Reeks of Desperation

Admin Gal has had enough with the desperate measures of consultants. She realizes that times are difficult. The free flowing wells of filthy lucre of venture capital and large corporations have all but dried up in today’s economy.

But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, should ever bring a consulting company to stoop so low.

To Quote the Boss "Are You Freaking Kidding Me?"

Yes, that is a Valentine card with a goodie-bag. To add insult to injury, the bag had a stuffed animal.

People, this company sent these out to CIO, CEO, and other senior leadership positions. These consultants are suppose to tell a company how to forge a future?

Admin Gal realizes that they are trying to stand out in the ‘herd’, but keep the grade school antics in school yard where they belong.

Melting the Myth

Admin Gal is irritated. Why do you ask, oh fabulous reader? I’ll tell you!

Admin Gal is irritated with the double standard of perfection. Yes, that nasty, unobtainable expectation that is set forth before us in our performance evaluations. Yet frankly, never achievable.

Perfection on the job is a high subjective thing. One person’s perception of perfection will be completely counter another person.

The dilemma Admin Gal faces is she can’t read minds. This automatically sets her up for failure in the eyes of the person expecting perfection.

Maybe Admin Gal is becoming Zen or numb. But she has come to the realization that perfection is as elusive as the frost on a window. Pretty to look at, but under scrutiny it melts into nothing.

So, Admin Gal ignores the unobtainable expectations of others dreams of perfections. She simply lives a life that is guided by integrity, diligence and the desire to always do ones best.

At the end of the day, those same people can seldom live up to their own expectations of perfection.

Why should Admin Gal?

On the Cheap

Nothing seems to be safe anymore in today’s employment climate. Gone is security of generations gone by. Very few people can stick with one company for their entire career. If they manage to do that, they have to reinvent themselves to stay ahead of the latest management model that leans toward automation, downsizing or out-sourcing.

I realize that there are many processes that can be outsourced, off-shored, and just plain automated. When all these cost cutting measures are taking place, what happens to the actual employee, who helped build the company? The general morale? The principles that built the company? More importantly the corporate history?

While the government gives lip-service to keeping jobs in the country, more and more companies are sending department functions overseas. Why? ‘Because it can be done cheaper elsewhere’. Sure, there are binding contracts that impose penalties if things are not done to the SLA's (service level agreements) of the corporation, but what happens to the customer service interface? There are no guarantees that expectations will be met.

To be frank the customer wants to interface with employees they feel confident will fulfill their needs. Not third-party vendors that have no clue as to why the company even exists.

As employees ride these waves of uncertainty in the workplace, they go through cycles of anger and fear. Rightfully so. Whether they have been with the company 3 months or 30 years, their livelihood is threatened. So the affected portions of the company are shunted off to the side, cut off from the rest of their corporate brethren. The isolation takes its toll on morale and perception.
While the management who has to manage the outsourcing process must be sensitive to the needs of the employees, the rest of the company is oblivious and often makes matters worse.

I don’t have a crystal ball that tells the future, but I do know that when a company treats their employee as well as it treats its customers there is a renaissance in business and vitality.

When a corporation treats its employees as so much dross, they will soon follow their greatest assets, the employee, into oblivion.

Valuable Resources

The Administrative Assistant has come a long way from the days of “Would you like cream with your coffee, sir?” 

While we still might answer phones and take meeting notes, we also manage offices and projects, balance budgets, act as unofficial keepers of morale, and general ombudsman of schedules.  Sometimes our job descriptions have us working in a more personal capacity to our employer, for example running small errands for your boss, helping them in small details in their personal lives all so they can have time to get their jobs done. 

As Admins, we often have the pleasure of training people new to the experience of having an Administrative Assistant’s skills at their disposal. For the newly appointed manager who has never had access to administrative help.  An experienced Admin will work hard at determining their needs and creating a partnership that will be beneficial to both in the long run.

My personal favorite is the new MBA or clueless collegiate graduate who comes into a department with an admin.  Lo and behold, they are incapable of sending faxes, getting coffee, composing letters or other tasks they consider menial because ‘that’s what an Admin is for’. 

While I am willing to offer assistance to those in need, they are secondary to my primary function.  That function is to support the executives that too whom I report directly. 

This Admin firmly believes in teaching people how to fish.  You see, I have one to two top executives that take the majority of my time.  If they ask me to send a fax or compose a letter, it is because they do not have time not because they are lazy.

After one or two instances of people not in my direct chain of command pawning their work off on to me, I will have a conversation with them.  If that doesn’t work, woe be unto them.  I will then bring out the big guns.

You see my executives do not like to have their resources wasted. 

I am a valuable resource.   

Upon Your Actions

The hierarchy of the workplace is a fascinating thing.  For some, their rise is a result of steady, quality work that is rewarded by promotion through the ranks.  For others, hierarchy is viewed as a maniacal game of strategy.  The farther they are promoted, the better the 'parachute' is on the way out the door.  For the rest of us, it is truly only a mindset.  Work provides only a base for our lives outside of work.
 The reality is we all put our trousers on one leg at a time and bleed the same color, red.
 Whether we drive a Yugo or a Lamborghini, you are only as important as you are in your own mind.  Respect is earned through your actions, not through your paycheck or title.
 Businesses are only as good as the people who manage them.  If managers are always seeking the next nifty, shining business model that promises to save the company and put the profits through the roof the end result is nothing.  But when managers use common sense, respect and hard work, their employees can see and respect that no matter the out come.
Countries have been won or lost based on the respect or lack of due to the actions and behaviors of their respective hierarchies.  The same can be said about companies.

Resource Management

When offices consolidate, space becomes premium. Old habits of squatting wherever you want are hard to break.

Admin Gal has been forced into the role of Space Police. If a conference room has not been booked by the inhabitants, Admin Gal has to play Bad Cop. This is not fun when the person out ranks you. Evicting a Director, Vice President, or President is a dicey situation. But when it is a consultant, Admin Gal has no issue.

Granted their assigned space is limited, but so is the actual working space of the working environment of the company. Courtesy says you do not just plop yourself down and claim squatter rights. Where most of the time possession is 9 tenths of the law, when it comes to resource management, not so much.

Admin Gal is happy to try and find space for people. But don’t act like a toddler if you don’t want to be treated like one.

A Day Away

When an Admin is away, be it for vacation, training, or whatever, strange thing happen to their desks.  Mountains of paper gravitate mysteriously to any flat surface forming precarious piles. Anything of questionable nature lands haphazardly on the desk chair, the desk or the floor around the desk.  Plants mysteriously sicken and are never the same again, this Admin thinks they've been traumatized by what strange things they've witnessed.  Needless to say, time off is a terrifying proposition.

While the time off is often needed and wanted, a small part of our brain way back in the back is ticking down the time to our return.  Doing our best to ignore it, we turn off our cell phones, promising our selves we will ignore all calls from the office. We approach all computers like they are live ordinance, fighting the urge to log on to our email client just to get a jump- start.

Sometimes the urge is to strong and we give in, only to be horrified by the sheer volume of people ignoring the Out Of Office (OOO) message.  The assumption that we will take care of them during our time off because they are special.

If the Admin is smart, they book  a cruise were cell phone reception or internet connectivity is non-existent and have a long cold drink.

The Air is Filled with Music

Songs fill the air as unattended cell phones ring forlornly for their owners.  Pieces of songs from Alicia Keyes, Black Eye Peas, Metallica, Gershwin filter across the floor.  Then the annoying message alarms that range from Beep, Blat, Honk, Clash and Boom.
Admin Gal admits that she likes a relatively quiet workplace.  Not silence, just everyone doing their job. If someone is listening to music, that's what ear buds are for.  This need to abandon a cell phone on the desk and leave it off vibrate is just plain inconsiderate of others in the work place.
Yes, we live in the age of unilateral communications.  Be considerate, keep you cell phone with you so the rest of us don't have to listen to people try to get a hold of you.