Do you know? ... I can't believe I haven't felt the need to blog this sooner, I thought everybody knew.
Last week we donated a prize of "Virtual PA for a Day" to my son's school who were holding a fund-raising dinner for their rugby tour to South Africa. At the dinner I heard one of the boys, who was looking at the prize list with a mate remark, "What on earth's a Virtual PA?" I could understand this from a 16 year old, but then the compare - a middle aged ex-Rugby Lion, now businessman - said the same when he read out the prize, only he used stronger expletives. No surprises for guessing that the winner looked totally clueless when he collected his prize. I spent the next 10 minutes explaining the prize to my table who claimed to understand perfectly ... but, I think they were being kind.
Is it that they hadn't heard of PAs? Boys, perhaps, businessmen, surely not. It must be the term "Virtual" that's still a mystery to many people. I'm not going to explain what a Virtual PA is right now, except to say that a Virtual PA does everything a traditional PA can do except greet visitors and make the tea.
The learning point for me is that next time we offer a prize, I should make the title a little more specific, like "Someone who can answer your calls, make appointments, book travel, do your typing and a whole lot more, except greet visitors and make the tea .... for a day!"
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