen to endless back-and-forth on the same topic.