Old dog, new tricks…..

Last week I finally mastered something that has eluded me throughout my entire career: complicated, multi-level numbering in Microsoft Word. My thanks go to Angie and Claire, who supported me at different points in my corporate life as super-efficient EAs (Executive Assistants). They essentially ran my work life—organising complicated travel itineraries, handling the less glamorous aspects of event management, and smiling politely when a completely unformatted document landed on their desks for rescue.

Now, I’m on my own. Thanks to the current UK government ushering in rafts of new employment legislation, my clients need updated employee handbooks and contracts—documents packed with clauses, sub-clauses, numbering, bullets and indents.

Compelled to learn as a matter of self-preservation (and to avoid throwing my laptop out of the window), I started with Microsoft’s help pages. They created more frustration than they resolved. Online forums weren’t much better—particularly as I work on a MacBook, Word for Mac seems to have its very own set of foibles.

My saviour was AI. ChatGPT talked me through it step by step, warned me where I might go wrong, and even explained how to fix those mysterious gaps that appear unbidden halfway through a document. While I’m grateful to have learned something new, I do wonder about the jobs that may be lost to AI. That said, no bot could ever replace the friendship, support, and occasional “get over yourself” I received on darker days in the office from my wonderful EAs.

Semi-retirement, as a one-woman freelance band, has taught me a great deal. There are the technical skills—website building, Word wizardry, and using social media as a business tool—and then there’s the emotional side: the isolation of not working in a team, coping with time on my hands and no tight deadlines to energise me.

None of that has changed, for better or worse, since moving abroad.

That said, if anyone is in need of a remote EA who thrives on having far too much to do—and can produce beautifully numbered documents—I’m now surprisingly well qualified.