AdminSecret

No matter where a meeting takes place, it is still a meeting. If a potential client decides to interview you over a meal at a restaurant, your table manners must be up to par. The following etiquette guidelines will help get you through your next dinner interview. Long before you enter the restaurant, make sure you turn off your cell phone ...

Do you find that when you contact a vendor because of a problem with your order of some sort that you get the dreaded automated messaging system, where you get lost with dialing all of the different numbers just to be able to get to the proper department or even a live person? Then you finally do reach a live person ...

So, your killer resume has resulted in the interview. Now it’s make or break time. Nothing else matters. When you walk in the door for an interview you are starting off at zero. The only thing that matters to that employer now is how you come off in the interview. First Impressions Remember, you can never make a new first impression. ...

There seems to be an increasing trend of replying to a personal email or forum based email and not include the message being responded to. I find this rather annoying to say the least, not to mention time wasting. Email is still not 100% proof as we all know and if I’m interested in seeing what someone is responding to, but ...

As you know, last Friday I posted what I realized was an aggressive list for Finish it Friday. Since the weekend is when I have my biggest block of “do-stuff-around-the-house” time, I love the idea of starting the weekend with a to-do list—a.k.a. my Finish It Friday list. My list helps me stay focused during the weekend, which means more things ...

Enjoy your day, Boss! Joan and I have yet to spend an administrative professional’s day together. In fact, we rarely spend bosses day together either. Joan’s speaking schedule is at its most hectic in the spring and in the fall which is fine – we always find time to let each other know how much we appreciate the other and how ...

...The key is to mind your manners! We ALL participate in online social media in our world today… and if you think you’re one of the people who DOESN’T, I’ve got news for you: Just reading this blog is participating in the world of online social media. See, our blog has a comments section where back and forth communication of ideas ...

Sometimes your family, friends and co-workers just don’t get it. Your work e-mail account is a tool to do your job, not a source of laughter or inspiration. Yet, an admin’s Inbox will inevitably be bombarded with all sorts of unwelcome e-mails at one point or another. So, what do you do? How do you get others to stop cluttering your ...

During the few weeks prior to launching my latest website, my developer’s apathetic attitude began to seriously test my highly cultivated sense of patience. As the launch date drew nearer, each missed deadline reminded me why the ability to quickly calm the demons inside yourself is sometimes the only thing standing between you and emergency open heart surgery. We all have ...

Gloria just finished a temp assignment and experienced an awful case of sabotaging by a peer admin who is a lot younger than her and has been with the company for a year. She asks for information on dealing with a saboteur. Gloria said that she noticed this administrative assistant manages upward and is passive aggressive and well connected in the ...

You receive an email, among the many others that you receive each and every day. Your colleague or boss calls or comes up to you exactly 2 minutes later and asks if you've read it. You think to yourself, "What?!? Is this person crazy?!?" Has this ever happened to you? I am sure most of you are nodding your heads as ...

Today I woke up to one of the worst things that could happen in this day and age… a truly terrible occurrence that I wouldn’t wish on my worst nightmare — well, I probably wouldn’t care it if happened to my worst nightmare but close — ready for it? My personal Gmail account was hacked & hijacked! It was one of ...

We have been hosting our World Class Assistant™ high-end workshops in Las Vegas since 2005 at the beautiful Red Rock Country Club. I have watched hundreds of administrative professionals come through the program and am always amazed when a participant shows up for class looking like they are going to the Strip or shopping. These attendees will even tell me or ...

We’ve all heard about multi-tasking and how every successful assistant needs to be a good multi-tasker to succeed in their position. Here at ProAssisting (and in our positions as working assistants) we believe in multi-tasking so much that we teach it in our assistant training program along with downloadable templates to facilitate this kind of work. However, Alyssa Gregory recently wrote ...

Habits can be both good AND bad. Smoking = bad habit; exercising = good habit; biting nails = bad habit; eating lots of greens = good habit… and the list goes on. I’m not writing this post to try and get you to quit all of your bad habits and start a bunch of good habits; nope, I’m not that guy ...

Even ghost and goblins come in various shapes, sizes and personalities. Not everyone you work with is Casper the Friendly Ghost. In honor of Halloween and in preparing for my October 28 webinar on this subject, I am looking for your best practices in managing the ghost and goblins in the workplace. You can submit as many tips as you would ...

AdminSecret brought you the What's Your Mental Illness IQ? quiz to test your knowlege of mental illness facts in the workplace and beyond. Here are the answers to that quiz as well as some links to mental illness resources. What can cause mental illness? The environment Substance abuse Genetics All of the above — Correct answer From WebMd: “What are the ...

Sheila had perfect timing. I was just focusing on Professional Business Image within the Blog this week and last when she wrote us asking several good questions and ones I know enter the minds of many admins. I will try to address each one the best I can. 1. She first states, "I would like to address the cost of professional ...

Today I got a sad email. You might be able to relate to this. A dear friend of mine, I’ll call him “Bob,” was lamenting the troubles he was encountering lately. His website wasn’t functioning as it should, his family members were having medical problems and he had just lost a large piece of business. The entire email went on about ...

In many ways, it is your job to be the calm in the middle of a storm. While the entire workplace may be in chaos, it’s up to the admin to know who needs to be where and when, locate all the necessary files and direct office communication. Needless to say, managing this chaos can be a challenge. Jennifer at Tips ...