There has been an unfortunate rash of burnt coffee pots. Admin Gal is contractually restricted from hunting the offenders down and showing them the error of their ways.
The end results is appealing to the variety of higher powers that are observed in the department.
Admin Gal believes if any of the higher powers were as caffeine addicted as the offenders were, they would brew the next pot. If this doesn't work? She will instal a badge swipe machine to meter coffee usage.
Admin Gal has noticed that as people climb the corporate ladder, the rarefied air can sometimes go to people's head. As the titles of Managers, District Managers, Director etc. start getting attached to names, individuals can forget that they still must report to someone.
Frankly? When your boss says a meeting must take place, you shouldn't push back. You should say - Yes, sir/ma'am! Just because you sit in a management position, doesn't mean you don't have a chain of command you fall into.
When you say 'NO' to your boss enough times. Your boss will say 'No, we don't need you working here anymore.'
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.
Today started out high octane, just the way Admin Gal likes it. Lots to do, people to coordinate, mountains to climbs and oceans to swim. All this before noon.
The lunch hour arrives. Admin Gal goes into the floor kitchenette to retrieve her lunch. (After all, in these trying times being frugal is the new sign of prosperity.) To her dismay, her lunch is gone! The space where her lunch inhabited is empty. Zip, nada, zilch.
Now, her lunchtime offerings were not any gastronomic delicacy. Lunch was simply a frozen dinner. The point is that Admin Gal purchased said dinner with her hard earned money. Having purchased it, expected it to be where she put it!
So now a note, vetted by the HR representative on the floor adorns the refrigerator:
“If you did NOT BRING the FOOD in the REFRIGERATOR,
DO NOT EAT THE FOOD!
THEFT IS NOT LOOKED KINDLY UPON”
Admin Gal was asked to remove all references to quartering, maiming and humiliation. She thought it would make the point more valid. Some people have no sense of drama.
