Being Shared by Multiple People in a Job--Question

[jrwilheim]

Okay...last week I went in to interview with D, a financial planner to whom I had sent a cold letter, offering myself as his admin assistant. At the time, he wanted me to be very discreet as he has an assistant currently and hasn't made a decision about whether to let her go. On the other hand, he also passed me on to a couple of other people in his office who need assistants, L and R. I met with L today but still need to contact R.

I could end up working either full time for D, R, or L or be shared part-time among two or more of these people. I'm sort of nervous about being in that situation, though, as it might lead to conflicts where I'd be forced to be insubordinate to somebody.

L is going to China over the Thanksgiving holiday but made it pretty clear she would hire me if I were available when she got back, though she urged me not to decline another job offer if I got one before she returned. She mentioned that R, the one I haven't met with yet, is looking to have someone sooner. But I don't know if R wants someone full time or part time, and the second person--the one I met with today--would be willing to share an assistant with D but not with R. She also mentioned that R could probably pay me more than she could, but I gather that he is also very difficult to work with.

Any advice on playing this situation?

[AshleyJordan]

Okay...last week I went in to interview with D, a financial planner to whom I had sent a cold letter, offering myself as his admin assistant. At the time, he wanted me to be very discreet as he has an assistant currently and hasn't made a decision about whether to let her go. On the other hand, he also passed me on to a couple of other people in his office who need assistants, L and R. I met with L today but still need to contact R.

I could end up working either full time for D, R, or L or be shared part-time among two or more of these people. I'm sort of nervous about being in that situation, though, as it might lead to conflicts where I'd be forced to be insubordinate to somebody.

L is going to China over the Thanksgiving holiday but made it pretty clear she would hire me if I were available when she got back, though she urged me not to decline another job offer if I got one before she returned. She mentioned that R, the one I haven't met with yet, is looking to have someone sooner. But I don't know if R wants someone full time or part time, and the second person--the one I met with today--would be willing to share an assistant with D but not with R. She also mentioned that R could probably pay me more than she could, but I gather that he is o very difficult to work with.

Any advice on playing this situation?

Hmm. I'd wait until I got an actual job offer from someone-- D, R, or L, before saying too much, frankly. L's behavior is odd, and she's sending mixed messages.
It seems like this is a pretty sticky situation, and you obviously want to tread very lightly. I know this is hard, but I wouldn't say much until someone made me an offer. . . .also, any indication about how much they've discussed this amongst themselves?

[steph78]

Our office has kind of an upside-down structure right now in that there are more principal engineers than staff engineers (long story about how things got that way, lots of people ended up moving out of state at once), so anyway, I often end up working on projects for multiple principals at once.

I work with fairly reasonable people - usually the principals are very understanding and if a conflict arises will help me prioritize my work. Sometimes they get frustrated when they hear that I am not available to work on their urgent project because I am already working on someone else's urgent project, and I just have to tell them to go work it out between themselves and tell me which project takes priority. I am glad to work on either project but obviously there is only one of me and I can only multitask so much, so they have to tell me which is more important.

Of course, I also have ridiculous job security in that they are already short on staff engineers and are having a tough time finding any qualified cadidates to interview/hire - they can't afford to lose me, so I CAN afford to speak up when priorities need to be set. If I didn't feel so secure in my job I'd probably be a lot more timid and I'd go crazy trying to take care of all the tasks assigned to me by multiple people in a short amount of time rather than speak up to my seniors.

[Kitty]

I guess that's kind of what it's like to be an admin - you're really working for a bunch of people, even if you only report to one of them.

IMO, it does sound like it could be a bit of a disaster - especially if the people you're reporting don't do a good job of communicating to each other.

[jrwilheim]

I guess that's kind of what it's like to be an admin - you're really working for a bunch of people, even if you only report to one of them.

IMO, it does sound like it could be a bit of a disaster - especially if the people you're reporting don't do a good job of communicating to each other.

Well...it wouldn't be quite like that. Essentially I'd be split between two people, but there's be clearly defined days/hours I'd be working for each person. Any other way of handling it is a disaster, because you can't serve two masters.