u/AudreyLocke

I’ve been the EA to the CEO for years now and I can’t believe I’m asking such a basic question, but I am curious and it’s always good to reflect and adjust to operational needs!

This is *only for internal meetings* : if you’re scheduling a meeting who gets a calendar invite? For me, it’s only people who need to attend the meeting. I don’t add assistants to the invite if their presences are not required. I think this keeps a better record of meeting attendance, better confidentiality (especially if it’s a Teams meeting and Teams oh so helpfully sends out that recap after the meeting is ended), and makes accounting for logistics like conference room size and material handouts easier. I also think it keeps things consistent: no why was VP Betty’s assistant included, but not VP Maggie?

I know that due to my roles at our organization that if someone sends me an invite, I’m showing up. I also don’t want to start individualizing this process

So what say you, wise EAs across the land?

Hey, St Louis! If your employer were catering a business lunch whose bags would you be psyched to see in the conference room? I have to order a lot of lunches and I need new ideas. I do try to stay local. Places that have been big hits in the past include Gioia’s, UKraft, DD Mau, and Global Quesdilla Company.

I take notes during board meetings to create minutes after the meeting in conjunction with the meeting transcript. We scheduled a meeting while I’m on vacation and unavailable to join . The committee charter says that the chair can appoint someone else to take notes/minutes during the meeting and that’s what the plan is. I’ll use their notes and the transcript to create the official minutes.

Is there a better way of doing this? What am I not thinking of?

Additional info: this doesn’t appear to be a “serious” meeting and I don’t even see any official votes/ motions/ resolutions on the draft agenda. I think it’s information supplying to the board for their general (but not official) approval.

Yesterday I made a big mistake at an event we hosted (for confidentiality I don’t want to go into details) and I’m struggling to get past it.

Some background: events are new to me and this is only my second event of this type. (I’ve been an EA for well over a decade but this is a new responsibility for me) I had literally never been in this situation before and I didn’t do something I was supposed to do. I feel like I *should* have realized that I needed to do the thing but when something similar (but not the same) happened at my one prior event a fellow staff person reminded me to do the thing.

Yesterday after the event a kind soul reached out to me to let me know about what I missed during the event. Amazingly they didn’t realize the extent of the error. Immediately I texted my boss (the CEO) and told him what had happened. We had to drag in a VP and their team member to fix the problem. And they did! Fixed it in less than an hour with seemingly (hopefully!) no one worse for the wear.

Today I’ve been so down on myself. I was afraid my boss is going to fire me (it was potentially very bad for him). I am 100% humbled and I have already thought of ways to prevent this from happening at future events. And now I have the fear of god in me and consider this a real lesson learned and I’m terrified to make another mistake like this. All day I’ve been sick to my stomach over this.

Any ideas on how to move on?