Do EAs just suck?
Does everyone else get super annoyed dealing with EAs?
Nothing against them - theyre all super nice people. I just find it annoying to have my schedule put fully in their hands.
For example, I had a trip recently for a client meeting. They booked the flight super late, even though I told them well in advance, but they waited until the last minute and now I'm stuck on an early morning flight on barely any sleep from an airport thats way too far away from where I live.
And it’s not just the flight, it’s the small delays everywhere: meals, hotels, all the typical admin stuff. Again, nothing against EAs - its just annoying
Does this happen to everyone? Making a poll for discussion purposes
EAs suck. I dont know why mine is super unresponsive. Theyre great people but damn I wish I could do this stuff myself sometimes
Bro honestly same. Love them, but they could be so much better
Maybe because you pay them like shit and expect them to be responsiveness like a guy who’s literally only getting paid to be available?
One time my EA sent me to the wrong city, no joke. Probably entirely my fault but I was having a rough patch so yeah
Our EAs are useless and I do not like them. They are lazy which is fucking annoying because they get paid ~$150k plus to book meetings and flights and otherwise basically nothing. Always slow to respond. Always resistant about doing expenses. Leave at 4:30 every day. AI replacements cannot come soon enough
Lmfao everyone knows why but if I type it out I'll get banned...
Dang my EA is automatic. Immediate responses (from 9-5), handles any admin. requests without delay, books everything promptly and even provides me options so i can decide based on preferences, etc.
My wife used to be our EA.
Been in IB/PE for 5-6 years and only one or two EAs I have come across US/UK are good, and they make really good salaries compared to the median so there is no real excuse for the extreme laziness/ineptitude
At this point, I rather just directly schedule or ask the analyst to schedule meetings based on outlook cals + book other items myself and let the EA only handle travel logistics when absolutely necessary. It has genuinely saved me far more time than waiting on the EA to sort things out and dealing with the inevitable double bookings, dropped email chains, etc
Perfect use case for Agentic AI to replace these EAs
It's kind of funny that anyone outside of the busiest executives have secretaries to begin with. The company paying someone to book a flight for you is such a waste of money.
Honestly my EA is very good but when it is important stuff I'd rather ask my VP (the little bastard then asks the analyst)
I've had good EAs before, but at my current firm only MDs+ get EAs and the EAs are actively encouraged to work against the rest of the team. "Defend the MDs time" even though they have no conception of what is / isn't important. It's a total disaster.
You’re probably just too junior so any request you have is automatically bottom of the pile and unimportant. Annoying but nothing you can do about it. It’ll get better in a few years
hot take - you should have no assistant, you must control your schedule.
picked this up from the great Nassim Taleb years ago and while my partners and I have 3 admins between us who handle stuff I don't want (money movement etc), I control my workflow, I control my schedule, etc., and it's so much better than years ago when I just gave them full autonomy to schedule for me
https://x.com/nntaleb/status/863363439753932800
Let's get this straight. What is being discussed here is not an EA, it is an ourtsoured admin task role. A true EA likely is more qualified for your job than you are. Every actual EA I have ever crossed had graduate degrees if not professional degrees from top schools. As people and companies have gotten inordinately cheap, title creep has become wide spread.
So it took me a bit to understand that you are talking about admin staff, not an Enrolled agent. (different rant there, but let's say they aren't getting invited to parties often)
Anybody in facilities or admin should be treated well. Know their birthdays, buy them cupcakes. know their kid's birthdays. Don't treat it as transactional. you won't get immediate payoff, but a $5 cupcake or birthday card can save you a $500 layover. They have more power than you know and are treated like $h!t a lot, and appreciate being respected like people. Half those soul sucking layovers are intentional, btw
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