兼顧家庭和事業的虛擬助理
No man — or woman — can serve two masters, says St Matthew. Not so, reckons Julia Stubblefield whose two bosses phone, text and email their daily instructions from opposite ends of the country.
“It makes my job fun. It’s certainly not boring,” says Ms Stubblefield, who gave up a 15-year career as an executive personal assistant to start a family. Now her children are at school, she has returned to work, using the same administrative skills she deployed in her former positions at the BBC, Siemens and Johnson & Johnson, but as a freelance “virtual assistant”, or “VA”.
“這讓我的工作很有意思。一點都不無聊，”斯塔布菲爾德說。之前15年，她一直擔任高管的個人助理，後來爲了組建家庭放棄了事業。現在她的孩子上學了，她重返工作崗位，使用的還是她以前在英國廣播公司(BBC)、西門子(Simens)和強生(Johnson & Johnson)任職時學會的那套行政管理技能，只不過這一次她成爲了一名自由職業的“虛擬助理”（virtual assistant，簡稱VA）。Ms Stubblefield works from her home in Maidenhead, Berkshire. One of her bosses is an investment manager in nearby London, the other a website designer in Newcastle. The tasks they outsource to her are a mix of the professional and the personal, including diary management, sending and chasing invoices, paying bills, booking holidays and even procuring a plastic turkey for a staff party.
斯塔布菲爾德在位於伯克郡梅登黑德(Maidenhead, Berkshire)的家中工作。她的其中一位老闆是倫敦附近的一名投資經理，另一位則是紐卡斯爾(Newcastle)的一名網頁設計師。他們外包給她的工作既包括專業性工作，也包括私人任務，比如管理乳品，寄送和索要發票，支付賬單，安排假日行程，甚至是爲員工派對採購一個塑料火雞。
Virtual assistants — mostly women — are increasingly being used as a way of keeping the modern workplace functioning amid a shift away from full-time support staff. Their emergence reflects a shift in female working practices as well as a general squeeze on spending.
虛擬助理大多是女性。隨着聘用全職支持性員工的趨勢逐漸衰減，越來越多的人選擇了虛擬助理，作爲維持工作正常運作的一種途徑。虛擬助理的出現不僅顯示出女性工作習慣的變化，也反映出企業支出受到擠壓的整體趨勢。For the first time in the UK, mothers raising children are more likely to have jobs than women without young families, according to the latest UK figures from the Office for National Statistics. Employment rates among women with childcare responsibilities stand at 69.6 per cent, compared with 67.5 per cent for women without.
根據英國國家統計局(Office for National Statistics)的最新數據，當前英國撫育孩子的女性比沒有孩子的女性更有可能擁有工作，前者的就業率是69.6%，而後者的就業率爲67.5%，這種現象在英國還是第一次出現。For some mothers, flexible secretarial work is an attractive option, as Barnaby Lashbrooke, founder of the Time Etc agency that farms out work to Ms Stubblefield and 250 other VAs, will testify. Mr Lashbrooke says he receives thousands of applications each month from mothers keen to work from home.
對有些母親而言，靈活的祕書工作是一個頗具吸引力的選項，正如虛擬助理派遣公司Time Etc創始人巴納比•拉什布魯克(Barnaby Lashbrooke)所證實的那樣。他的公司將工作分派給斯塔布菲爾德和其他250名虛擬助理，他說公司每個月會收到幾千份渴望在家工作的母親提交的申請。“The profile of women sending us applications has changed in the last few years,” he explains. “They are now better qualified with proper commercial experience under their belt.”
“過去幾年，向我們提交申請的女性的簡歷發生了變化，”他解釋道，“她們掌握了適當的商業經驗，更符合職位要求。”He adds: “We usually meet them when their kids are off to school or nursery, and they want to . . . earn some extra money, so they re-enter the employment marketplace through us.”
他補充道：“我們通常會在她們的孩子去上學或者去託兒所的時候面見她們，她們想要……掙一些額外收入，所以她們通過我們重新進入就業市場。”The growth in the use of virtual assistants is partly demand-led. Time Etc, whose clients pay £19-£27 per hour, has been offering its services since 2007 and has grown to a size that makes it something of a bellwether for this service sector niche, complete with a US arm.
聘用虛擬助理的人數增長了，在一定程度上是需求推動的結果。Time Etc從2007年起開展這項服務，客戶每小時需要支付19到27英鎊。此後公司規模不斷增長，現在已經是業內翹楚，擁有一家美國分公司。Mr Lashbrooke says that in the past month alone its client base has grown 10 per cent. He puts that down to the growing acceptance in the UK of virtual assistants by executives and entrepreneurs who are beginning to see them as more cost-effective than employing a PA on a permanent contract, with all the attendant costs.
拉什布魯克表示，僅僅上月，客戶數量就增長了10%。他將這歸因於英國國內高管和企業家對虛擬助理接受度逐漸上升。比起簽訂長期合同僱傭私人助理及其附帶成本，他們開始認爲聘用虛擬助理更划算。But some of the growth is supply-led too, by women who enjoy the work of being a PA, but not the lengthy commute or the long office hours. With email, internet and Skype at their disposal, there are few tasks that they did in the office which cannot be done remotely, on a self-employed basis and from the comfort of their home.
聘用虛擬助理的人數之所以增長，還有一部分原因是供給推動，來自喜歡私人助理這份工作，但又不想進行漫長的通勤或者長時間待在辦公室的女性。她們可以自由選擇電郵、互聯網和Skype，這讓她們基本上可以作爲自由職業者，在享受家庭的舒適環境同時，遠程完成辦公室裏的任何工作。“It was the flexibility that attracted me,” agrees Fátima Malagueira, a VA who used to be a theatrical agent — with a couple of British soap stars among her clients — until she quit five years ago to start a family.
“吸引我的是靈活性，”虛擬助理法蒂瑪•馬拉蓋拉(Fátima Malagueira)說。她曾經是演出經紀人，她的委託人中包括幾個英國肥皂劇明星。5年前，她爲了組建家庭辭去了工作。“I used to work 14- or 15-hour days and that’s not sustainable with a family. But my work as a virtual assistant can be fitted around my daughter and my commitment to her.”
“我曾經每天工作14或者15個小時，這對有家的人來說是無法維持的。但虛擬助理的工作可以在我女兒身邊完成，讓我能夠承擔起我對她的責任。”That said, she does have to work during some evenings and weekends but she argues that this frees her to spend “quality time” with her daughter at a less busy moment. If she has to wait in a client’s house for a builder to arrive or a parcel to be delivered, she adds, most do not mind if her daughter comes too and settles down in front of some children’s television.
儘管如此，她的確需要在某些夜晚和週末工作，但她認爲，這讓她能在不那麼忙的時候和女兒度過“寶貴的時間”。如果她不得不在客戶家裏等待建築工，或者等待收取快遞，大多數客戶並不介意她把女兒也帶上，一起安靜地看點兒童電視節目。Based in Cambridge, Ms Malagueira is co-founder of Room To Breathe, a small virtual assistant agency that looks after up to 15 clients, most of whom book her time in 10-hour blocks for £280.
馬拉蓋拉是一家小型虛擬助理機構Room To Breath的聯合創始人，公司位於劍橋，爲多達15名客戶提供服務，大多數客戶爲10小時的服務時間支付280英鎊。“At the beginning I worried that there was a risk of my career going backwards, but I now run my own business and create my own work. I’m not going backwards, I’m going forward.”
“開始的時候，我擔心我的職業生涯可能會倒退，但現在我經營自己的企業，創建了自己的事業。我沒有倒退，我正在前進。”While her partner focuses more on administrative tasks, Ms Malagueira specialises in lifestyle needs. “A lot of my clients work long hours in the City and haven’t got time to sort out their home life, so they ask me to do the mundane things like sorting out their insurance, organising birthday parties and booking holidays,” she says.
馬拉蓋拉的合作伙伴更專注於行政管理工作，而她本人則擅長處理一些生活相關的工作。“我的許多客戶在倫敦金融城工作，工作時間很長，沒有時間處理家庭生活，所以他們要求我處理一些日常事務，比如處理保險，舉辦生日宴會，安排假日行程，”她說。The outsourcing of such tasks reflects a new sensitivity around the use of full-time administrative staff, she suggests.
她暗示，外包這類事務反映了一種關於指派全職行政員工的新的敏感性。“The number of executive PAs employed in the City has been cut and executives are having to share them with other people, so that makes them reluctant to ask their PA at work to buy a present for their wife. After the financial crisis, all eyes are on City workers, and that makes them nervous about using work resources for personal reasons.”
“金融城裏的高管私人助理被削減，高管們不得不和其他人共用助理，這使得他們不太情願讓他們的私人助理爲自己的妻子購買禮物。金融危機之後，所有人的眼睛都盯着金融城的人，這讓他們對出於個人目的使用工作資源感到緊張。”Many of Ms Malagueira’s clients are sole traders unwilling to take on a full-time personal assistant. Not all are male. “I’ve worked for a few women too, some with high-powered jobs and families who need someone to make up a short list of nannies or cleaners that they can interview.”
馬拉蓋拉的許多客戶都是個體商人，他們不願意僱傭全職私人助理。並非所有客戶都是男性。“我爲幾名女性工作過，有一些從事高級職位，她們的家庭需要有人列出保姆或者清潔工的候選名單，供他們選擇面試。”Choosing a career as a virtual assistant does involve some sacrifice, admits Ms Stubblefield. “I don’t get paid as much now as I did when I was a PA, though I save on travel and food.”
斯塔布菲爾德承認，選擇虛擬助理這個職業的確牽涉到一些犧牲，“我現在的收入不如我原來任私人助理的時候高，不過我在旅行和食物上花銷更少。”There is another downside to leaving the usual nine-to-five day behind. “Most of my communication is by email so I miss the banter and chat over coffee. But I don’t miss the office politics.”
拋棄朝九晚五的傳統生活還有一個缺點。“我大多數溝通都是通過電子郵件，所以我想念喝着咖啡和同事打趣閒聊的日子。但我不想念辦公室政治。”
