Busy Bee

For the last 6 months or so at work my coworker has warned me about the busyness of the holiday season. I just kept thinking about what it was like at past jobs, you were busy trying not to gain 10lbs from all the vendor gifts that arrived- oh those tubs of popcorn- and brushed it off. This week, however I learned how busy it really can be. I guess you don't really realize it can get that way considering our tasks were minor things- but all added up... damn.
I was balancing important meetings and decisions with planning a holiday pot-luck and signing holiday cards. Unfortunately I feel like I let some of the more "important" pieces of my job slip while putting together a kick ass party and making up for my being out on Friday by signing extra cards. I found myself scrambling to get ready for meetings I'd been preparing for for weeks and not responding to emails, that really can wait until Monday, because I had to string lights in the conference room.
I went into my job search adamantly against being in any type of Executive Assistant role. I wanted independent responsibilities and did NOT want to be scheduling, answering phones for, or constantly reporting in to someone. The job I took requires that I assist in scheduling for my boss, but in all other ways I am NOT an Executive Assistant. However, as much as I am against being in an Executive Assistant role, I feel like all of a sudden I'm really falling down when it comes to the schedule and I'm disappointed. Considering I came from a place where it was 50% of my daily responsibilities to maintain 2 executive's schedules (Thank God I was given interesting projects to work on to balance that) and I did it pretty well, I'm confused at my lack of ability to keep my bosses calender up to date considering how easy she is, how easy her schedule is and that I'm in most of the meetings she is. She has come in at least 3 times in the last week and asked if a meeting really was happening because she just sat in the room for 10 minutes and no one came. Ugh.
Part of me thinks it is my desire to not have to schedule coming out- but if I want to excel in my job I have to do all pieces of it well, even the ones I don't like.
So, why am I writing about this here when I've kind of already figured the problem out and am committed to fixing it? Maybe because it is a more public place and the commitment is likely to stick if I put it out here like this? Maybe because there may be co-workers that read this and if I suspect they've read this I'll want to be even better? I don't really know. Part of me has been wanting to write this post all week, but waited until the weekend because, I was just too damn busy and in that time between thinking of writing this down and getting it down, I think I've fixed the problem.
Here's to next week being a bit less busy and my cold being a lot better by Monday!