It’s always the first question I’m asked…(the second being what’s with the name…we’ll get to that later).
“You like doing WHAT?”
As if it’s hard to believe that I actually enjoy getting stuck into administrative work and organising, managing, coordinating, designing, streamlining…you get the picture. When I say it like that, it doesn’t seem so weird, does it? But say “I like doing admin” and people recoil.
I admit that my specific brand of administrative love is a little odd, but I’ve never met another admin professional who doesn’t hoard stationery of one kind or another yet, so I can’t be totally off-base.
I began my (in hindsight) lifelong adoration of all things paperwork and office-y when I was about 3 (possibly earlier, but that’s as far back as I can remember). I would “help”* my grandfather with his work; refilling his dot-matrix printer (yes, I’m just about old enough to remember them!), telling him when he was low on pens/pencils etc, running little errands to get answers to questions or deliver things around the house. Oh, and borrowing his mechanical pencil sharpener wherever possible…I was fascinated by it but couldn’t figure it out.
*”Help” is in inverted commas and used as vaguely as possible for a reason, since I now at the time of writing have a 5 year old and help is not how I’d define what she does to my notebooks and pens, and I definitely wasn’t any better at that age.
From there, it was school (always a favourite with teachers for my brutal organisation and adherence to deadlines – think Hermione Granger but goth), and then on to the big wide world, where I’ve spent most of my working life doing some form of ‘service’ work, whether it be retail or administrative, and quite frankly I’ve honed my skills to razor sharp and (at least in efficiency) lethal.
I’m always on the lookout for new things to learn, or ways to develop my skills even further. I love discovering new techniques or technologies to help me be even more creative and productive with my time. And I hate getting bored or doing repetitive tasks that could be automated and improved.
So, from there, it seemed like the logical step, once I returned from my maternity leave and finished being shut inside due to a global pandemic (not sure if you noticed it – my little one certainly hasn’t!), to find a way I could build the passion and slight obsession into a functional and practical business where I wasn’t doing the exact same thing 8 hours a day, every day. I didn’t want to go back to a standard 9-5, where I was barely making ends meet and couldn’t take more hours due to lack of availability AND chronic illness. I wanted freedom. And income. And time with my kid whilst I still have the ability to enjoy it with minimal pain.
So I…uh…did the thing. And here I am. Running a VA business, built from scratch mostly on my own. Writing this all out so that maybe…just maybe…someone will read it before they ask the question.
I’m 100% open to other questions and dissection of my life’s ambition though!
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