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There's dedicated services for almost everything these days. A cheap PA is a generalist, probably not very good. If you want to talk to contractors, go through

by muzani 5y ago

There's dedicated services for almost everything these days. A cheap PA is a generalist, probably not very good. If you want to talk to contractors, go through an agency that handles that. If you want someone to do laundry and fold it nicely, there are cleaners. If you want someone to pick out nice clothes for you, there's personal shoppers. And so on. Mturk and fiverr handles a lot too. A good PA, the type who can read your mind, would also be making really good money. They'd be about the rate of a lawyer or so. I've dealt with people who had dumb PAs and they were just really frustrating. A good part of the Four Hour Workweek covers on how to utilize virtual assistants, and there was a boom in PA demand shortly after that. But it's receded since. I've hired people to do stuff like research a good mouse for me and it was great. But you miss out on the satisfaction of doing such things. I mean I could get GPT-3 to write a perfectly good comment in HN from just bullet points, for about 6 cents. But where's the fun in that?

JohnBooty 5y ago
virtual assistants I never understood how they could really work, and I guess the rest of the world eventually more or less decided the same thing. When I think of the things I could really use help with, a lot of them require physical presence: running errands, shopping, cleaning, dealing with contractors, taking my car to the garage, laundry, etc. (note: I realize some things I've named are not things a PA would do) A good PA, the type who can read your mind, would also be making really good money. Yeah, absolutely. I don't have personal experience with PAs as I don't have the money or stature. But at a minimum, somebody who could serve as a decent PA would need to be intelligent, professional, and have a pretty keen sense of empathy/intuition. That kind of person will have a lot of doors open to them in life, and they're not going to be somebody's PA for peanuts. There's dedicated services for almost everything these days It seems to me that one of the values of a good PA is developing a long-term rapport, something like a true partnership. I feel like most of these services you mention would be missing that aspect. Does that seem accurate? I'd sure like to be wrong.
- trillic 5y ago
  The value of the service is that they provide you with a contact that has good references which you can then build long-term rapport with. They just do the DD and make sure they're reputable.
  - JohnBooty 5y ago
    Can you give some more examples? Maintaining relationships with a bunch of specialists seems as time-consuming as doing it myself. If you want to talk to contractors, go through an agency that handles that For example, as a homeowner, I need various contractors maybe 2-3 times a year. It's a bit time-consuming but manageable; I can usually find good recommendations via the local Facebook group. I would often like somebody to "just handle this" for me, and presumably a good "generalist" PA could be able to do that. Even if I had a specialized agency with a dedicated point of contact just for this, I'd need a dozen other agencies for a dozen other things, and that seems as exhausting as doing it myself.
- muzani 5y ago
  There's a lot that can be done online, namely shopping (food and items), bills, taxes. It works because a $20k salary in US might be worth $80k in say, Malaysia, or $120k in somewhere like India. So you could probably hire someone very good with very little money. What you describe seems close to the role of a home maid/nanny. They're popular in developing countries; households with a working couple here often have a maid or two. Ironically, they're uncommon in developed countries because the cost of living/minimum wage is too high.
  - JohnBooty 5y ago
    I feel like there's an underserved market for something like that in America. Not a full-time home maid (which would be impractical for salary reasons here) but something more than a cleaning service and less than a fulltime PA. We have cleaning services and it's a pretty popular independent "side gig" for a lot of married women; their husbands work full-time and then they clean a few houses each week for something to do + supplemental income. But I've not heard of cleaning services that handle things beyond cleaning, like dealing with contractors and running errands and the like.
avn2109 5y ago
On another HN thread I wrote a detailed comment about "how to find a good assistant," "virtual vs non-virtual" etc, it's probably relevant here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29341375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29341375

by muzani 5y ago

JohnBooty 5y ago

virtual assistants I never understood how they could really work, and I guess the rest of the world eventually more or less decided the same thing. When I think of the things I could really use help with, a lot of them require physical presence: running errands, shopping, cleaning, dealing with contractors, taking my car to the garage, laundry, etc. (note: I realize some things I've named are not things a PA would do) A good PA, the type who can read your mind, would also be making really good money. Yeah, absolutely. I don't have personal experience with PAs as I don't have the money or stature. But at a minimum, somebody who could serve as a decent PA would need to be intelligent, professional, and have a pretty keen sense of empathy/intuition. That kind of person will have a lot of doors open to them in life, and they're not going to be somebody's PA for peanuts. There's dedicated services for almost everything these days It seems to me that one of the values of a good PA is developing a long-term rapport, something like a true partnership. I feel like most of these services you mention would be missing that aspect. Does that seem accurate? I'd sure like to be wrong.

trillic 5y ago
The value of the service is that they provide you with a contact that has good references which you can then build long-term rapport with. They just do the DD and make sure they're reputable.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  Can you give some more examples? Maintaining relationships with a bunch of specialists seems as time-consuming as doing it myself. If you want to talk to contractors, go through an agency that handles that For example, as a homeowner, I need various contractors maybe 2-3 times a year. It's a bit time-consuming but manageable; I can usually find good recommendations via the local Facebook group. I would often like somebody to "just handle this" for me, and presumably a good "generalist" PA could be able to do that. Even if I had a specialized agency with a dedicated point of contact just for this, I'd need a dozen other agencies for a dozen other things, and that seems as exhausting as doing it myself.
muzani 5y ago
There's a lot that can be done online, namely shopping (food and items), bills, taxes. It works because a $20k salary in US might be worth $80k in say, Malaysia, or $120k in somewhere like India. So you could probably hire someone very good with very little money. What you describe seems close to the role of a home maid/nanny. They're popular in developing countries; households with a working couple here often have a maid or two. Ironically, they're uncommon in developed countries because the cost of living/minimum wage is too high.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  I feel like there's an underserved market for something like that in America. Not a full-time home maid (which would be impractical for salary reasons here) but something more than a cleaning service and less than a fulltime PA. We have cleaning services and it's a pretty popular independent "side gig" for a lot of married women; their husbands work full-time and then they clean a few houses each week for something to do + supplemental income. But I've not heard of cleaning services that handle things beyond cleaning, like dealing with contractors and running errands and the like.

avn2109 5y ago

On another HN thread I wrote a detailed comment about "how to find a good assistant," "virtual vs non-virtual" etc, it's probably relevant here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29341375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29341375