Summertime Dress Blues

The workplace, not for the fashion faint of heart

It's that time again!  The sun is shining, the mercury is rising, the winter time blues are being banished like a bad memory.  We all rejoice in the return of the consistent sunshine of Spring and Summer.
With this felicitous change brings a change in wardrobe in the workplace.  Hems rise, toes come out of hiding and shirts seem to have less yardage.
So here are some simple rules to follow as we enter the warmer months in the work environment:

1. If you think you are going to sweat, don't forget the deodorant.  More importantly, DO NOT increase the amount of your favorite perfume or cologne to combat your BO.  Your co-workers will rise in revolt and hose you down until you stinketh not!
2. Let's talk about hemlines.  Most companies have a summertime dress code, inevitable people will try to find a way around it.  Frankly, a simple rule to follow is if you can't bend down without showing the world your privates, the skirt or shorts are too short!
3. Cleavage.  Let's talk about cleavage.  As the mercury rises the décolletage seems to dip.  Showing too much skin, leaving little to the imagination.  Intimate apparel should never show when you are in a professional environment!  Cover up ladies!  Use a shrug, sweater, shawl, or, I don't know, and actual blouse that buttons.

Summer is a time to be cool and refreshing in most everything you do.  This can be done with class and elegance with your wardrobe.  Be aware of your company's dress code and stick to it.
What every you do, don't show your privates to the boss!  If you do, your summer will surely be blue.

A Jury of My Peers

A good friend of the Admin Gal recently pointed out  her frustration of meetings that run over their allotted time.  Admin Gal realizes this is a common theme in this blog.  But with so much material and so many people to help, how can this topic not be revisited regularly?

Meetings are an opportunity for people to come together for a common purpose to come to a decision. Or realize that they won’t come to a mutual desired outcome.  Normally, attendees come prepared ready to make the needed decision or touch base on the current milestone.  All of this can be done with in the allotted meeting time.

Here is when things can go terribly, terribly wrong.  Sometimes, when an attendee feels slighted, for what ever reason, they decide to hold the meeting hostage.  If you will, a meeting filibuster.  Not letting anyone get a word in until they’ve made their pointless point.

5, 10, 30 minutes later.  Everyone’s schedules are in disarray,  other meetings have been held up because of this person’s axe to grind. AND no decision has been reached.

This is where you wonder if a jury of your peers would truly understand if you went postal?

A Word to the Wise

Dear Sales Person, Employee, and/or Person in General,

Administrative Assistants around the world are not creatures who sit around doing nothing.  We are productive members of any business environment.  We contribute to ongoing projects, we maintain office order, calendar cohesion, document management, personnel moral, in addition to a myriad of other tasks and projects that are assigned to our functions.

Copying our supervisors on an email about a task that is not priority will not miraculously cause it to surface to the top of the list.  Flagging any correspondence with ‘HIGH PRIORITY’ only indicates your own sense of inflated ego.

To the sales people in specific, if an admin tells you their boss will not be meeting with you now or in the future – that is the truth.  Sending the boss an email with available dates and times and copying the admin is the epitome of classlessness.  Be prepared to be shut down.

We work with our bosses to prioritize our projects and tasks to benefit them, not for someone who is not in our organizational structure.  While the persistence and ingenuity can be admired, the audacity can only be considered appalling.

A word to the wise, flagging, prioritizing, or copying our supervisors/bosses with your projects and tasks only makes us annoyed.

Sincerely,

The Admins

You'd Better Ask Permission

The old adage ‘better to say you’re sorry than to ask permission’ is getting really old where I work.  On the food chain of reality, the people who are trying to get away with this are not high enough on the food chain to even merit a pass at this.

A manager –  maybe, a director – okay, a vice president – if they must, the president of the business unit – no choice, he can do anything he wants.  Anyone else, absolutely not.  If you don’t book enough time for your meeting.  That’s not my fault.  It’s yours.

I’m really getting tired of having to kick people out of conference rooms because they think they are important enough to need a door.  Just sitting in a room for 45 minutes after your meeting is done because you think the room is free is not correct behavior.  Nor is it acceptable.

My last nerve it getting stretched beyond polite.

Oh, the Humanity!

There are some day you just can’t when in the game of calendaring.  Seriously.  If it isn’t vacation for one person, it’s an anniversary for another, OR maybe it’s that obscure hop-scotch pebble throwing day only celebrated every 4th year on a full moon when there is a Chinese-American President in Office.

Really?  When an admin is trying to wrangle 20+ people together for an executive that isn’t even one I regularly support and all I get is grief.  Well, the gloves come off!

Here are the rules of the road!

1. Take what you get! If meeting making were as easy as they thought they would have done it themselves.
2. Meeting times only change if the meeting presenters actually haven’t kept their calendars up to date.  Then that is a whole other conversation.
3. Food?  You want to be feed?  You let me know 15 minutes before the meeting your want food?  That falls under the category of miracles and really, really good bribes.
4. If said meeting people make the admin mad, the admin will stop managing the calendar and their world will collapse in a chaotic sea of, well you get the picture.

I’m not saying I’m unwilling to help.  But, usually there is a reason that the meeting got put in the initial time-slot or moved to the next.

Just be grateful it’s actually on your calendar at all!

Sales People BEWARE

Once more I am in awe of the gall of the sales person.  You know the one.  The one who calls and says, “Hi there, is xxxx(the executive’s first names like they’ve been bestest of buddies since birth) available?”  They’ve already called three times refusing to leave any information with the admin, because it is beneath them.  The boss, the executive in question, has no idea who they are.  AND when, I the admin, has the audacity to point this out, they back pedal saying, “I’ll just send XXXX and email. He’ll remember me then.”

REEEEAAAAALLLY?

Really people?  Are you serious?  I know that you want to talk to the top of the food chain.  But to be perfectly frank the top of the food chain’s assistant is about ready to serve you up tartar to their boss.

Let’s go over the rules again:

1. When wanting to engage an executive of any company, ALWAYS make nice with the admin.
2. If the admin says they’ll take a message and pass it on because that is the way things are done.  IT IS!
3. DO NOT seek to go around, over, under, or through the admin, for all roads lead back to the admin before they go to the executive.  And while you’re wasting all that time, the admin is preparing to demolish you.

If sale representatives can follow the above mentioned rules, this admin wouldn’t have to post such warnings.

The warning has been posted.

Time's Up!

As an admin, there are many things I tolerate in the commission of my duties.  Cluelessness, Obliviots, etc.  Normally I can manage around all of this, but there are a couple of things that tend to send me over the edge.  One of those things is meeting management.
The reality is when facility resources are limited keeping meetings on time it ABSOLUTELY essential.
The situation that I find myself in is difficult. I don't like being a bad gal.  But I can be a spectacular Bad Gal if the situation calls for it.  Sometimes I need to knock on doors and remind people that they are running over and delaying other meetings.  I give them a  2 minute high sign.  If they can't wrap things up in that time, they will then need to adjourn and table the discussion for another time.
When the meeting run past the allotted 2 minute mark, well then I get mean.  I'll leave the rest to your imagination.
Here are a few helpful hints when running a meeting:

1. Be aware of your subject matter - Are you scheduling enough time? Do you have an agenda to keep everyone on task?
2. Know your people - Are they talkers?  Do you need to account extra time to accommodate?
3. Is the conference room you've scheduled booked immediately after?  - Be courteous to the next group.  They are on equally tight schedules.

If you can at least follow these few strategies when planning your meetings, you will have successful meetings.
More importantly, you won't have me knocking on your door saying 'Time's up!'