Hacking & Coughing

Admin Gal appreciates a firm work ethic.  In fact, she is a firm believer that very few things should prevent one from getting the job done.  

However...

Please do not come to the office hacking and coughing, spreading your germs under the guise of being a good little soldier.  Martyr doesn't look good on anyone.

Please do everyone a favor and follow these simple suggestions:

1. If you are feeling under the weather, stay home, sleep, give your body a fighting chance to get over whatever it is that has assaulted you.
2. Don't hack and wheeze your way around the office.  The office environment is worse than kindergarten when it comes to illnesses.  Give your co-workers a break. Don't bring it to the office.
3. Work from home if you aren't feeling well.  Technology is marvelous, use it.
4. Go to the Doctor if it doesn't go away.  

Help keep the work environment healthy.

Thank you!

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.

Mid-Year Evaluation Time

Time for the Mid-Year Evaluation.   I dread this time of year.  My stomach clenches, migraines lurk on the edge of my consciousness, every little stupid annoyance becomes a drama of epic proportion. Why?  Because I’m being judge by people who really have no clue about what I do.
Gone are the halcyon days when the average secretary was thought to just answered phones, typed memos and got cups of coffee (yes, I know this is a glittering generality).   The reality is the Administrative Professional is a project manager, an office manager, often times a human resource manager, an accountant, and a candlestick maker.

We do all this while making our boss look good.  The surface of our pond, lake, inland sea is smooth as glass, while the rip currents underneath are treacherous.  The people around us have no clue about what it takes to make things go smoothly.

So, I sit here filling out my portion of my Mid-Year evaluation, celebrating the triumphs and delicately explaining my defeats.  Because when push comes to shove, the triumphs aren’t what get in your personnel jacket.

Kinetic

This week I've given up on juggling and am satisfied with keeping all the balls that I'm responsible for just bouncing.
Everything thing is still in motion, filled with energy.
Ergo, will eventually get done.

Jenga!

Sometimes I liken my job to a fast paced game of Jenga. You know that game that starts out with a tower of wooden blocks, each player strategically removes one, then places it on the top of the tower.  The object of the game is to not let the tower collapse on your turn.

The tower wobbles as you gently pull the block out of the position you have chosen.  If you' re lucky, it is an easy block.  But if your opponents have played the game well, all you have left are blocks that are critical to the the structure of the tower.  Anything you remove with bring the tower crashing down.

The thing is that the inevitable outcome of the game is the collapse of the tower.  And so it is with my job.
So many of my responsibilities and duties often rest on one block, one person.  When that block is removed, everything can come crashing down around my ears.  Does this mean that I've done nothing to shore things up?  Or make contingency plans?  Of course not, I've been planning for these moments so the impact is not as significant.

It always stings when the blocks come tumbling down around my ears.  In the end, I always build a better structure