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The people ordering food usually also end up responsible for every other miscellaneous task, so are very happy to have someone take care of one of their least i

by arram 15y ago

The people ordering food usually also end up responsible for every other miscellaneous task, so are very happy to have someone take care of one of their least important, but most time consuming jobs. One of the most frequent reactions from new signups we see is a big sigh of relief. The second issue is that someone responsible for ordering food part time isn't going to do it as well as someone who's concerned with nothing else. It's specialization of labor.

rdl 15y ago
There's definitely a period in a startup where founders or management end up handling a lot of minor tasks like this, before hiring admin support staff. I personally would rather pay for services (garbage collection, catering, copier repair, etc.) vs. hiring an admin person to do this, because managing yet another employee (and one from a different background than engineers) adds stress to my life. If I had a great candidate for admin/manager, maybe I'd consider it, but I could easily see getting to 20-30 employees before doing so.
- larsberg 15y ago
  That makes sense, and follows with my general experience: once your team reaches >= 8 people, there will always be one of them having a Major Life Issue (cancer, drugs, burnout, divorce, etc.) that will consume incredible amounts of your time too. If you're stuck hiring them on your own (i.e. not part of a big company that has its own infra for hiring and training staff employees), several of my buddies who have started smaller companies swear by temp agencies. Quickly scan a few resumes, do a couple of chats, and then bring them onboard for a few weeks or a month in a try-before-you-buy role. Also, if your admin does not _remove_ stress from your life, they're doing it wrong. Having had both decent and great admins, I can say that a great admin is an incredible enabler. Need your schedule to always have a three hour block of uninterrupted work time? Hate responding to urgent-but-unimportant crises that people always email you about? A professional, organized, and utterly ruthless admin is net positive w.r.t. your time and stress far more than they will ever be paid.
alexmr 15y ago
I can second this. The person who orders food at my company reports it's a huge time sink. We're 50 people and it was taking her hours a day with everything that can go wrong.
kordless 15y ago
Yup. We use you guys and totally agree with this statement. You guys have been awesome, and Loggly <3s you!

by arram 15y ago

rdl 15y ago

There's definitely a period in a startup where founders or management end up handling a lot of minor tasks like this, before hiring admin support staff. I personally would rather pay for services (garbage collection, catering, copier repair, etc.) vs. hiring an admin person to do this, because managing yet another employee (and one from a different background than engineers) adds stress to my life. If I had a great candidate for admin/manager, maybe I'd consider it, but I could easily see getting to 20-30 employees before doing so.

larsberg 15y ago
That makes sense, and follows with my general experience: once your team reaches >= 8 people, there will always be one of them having a Major Life Issue (cancer, drugs, burnout, divorce, etc.) that will consume incredible amounts of your time too. If you're stuck hiring them on your own (i.e. not part of a big company that has its own infra for hiring and training staff employees), several of my buddies who have started smaller companies swear by temp agencies. Quickly scan a few resumes, do a couple of chats, and then bring them onboard for a few weeks or a month in a try-before-you-buy role. Also, if your admin does not _remove_ stress from your life, they're doing it wrong. Having had both decent and great admins, I can say that a great admin is an incredible enabler. Need your schedule to always have a three hour block of uninterrupted work time? Hate responding to urgent-but-unimportant crises that people always email you about? A professional, organized, and utterly ruthless admin is net positive w.r.t. your time and stress far more than they will ever be paid.

alexmr 15y ago

I can second this. The person who orders food at my company reports it's a huge time sink. We're 50 people and it was taking her hours a day with everything that can go wrong.

kordless 15y ago

Yup. We use you guys and totally agree with this statement. You guys have been awesome, and Loggly <3s you!