You Know You're An Admin When...

Work Tips

You Know You're An Admin When...

We asked our Office Wranglers to finish this sentence: "You know you're an admin when..." and wow – you really delivered. Funny, heartfelt and real - your responses reminded us just how much magic (and mayhem) goes into being an admin. So make a coffee, take five and enjoy a giggle.

By Ali + Julie

Last updated on June 15, 2025

This is just a taste of the incredible responses we received (seriously, we laughed out loud). A HUGE thank you to everyone who responded ❤️️

You know you’re an admin when...

...you can find a missing file faster than IT.
...your top priority changes whenever a new staff member comes to visit you.
...you have to boss your boss around without them noticing.
...you make sure 20,000 employees get their pay correctly.
...you are reminding your exec about their own upcoming wedding anniversary!
...you no longer need to look up your boss's mobile number and can dial it by muscle memory!
...you receive a last minute ‘urgent’ request.
...you are the last one left to clean up after an event.
...you are asked to organise Admin Day!
...your lunch break is a myth, your stationary cupboard is sacred, and your water bottle is mostly decorative!
...you’ve scheduled a meeting for 10 people in 3 different meeting rooms during Mercury retrograde and it actually happened!
...you set up a meeting room with glasses, water etc. and the meeting group decide to go out of the office for coffee instead.
...you schedule your own annual leave with an Outlook invite.
...you’re on first-name terms with the print room, mailroom and every barista within 3 blocks.
...you get asked, “Do you have a minute?” 38 times a day - and it’s never just a minute.
...everyone assumes you know where everything is, including stuff you’ve never seen before!
...your name being called throughout the day more often than you hear your kids call out “Muuuumm”.
...you go grey trying to wrangle the troupe together for an “all in meeting”.
...you help everyone else survive their workday, everyday.
...they are counting the days down until you get back from holidays.
...you know everyone’s schedule better than your own.
...you can calendar math better than regular maths!
...you somehow always end up organising the office’s social events (which is equivalent to herding cats).
...you are constantly asked to covert other people’s word documents to pdfs.
...people seem to be under the impression you are also an IT expert and can solve any computer related issue (*proceeds to Google the issue to find a solution*).
...you always refer to booking meetings as playing Tetris.
...you get a last minute request to organise catering with less than an hour to go.
...you've typed your password so many times, your keyboard files a restraining order.
...85% of your emails start with, 'Per my previous correspondence below, we are still waiting on....'
...staff expect you to be all-knowing, and capable of achieving the impossible!
...you have to balance credit cards with no invoices.
...you’re juggling your Exec’s dry cleaning, travel changes/cancellations for the team and organising a 100+ customer function before 10am!
…you manage more shared inboxes than there are days of the week.
...that meeting date has changed again for the third time and it’s time to run a doodle poll.
...when in a meeting you’re the only one in the room who knows how stop the zoom feedback noise when someone shares their screen!
...your boss sends you a Teams IM asking for a cuppa to be delivered to a room full of senior colleagues.
...your inbox has more drama than Netflix and your lunch break is just a myth you heard about in onboarding.
...in hour you can be therapist, party planner, analyst and errand runner!
...you have emails coming in on your watch, phone and iPad and computer from 8 different company accounts.
…you get weirdly excited about a perfectly formatted spreadsheet and a colour-coordinated calendar.
…you send Google calendar invites to your friends for non-work events.
...someone says “aren’t you worried about AI taking your job” and you just laugh, knowing AI could never handle your execs.
...your to-do list has more red flags than Joe from “You” (Netflix series).
...your coffee is stronger than your Wi-Fi signal, and your inbox has more tickets than a Taylor Swift concert.
...you have mastered the art of replying to emails while on hold, in a meeting and eating lunch all at once.
...you get excited when stationery orders arrive.
...your calendar is more colour-coded than a kindergartener’s art project.
...you say 'no worries at all!' but you are, in fact, dying inside because you’ve booked, rebooked, cancelled, and rebooked the same meeting - and you're not even in it.
...you’re asked to find time for an hour meeting with three Chiefs…today.
...you can recite your team's coffee orders off by heart..... from 5 years ago.
...you’ve become part-time therapist, IT support and event planner on top of your actual job.
...you’ve mastered the act of smiling while silently screaming.
...you’ve RSVP’d to events you’re not invited to - on behalf of someone who won’t attend. Frequently!
...you remind your Executive to eat lunch, but you in turn forget to.
...you remember your boss' tee off time and golf handicap.
...when you know more passwords than IT, and you're not allowed to admit it.
...your motto is: we bend so others don’t break.
...you’re taking Minutes on your laptop, guiding the catering (that’s gotten somehow lost) to the correct place on your phone, and madly typing on email to talk a Director through the Zoom login on your iPad (for a meeting they assured you they’d be in person for), while running to the printer for the Board Papers you’ve just been asked to print, adjusting the theromstat on the way back, carrying additional Mentos because they’ve all already been consumed.
...you say I'll just send this "quick" email and an hour later it's a whole novel with a list of instructions and attachments!
...you've scheduled in 2026 hairdressing appointments in the diary.

Meet the experts

Ali + Julie

Co-Founders, GroupTogether.

Life’s busy. That’s why we’re here to make it easy for you to collect money from a group. Less wasted time, less packaging waste, and spending a little less but giving a lot better!