There are companies that offer this as well. It’s useful if you don’t need a full-time assistant. The downside is you’re sharing them.
Ask HN: I’d like to hire a personal/executive assistant – any tips or advice?
31–40 of 244 posts
Re: Ask HN: I’d like to hire a personal/executive assistant – any tips or advice?
#32I found my personal assistant on Craigslist. Very happy I found her. I put up a simple posting, ‘computer programmer seeking personal assistant’. Turns out she was tired of being an au pair and decided this would be a better fit. It’s really life changing. I highly recommend it. She pays my bills, responds to emails, cleans up the apartment, walks my dog, manages grocery shopping and occasionally cooks, etc. It’s not…
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Re: Ask HN: I’d like to hire a personal/executive assistant – any tips or advice?
#33I found my personal assistant on Craigslist. Very happy I found her. I put up a simple posting, ‘computer programmer seeking personal assistant’. Turns out she was tired of being an au pair and decided this would be a better fit. It’s really life changing. I highly recommend it. She pays my bills, responds to emails, cleans up the apartment, walks my dog, manages grocery shopping and occasionally cooks, etc. It’s not…
> It’s not that different from what I imagine having a stay-at-home wife was like in the 1950s, except she leaves every evening. good for you, but yikes, man, that made me cringe. you might want to re-think if you'd be comfortable giving the same tasks to a male personal assistant, or if you've somehow unconsciously engineered a large financial/power imbalance, in the disparity between your gross yearly income and wh…
I'd think anyone hiring a personal assistant would be on the advantageous end of a financial power imbalance. Are you just saying a young man wouldn't be hired to clean a house so it's embarrassing when a woman cleans a house? I think the important thing is to pay cleaners enough and make reasonable requests, not refuse to work with them. (I don't have a cleaner, if it matters.)
Re: Ask HN: I’d like to hire a personal/executive assistant – any tips or advice?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It’s not that different from what I imagine having a stay-at-home wife was like in the 1950s, except she leaves every evening. good for you, but yikes, man, that made me cringe. you might want to re-think if you'd be comfortable giving the same tasks to a male personal assistant, or if you've somehow unconsciously engineered a large financial/power imbalance, in the disparity between your gross yearly income and wh…
I'd think anyone hiring a personal assistant would be on the advantageous end of a financial power imbalance. Are you just saying a young man wouldn't be hired to clean a house so it's embarrassing when a woman cleans a house? I think the important thing is to pay cleaners enough and make reasonable requests, not refuse to work with them. (I don't have a cleaner, if it matters.)
I'm saying this person seems to have specifically chosen a person for the duties of what they described as a 1950s housewife, which is rather suspicious in my opinion.
Re: Ask HN: I’d like to hire a personal/executive assistant – any tips or advice?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
My interpretation was that the person likes doing their work and wants to outsource distractions. For a fixed amount of work / day, it's better to spend as much as possible where you're most effective, imo. I have a cleaner and order takeout not because I'm theoretically too busy to clean and cook, but because I'd rather outsource so I can do other stuff. Put another way, trade is better for everyone.
> My interpretation was that the person likes doing their work and wants to outsource distractions This is true. For additional context, I’m also a single man in his late 20s, with the blessing/curse of ADHD. Whilst I can throw myself into my work (and enjoy it very much), I have little interest/motivation to follow up all the other odds-and-ends in my life. That might mean something trivial, like keeping the kitchen…
Yes I identify completely. I spent most of the day today dealing with a bunch of address change stuff and other admin I'd been putting off for months and still have a huge stack of personal admin like that that I shudder and do something else every time I think about. If you can justify the cost, having someone to handle the boring stuff sounds awesome.
Re: Ask HN: I’d like to hire a personal/executive assistant – any tips or advice?
#36If you need a personal assistant for your day to day life due to how much you're working, consider the idea that perhaps you're working too much. CEO or not, no one needs to let their work consume their life. It's your job to set an example for the rest of the team. Others might see how much you're working and assume that they need to, too. I've seen it happen a few times. EDIT: Sorry, I failed to mention, my comment…
They are working too much, so now they’re hiring someone to do some of that work, such that their overall work burden is reduced and more focused on the tasks they prefer to work on.
Re: Ask HN: I’d like to hire a personal/executive assistant – any tips or advice?
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd think anyone hiring a personal assistant would be on the advantageous end of a financial power imbalance. Are you just saying a young man wouldn't be hired to clean a house so it's embarrassing when a woman cleans a house? I think the important thing is to pay cleaners enough and make reasonable requests, not refuse to work with them. (I don't have a cleaner, if it matters.)
I'm saying this person seems to have specifically chosen a person for the duties of what they described as a 1950s housewife, which is rather suspicious in my opinion.
Ah, I think you just misread, then. They seem to have realized what the arrangement looks like after the fact.
Re: Ask HN: I’d like to hire a personal/executive assistant – any tips or advice?
#38I’ve had an EA for three years dedicated to me (before that in my career it was always shared). They are definitely a super power, but only if you trust them. They really have to have a lot of context to do things you’d normally be doing. Without that trust you aren’t going to be getting the full potential out of the role. I’ll give one example. My EA is aware that I have a desire to take some time off through the re…
That's interesting. Are you saying that instead of telling her "I want to take next Friday off," she tells you "I cleared your schedule for next Friday so you can take off?"
I wouldn't bother hiring a PA that wasn't proactive to the point of doing that sort of thing
Re: Ask HN: I’d like to hire a personal/executive assistant – any tips or advice?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
My interpretation was that the person likes doing their work and wants to outsource distractions. For a fixed amount of work / day, it's better to spend as much as possible where you're most effective, imo. I have a cleaner and order takeout not because I'm theoretically too busy to clean and cook, but because I'd rather outsource so I can do other stuff. Put another way, trade is better for everyone.
But it doesn't matter if you like doing your work. If you're working all the time, to the point where you can't arrange a doctor's appointment, you're working way too much. When you're in a leadership position, it's a matter of time until it impacts the rest of the team. The one personal task that takes a lot of time that I'd consider outsourcing would be to go to the store to pick up my prescriptions. But even that…
I've had my PA arrange doctor's appointments, it's great. It's not a matter of working too much, it's that I only have so much mental energy to go around. Decisions can be draining. Dealing with people can be draining. These things aren't draining to the same extent for everyone.
Re: Ask HN: I’d like to hire a personal/executive assistant – any tips or advice?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm saying this person seems to have specifically chosen a person for the duties of what they described as a 1950s housewife, which is rather suspicious in my opinion.
Ah, I think you just misread, then. They seem to have realized what the arrangement looks like after the fact.
this is why I said "unconsciously", I'm asking them to reflect on whether or not they would have hired an equally-or-better qualified male for the same duties. or whether they went straight to "i'm gonna hire a housewife" without thinking about it as a specific choice.
if by some chance the original poster here is not a dude, it's a whole lot less sketchy in my opinion.