Storyworth: Best Job Ever
Mar. 19th, 2021 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetWhat was the best job you've ever had?
The best job I ever had was working for Kathryn Hall at Laurel Management in San Francisco. It was a boutique financial management company—basically if you had enough money to pay someone $100,000 per year to look after your investments, you were our clients. My professional life was spent as an admin. One of the great things about that job is that the industry doesn’t really matter—every company needs someone to handle the logistics of business. So my first job after college was for a corporate travel agency, then for a marketing consultant and a patent agent, before winding up with Katie.
I wasn’t excited about the interview. I’d interviewed the day before with a corporate real estate company and that seemed more interesting, although I hadn’t liked their offices (dark) or the woman who interviewed me. Financial management sounded both high pressure and boring. But then Katie came bustling into the conference room of the entirely open-plan office with a stunning view of San Francisco.
She’s a relatively short woman, with short dark hair, multiple ear piercings and a warm smile. I didn’t know it at the time, but Katie was wearing what she always wore—a black Donna Karan suit and white business t-shirt. We talked about her need for an assistant, what the duties of the job would be, and then she asked me point blank “Why should I hire you over someone else?”
Without thinking much about it I said “Because I’m the smartest person you’ll get to take this job.” She looked a bit shocked, but seemed to like that I had the guts to make that claim. And sure enough, the next day I got the call that the job was mine.
I was Katie’s assistant. I answered her phone and dealt with her mail, did all her bookkeeping, kept her schedule, and planned her travel. I became a notary public so I could notarize client signatures. I did the filing. I planned events. On occasion I ran errands—I rescued her Amex card from the dry cleaners multiple times and bought five blenders at Macy’s for her charity frozen drinks bash, among other adventures. When she needed a new house, I dealt with all the paperwork and booked the movers. When her daughter called every day after school I talked to her until Katie was off the phone. When her husband called in a panic, I sorted out his problems and helped him feel like a priority—when I left he told me that I had saved their marriage. I calmed people down when Katie snapped too hard at them and managed the competing demands of clients who all thought they had the right to her time whenever they liked.
The work itself was rarely demanding and most of the time I was able to walk out the door at 5pm. Katie could be a pain—my least favorite habit was a tendency to yell at me for losing a piece of paper that I knew was on her desk—but she was also enormously generous and could be very kind. It was interesting to get glimpses of how the really rich lived and to speak to people like Sandra Day O’Connor and Gloria Steinem—neither of whom were clients, but consulted Katie about other issues.
Jason and I decided to move to London right after our wedding and giving up my job with Katie was one of my biggest regrets about leaving the Bay Area. We keep in touch with holiday cards and the occasional lunch when I’m in San Francisco, but I don’t really know what’s going on in her life. Looking at her bio now I see that she’s doing some really interesting things, serving on the boards of some great institutions, and part of me misses having an inside perspective on her world.
When I left they replaced me with two and a half people: an office manager, an executive assistant, and half of a bookkeeper’s time. This puzzled me, since I had not only managed my whole workload, but also planned several weddings, including my own. In the two years after I left, Katie went through seven assistants. On hearing this I wrote her an email that just said “KATHRYN HALL: STOP TORTURING INNOCENT WOMEN. I’M NOT COMING BACK.” She called me to laugh and tell me how much she missed me.
I love my life now: balanced between the demands of our family and home, Theatre@First, and First Parish, with a flexible schedule and the ability to set my own priorities and focus only on work that is personally meaningful. But I still miss working with Katie.
The best job I ever had was working for Kathryn Hall at Laurel Management in San Francisco. It was a boutique financial management company—basically if you had enough money to pay someone $100,000 per year to look after your investments, you were our clients. My professional life was spent as an admin. One of the great things about that job is that the industry doesn’t really matter—every company needs someone to handle the logistics of business. So my first job after college was for a corporate travel agency, then for a marketing consultant and a patent agent, before winding up with Katie.
I wasn’t excited about the interview. I’d interviewed the day before with a corporate real estate company and that seemed more interesting, although I hadn’t liked their offices (dark) or the woman who interviewed me. Financial management sounded both high pressure and boring. But then Katie came bustling into the conference room of the entirely open-plan office with a stunning view of San Francisco.
She’s a relatively short woman, with short dark hair, multiple ear piercings and a warm smile. I didn’t know it at the time, but Katie was wearing what she always wore—a black Donna Karan suit and white business t-shirt. We talked about her need for an assistant, what the duties of the job would be, and then she asked me point blank “Why should I hire you over someone else?”
Without thinking much about it I said “Because I’m the smartest person you’ll get to take this job.” She looked a bit shocked, but seemed to like that I had the guts to make that claim. And sure enough, the next day I got the call that the job was mine.
I was Katie’s assistant. I answered her phone and dealt with her mail, did all her bookkeeping, kept her schedule, and planned her travel. I became a notary public so I could notarize client signatures. I did the filing. I planned events. On occasion I ran errands—I rescued her Amex card from the dry cleaners multiple times and bought five blenders at Macy’s for her charity frozen drinks bash, among other adventures. When she needed a new house, I dealt with all the paperwork and booked the movers. When her daughter called every day after school I talked to her until Katie was off the phone. When her husband called in a panic, I sorted out his problems and helped him feel like a priority—when I left he told me that I had saved their marriage. I calmed people down when Katie snapped too hard at them and managed the competing demands of clients who all thought they had the right to her time whenever they liked.
The work itself was rarely demanding and most of the time I was able to walk out the door at 5pm. Katie could be a pain—my least favorite habit was a tendency to yell at me for losing a piece of paper that I knew was on her desk—but she was also enormously generous and could be very kind. It was interesting to get glimpses of how the really rich lived and to speak to people like Sandra Day O’Connor and Gloria Steinem—neither of whom were clients, but consulted Katie about other issues.
Jason and I decided to move to London right after our wedding and giving up my job with Katie was one of my biggest regrets about leaving the Bay Area. We keep in touch with holiday cards and the occasional lunch when I’m in San Francisco, but I don’t really know what’s going on in her life. Looking at her bio now I see that she’s doing some really interesting things, serving on the boards of some great institutions, and part of me misses having an inside perspective on her world.
When I left they replaced me with two and a half people: an office manager, an executive assistant, and half of a bookkeeper’s time. This puzzled me, since I had not only managed my whole workload, but also planned several weddings, including my own. In the two years after I left, Katie went through seven assistants. On hearing this I wrote her an email that just said “KATHRYN HALL: STOP TORTURING INNOCENT WOMEN. I’M NOT COMING BACK.” She called me to laugh and tell me how much she missed me.
I love my life now: balanced between the demands of our family and home, Theatre@First, and First Parish, with a flexible schedule and the ability to set my own priorities and focus only on work that is personally meaningful. But I still miss working with Katie.
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Date: 2021-03-22 06:20 pm (UTC)