You hopefully read about my virtual assistant love… well, we’re at a weird point in our relationship. I just receive the following from my beloved outsourced VA:
“Hope you are fine.I would like to know whether you have any work for me. I may be troubling you, but sorry to say that i am without any work and wasting time. I have not taken any other buyer because i was engaged with your projects. But now i am sitting idle and hours are wasted without any earnings. If you think, you cannot provide me with projects everyday, can i take other assignments and reduce the time i work with your project? But if i take another buyer, i may not be able to commit many hours/day if anything urgent come up, though i will try to find time for your work if anything urgent come up from your side. Sorry if i sound harsh.But since last week i am sitting idle without much work wasting time”
NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooo……..
I went through all 5 Stages of Grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) in about 58 seconds. When I got to acceptance I realized she was right, I had been so busy with so much other stuff I hadn’t given her enough projects to keep her busy. I needed to act fast to find a solution so I wouldn’t loose her. Back to bargaining!!!
My proposal to her:
I did some more thinking and I’d like to propose something to you: Would it be possible to reserve you one day a week for 4 hours of guaranteed work? Here is what I propose:
- You choose a day of the week that you can always provide me with 4 hours of work.
- I will try to always have things for you to do.
- If I don’t have work for you to do, you can spend those 4 hours doing anything you want and you can still bill me for the time!
- You can still work with other buyers the rest of the time you have available.
Basically I am trying to find a way to keep her engaged with me until I had some solid work for her, but at the same time I wanted to be compelled to find work for her. The thought of paying someone even if they didn’t work will hopefully be enough to keep me focused on finding important stuff for her to do.
So, to you my reader… help me discover work for my virtual assistant. Breaking up is hard to do!!!