GetFriday Review - My Experience
November 7, 2007
I started using the services of GetFriday virtual assistant about 2 months back. It has been a nightmarish experience so far. I have not terminated the relationship yet, as I am still in the process of selecting a new virtual assistant service.
I thought it might be helpful for people considering GetFriday virtual assistant to have an idea of what they might be getting into. So I am providing below excerpts from the emails that I have exchanged with my assistant, her team leader and team leader's leader. (Names have been suppressed to protect the identities of all parties involved)
Email to Team leader's leader:
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Hi Xxxx,
I have been using the services of GetFriday for about 2 months. I am writing this email to let you know of the terrible experience that I had with my assistant (Yyyy) over the past few weeks. I am providing below only a summary of the series of events. If you need more details like the chain of emails, I will be glad to forward them to you.
October 26th - I ask my assistant to create additional content for two web pages. Specifically, I mention the following:
"Please make sure that the content is not duplication of content already present on the page. Please also make sure that content is not lifted out of pages on the internet. Ideas can be taken from the internet, however wording and sentences need to be original - that is no plagiarism ."
and I also mention:
"Once the content is ready, please send it to me."
October 29th - Yyyy informs me that she has sent the contents to some technical person.
I inform her that she has to send the contents to me. She then sends me the contents.
To my surprise I see that most of it is just copy of the content that is already present on the pages (to which the content is to be added).
October 31st - Yyyy sends me revised contents
I notice that some paragraphs are lifted verbatim from pages on the internet.
I send a reply with copy to Zzzz (Yyyy's team leader) pointing out this issue.
Zzzz replies that the issue will be taken care of.
November 2nd - Yyyy sends me revised contents
November 6th - I notice that some other paragraphs of the content are lifted verbatim from other pages.
If I had trusted my assistant and used the content, I would have been in trouble. How can I have an assistant who does not follow the instructions and whom I cannot trust? It almost feels like I need another assistant to manage Yyyy! Rather than saving me time, she seems to be costing me more time. Escalating this matter to the Team Leader (Zzzz) did not make any difference at all.
Please look into this matter and take necessary action.
Regards,
Jjjj
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Another Email that I sent to the team leader:
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Hi Zzzz,
I have something that I need to bring to your notice.
The assistant who currently works for me is Yyyy. I feel that she has very low level of comprehension skills. This is not the first time that I am feeling this way. I have been hoping that she would show some improvement. At times I even wonder if it is genuine lack of comprehension or just a ploy to buy time and get away with doing less work.
An example is a task I gave her recently. The description was as follows: (please read below to understand the chain of events) ....
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Posted by liveit at 3:30 AM
