THE BEST E.A. EVER!

I guess I’ve proved myself worthy as an admin now since the Executive Assistant to my boss’ boss called me to fill in for her in Mclean while she was away all week. My boss’ boss’ name is Steve. So I had to work at headquarters all last week in Tysons Corner sitting at the Executive Assistant’s (Linda’s) desk. I was a bit nervous at first – not that it was hard (are you kidding me?) or that I was intimidated by all the rich mahogany office furniture, but I was in with the big guys…the head Partner was right around the corner! Anyway, everything went fine, aside from a few minor things I had to get myself through….

The first day of taking care of Steve, I got there early after battling traffic for 45 minutes, talked to everyone real quick and then opened up his Outlook calendar. Let’s just say Steve’s a busy man with appointments back to back. So the day is going, and I’m doing a great job and all when the phone rings. It’s a guy named Chuck Taylor and he had a lunch appointment with Steve in like 15 minutes. He told me his car had just been hit by a V-Dot truck and it’s going to take forever to get all the legal stuff worked out cause it’s a government vehicle and all. So I told him I’d let Steve know and he hung up. So then I call Steve:

“Hi Steve, it’s Amy – I was just calling to let you know that Chuck Norris cancelled the lunch appointment for today…”
“Chuck ….NORRIS?”

I was mortified. I kept going as if nothing happened.

“I mean, Chuck Taylor - he got hit by a V-Dot truck”
“Chuck Norris got hit by a V-Dot truck?”

I couldn’t believe it – I was so embarrassed.

“I mean his car got hit by a V-Dot truck – but he’s ok, he wants you to call him on his cell phone.”
“Ok….I’ll give Chuck Norris a call….”

Hanging up the phone, all I could do was laugh at myself – I kept thinking I should have carried it on as if I had meant to play a joke, “Yeah, Chuck Norris is canceling the appointment because he’s too busy round-house kicking the V-Dot truck driver into oblivion.” But you have to understand Steve…very serious, all business/no play kinda guy. None-the-less, I made my mark on the first day.

That was Friday – next came the weekend, which was real fun. I knew I was supposed to be back in Mclean helping Steve again on Monday and Tuesday so that was in the back of my mind all weekend. So it’s Monday and I wake up on my own at 8:45 in the morning. PANIC! “WHAT?! Why didn’t my alarm go off?!!?!” I was supposed to be there at 8:00! I started throwing on my work clothes and running around like crazy. I had my badge on and was calling people at the office – no one was answering their phones!! “Where is everyone? Why is no one at their desk!?” So I’m running out the door and notice there’s a heck of a lot of cars out in the parking lot for it to be Monday morning at almost 9am. Then it hits me….”It’s Sunday…” The feeling of relief was awesome…I was just glad I had a second chance! On the real Monday morning, I had to explain why there were panic messages left on peoples voicemail….

So then its Tuesday and by that time I had gotten the hang of it, being in the office handling everything. And then I notice on Linda’s desk, tucked behind some stacks of files, she has those “Mr. Sketch” smelly markers. You know, those markers you were addicted to smelling in grade school. Everyone always wanted to smell the licorice for some reason. I guess those were the days before people started sniffing glue or white out. Anyways – I pulled them out and started smelling them. “mmm…cherry…” Then the other EA joined in and goes, “Give me the orange one.” Then Rosie, the head EA to our head Partner came over and started sniffing as well. Markers were being passed right and left…then…Steve walks out of his office and catches us. I don’t really remember how it came to be, but I look up and Steve is smelling the markers too, “Ah….that smells nice…” We all died laughing.

So yeah – I got to be in the shoes of an Exec. Assistant for about a week. I didn’t want to have to say this but, I’m kind of a big deal…people know me now.

And when I got back to Dulles this week, I ordered my own smelly markers!