Are there any PA’s that can help me?

[IHopeYouStepOnALegoPiece]

I’ve been offered a few hours a week as a PA inc sending invoices and payment reminders to clients, paying bills and general admin.

I’m just not sure I’m organised enough or able to do it tbh, I feel like I would constantly be worrying I’ve done it wrong or asking her what I’m meant to be doing or writing.

I’ve been a nanny for many years so done a lot of what would come under PA work but I’m totally doubting myself and just wondered if anyone could help me with what your general tasks are, how do you take your own initiative, just how to do it tbh!

I know these all sound ridiculous but after a v difficult year at work I have lost any faith I had in myself and my ability’s and could just use some advice!

TIA

Hi LegoPiece

I would say you definitely need to be well-organised for this sort of job, but of course it also depends on what your boss expects and how self-sufficient they are. My job consists of arranging meetings for boss, arranging and attending team meetings, doing expenses for other people, formatting presentations and documents and any other admin-type things. Not sure if that's helpful for you as I don't get involved with any invoice stuff.

Could you ask for a week's trial maybe and see if you like it? I find the thing that helps me most is writing myself lots of checklists and notes of what I need to do, if I review them every day it helps me remember things I might not otherwise.

Good luck!

I started as a PA and now an EA and I do everything you've mentioned. It's really not difficult and just involves common sense and making a lot of notes/lists/ reminders. I really wouldn't worry too much. Good luck.

Thank you both!

18m ahi I would’ve been so confident at my abilities but I’m so so unsure now, it’s really difficult to have the confidence in myselg

Only way to know is if you try! I'm a dental nurse but also had PA duties kinda got thrown into it but I loved it and am now having a career change! I'm not that organised but it worked I was organised when I had to be! Good luck

Sorry to be an awful pedant, but the other thing is to use an apostrophe correctly. It is not PA's. It is PAs.

Sorry, not your fault and I'm not always such an arse, but it's one of my absolute pet peeves.

Not pedantic in this case
I’d actually say a bit relevant

Thanks Hate. She’s a v good friend of mine so I think I’m just worried about letting her down but I also think I could say to her I’ll try it for a week or two and see how it goes!

We had a chat yesterday and I’m going to give it a whirl

It will involve invoicing and emailing clients l, booking appointments with clients and some life admin

I’m worried I won’t be able to get the hang of doing the invoices (have never done anything like that before) or will sound unprofessional when booking appointments or mess up the calendar...I’m not sure how any of this will go

I’m also not used to the computer she uses as it’s a Mac and although I have an iPhone and iPad, my laptops have always been Windows so I’m trying to google stuff like turning a document into a pdf

Not even entirely sure what the difference is...argh!

It's like driving an automatic diesel instead of a manual petrol engined car - the actual details are a bit different, but the overall result is the same.

Instead of Ctrl, a lot of commands will be command + the shortcut (but not all, especially if she has Word and Excel), to right click, you hold down the Ctrl and click, and to convert into a pdf, you select Save As and pdf on the drop down for file format.

The desktop is called Finder, but there's not a lot more for basic functions that differs - you'll get used to it soon enough.

Being a Nanny is ideal experience for admin/PA work, by the way - you'll be great!

I'm sure she thinks that you can do it, or she wouldn't have asked. Do free tutorials on Excel and any other software that you'll be using.
Make sure spell check and grammar is switched on. You are probably just rusty, but abilities below is plural, not possessive.
I have lost any faith I had in myself and my ability’s and could just use some advice!
I don't want to knock your confidemce though, as lots of people use spell check these days. I'm sure you'll pick up everything in the job.

That’s the other thing, I have completely lost my spelling and grammar skills, I feel extremely thick half the time.

I’m going to sit down with her whilst she shows me pointers on how to do things but I’d really rather have an idea and not look stupid beforehand so I’m currently watching YouTube video after video on using a Mac hoping that’ll help.

I’m really doubting myself now

That's what spell check is for. Just be aware of American and English variants of words, swot up a bit on plurals/words that sound alike

(more than one apple = apples, a toy belonging to Gwyneth Paltrow's kid = Apple's, days of Yore, Your book about Days of Yore and You're reading your book about Days of Yore)

• and you'll be fine.

Seriously, if you can be in the presence of more than 1 child at a time and not have your head explode or drop them down the stairs/lose them on the way to the park when they aren't your own, you can definitely do this.