Welcome to our new Letters Page ââ¬â a space dedicated solely to you and your views. Write to us about anything that affects your working day, whether it's praise or problems with the site, questions for your peers, suggestions for articles, funny stories, or just good old fashioned rants! We'll be picking a Star Letter each month, so get writing now and you could win this month's prize of some delicious champagne and chocolates, like the last Star Writer Amanda Townsend.
Welcome to Wales!
I have just read your letter from Anne Harris, saying that she is interested in career development and would like a local contact. IQPS is the UK's leading association for Office Professionals with 14 branches nationally, and there is a branch in Wales. Our meetings provide quality speakers on a variety of topics, aimed at continuing professional development, but they're sociable too. It's amazing how we bounce ideas off each other, and the benefits are endless.
Please note, Amanda Townsend, PA to the chairman & principal of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (also with a letter on your DD Letter page) is a member of IQPS and our local branch!
Anne, if you are interested in joining our group, please link to the IQPS web pages via DeskDemon (www.iqps.org) or contact me, the Wales/Cymru branch secretary. I'd love to hear from you, and any other PAs, Administrators, Secretaries or Lecturers in Business Studies in Wales. (DeskDemon is a wonderful networking tool. Thank you DD!)
Julie Harris, MIQPS.
PA to Professor Lynne Boddy
Cardiff University
Smarten up
Just a quick note... It would be great to have a dress code glossary somewhere on the site.
Thanks for all the great tips! My colleagues & I live in a completely different country, but DeskDemon is our 'bible' :-)
Maruska
Another idea noted – thanks Maruska. It’s good to know that we have international users, but you didn’t tell us where you were from!
A pleasant surprise…
I couldn't believe it when you called the day before Xmas Eve to tell me I'd won the competition and would be receiving flowers from you each month for the whole of 2005. I'm understandably the envy of all my female colleagues and can't believe I'll be having fresh flowers throughout the year! My fiancé says thank you too, as it now takes the burden off his shoulders ... typical men! Thank God for Interflora then! I'm really chuffed thank you.
Clare Mowat
More to work with
Thanks for the new tools in the e-mail system DD! I got a pleasant surprise when I opened up my e-mail and found not only a new look, but lots of new options. It doesn’t feel like an online mail service anymore! Just one grumble – sometimes I’m forced to have double line spacing when I hit return in a message. A few teething problems can be expected I guess – keep up the good work.
Lorraine Shearer We’re all very proud of the tools – but keep pointing out any glitches so that we can sort them out ASAP! |
Spinning around
 Just a quick email to say thank you to DeskDemon for the wonderful trip on the London Eye that I won recently. (Emily took a spin on the wheel with 19 of her friends)
I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed myself, as did my friends. It was brilliant fun! Please pass my thanks to the people that arranged the trip. I'm wearing the pink scarf in the photo!
Emily Deth
 When is a PA not a PA?
I was interested to read the letter from Dorothy McCuller requesting clarification of the difference between secretaries and PAs. This is a confusing area, but I believe there are genuine differences in the roles of Secretaries and PAs. I believe I can clarify this for you.
A 'secretary' would carry out normal secretarial duties (typing letters and other documents, arranging meetings, telephone calls, looking after the 'boss's diary, travel arrangements, committee servicing etc). However, (as in my own position), a PA's duties will normally include additional areas of responsibility such as management of other staff; budget control/purchasing; personnel control/management; the ability to analyse documents/reports received and prepare written responses; report writing; giving Powerpoint presentations; sitting on committees as a full member (rather than as 'secretary' to that committee); representing the 'boss' at meetings or other events that he/she is unable to attend; organising corporate events; and also having decision-making responsibility for specific areas etc etc
When 'genuine' PA jobs are advertised, the salary tends to be on a middle management scale which would reflect the additional responsibilities. Some of the confusion is, of course, caused by describing ‘secretarial' roles as 'PA' roles (and vice versa)
I do hope you find this helpful and informative
Amanda Townsend
Personal Assistant to Chairman & Principal
Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama
That certainly seems to clear things up Amanda, but does anyone else have a view on this matter?
What’s the question?
I’ve just read your article on giving the perfect interview. It’s useful enough, but I think it would be more valuable if you included tips on things like the kind of questions that you are likely to come up against in interviews for senior and executive PA roles. I’ve been with my company for 10 years and I’m thinking of applying for an EA position at another company. It would be useful to know what I’m likely to get asked.
Danielle
Great idea, Danielle, we’ll see what we can do.
Good advice
Just had to write and congratulate you on the new Hints n Tricks section on the Advice page. This section is long overdue and should help us all immensely to locate, at the "click" of a mouse, all the useful information we have shared over the past few months and beyond. I am happy to see that some of my own suggestions are there and that you have also introduced an archive library for us to locate previously submitted hints n tricks. Keep up the good work and we will do the same!
Gee4
Thanks Gee, we hope that it proves useful. If anyone has any tips they’d like to see included in the new section, write to advice@deskdemon.com.
A warm welcome
My name is Lynda Middleton, PA to the Principal at Liverpool College, the largest independent school on Merseyside. I've just been introduced to Deskdemon - it's wonderful. I organise quite a few prestgious functions and I find it very useful and user friendly.
Lynda Middleton
Thanks Lynda, and welcome aboard!
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