Out of Office: How an Admin Accidentally Climbed a Mountain

Out of Office: How an Admin Accidentally Climbed a Mountain, by Craig Bryson. I want to be clear about something from the outset: I did not set out to climb a mountain. I set out to have a gentle walking holiday in Scotland, the kind where you stay in a nice hotel, eat excellent food, and perhaps stroll along a loch before returning for a glass of whisky. What happened instead was that I found myself, at 7am on a Tuesday, at the base of a Munro, wearing entirely inappropriate footwear, being cheerfully encouraged upward by a group of retired teachers who had clearly done this before. The thing about being an assistant is that you spend your professional life managing other people's adventures. You book the expeditions, arrange the logistics, brief the guides. You are the person who makes sure the experience happens smoothly. You are rarely the person having the experience yourself. That Tuesday on the mountain changed something for me. The view from the top — earned, not arranged — was different to any view I had seen before. I want to encourage every assistant reading this to do something that has nothing to do with supporting someone else. Something that is entirely, inconveniently, wonderfully yours.