I’m really in need of a social secretary. How lovely it would be to delegate all the petty tasks to someone so I would have my time free for what I consider important things, like amusing myself. Unfortunately, the days of social secretaries did not survive past the Edwardian era. There are virtual assistants nowadays, but it’s not the same as having someone standing by to take care of daily trivia.
Just last week, I could say, “Jenny, call around to the neighbors to see who does their house cleaning. Since the housecleaner called in sick, we need a substitute right away.” Instead, I scrubbed and bleached the shower and took care of a minimal number of household cleaning tasks so we wouldn’t be too dreadful before Linda returned next week.
Today, I could shove the dental reminder and the list of events for the RV club at her and say, “please put these into the Google calendar with automatic reminders.” She could then take care of running to the post office to mail some packages for me, and while she’s out, she could pick up my allergy medicine at the pharmacy.
When she returned from that errand, I’d have her pull together all my receipts needed for tax deductions relating to my writing. Then she could reformat my short, nonfiction ebook to submit for Kindle Direct Publishing.
While doing that, she would need to remind me that I had a one p.m. line-dancing class to attend. Before leaving at the end of the day, she should remind me of the genealogy program, Finding Your Roots, coming on PBS at eight p.m. tonight.
If there’s time after formatting my ebook, she could study the instructions for using the portable IRIScan and demonstrate it for me. Then I could scan some family photos and clippings this evening. Better yet, I could set her to work digitizing the boxes of pictures which would take her several weeks.
Enough fantasizing. I’d better get busy on these tasks, and I’ll have to remind myself not to miss my exercise class.
Virginia Allain 