Page 7 of Every Broken Piece
Theresa James
Virtual Assistant
TaskGenius VA
Chapter five
Gabe
Since I’ll be up in your inbox regularly?
Did she...?
Is that...?
Was that a sexual innuendo?
What the ever-lovinghell?
Up in your inbox?
I stare at the words. Uncomprehending. I’ve had some doozies of assistants before. One doesn’t traverse the wide range of personalities while going through the vast amounts of assistants like I have not to meet some weirdos. But no one has ever saidup in your inboxbefore.
If I wasn’t so shocked, I’d almost admire her spunk. Except it’s not spunk that I require in my assistants. It’s professionalism and if she’s not professional with me then I can’t trust she’ll be professional with my clients. Not that I plan to have her communicating with my clients often, if at all. But she is representing me when she’s calling to make reservations and whatever else I decide she’ll be doing.
Right now, she’ll not be doing anything else except being “up in my inbox” where she’ll sort the flotsam from the jetsam.
And she’s damn annoying with this video conference ridiculousness. Not happening, Ms. James.
But it’s the last paragraph that has me sitting back and grudgingly admiring her. I’ve had assistants make hundreds of dining reservations and not once have I thought to ask my guests if there was a food allergy. I’ve been to Tony’s Off Broadway many times, so I know it leans heavily toward seafood. It’s never occurred to me that could be an issue.
If I had a regular assistant who sat outside my office, I’d have said assistant call my client and inquire about food allergies. Instead, I have an AI assistant who I don’t quite trust to speak professionally to any client, let alone this particular one.
Yes, I know she’s not an artificially intelligent, made up, person. No AI program would allow exclamation points in business emails. The exclamation points have got to go.
I call my client myself and ask about food allergies because neither Jack, nor HR has hired me a west coast assistant yet. Slackers.
Up in your inbox. I shake my head and pretend that I’m not smiling because, honestly, it is kind of funny.
Pax and Jack stroll into my office just as I’m finishing an email to Ms. James. Like always, something inside me relaxes when these two are nearby.
I shut my laptop, happy to be done for the time being. Tonight, I’ll log back on and continue my day well into the early hours of the morning. But for now, family.
“Hey, Dad.” Pax drops into the chair across from my desk and scoots down, knees splayed wide. Somedays I wonder where my little boy with the chipped front tooth and freckles across his nose went to. Where did this man come from? He still looks like Cara, especially in the summer when the hated freckles make an appearance, but now he has my muscular build and height.
Jack grips both sides of the doorframe and leans in. “You ready?”
“I’m starving,” Pax says as he pulls out his phone and starts scrolling.
“You’re always starving.” I shove my laptop in my laptop bag, grab a few files, and stand.
Thursday evenings are for the three of us. We’ve been eating at the same hole in the wall pizza place for eighteen years and it’s rare that one of us cancels. Neither do we bring outsiders into this ritual. It’s a time to catch up, to unwind, and to just be with family.
Eighteen years ago, a bond was forged from tragedy when I suddenly found myself a single dad to a two-year-old little boy, trying to build my business, and having no idea how to move forward through the crippling grief of losing my wife and the mother of my child.
Without even asking, Jack moved in with us and together we learned how to keep a toddler alive.
It was Pax who taught me to live again, but it was Jack who held me together through the worst of it.
