Today was the supposed half-day at OWN Atomic Tangerine office. Or so we planned.

Things I’ve learned:

1) Don’t do a half day by saying “Let’s start early..” because by the time noon comes along you won’t want to do anything.

2) Don’t fall back 5+ years in terms of organizing yourself. I’ve literally gone through documents and papers that have been addressed to OWN in Miami, Gainesville and way before I moved to Orlando. I even found my original incorporation paperwork from 1998!

3) Get a secretary.

One thing I’ve really mastered in my years in business is how to hire really good technical and business people.

One thing I am not confident about is my ability to shovel the amount of manure required to find me an executive assistant. Even if I did my finest to gloss it up the job description would be:

“Follow me around and figure out what I do (poorly) and tell people to “email me” about. Figure out a logical layout to my missteps so I can automate them and put you out of work gradually.”

How do you sell someone on that kind of a mouse trap without a six figure salary?

If I die, you’ll have enough knowledge to help manage this company and your promotion path is from administrative assistant straight to VP.

Now, assuming they are really stupid they will fail. Assuming they are really smart, they will kill me at the first plausibly deniable opportunity. If they are mildly intelligent, I fully intend to fake my own death and make them answer the phone as “Vlad”

I know a lot of big CxO’s read this blog so if you’d like to drop me a tip I really would appreciate it. If you’d like to fake your identity, use the Contact Vlad form on the web page

What I am particularly concerned about:

• What are the critical skills of a good administrative assistant?
• What do you look for as far as relevant job experience?
• What do you offer in terms of perks? (Geeks and Bus people have different motivating factors)
• What do you offer as the sales pitch for the role so they are motivated to learn and help move the company forward?

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