Are you kidding me? You're joking, right?

Executive Assistant, Jr. (location and name have been removed)
We seek an experienced Administrative Assistant to Assist the Executive Assistant to the President. Will support 5 executives and assist with marketing and proposal efforts. Must communicate in an articulate fashion and be professional in appearance and attire. Strong writing and editing skills is a must. Marketing background is a plus.

Excuse me? Are you serious?

This is from a realtime job advertisement in a major city newspaper. No salary is listed.
They had me at the Jr. Junior? Supporting 5 (FIVE) executives and do proposal support.

What exactly do they mean by communicate in an articulate fashion? No mouthguards or braces? What if you only communicate in an articulate fashion in your native language, French. Can one still apply?

Obviously, this company is either looking for someone on their Manic swing of bi-polar or they re indulging in recreational narcotics.

Really! What is left out here.. is the obvious comment from HR.

"by the way, you know , the last person left here because they thought working for 5 persons was too much. And, frankly.. we felt she was unfocused - and could not possibly do any ONE task well." We're looking for a real superstar who can take on this challenge. "

(If you (the reader) aren't in boots now, your feet are already smelling funny from this baloney!)


JEEZ!

Ok.. I've stopped hyperventilating. Stopped wanting to send in a resume just to meet the persons at this company who think this career position could possibly be successful. But the point is, there are several advertisements in this paper for administrative staff positions and more than 50% of the postings state that the position would support more than one executive or staff members. Or the cleverly titled, "Team".

Especially with downsizing... Administrative support staff are going to see more of this type of posting. The reality is, how to deal with accepting a job at which you may be setting yourself up for failure.

Can you imagine taking on more than two executive egos? Even the very, very best certified administrative professionals would be wary of any position listed like this. The salary, benefits and vacation time would need to be superb to justify the effort.

Hey.. someone is game out there to give this job a whirl. Note this. As the economy tightens up, more and more job descriptions will look like this. Just make sure you have kept up your juggling skills. We're all going to need them.