Joan Burge's Administrative Blog

A Happy New Year message for success you won't want to miss.

Laurie writes: "In your webinars, you mentioned you were able to persuade your executive to change your title. I am Assistant to the President of my company. My present title is Administrative Assistant, but my workload and responsibilities indicate it should be Executive Assistant. Can you share your ideas of how to approach my boss with this request?"

Adrienne writes: "I have been an Admin/Executive Assistant for 14+ years. I am 42 and feel like I have hit a wall with what I am doing."

Corleen writes, "I'm a Senior Level Executive Assistant. I am just beginning to investigate some type of certification and am wondering if you can direct me. I've looked at the IAAP membership and certifications. My supervisor would like me to obtain some type of certification and I'm confused on where to begin."

When I think of VAAs, I think of 2 kinds. One is the group who work as independent contractors/own their own virtual administrative assistant business. The second group are assistants who work for a corporation or business and work virtually with the management team. Jennie says: "Some administrative assistants at our company have teams that are located in different cities/states (satellite offices). There are unique challenges that are encountered by these assistants. Additionally some assistants have more than one district manager responsibility in another city/state."

If you are not a reader of USA Today, you should sign up right away. This is by far one of the best vehicles for finding out the latest news but more importantly, the future. In early December, a front page article appeared entitled Employee Benefits Bounce Back.

As 2009 comes to a close, I wanted to thank all of you for supporting me and all the work I have been doing to help the administrative profession. All of us at OD treasure our relationships with each and every one of you. We wish you a happy holiday and Happy New Year.

We’re challenged each day to keep-up with change. Sometimes, we’re running as fast as we can and it’s still difficult to keep-up. It’s a relief to realize that some things don’t change. Those things rarely make headlines but perhaps that’s a glaring omission on the part of those who determine what is newsworthy.

Do you feel like December is just a blur of days? Monday runs into Tuesday, Tuesday runs into Wednesday and so forth? Are things lightening up for you at work, or at they actually intensifying?

In case you have not read the past few Blogs, I had interviewed two great people this year. Ken Konseco is the President of Harrison College (previously known as Indiana Business College) and his strategic business partner, Maria Berthiaume CPS. They were an absolute delight to interview and I appreciate all the time they took to share their tips to a successful business partnership.