Calendar Mayhem

When you work for a large or small corporation, the calendar is an important tool to your day to day duties. It doesn't matter if you are an admin, a manager, or a CEO.

The one thing that will aggravate EVERYONE around you is when a calendar, which is the property of the company, is blocked from the rest of the company.  We're not talking about seeing the details.  Frankly, no one cares!

I'm talking about seeing the basic Free/Busy. Thereby allowing some basic planning for when, as a courtesy, you call the person to confirm the time is actually available.

When the CEO and the Chairman of the company allow their calendars to show Free/Busy, it is poor form on an individual's part to think themselves more important than the people who allow them to have a job.

Free/Busy won't kill you, but not seeing your calendar might make important people wonder what you are hiding.

In Demand

It's tough to be a coveted commodity.  A luxury item, if you will. An item fought over by executives who want you for status, for skills you possess, and/or a stunning personality.

Really?

Admin Gal has a colleague who is a pawn in a power play.  Her salary comes out of one budget, but she is utilized by the other executive she reports to.  Budgets are being determined for the next year.  The behind the scenes wrangling is getting to be bloody. Admin Gal has a feeling her friends salary will be shifting cost centers in the new year.

Until then, she is caught in the vortex of a power struggle of which she will only lose if she chooses sides.

It's tough to be popular.

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.

Calendaring

Calendar: A list or schedule of planned events or activities giving dates and details.

An Administrative Professional: Person who creates and maintains said calendar in a timely and efficient manner.

Executives:  The Spanner in the Works!

RESET Button

Have you ever had one of those days where you want to hit the RESET button?

Well, today was it.  Nothing particularly horrible happened, but nothing particularly right happened either.  At work I was juggling tons of balls in the air and inevitably one fell.  Not one that was work critical but was important to my boss. 

When you are an admin, there is a fine line between work and personal when you work at the executive level.  I try to keep everything in balance.  Most importantly, I try not to drop any balls.  But when you support a business unit president, vice president, assorted directors AND the various and sundry managers underneath them, life can get a little chaotic.

I really hate it when I miss a ball. It makes me feel miserable and crappy.  I do my best to shake it off and hit the RESET button the minute I walk out the door so that the next day is new.  But the hold over feels like an axe hanging over my neck.

Today I hit the RESET button.  Too bad I know that my RESET will only be good for me. My boss has a memory like an elephant.