Lost Confidence- Advice needed from PA's/Administrators - anyone!!!!!!!

[mammasmadhouse]

Hi All

I have been in my current role for 10 months and work as a PA/Administrator with a number of financial responsibilities. I work part time, pretty much school hours and up until recently loved my job. I have never worked in my current industry before, but have spent a number of years as a secretary/PA in the NHS, although I am not a trained secretary by any means. I have undertook a number of courses in IT/Admin etc and have had excellant feed bcak from previous bosses

However recently I was in a (high powered) meeting whereby my minutes were critisized, I am required to take
verbatum minutes which relate to investments/ stock markets etc, something I do not routinely deal with. On average I can take 15 pages of notes, which type up to about 8/9 pages.

Since this I have become really conscious of making mistakes, today I opened an email my boss had sent and thought he had not included one of the papers I had posted, so on mentioning this he asked me to forward on the correct version and like a donkey I looked at and added the wrong one, so tried to recall my message. (still turns out he had sent a different version)

I just feel that maybe I am not cut out for this role as everything is a disaster or rushed over the last few weeks the work has snowballed even my boss said it has never been like this. Perhaps I am overthinking things and I know worrying does not help but I cant help it , I have never felt stressed before.

One thing I have identified is his lack of communication, he never tells me about things that are going on relevant to his role, so I am going to arrange a catch up meeting on a weekly basis and hopefully this will improve some areas.

Sorry about the ramble, I would be grateful for any ideas or advice you can give me to improve matters it really would make my day!!!

Well you sound quite organised to me if you've taken the initiative to arrange the catch up meetings. Do you do his diary? Weekly meeting deffo v useful.

If you're publicly criticised in a high powered meeting, it's difficult not to feel embarassed, In fact, i'd go as far as to say it's a bit bad practice to criticise the minute taker - doesn't someone else approve them afterwards?

Aaaanyhoo. Try not to take it to heart (easier said than done I know). You obviously know what you're doing on the whole, and you're being asked to do things which are new and therefore more challenging. And you're more likely to make mistakes when you're under pressure, everyone does it.

Oh dear, poor you. Being a PA can be one of the hardest jobs in the world. It helps if you have the hide of a rhino!

If you are very lucky, you will get a boss who gives you a heads up on things. The vast majority don't. The guy I work for at the moment is so bad I am copied in on all of his incoming and outgoing emails. My advice is to keep an eye on the horizon and ask lots of questions. When a meeting goes in the diary, ask what needs to be done. Will there be an agenda? Does he need to produce a report? If so, who is contributing? What do they need to do? Take control of him (and everyone else)! Most of the time I feel like I am spinning 50 plates in my job at once.

In terms of the minutes, I always type them up and ask my boss to check them before they go out. It's very easy to miss things in meetings when everyone is talking at a million miles an hour.

I wouldn't worry about your lack of training. I've never done any courses and have worked for several CEOs of large companies.

In the past I have found that it doesn't matter how hard I work or what I do there are some people I just cannot please. There are also some jobs that are so ridiculously busy (and there are getting more and more these days) that you're on a hiding to nothing. You just need to trust your judgement and need to move on. This is especially important if it's starting to affect your confidence.

I just read my post - terrible grammar, sorry!