Your assistant is not your friend
You can get on well, enjoy each other's company, even socialise together but ultimately you are their employer. If they mess up you're going to have to tell them off. Who knows, one day you might even have to sack them. So don't confide anything in them that you wouldn't want all of your colleagues to know. There's no revenge like an assistant scorned.
Strictly Between Us
Your boss is not your friend.
You like them, you have a joke, they never throw their weight around but don't be fooled. If you admit to them that you weren't really sick yesterday, you just couldn't face coming in, they might laugh along with you but that information has been logged in their brain forever
Don't ask you assistant to do anything you wouldn't want to do for someone else
That includes lying to your spouse, buying you underwear and anything to do with personal hygiene.
Don't agree to do anything for your boss that you wouldn't want to have to do for a close relative
Just say no.
Remember you were like them once
Do you recall how much you hated it when your boss used to treat you like a dogsbody? That.
Remember you will be like them one day
Don't leave a trail of bad behaviour on Facebook that your future employees can use as a weapon against you. The fact that you can down 12 Jaegerbombs and still dance on a table (naked) will not cut it when you're trying to be authoritative.
Remember they can read all your emails
So don't - as was the case with someone I used to share an assistant with - have email sex with your mistress and expect that the rest of the office aren't going to know all about it. And if you decide to complain to HR about them I'd suggest picking up the phone or you might find your coffee tastes a bit funny for a while.
Remember they know you can read their emails
So if they're having email sex with their mistress they know that you know all the details. In fact they are probably getting off on that fact. Just be aware that when you print off those emails and circulate them around your colleagues - and yes, that happened too - they're going to know it could only have been you.
Have eyes in the back of your head
Your assistant might insist s/he is happy to carry on doing your filing and setting up meetings indefinitely but trust me they have a long term plan for world (or at least office) domination. One slip up and they'll be all over you like a lion on an antelope.
Don't take your eyes off the prize
Your boss can only be at the top of their game for so long. At some point they'll mess up and if you time it well you can swoop in and take over their empire before they've even noticed you're a threat.
Strictly Between Us by Jane Fallon (Penguin Paperback Original and eBook, £7.99, out 14th January)
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