Why Now Matters Later

Basically, why it's important not to be an asshole in your EA career

I got out of my comfort zone the other day and went to dinner with 4 people I didn’t know, but who all knew each other. I was invited by one of them, but even her, I only met irl once, so I didn’t really know her well.

This was a big deal for me because I never go out, let alone with people I don’t know.

But that’s beside the point. Story about my social anxiety and ADHD for another day :)

This dinner was very interesting because it turns out, the number of people I had in common with each of them (found out through checking social media, of course) was surprising. I even went to UCLA with one of them during the same years, and we found out, she was my close friend’s roommate for a little while. I was literally two degrees of separation away from each of the 4 “strangers” I had dinner with.

I cannot count the number of times in my life (like at this dinner) where I’ve said to myself “wow, what a small fucking world”. Like thank goodness I was nice to someone or thank goodness I helped this person or thank goodness I worked hard at XYZ company.

One time I helped someone at work who was in a bind, someone I did not support and who wasn’t even my executive’s direct report or on their team. Long story short, they later left the company, started their own company, and asked me to be their EA.

Another time, I worked with a vendor who was just starting to build out his business. I took a chance on him even though he was new because I saw his passion and drive, and I knew the product would be good. 10 years later, his business became huge, and when I needed a last minute vendor for a holiday party because I had someone back out, he came to my rescue and hooked it up because he remembered how I took a chance on him 10 years back (his words, not mine).

Or sorry one more story - essentially a story of how I became an EA. I worked at Nihon Whiskey Lounge in San Francisco, and I got to know so many of my regular customers pretty well. When I applied to interview at Dropbox, I mentioned this to one of my customers, and he happened to be the best friend (from childhood) of the executive I would be supporting. He put in a good word for me because he knew I worked hard, and he was willing to vouch for me.

It’s important to remember that how you behave/act/work/talk/treat others/etc. will affect what people think of you and what they remember you for, even years and decades later. It’s also important to note that people are always watching and noticing what you do, too.

People also tend to remember how you make them feel. They will remember when you helped them when they needed help. They will remember when you were kind. They will remember your work ethic and your drive. And they will remember when you had their back.

It may not seem like it matters now in the moment, but you will reap the benefits from it in the future (or it will work against you if you don’t understand or you disagree about why it matters now, which I’ve also seen happen with other people). Like the quote at the beginning of this post says, “wisdom is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions”.

I’ve found that even as an Executive Assistant, this holds very true. It’s not about networking and getting to know as many people as you can, because that’s all about one’s ability to talk. You can be a great talker and know 100 people, but if your work doesn’t speak highly of you, it doesn’t matter that you know all those people. It’s about letting your actions speak louder than your words.

How hard working you are, how much you help others, how much value you add to your executive, how well you work with other EAs, how trustworthy you are, all of that will matter even 10+ years from now.

It’s what will help you get a job in the future, what will make it easy to schedule a difficult meeting, what will determine whether a vendor will bend over backwards for you or not, and what will make an executive or other EAs and past coworkers give glowing backchannel references about you.

As an EA, it’s important to build positive relationships with not only your executive, but the people around you. And even if you’re not actively building a relationship (because we certainly can’t build relationships with everyone we work with), it’s important to build your reputation. Your reputation, assuming it is a positive one, will speak for itself and is what will help you move forward in life.

The EA world in general is small. Be kind to other EAs. Help each other out. Make things (like scheduling and communicating) easier for each other. Be empathetic. Put yourself in each other’s shoes. And if you have a big EA team, represent and lead your EA team well, especially if you support the CEO.

You’ve worked with EAs in the past who you appreciate and will do favors for, and you’ve worked with EAs who make you roll your eyes or who you’d never provide a good backchannel reference for.

We need to work hard not to be the latter.