7:45 am: Arrive in the office to find my boss already there – I wish I could arrive before him just once but that never happens, I guess that’s why he’s the boss! My secret vice – I bring him a grilled pita bread/cheese sandwich with me every morning for breakfast. I know, I know, call me whatever you want. . . . he now prefers it to the ones the delivery man brings up from the café downstairs.
8:00 am: Day usually begins with a roar – phones ringing off the hook and emails galore. In between answering calls for my boss I check his emails and mine. I keep a To-Do list which I update at the end of every day so I check this first thing and start working on the day’s priorities. I also keep my boss’s calendar and check that routinely throughout the day to know what he has ahead and make sure he is always aware and prepared for his next meeting.
8:30 am: My boss has a morning meeting with the Board which I attend to take detailed minutes. A bit boring and I can hardy understand the notes I’m taking sometimes as they can be so technical but I’m a wizz at details and don’t miss a thing with my shorthand. I also make sure the flipcharts, markers and projection materials are there and that there are notebooks and pens on the table and coffee is ordered for all.
9:30 am: Meeting usually takes30 minutes and afterwards I attend to urgent emails and calls received in the interim. My boss travels a lot so I also spend those precious morning hours attending to his flight, hotel and car bookings for upcoming trips and his expenses from previous trips. Usually he piles a bunch of receipts on my desk including taxi stubs, sandwich receipts and dry-cleaning receipts and I have to make sense of them and make sure he is properly reimbursed.
10:00 am: Around10 am every morning I meet with my boss, go over the schedule for the day and note down all urgent tasks and priorities. I also brief him on any outstanding calls or issues I am aware of.
10:30 am: I finalize the morning minute son my PC, run them by my boss if he si available and distribute to the team.
11:00 am: Usually around this time I am drafting letters for my boss and sending them. These days its mostly emails that he asks me to take are of but occasionally I still have to translate a letter or two from English to Arabic and Arabic to English. I can translate legal documents too and sometimes do although if they’re very long I usually send them to the company’s legal translator. I also receive visitors who arrive to meet my boss and make sure any files and documents he needs for his meetings (as well as any food or drinks) are ready and available.
12:30 pm: I make sure by boss has reservations if he has a business lunch, make sure his colleagues know where he is meeting them and what time, and head off to lunch in the downstairs food court with a group of colleagues from the firm.
1:30 pm: Lunch over (I always try to take a full hour) and I come back to catch up on emails, faxes and mail. Around this time I usually sort the mail that arrives and make sure anything urgent goes in the urgent pile and anything that needs forwarding to another department or division head is forwarded.
2:30 pm: I often have a powerpoint presentation or speech to tweak for my boss and sometimes that involves working closely with the marketing department so I spend a few minutes with the Marketing Head explaining what my boss needs to change and why and then we proceed with making the final changes together. Sometimes I also need to meet with HR or the Finance department for a hiring or promotion or performance appraisal question or issue or a simple financial matter.
3:30 pm: Since I keep immaculate files in a system I set up when I joined I don’t really spend too much time filing but I usually dedicate around45 minutes an afternoon just ensuring there are no documents lying about and the filing systems for hard copy as well as computer files are as they should be. During the course of the day mountains of emails arrive that need organizing and responding to and mountains of mail arrives that needs filing – I also usually end up filing magazines, CVs, presentations, proposals and other documents which arrive or are created during the day.
4:00 pm: Courier usually arrives around now to take any urgent letters we need sent. After that I sit down with my boss’s personal expenses and make sure his personal files are also arranged and correspondences tended to.
4:30 pm: I make sure my boss’s agenda for the week is updated and my To-Do List for the next day is updated and precise. I check all voicemails (mine and my boss’s) again to make sure I have not missed returning any calls and make sure all the administrative and other items on my day’s list have been tended to.
5:00 pm: Before I leave, I run into my boss’s office to see if anything is pending. I give my boss his detailed itinerary if he is traveling with hotels, trains, airlines, presentations, speeches, petty cash and any other details such as maps and directions. Sometimes there is an urgent matter I stay quite late but on normal days I am out the door by5:15 pm.
5:15 pm: Out the door before the6pm rush hour traffic but sadly the5 pm Dubai traffic is already well underway. Wish I had a cheese sandwich for myself packed!
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