Warning: Long(er) Story Made A Tad Shorter
Following is how a routine day unfolds. I’ll have to tell you right off the gate that it’s a longish story.Like I said, this one’s a typical day, but usually when we're busy. As special assistant and de facto Chief of Staff to a very busy presidential adviser, there are days when I’m cruising, and there are more days when I feel like I’m on a bumpy, small plane ride.
But it’s one life I’d never trade because (1) I learned a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have normally learned (of course), (2) I gained confidence in dealing with real life--and real live Big People, (3) I realized that powerful and powerless people are the same -- they all want happiness, and a better life for their loved ones, and (4) I can do anything I set my mind to...even seemingly impossible ones, it appears.
An Executive Assistant’s Day
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| Image credit: Witthaya Phonsawat/FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
0630H, Thursday, Home
The iPhone on my night table rings, jarring the early-morning stillness of my darkened room. My eyes shut, I grope the table top for it and the stapled sheaf of papers it rests on.
“Hold your horses, darned it,” I speak into the phone as I sit up sluggishly on my bed.
“Good morning, Liz,” the sickeningly fresh, chirpy-crisp voice of my Boss’ close-in security blares into my ear. “Anything new from his sked?”
I open bleary eyes to look at the schedule printed on the paper I’m holding, though I already know it by heart...even five days following this one. “Just the emergency meeting of the Security Cluster at the Palace at 1530H, Music Room. They confirmed it at two this morning.”
I hear G groan. Another unscheduled stop. N’s security detail will be berating heavens and the Palace again. “Will you be there?”
“I don’t know, but he’s got stuff with me he has to deal with.” I briefly scan the surprisingly slow schedule on his column, the packed one on my own. “Any surprises on your end?”
The aide’s silent for a beat, probably debating if he’s going to tell me anything. Apparently, he makes up his mind for he says, “I heard him talking about 2010 to a governor. And I think a private meeting. He didn’t call J though or instruct me to tell you about arrangements.”
“Okay, noted,” I reply, jotting the information on the margins though I know I'll never forget these. “Just remind him I’ll be in an interagency regarding the Backdoor project today. It’ll be a working lunch, so please tell him not to create any impossible, emergency situations before I’m finished, 'k?”
G laughs, knowing full well that our Boss could spin us like a chopper if he had an itch between his shoulders. He can be naughty that way. Just when you think you’ve settled into a boring weekday, he goes and upsets the applecart...and we’re left wide awake and aware as if we’ve been shot with pure caffeine up our veins.
We hang up and I go to the bathroom, my mind already filled with the things I’ll be taking up with my agency counterparts in the Backdoor project meeting. It’s a classified, special operations undertaking for the peace process with the Southern rebels. If the press got wind of it before we’re ready, all hell will break loose. We’ll probably be ruffling some American embassy feathers again.
0800H, En route to office
Don Moen’s “God Will Make a Way” classic fills the interiors of my little green Toyota Corolla as it leaves the gates of our subdivision behind. Suddenly my iPhone rings.
I press the button and turn on the earpiece. “Hello?”
“Liz, be at the Cabinet meeting today,” my Boss says without preamble. “Bring the 2010 strat plan.”
“Hi, Boss, good morning to you, too,” I greet. “I’ve got papers to sign. Important ones. Especially for your budget for the Sweden trip.”
“Bring it with you,” he says in clipped tones. Uh-oh, the Boss woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning again. Wonder who slammed into the fallout first thing? “I need two rooms after the Palace. I’ll be meeting with two governors and then the Swedish ambassador.”
“EDSA Shang?,” I ask, not expecting a reply. “Will the private room at the Summer Palace do for the governors?”
“Ok. The one with the Amba will have to be somewhere we won’t be seen.”
“I’ll schedule a room at the Horizon Lounge.”
“Good.” And he hangs up.
Classic. My Boss is in a bad mood and he’s all snarly. Doesn’t promise a good start to my day. I sigh.
“And a good morning to you, too, Day!” I say mockingly. “Thank you for the great start!”
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| Image credit stockimages/FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
0825H, Office
His Social Secretary meets me at my office door, holding a sheaf of stapled papers in her hand. I recognize them as the Boss’ schedule.
“J and R will be here in five minutes,” she tells me as I place my tote on my chair.
“Okay,” I say, reaching for the intercom. “A, we’ll need coffee here.” I look at J. “Do we have breakfast?” She nods. “And bring the breakfast, too, please.”
I pick up the local phone and dial D, the department secretary. “D, how’s the prep for Backdoor?”
“They’ve started setting up,” she replies. “I’ve also checked with Accounting about the food. They should be ready to serve by noon.”
“How about the coffee and stuff? Last time, we ran out of bread.”
“All taken care of.”
“Thanks! You’re my kind of girl, D.”
“Always!”
“Just be on hand when the meeting starts, okay? Bye!”
“Bye!”
I take out my laptop out of the tote bag and set it up on my side table. “What do we have? Any problems with his budget?”
J sighs. “They haven’t found any additional money yet,” she says, sitting down at the loveseat facing my side desk. It sits perpendicular to my office door, which my main desk faces, and against the wall.
“What did R say?”
“He’s working on it. And so is M. I think with the two of them, they’re already raising hell with Accounting.”
I grin. Normal day, it is. “Oh, they’ll produce that money,” I say with confidence. “They will, if they want the Boss to help them with the office’s budget shorts.”
She chuckles. “Yeah, I think they will, too.”
I’m stopped from saying anything with the arrival of R and J. “Good morning, Liz,” R greets with his usual chipper greeting as he sits at the loveseat before my desk. “What’s up with the Boss today?”
“This and that,” I reply with my usual vagueness. Privately, I hope his hush-hush trip to a detained leader today will yield an accord that will bring a bit of peace for the new year. We’re in sad need of quiet in the Philippines, especially now that the media’s looking for new scandals to attract advertisers. Ah, well, free market in all its glory. “Are we all ready?”
With a chorus of yeses, we adjoin to the attached conference room, closing the door from any prying eyes.
For the next hour, the four of us discuss the Boss’ many concerns. R has a new grassroots initiative in the pipeline, briefing us on the goals and the bottomline. I tell him that as long as it would firm up 2010 chances for people we’re working with, it’s certain the Boss will take the time to appear in the fora. He and J has a sticky moment with the projected budget, but I tell them it’s got approval written all over it, with the kind of audience it’ll be targeting.
“When are you meeting DG for the intel and security?” I ask.
“Matter of fact, we’re meeting immediately afterwards.”
“Make sure you hand me a briefer before I go to the Cab meeting today,” I request, jotting the info down on my notebook. “Best to alert the Boss about it as early as possible. He has a two-week window after his Sweden trip. We could easily fit in the launch right there.”
J says there are several personalities wanting to meet with the Boss ASAP. One of them is a handsome action star turned congressman-wannabe.
I whistle. “He’s star material, all right,” I cry, excited at the prospect of meeting him. He’s one of my crushes. What can I say, I’m a fangirl at heart. “His morning tomorrow is in meetings at the Hotel. We can fit him in there.” I check the Boss’ schedule before me. “There should be a slot sometime between brunch with the Cebu governor and lunch with the Chief of Staff. He’ll be meeting one other person within that timeframe. I’ll advise N about it and call you as soon as he’s cleared it.”
“Thanks,” J replies, watching as I made some notation on my notebook.
“How’s the Backdoor project?” R asks.
“We have an interagency today, mainly on security arrangements,” I reply. “Protocol will also outline their plans on the presscon and the dinner with Mindanao stakeholders. That should be interesting. Wanna sit in?
“I might. What did N say about the dinner with the EU ambassadors?”
“He’s penciled it in, but I think that’s one of what he’s taking up this afternoon at the Cab meeting,” I inform them. “At least, I think he’ll be talking about what’s tabled for that. It’s certainly a go as far as he’s concerned. He’s just going to inform the Chief about it, heh”
Before R could say anything, the social secretary’s phone rings. J stands up and leaves the room to take care of it and we return to the Backdoor project. After a minute, J comes back, a puzzled frown on her face.
“Peace process wants to know if he can be at the meeting with the Swedish ambassador,” she says, referring to the adviser on the peace process. The secretary’s newly appointed and all gungho at managing his portfolio.
I start at that. “How’d he know?” I ask, surprised. “In any case, that’s a four-eyes meeting so I don’t think that’s possible. Anyways, they’ll see each other at the Cab meeting. He can take it up with him there.”
We return to the security for the Backdoor project and amidst breakfast, we hammer out the budget and logistics for the Boss’s trip to Sweden.
0900H
After the working breakfast, I sit down to sort through the pile of intelligence briefs, security alerts, environmental scans and popular newspapers on my table. I note some news reports that had the potential of becoming problems in the future; what people he’s met and we’re monitoring are doing; brewing scandals and trouble spots in Congress and the Senate and elsewhere; and technologies and research that are sure to interest him.
I do this every morning and they go into the SA Alert -- stuff that I want him to know about to keep him aware of what’s going on. I suspect it’s just a miniscule tenth of what he already knows but at least he knows what we’re concerned about at the office.
Sometimes, I feel as if the information dump is never ending, as if my mind has too many opened browser tabs going on at the same time. It’s only for an hour but after that, I feel as if I’d gone through the wringer, been flattened by a steamroller, and my brain’s been laid out to dry. It’s that exhausting.
The alerts done, I turn to the correspondence next. Requests for meetings, project proposals, official memoranda, confidential reports and letters from his Cabinet colleagues, compliance materials and the hundred and one correspondence that a bureaucrat has to wade through daily. Do these things never let up?
I think I’ve gone through most of the priorities and is making a decent inroad to those that had a longer shelf life when the notice for the Backdoor interagency meetings come.
1130H, Conference room
The local phone beside me rings. “The reps from Foreign Affairs, Peace Process, Defense and Justice are here,” D says through the line. She’s the department secretary for N’s office. The go-to guy for everything office bureaucracy related, and general factotum.
“Okay, I’ll be down in a sec,” I reply. “How’s the conference room?”
“Spiffy.”
“Great!”
With that, I return the receiver to its cradle, gather my things, and leave my office for the meeting.
Downstairs in the conference room, I see with pleasure that the Defense rep was the Chief of Staff for the SND, an old friend and flirting partner. I make a beeline for him and say hi. Our little group chat for a few minutes while the other attendees troop into the room.
Soon, everybody are in and we start the meeting. The Deputy Director General, the Boss’ second-in-command for admin concerns -- a retired general and well-liked by the defense and security community - opens the meeting.
For the next couple of hours, I sit through different PowerPoints, security and intelligence briefings, protocol details, and a no-holds-barred critique of everything related to the dignitary’s visit.
Backdoor was a special operations project with one purpose in mind: garner goodwill and support for the peace process with the Muslim rebels in the South. The object of the back-chanelling effort is the son of an influential Middle Eastern country who’d been instrumental in the first peace process with the MNLF, from which these rebels we’re talking with broke away decades ago.
It’s confidential at the moment, mainly because we didn’t want to create tensions with reps from the diplomatic community who may have an issue with the country this dignitary represents.
My role is to advise the interagency on what’s probable and what’s not based on the Boss’ directions. N and I have discussed the different peace processes that’s going on and his plans for so long that I think I can make a presentation of it with one eye shut.
1330H, Back at the office
After the interagency meeting, I go up to my office a little sleepy. I beg A for a bracing cup of coffee and turn to my book reading and document search. The Boss has asked me to write a policy recommendation to the President on jatropha as biofuel. It’s a totally new animal to me and I have to catch up on my readings. I was so exhausted from yesterday’s day trip to Cagayan de Oro that I went to bed early, eschewing my reading plan.
As usual, I receive several calls in the process.
I tell an Undersecretary from the peace process office that the meeting with the Swedish Ambassador tonight was four eyes but I’m sure N will advise the Cabinet about it at a later time.
The aide from the Executive Secretary wants to know where N was. I laugh at that. These two colleagues, N and the ES, always know that when one wasn’t answering the other’s calls, they didn’t want to be found. I tell J that exactly, and he laughs as well. I did know where N was but if he didn’t want to be found, I wasn’t going to bust him to anyone.
Just to be sure though, I call G again for the second time that day. “Hey, is N still where he is right now?” I ask.
“Yep,” he says.
“Would it be okay to call him?”
“I think so.”
“Okay, thanks!” A beat. “Will he return in time for the Cab meeting?”
“Yeah, we have a chopper,” G says. I grimace at the thought. There goes the budget!
I dial the Boss’ private number and he picks up on the second ring. “Hello,” comes his gravelly voice. He must’ve been talking nonstop for several hours, heh.
“Sir, ES’ aide called. He’s looking for you. J said you’re not picking up.”
N chuckles. Good he’s in a better mood.
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him you’ll see the ES before the meeting. J asked if you could meet with ES ten minutes before the others. He said it’s about additional material for your Sweden trip. I’ll also need ten minutes for you to sign the budget and to digest the alerts.”
“Okay, I’ll be there.”
“I also told J you’ll want snacks,” I inform him. “They’ll have banana cue and Dole pineapple ready.”
“Great! Thanks, Liz,” he says and hangs up.
Ah, the way to my Boss’ good graces is his love for native desserts. Works every single time.
The Foreign Affairs’ special assistant calls regarding the confidential aide memoire that the social secretary hand-carried to their office yesterday. I tell him it’s an advance notice on what N has tabled for today’s security cluster meeting.
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| Image credit Witthaya Phonsawat/FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
1440H, En route to Malacanang Palace
My stuff are ready and waiting on my table when I dial my driver’s local. “Hey, C, are you ready?” I ask him.
“Sure am, Liz,” he replies. “I’ll come up to get your things and we should be on our way.”
“Thanks, C,” I say. “You’re my hero!”
The ride to the Palace - the President’s official residence - where the Cabinet Meeting will take place is done in relative quiet. I told C I’ll be working on a Memo so I’ll need peace and quiet. We normally chat or have the music blaring but I have a deadline.
Good thing the traffic is heavier than usual so the hour was put to good use.
1530H
I pick up my identification card after the guard at the Palace gate verified it against the guest list. My laptop and tote makes it through the scanners in one piece, I see.
A few moments later, I’m ascending the short steps of the Guest House. I plan to wait in the lounge for N so I can have the papers signed before he goes up to the ES.
Barely five minutes warming up my armchair, I see N’s black Mercedes range rover stop in front of the Guest House. G emerges from the passenger’s side and opens N’s door.
I stand up to meet him, otherwise, he’ll breeze right past me and I’ll be late going home tonight again.
We speed through the document-signing with his characteristic energy. There’s one he returns to me, wanting a blander language than I used.
I raise my brows at that. “It’s already very bland and very diplomatic,” I remark.
“It’s still too strong for my tastes,” he says. “Remember, we’re asking a Senator to do something for us. Better not to get him all defensive.”
I grin. My Boss, the consummate diplomat. “Okay.”
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| Image credit: inquirer.net |
16:00H, Malacanang Palace
When it’s time to go to the Cab meeting, N and ES emerges from their closed-door chat, laughing and in high spirits. J, ES’ close in for the day, jokes that the two buddies must’ve put one over some other poor Cab Sec again. They did look as if the cat’s just swallowed the canary, come to think of it.
We proceed to the Palace en masse, J and I bringing up the rear. On the way, we see the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Justice alight from their vehicles. The four Secretaries climb the dark, wooden stairs to the Music Room on the second floor.
After ten minutes of waiting inside the Music Room, the Deputy Chief of Staff emerges from a door to the President’s inner sanctum and announces, “The President of the Republic of the Philippines!”
We all stand up. The diminutive President emerges with her entourage of aides and deputies and after a general shuffling and greetings, we all sit down to business. The other aides leave the room. Only me and the President’s close-in aide remains of the assistants.
1730H
It’s a lively meeting, to say the least. Many of the attendees had opinions to share but at the end of the day, the President’s word is the final one and all men fold. Funny that. Women power for the win, I say.
I call C while everybody mills about in informal chit-chat, converging on the President for some last-minute agenda. “Hey, C, we’ll be going to EDSA Shang,” I inform him. “Tell G you’ll be part of the convoy. Stay behind the spare car, okay?”
“Sure, boss lady.”
“And tell G to come in now. We should be down in five to ten minutes.”
1740H, En route to EDSA Shangrila Hotel
In exactly that time, I’m strapping myself into the backseat of N’s rover as he settles beside me.
“Anything interesting at the office?” N asks, wasting no time.
I hand him the alerts again. “Everything’ there,” I tell him. “Also, the SFA’s assistant called about the aide memoire.”
“What did he say?”
“They've firmed up the arrangements in Sweden. The man who’ll assist you there is the same one six months ago so you shouldn’t have any problems.”
“Did you tell them I’ll be there for just two days?”
“Yes, so they’ve filled your schedule to the brim,” I say, smiling. “The whole of the second day though is spent with your peace process counterpart.”
He nods and starts reading the SA Alerts. I study N, trying to gauge his pissy meter. He can get terribly moody after a lengthy meeting with his security colleagues.
He looks to be in even temper though so I broach a subject that’s sure to take his mind off official duties. “Hummingbird called,” I start gingerly, half-bracing for a hissy fit.
“Hmmm?” he mumbles, still caught up in his reading.
“She needs you to call,” I tell him. “She’s got some issues brewing.”
“Has J spoken with her?” he asks, referring to his finance assistant, the same one I met with this morning together with R and the social secretary.
“It was actually J who asked me to tell you.”
His lips purse. “I’ll take care of it.”
“J said it’s something serious.”
He nods, acknowledging the caution.
I leave him to his alerts and call the Hotel’s F&B Manager, a college schoolmate, and confirm this afternoon’s arrangements.
“The arrangements for this afternoon are all set.”
“You’ll have to be in the meeting with the governors.”
I also tell him about the wannabe Congressman/actor and the request of the peace process adviser.
At the last, his brows furrows and his lips purse once again. Uh-oh, he looks displeased. “Who told him about that meeting?”
“I don’t know,” I admit honestly. “All I know is that they called J this morning and then me this afternoon.”
“It’s a four-eyes,” he says, “but I’ll tell him about some of the stuff I’ll be taking up with the Ambassador later. As for IV” -- actor/wanna be Congressman -- “you can go ahead and schedule him after my meeting with the Cebu governor.”
“R also wants to present a grassroots initiative. He’s worked out all the mechanics and the budget. He said the office’s going to spearhead it.”
He’s silent for a while, considering. “So the DDG knows about it?” he asks, referring to the retired general, his second-in-command for admin.
“He’ll be traveling with you, actually. So will a lot of the office staff.”
“Can he still do that? It’s going to be an exhausting schedule.”
“He said he can do it. I believe him, too.”
“Okay, find a time tomorrow so I can view that project.”
“The security’s set for the Backdoor project, too.”
“Include a meeting with M and a formal dinner with Muslim Mindanao officials and leaders in the itinerary,” he instructs. “I just firmed those up today.”
I jot those in my notebook. “The protocol officer assigned to this visit said he’ll need the full schedule.”
“Okay, but black out the visit to M. Make it a private time. That one’s not for public consumption.”
“We’ve agreed today that the Principal will be housed at Makati Shangrila,” I tell him. “I’ve also called the Lear jet company and told them of the possibility of a trip. Will he still go to CDO?”
“That one may not push through,” he says. “Once the visit to M was approved, the Chief vetted the out-of-towner. Too problematic, if he gets caught there.”
I note that one, too. “In any case, I’ve blocked the presidential suite for the duration of his stay.”
“Good. Anything else?”
“I think that’s it, for the meantime.”
We settle into a companionable silence. Once in a while, he’d look at his alerts, then he’d put it down and think. N must have hundreds more browser tabs simultaneously opened in his mind than me. Good. I wouldn’t want to be alone in my information overload.
1800H, EDSA Shangrila Hotel
At the hotel, J meet us at the lobby and leads us to the meeting room off the Summer Palace. The two governors are already there. After some preliminary chit-chat and the wait staff serving the food, everyone piles out of the room, leaving N, me and the governors.
It’s a very interesting meeting. With what’s being discussed and the information revealed, 2010’s promising to be one hell of a circus.
1900H
I escort N to the Horizon lounge, and bring him to the private meeting room. I stay with him while we wait for the Ambassador. His security detail stay outside.
“Shall I leave for home after the Ambassador gets in?” I ask N.
“Yes, but keep your phone open,” he reminds me. “I might have something for you after we meet.”
“No sudden trips out of town for the weekend, I hope,” I tell him with a grin, only half-joking.
“Maybe tomorrow,” he teases, and my eyes bug at the thought.
“Please, no. I think I’m still jet-lagged from yesterday’s trip.”
“That was just a two-hour plane ride!”
“Yes, but it was all so sudden,” I said. “But if we’re going on a plane ride this week, I’ll sneak in some sightseeing. Maybe, if you can arrange it for Boracay or for Palawan, I’ll be a happy camper. Won’t hurt if I get a field trip budget, too.”
“You wish!” he shoots back, grinning.
This is what I like about N. He’s not like one of the other Secretaries who’re starched shirts and pursed lips and all haughty business. He’s like one of the guys, one of us. Although he can be autocratic and such a tyrant at times, he also knows how to loosen up and mock the slaves, heh.
J rings me and says she’s on her way up with the Swedish Ambassador. “The Ambassador’s on his way up,” I inform N.
“Settle the bill on your way out,” he reminds me.
A few moments later, J leads in the ambassador. We leave them to each other. J waits for me while I settle our account at the reception.
1820H, Home
I’m just locking my front door behind me when my iPhone rings. A look at the caller ID shows it’s N. I groan out loud. Oh boy, it’s really been a loooong day and it's not through yet!
“Yes, Boss?”
“I’ve got good news and bad news. What do you want first?”
“The good news, please.”
“One, the Sweden trip is pushed back a week. And two, you’re going to Belgium.”
A cautious jig starts somewhere in the region of my heart. International travel! “Er, the bad news?” I ask cautiously.
“We’re leaving on Monday,” he says, laughing. “I’ve told J to validate our passports first thing tomorrow morning. You’ll have to fax the travel authority tonight.”
I sigh silently. “Sure, Boss. I’ll just wake up DG’s aide and get him to sign it, heh.”
He outlines who’s going with us, who we’ll be meeting, the purpose of the trip, and the talking points while I jot it down on my trusty notebook.
"I'll call Foreign Affairs and Belgium tomorrow to coordinate hotels and schedules," I tell him. "Do I speak with the SFA or his Special Assistant about schedules?"
"His assistant should know by now," N says, "but we're going to present a report to about 20 people on Wednesday. We'll work on the report on Saturday, private office."
"Copy, sir," I acknowledge, grimacing at the working weekend. "I'll also call E to alert her about the trip. When do you plan to return?"
"I plan to stay until Thursday, but the rest of the team can stay until Sunday," he says.
"Really?!" I cry, ecstatic at the news. "Thanks, Boss. You're the greatest ever!"
N hungs up a few seconds later, chuckling. I know he’s gleeful at the thought of seeing us, his minions, make the mad dash preparing for this trip. I think it’s the high point of his otherwise frenetic, stressful life as a presidential adviser cum troubleshooter cum damage control artist.
After talking with N's travel agent, I power on my laptop, draft the travel authority, and email it to the DG’s executive assistant, G. I call her and discuss what's in store for next week.
Tomorrow morning, it’s going to be one hell of a crazy scramble as we rack up the budget, the talking points, the material for the presentations and everything else for Belgium. Good thing hubby dear has migrated to the US. After this administration, I’m going to kick back and take it easy in the States with him. That’s a promise!
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