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.

Flexibility!

I’m so flexible, I’m a pretzel! 

 

So, I spend a week and a half setting up 90 minute high-level executive meetings over a three week period.  Juggling schedules, begging for meetings to move to accommodate said meetings, bribing where I can, to get all the meetings scheduled. 

 

One phone call destroys my hours and days of hard work.  The admin who made the call gets my frustration, but the executive who made the decision has no clue how hard it was to arrange all the meetings.  He just said ‘Make it so’. 

 

Instead he wants one mega meeting, which was the original idea.  Two weeks ago this meeting would have been easy to arrange.  Now, putting this meeting together for tomorrow is a logistical nightmare.  But, since the company officers attending the meeting are high enough up in the company, everyone can clear their schedules and make due.

 

Hierarchy is a double-edge sword.