Why Being Indispensable Is Making You Invisible (and How to Change It)

A survival guide for high-achieving women who accidentally become the emotional backbone of the entire organisation.

The Job Description 🚩

When I was in my late twenties living in Sydney, I took an Executive Assistant role with a job description so vague it might as well have been written by someone who had never actually worked with an EA before.

Which, to be honest, is usually the problem.

People who have never had an EA have no idea what they actually do. So they write these cute little ads that massively underestimate the chaos.

Mine promised:

“Executive support, diary management, admin coordination.”

Adorable.

Like a toddler insisting they can “do it all by myself” while holding a glue stick upside down.

I should have realised that vague job descriptions are red flags in disguise. What it actually meant was, “Every problem in a 10-kilometre radius is now yours.”

Within Six Months, I Was Seven Departments in a Trench Coat

Within six months, I had become:

• the tender writer for multimillion-dollar contracts

• the marketing department

• the social media manager

• the web developer

• the OH&S coordinator running toolbox talks

• the procurement team

• the event planner for a Christmas party with pony rides AND abseiling walls

• the emergency contact for every minor organisational inconvenience

• the emotional support animal for the executive team

And apparently, I was also the Minister for Sugar Procurement.

Because one night at 8:25pm, my phone rang.

The CEO had stayed late at the office.

The CFO was on speaker.

There was no sugar for his coffee.

A national emergency. A crisis of unimaginable proportions. A tragedy Shakespeare could not have written.

WTF.

At that point, I was no longer an EA.

I had become the Office Mum: the person everyone runs to with their panic, their problems, their tantrums, and their last-minute emergencies.

Except unlike an actual mum, I was not allowed to say, “Figure it out yourself,” or “Why are you telling me this at 8pm?”

I was expected to absorb it all, willingly and silently, as if my emotional labour came pre-installed in the job description.

And the worst part? I coped.

I fixed everything.

I held it all.

I kept saying yes.

Somewhere along the way, I had confused being indispensable with being valued.

Here is the truth I learned the hard way:

When you over-function, people under-value you. Every. Single. Time.

Not because they are awful, but because humans adjust to convenience the same way they adjust to oxygen.

If you hold up the entire building, they stop noticing the foundation.

And suddenly, you're the office mum.

The Office Mum Trap

The trap looks like this:

• You fix things no one else even notices

• You have “just quickly…” tattooed on your soul

• You are the go-to person for everything from crisis management to “Where’s the stapler?”

• You absorb everyone’s panic

• You quietly prevent disasters before anyone knows they existed

• You are the organisational sponge

• You become the workplace emotional support animal

And one day you wake up thinking: Why am I doing the jobs of seven departments and still being treated like the admin who orders catering?

I will tell you why:

Because you keep doing it.

And you are very, very good at it.

Stop Catching Balls That Were Never Yours

Here's something many high-performing EAs (and recovering people-pleasers) take way too long to realise:

You do not need to drop any balls. You simply need to stop catching the ones other people throw at you.

For years, I thought being a “team player” meant pre-empting everything.

Solving problems before they even existed.

Reading minds.

Absorbing chaos as if it were part of my DNA.

That does not make you valued.

It makes you invisible.

When you fix things before anyone notices, people assume the world just runs itself.

So instead of dropping balls (which goes against my entire cellular makeup), the real shift looks like this:

• Pause before rescuing.

• Give responsibility back to where it belongs.

• Stop apologising for having limits.

• Handle the work that is yours and stop cushioning everyone else’s poor planning.

Because you can't please everyone, you're not a jar of Nutella.

You are a human being with boundaries, expertise, and a job description that does not include being the organisational shock absorber.

And once you stop reflexively catching everything, people finally see what you actually do and how much the business quietly depends on your skill rather than your martyrdom.

So… How Did I Escape the Office Mum Trap?

Here is the part no one tells you: Leaving is hardest when you are the glue.

The glue thinks, “If I stop holding everything together, everything will fall apart.”

And maybe it will.

That is not your problem.

The Real Moment I Started to Leave

I did not have one dramatic “I’m done” moment.

There was no storming out.

No slammed doors.

It was a slow build of red flags that I kept politely ignoring until the universe intervened with a very literal message:

“Girl. SIT DOWN.”

I had a motorcycle accident.

I ended up in hospital, bruised, bandaged, sitting in a wheelchair and processing the fact that I had lost a fight with an SUV.

I was officially on sick leave. Tubes. Drapes. The whole hospital experience.

Then the CEO arrived.

He did not bring a “please rest.”

He brought my laptop.

Into.

The.

Hospital.

Because emails “needed attention.”

Because clients had questions.

Because catering needed to be ordered.

Because apparently the company could not breathe without me triaging its chaos, even from a hospital bed.

I remember staring at the laptop on my blanket thinking:

“This is not loyalty. This is exploitation dressed as importance.”

And the part that still stings?

I opened it.

I answered emails.

I kept working.

Because I had been conditioned to believe my worth was tied to how much I could hold.

But that moment created the first crack.

A quiet whisper began: “If they will not protect your wellbeing, you are going to have to protect it yourself.”

That whisper grew louder with every call, every “urgent” request, every expectation that my humanity was optional.

Eventually, the whisper became a line in the sand:

“I’m leaving.”

So I did.

I packed up my desk.

Handed back the keys.

And stopped carrying the emotional weight of the entire organisation.

The Boundaries That Changed Everything

When I walked into my next role, I did something I had never done before.

I set boundaries from day one.

Not aggressive.

Not dramatic.

Just clear.

• No after-hours calls unless someone is actually on fire.

• No taking responsibility for tasks I do not own.

• No being the office therapist.

• No sugar procurement. Ever again.

• No martyrdom disguised as teamwork.

And you know what?

The world did not end.

The sky did not fall.

The executives actually respected it.

And I did some of the best work of my career because I finally had the space to operate at the level I had always been capable of.

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me at 25

Being helpful does not make you valuable.

Being over-responsible does not make you respected.

Being the office mum does not make you safe.

Value comes from clarity, boundaries, visibility, and self-trust.

When you stop mothering the workplace, something incredible happens:

Your strengths become visible.

Your contributions become measurable.

And your career finally becomes yours again.

If This Hit a Nerve… Let’s Talk

If any part of this story hit a nerve, you don’t have to keep doing this alone.

Send me a message or book a quick chat.

Sometimes one honest conversation is all it takes to start taking your power back.

I can't wait to hear your story next,

Trinity ☕️