PART-TIME PERSONAL ASSISTANTS: 21ST CENTURY HELP
By Shira Levine
OPEN Forum | September 22, 2009
The professional world is evolving into quite the a la carte service center. Freelance, permalance and contracted positions out number staff jobs. It’s all about what service an individual or small business can provide a company on the fly.
Contracted work can have you neglecting all the monotonous details traditionally delegated to a secretary, executive assistant or human resources manager. Those necessities aren’t fun and pile up causing unnecessary anxiety and stress.
Part-time personal assistants can be a small cost to help your business and life run more efficiently.
“There is a trend to secure help but in a not-so-committed-concierge service way,” says Jill Glist, the owner of a part-time personal assistant agency called Lambent Services. “When you run your own business and have to do everything yourself, there are tasks that aren’t your job and aren’t leisure, but are laborious. They still have to get done. A part-time personal assistant can take care of that for you, or, with you if that makes you feel more comfortable.”
It’s not easy to reconcile paying the bills, filing and sorting mail. While it’s all easy to get done, those tasks can be completed more quickly and effectively with a little paid help. Glist offers her pool of personal assistants in 3-hour blocks and suggests using an assistant also as someone who can encourage you to do it yourself ultimately by doing the tasks initially with you.
“I was bored with those tedious details and ultimately couldn’t get anything done,” says Glist. “It was overwhelming. I hired someone who would take care of something for me and would do others with me. Some things only you can do, but other things that take your time, someone else can do for you. Those are the things you can outsource locally.”
Lambent Services has offices in LA and New York. New York hourly rates are $45 and LA are $35. Her assistants have done tasks ranging from bookkeeping and record keeping to transcribing interviews. One assistant even did the firing for clients who couldn’t stomach doing it themselves.
There are however, a few things Lambent assistants don’t do, says Glist: “Clean and take care of your children.”