Having a Boss is Like Having a Second Child

For those of you who do not know me, I am Plus Delta’s Executive Assistant. Not only do I handle many of the administrative duties within our growing firm, and coordinate and assist with marketing and business development efforts, I am also the assistant to Jeremy Lurey, the firm’s Founder and CEO. We work very closely, and I’ve become very involved in managing many of the details of his professional (and often personal) life.

At the end of the day, when I leave the Plus Delta office, my job is nowhere close to being finished. I still have hours of work to do after I leave, and before I return the following day. This is because, like many women, I am a working Mother. I have the distinct pleasure of getting to leave my horrible office in Malibu every day around 5pm (click here to see the terrible view that I am stuck looking at all day, every day) and getting to go home and spend time with the most amazing 3-year-old boy in the world.

Making the decision to return to work after having my son was tough. I took quite a bit of time off, and contemplated for months whether I wanted to go back to working full time or find some other creative ways to generate income for my family. Ultimately, I decided that while being a Mother was INCREDIBLE, I needed to work again to feel complete. Returning to work was quite an adjustment, and it took some time for me to find the balance between being “Mommy” and being “Jessica, the Executive Assistant” (or “Secretary Extraordinary” as I often refer to myself, or simply “Awesome” as Jeremy sometimes refers to me).

After working so closely with Jeremy all these months, I came to the realization that having a boss is a lot like having another child. All day at work, I’m checking my phone to make sure everything is okay with my son – and all evening at home, I’m checking my phone to make sure everything is okay with my boss.

As a Mom, you sometimes stay up late into the night putting together Styrofoam solar systems for the science fair with your child. As an Executive Assistant, you sometimes stayup late into the night putting together PowerPoint slides for your boss to pick up from the printer on his way to a presentation the next morning.

As a Mom, you learn how to make that peanut butter sandwich exactly the way your child likes it. As an Executive Assistant, you learn which salad your boss likes best from which restaurant so that you don’t have to waste 2 minutes of his time asking him about it.

Being a Mom, you have got to have a sense of humor – at least, I couldn’t imagine how you could survive without one. I think the same goes for being an Executive Assistant. While I’ve encountered some people who don’t seem to share this belief, I have found that inserting humor into my day-to-day business life is part of what has established the relationship that I am fortunate to have with Jeremy. This is also why I feel compelled to share this list of adjectives that describe not only my 3-year-old son but also my boss Jeremy:

See, they’re astonishingly similar, right? I’ve heard it said that being a Mother is the most wonderful, awful, joyous, painful, excruciating, amazing thing that you could ever do. That is absolutely true. What ranks just slightly lower on the list for me is being an Executive Assistant.