Maybe thats the 'executive' part of 'executive assistant'? They are taking action based on a abstract goal rather than a concrete wish. At least, that is my interpretation!
My understanding is once the trust is built in these kind of roles, the assistant is a professional/personal boundary crossing extension of the employer and is prized for their ability to resolve concerns without those concerns having to surface. Agreed that it can be a demanding, temperamental, unpredictable job.
There are people in this world who are very good at empathizing and very good at organizing, and those people can make a ton of money as what used to be known as being a majordomo.
My EA-style friend is in a major US city right now supervising the construction of a house - that absolutely wasn't in their employment contract, is not something they have experience in, but it's something their employer wanted. It's hard to get too up in arms when the position is well paid, exciting, and voluntary.
Could also be some folks thinking if you earn enough to afford an assistant than you earn too much.
Paying an EA is no different than paying McDonald’s to cook for you. Outsourcing things you can afford to is how we have a productive society.
If someone can make $800k a year pouring their life into their job and delivering tons of value for customers, that’s great. They should do that even if they spend $100k on an EA.
I’d take 50 highly productive people over 50 clock punchers any day. Demonizing them is just tall poppy syndrome.
I respectfully disagree with your assessment though. I work with many such individuals and it's exactly how I got where I am today. By being one of those guys that care. I love working with these guys. It's a pleasure to do so. I really love that I'm at a company right now where we have a lot of these kinds of individuals working together.
Yes I have a label of "manager" on my forehead. All that means is that I have to do some stuff most guys would rather not deal with and that's fine. It means I code less. That's fine. I enjoy the mix. They code more and I enjoy seeing them make decisions by themselves, create tasks to make visible what they are doing and why, so that I can defend them against upper management easily. I can shield them and I do so with pleasure.
On the other hand there are developers that I need to basically do the work for. What's the point of doing 80% of the work myself and then transferring over to them to spend 80% of the time for a task to do 20% of the work? At that point I'd rather not have that person on the team and do the work myself.
And to tie this back to the exec assistant topic: if the CEO has to do 80% of the work, what's the point of the executive assistant?
Why not? Isn't that most jobs?
Seems to me a lot of jobs require you to "read the room" in one way or another. If some work doesn't need that, then a machine should just do it since that's what human excel at.
No. In most jobs, employees know specifically what their employers' requirements are, they have specific tasks and itineraries and boundaries. "Know what I want before I want it" isn't an appropriate expectation to have of any assistant.
Even at my job, where all my work is laid out for me in the form of Jira tickets, fulfilling unsaid (or unknown) desires is hugely beneficial for my team, company, and career. Sure, I’m technically paid to solve problems, but really I’m paid for the ability to think creatively and execute autonomously.
Imagine asking your EA why they didn't do something you expected them to do without being explicit about what you want.
This is exactly the same thing. Assistants are there to help people and to know what to do with high level directives.
“I want to take a stay at home vacation next week” should not require explicit instructions to reschedule everything and notify people…