That morning I was sipping on my second cup of hazelnut coffee of the day when I arrived at my desk. I settled in and made sure I had everything I needed before firing up my computer. I reviewed the calendar for the day and picked up the phone.
One of the perks of my unconventional hours was being able to handle time differences far more smoothly than many other people. And since Paris was nine hours ahead of San Francisco, when I needed to call our sister company, my early arrival worked in my favor. Getting to the office and hopping on the phone when many of my colleagues were still asleep meant being able to catch the Paris office in the middle of the afternoon rather than when they had already gotten off for the day.
The phone call connected on the second ring, and a familiar lilting voice answered in French.
“Good morning, Celeste,” I said.
As soon as she heard my voice, the secretary switched over to English.
“Good morning, Amanda,” she said.
I started to continue on the conversation in English, then stopped myself.
“No, let’s try it in French,” I said. “I’ve been working really hard on my lessons, and I want to practice.”
If it had been anyone else who answered, I wouldn’t have tried that, but Celeste and I had formed a friendship over the years since the sister company started. She was the one who’d encouraged me to learn French. This way I would be able to more effectively communicate with our Paris office.
It hadn’t been long since I started taking the lessons, so the practice was valuable.
Once I had the meetings, conference calls, and online webinars put into place, I got off the phone with Celeste. She said something to me in French, wished me luck on my lessons, and we said we would speak soon.
After our conversation was done, I switched my focus to local vendors and clients. There was another list of arrangements that needed to be made that would fill out Tom’s calendar for the next several weeks. Sometimes it could get overwhelming trying to juggle the sheer volume of demands on his time. It was a good thing that I was ultra-organized.
When I’d first started working for Tom, he was a mess. I would never say that to his face. Or, maybe I would, but I would make sure he thought I was teasing him. He was completely unorganized and had no idea how to keep himself on track.
I later found out this was his first company. Rather than being like so many others and starting out business ventures very small and gradually building them, he had jumped right into what turned out to be a tremendous success. He was still climbing that ladder, but the only way he was going to get anywhere was if he didn’t miss all of his appointments and drown in his paperwork first.
That was where I came in. I made sure his calendar was kept up-to-date and organized so he knew what he was supposed to be doing and when. I kept his day structured. I even took on the role of being his companion for lunch and listen to his ideas and plans like I had the day before.
I hesitated to go so far as to say he and I were friends. If I convinced myself that we were friends, it would break down the professionalism between us, and I didn’t want to do that. It would blur lines I couldn’t allow to be blurred. This job meant the world to me, and I wasn’t going to do anything that could even come close to risking it.
He was kind and polite to me. He recognized my hard work and was appreciative of everything I did for him. Yet, we also had a comfortable rapport that let us talk and have fun together when we weren’t working.
I had no intention of us ever stepping outside of that professional bubble. I wasn’t going to be inviting him out to do karaoke with me over a few beers or anything. But it was nice being comfortable at work and enjoying what I did.
And one of the most important things I did was create a to-do list for him every day. Separate from his calendar that kept track of his meetings, conferences, and other obligations, this list broke down his day into all the individual tasks he needed to do to stay on track.
At first, it felt inappropriate to try to manage his disarray. He didn’t hire me to be his life coach or his handler. I was his secretary, but I couldn’t stand seeing how inefficient he was and listening to him get flustered over things he forgot to do.
Hence, the daily to-do list was born. He went from being all over the place to staying focused, and the difference was noticeable immediately. After that, the list was there to stay.
I had already breezed through the better part of my morning tasks when my colleagues started to arrive. Tom strolled into the office at exactly nine as he did every day.
After giving him a few minutes to settle into his office, I grabbed my tablet, his day planner, and a pen and headed in. I rapped my knuckles on his partially open door before peeking inside.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Good morning, Amanda,” he replied. “Come on in.”
I updated him on the Paris team and showed him all the meetings that I’d set up. They were recorded both on the shared, mutually accessible calendar on my tablet, as well as actually written down in his day planner. As much as I appreciated technology and the efficiency it offered in many of my tasks, I was still a paper-and-pen type of girl.
“Thank you,” he said. “This all looks fantastic. I have no idea how you’re able to accomplish this much at this time of day.”
“Coffee and the sleep routine mentality of a giraffe,” I quipped.
I could feel him looking at me strangely as I walked toward the door to his office. I looked over my shoulder at him. “They only sleep for about twenty-three minutes a day.”
“Oh,” he said. “Fun fact of the day.”
I smiled at him and headed back to my desk. Putting the tablet and a planner aside, I opened a document on my computer and took out my notepad. It was time for me to create my own to-do list. I generally made a couple of these lists for myself a day.
As soon as I finished the list, I buried myself in work. There was so much to do I barely came up for a breath until Landon showed up beside my desk.
“Hey, Amanda,” he said. “Do you know if he’s busy?”
I laughed. “Is he ever not busy?”
“Fair point,” he said. “I guess my question is do you know how busy he is?”
“He’s right in the middle of a conference call. He’ll be taking his lunch at his desk.”
“Ah,” Landon said. “That answers my next question.”
“Which was?” I asked.
“Whether he had eaten lunch yet.”
I laughed. “Yes, he has.”
I knew that the two men had been close friends for a long time. They worked extremely well together, but also still talked to each other like guys just hanging out. This was good for Tom. It helped to keep him from getting too serious and bogged down with his work. Not that that didn’t happen occasionally anyway.
“Have you had lunch?” Landon asked.
“Not yet,” I said. “It’s been a really busy day.”
“Well, then you deserve a break. Come on. I don’t want to eat by myself.”
As much as I would have just kept right on working, I probably did need at least a little bit of a break. I finished up the last bit of the tasks I was working on, then grabbed my purse, and we headed out.
Landon took us to a little deli right up the road where we often had lunch. It had some of the best boxed lunches in the city.