What Does a Virtual Executive Assistant (VEA) Really Do? It’s More Than You Think
“So, what do you do for a living?” or “Do you work?”. I HATE this question. “I’m a Virtual Executive Assistant (VEA)” just doesn’t self-explain like “I’m a nurse” or “I’m a dental hygienist”. People just look at you and ask “What’s that?”. Ugh.
My best friends and my own mother have no idea what I do even though I’ve been doing it for nearly 4 years. My mom once told someone “She does financial things for financial people”, because my clients were mainly financial advisors and insurance companies. Ok, fair. I did do financial things for financial people, and I will admit, I stole this line and used it a time or two because people accepted it as an answer. They could picture “financial things” in their heads. But I’m sure what they pictured is nowhere near what I actually do.
On any given day I could create the paperwork to do a TFSA deposit or I could find out the requirements and start the process for a RESP withdrawal. But I could also schedule meetings with 6 other advisors across 3 different provinces and timezones and schedule an orthodontist appointment for my client’s son to get his braces adjusted, all while monitoring emails before reconciling their monthly expenses.
And that’s only for one client. At one point in my VEA career I had 7 clients at once. Imagine working for 7 different companies at the same time. Stop and think about what that would look like. Every client is different, every piece of software is different, every communication style is different. And yet, we keep it all together! It’s just what we do! But how do you portray that when you’re telling someone what you do for a living?
“Oh, so you’re like a secretary?”. Sure. Sure, I am like a secretary. I do a lot of things that a secretary would do. But I also go above and beyond what a secretary would do. In the dictionary a secretary is described as “a person employed by an individual or in an office to assist with correspondence, keep records, make appointments, and carry out similar tasks.” The definition of an Executive Assistant is “a person employed to assist a high-level manager or professional with correspondence, appointments, and administrative tasks.” So, they are similar. And I guess when answering the dreaded question I could say “I’m an online secretary.” Would that elicit more questions or would they accept it and move on? Is that really what I do? Does it matter if they get it?
It matters to me. I am proud of what I do. In my entire friend group there is no one who would be able to do my job (and vice versa!). I want everyone to know that I love what I do and I am good at it!
Working as a VEA means that I am constantly learning new things. That’s probably pretty cliche and everyone is always learning. But being a part of multiple teams in multiple industries means I gain little bits of knowledge from all different places. I love that about my job. I’m not a life coach but because I work with them I know that there are some pretty cool tools out there to help you learn more about yourself. I am not an insurance broker but I know there are different benefits to having a 10-year term and a 20-year term life insurance policy.
Another part of my job that I love is applying knowledge and skills that I have learned from one client to another. Obviously not confidential information or trade secrets, but the tips and tricks that we learn in the platforms that we use every day. If I have a couple of clients who use the same platform, Asana for instance, and I learn a new trick, I can apply that to my two clients. And then I can share it with a colleague who also has two clients who use Asana so then two more companies are benefitting from what I’ve learned, and so on!
Speaking of colleagues… yes, I DO have colleagues! None of them live in the same province as me and I’ve only ever met one of them in person. But that doesn’t stop us from having relationships that are real and meaningful. At no point in my day do I ever feel alone (and not just because my Frenchie has NO idea what personal space is!). We are all incredibly connected through Slack and are always just a simple message away. Being part of a virtual team is pretty special. We are all in our own little worlds and yet strangely connected to each other. Similar to if we were in an office, if I want to have a closed conversation with someone I send them a private message. If I want to shoot the shit with everyone and see what they are all having for supper then I send a message in our water cooler channel.
Being a VEA certainly isn’t for everyone. In fact, I’d say it’s for very few! The discipline of being in your own home and having 8 hours of head down, focused work is not like going into an office for 8 hours. Every second of my 8 hours is logged. I don’t get paid to p00p on company time anymore! Lunch and breaks are on me, not my clients. Working from home certainly doesn’t mean that my laundry is always done, my toilets are always clean or a hot supper is cooked on the table every night at 6pm. When you hear that someone “works from home” you need to focus less on the “home” and more on the “work”. Because that’s what we do! If you had to log every second that you work at your job, how many hours would you actually have punched in at the end of the day?
So, yeah, I take my job and my job title very seriously but damn if it isn’t hard to explain to someone. The next time someone asks me what I do for a living I think I will just say “everything”.
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