I hope you don’t mind a non-secretary jumping in for a minute . . .
I’ve often wondered that my boss (the company owner) can return from a one-week business trip, and no one will have realized that he was gone. One the other hand, our secretary/receptionist leaves for the afternoon, and the place falls apart . . .
Carry on. I’m loving this.
PoorYorick don’t you know that its the secretaries/admins who really run the office? 
I went on vacation for a week. Every day I got a call on my cell from one of the guys in my office asking me to do such important things as look up phone numbers on the on-line directory, change the toner in the copier and order lunch for a meeting. Never mind that I had arranged for a back up and told them all who to contact if they need help. :rolleyes:
I took off three days for my brother’s wedding in June. My cell phone number is easily accessible to anyone who needs it in the office, and we send an updated phone sheet out once a month. I got no calls on my three days off.
I came back on Wednesday to “Where were you? I needed this done! No one told me you’d be on vacation! Why didn’t you tell us? I almost lost a deal because you weren’t around to do this!”
Never mind that my co-worker is capable of anything I can do and was here all three days. Never mind that my cell phone number was in his folder. Never MIND that this pressing matter he was freaking out about should have been done the month PRIOR to my vacation and he was just now getting around to giving it to me.
Oh, and one more thing - our office is NOT THE INFORMATION BOOTH FOR THE BUILDING! There are four radio stations upstairs, so people are always coming to collect prizes. Every day, since we’re the closest to the front door, we get “Do you know where B103/Y101/96.5 is?”. “Third floor.” More than half of these people just shrug and leave without a thank you (my co-worker just yelled “You’re WELCOME!” after some woman who just came in and asked that five minutes ago without a thank you.). Next time, I just want to say “See that big sign that says DIRECTORY over there?”. If it weren’t for the 1/4 of them that are genuinely lost and confused and nice, I would.
Luckily, my office manager is cool. She caught me looking at wedding dresses online yesterday and instead of chastising me, came over and told me to flip to different pages so she could see the new styles. As long as my work is caught up, she doesn’t seem to care if I’m on the 'net.
Ava
My secretary absolutely refused to pick up my dry cleaning until after 3 today.
The unmitigated gall of that wench!
I’ve got a whole bunch, all of which are pushing to be first, so I’ll leave off on those for a while. I’ll write the good thing first.
My boss has decided that the admin folks have enough to do without people bugging us to do their own bloody photocopying, faxing, travel arrangements, etc. So it has come down from on high that everyone has their own work to do, and admin people are just as busy as everyone else. Translation: Do your own damn scut work just like us lowly types.
The best part is when new people come up and tell me to make copies or something: “Oh, c’mere with me. I’ll show you where the photocopier is and how to use it…No, I’m not going to do that for you…Yes, really.”
My boss rocks.
Right with you, there, Heater. I do all the filing here, and I do exactly the same things. I have managed to train myself to file things a little messy, but I don’t like it. Whenever I have to add anything to the invoice package, I take all the staples out and straighten everything out, too. One time, I had 5 pages stapled together with 7 staples. :eek:
I’ve toyed with the idea of having an in-house stapling seminar someday.
As for the vacation crap, that really sucks. I think people in offices need to get a little perspective; nobody is going to die if an admin is gone for a week and the filing piles up.
My boss once was showing me exactly what he needed me to do on my computer when ICQ popped up with a message from a friend: ‘Hey, cutie, how’s the bunny?’ Luckily he didn’t care either, though that lesson did teach me never, ever, no matter how tempting; to ever have ICQ or MSN messenger on at work.
As for work…no one really mentioned, evil, lazy, and insane fellow secretaries? Most of the secretaries I work with are wonderful people, but this is ruined by the two here who like to make life extra fun.
The first sighs and glares if anyone asks her for anything within her job sphere. I take care of the rooms at my location, so believe me; I know what her job is like. However, when I ask her for a room at her location it is answered by sighs, negative comments and me hoping this time she’ll actually mark me down for a room instead of just telling me ‘it’s done sigh’ (this week this left the President without a meeting room)
Then, there is the other secretary, who is in the ‘evil and insane’ camp. It was great fun when she tried to pretend my title was ‘assistant to evil, insane secretary’ instead of ‘executive assistant’. I thought it would all be better when she left the department. No, because I am the best choice for all her administrative needs. She calls me to call the copy center for copies to be made and delivered to her, the travel center for her, accounting for her.
If only she didn’t strike fear into the hearts of all who tread here…
I’m not really a secretary, but I do a lot of secretarial things at work so I have some rants of this flavor…
What gets me worst is when others in the office say they’re going to do something to help me, and then don’t. For instance, in March I took a vacation across the country (meaning, not the type of vacation where I could do any work of any kind). Before I left, I left a list of things to do each day with the associate editor, who is able to type fast and so had been chosen to do some of my work while I was gone. When I came back, I found that she had been too busy being an evil, bitchy hypocrite (i harbor a severe hatred of this woman on a level that merits its own website, but I won’t get into it now) to do any of the stuff she promised. How freaking lovely it was to basically be punished for daring to take a damn vacation to visit my best friend, I can barely express. bleh.
Yikes, that sucks. I hope you didn’t get into too much trouble. I’m leaving for a vacation in a few days myself, and have had to leave a few things for another woman here to do. Just a few, really. It’s two things, that’s it. However, she’s not too happy about having non-standard things thrust upon her, and I’m afraid she won’t do the things for me. However, one of them involves processing payroll, so if she doesn’t do it, she won’t get paid. That makes me feel a little better, like she might make an effort to do it.
[hijack my own post] She is the admin according everyone else in the company, and I was told that when I started here. However, she calls herself a “bug tester” (I work in hightech, so she means software bugs), and she balks at doing any secretarial work. Which makes it hard when our bosses are telling us to get her to do it. Another complicating factor is that she won’t do it for you, nor will she show you how to do it, she’ll just let you strike out on your own to try to do it, then laugh when you fail, and tell all the engineers that you’re an idiot. Yep, lovely woman. There, does that satisfy your requirement for evil and lazy secretaries, Lady of the Lake? [end hijack]
I work as a work study in a dean’s office of a big university, so I really am the lowliest of the low.
At graduation last year, the dean decides he wants to give a flower to each student graduating from his school. So 300 flowers are delivered to the office, virtually filling up one room. The dean eyes the flowers specutively for a moment then proclaims “I don’t think there’s really 300 flowers there.”
Just moments latter, I’m painstakingly transfering flowers from one bucket to another, counting aloud “1…2…3…4…”
There were actually 300-and-FIVE flowers.
Sigh. Hopefully I have the power some day to make someone waste their day counting friggin’ flowers.
You’ve pretty much summed up my entire career aspirations there, NoDucks. 
Dear god almighty, this is exactly the sort of thing that makes me want to kill all humans. I mean, what’s the thought process here? “Here’s a great website. Let me print it out, attach a cover sheet and fax it so that the recipient can print out his own copy, read it, and then visit the website?”
I know these people are capable of forwarding e-mails and such, they send me glurge on a daily basis… why in god’s name can’t they forward something if it actually relates to company business? Do they have some kind of hacked version of Outlook where the text “Forward” is replaced with “Send heartwrenching story about kid with bag of leaves for a body to all your co-workers!”
Listen you cock-ups, e-mail is a fantastic tool. It’s even more fantastic if you actually use it for business purposes, and not just sending me Miss Monroe County’s award winning recipe for beanie weinies and that list of lawyer jokes that you think no one has ever heard before.
I have to add another classic peeve:
When I worked for Scrooge The Lawyer he was NOTORIOUS for waiting until 4:50 pm to give me something big to complete and say that he needed it TONIGHT before he left so that he could take it to the courthouse first thing tomorrow morning before he came to the office. So from about 3 pm till then, I’m kinda bored, but NOW i have to scramble aroudn liek a loon to finish up quickly. That’s where mistakes happen, people. If he was a criminal lawyer, I might understand the unexpectedness of the work, but he was a bankruptcy attorney. The work should have been handed off to me days ago. I worked there three years (without a raise, EVER) and this would happen once EVERY week I was there. No foolin. What is it with peopel who can’t think ahead two steps? I don’t get it. This needs to be done Tuesday at noon, so I’ll wait until Tuseday at 11:30am to start it??? What IS that? AAARRRRRGH!
He was a single practitioner, just me and him in the office together all day long, the only days I got off were Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. NO vacation time or benefits. I balanced his three personal checkbooks, and the three business ones, wrote out his personal checks to his utilities, credit cards, etc. He was also a SlumLord to about 20 tenants and I’d keep track of who was paying rent and who wasnt, they’d call the office if something was broken and I’d schedule a time for him to show up and fix whatever was wrong. ON and on and on. All for $5.25 an hour, kids.
Oh, and he NEVER remembered Secretaries Day. Neither has my current boss.
We deal with a fuck-nit that claims not to recieve faxes. These are usually ones he wants to ignore for a while. To prove what a shit-stain he really is, the chief has me email him that a fax is comeing, print a copy of the email, fax the correspondence, print a fax report proving it was recieved then have 2 people sign off on the package.:rolleyes:
Since this asshole creates extra work for us, I fuck with him whenever I get a chance. If I have 3 pages to fax him, I’ll stick in a few blanks here and there so he thinks his fax is screwed up. He’ll email “I got six pages and three were blank! Help! Help! I’m a helpless little girl!”. I’ll reply that I sent 3 and he may have a problem on his end!
He He! 
…although I can type 80+ WPM and can do my own filing
Question: Why aren’t corporate executives recruited from a career ladder that includes secretaries? Secretaries are administrative. The work they do is administrative. To say that they run the company is not to make a condescending patronizing remark, it’s just plain truth. What the CEOs and CIOs and CFOs and whatnot do is just longer-range decision-making that should be based on a thorough knowledge of the everyday stuff that secretarial/admin asst. staff make happen, and the main reason most of them aren’t better than borderline competent is that they don’t know what they need to know.
Comment:
Their actions are perfectly logical. It still sucks but here is why it is logical…
The reason you didn’t get a raise has little to do with the profitability of the company. You didn’t get the raise because they didn’t need to give you one. Simple as that.
If they feel that raises are needed to retain employees, they will give one. Obviously, they feel your employment options are more limited than 3 years ago because of the economy. You cannot expect any raise (or just token ones) until they feel they need to give you one, probably when the economy picks up and unemployment drops.
Your cutting the cookie expense looks right from your point of view, but is not from reality.
I know it sucks but that is the way it is 
I try to explain this to my wife when she doesn’t get a raise or a cost of living increase but the company retains $10,000 per year health club memberships for other employees (not secretarial staff of course), executives fly first class etc…
She rails that if they woud do this or cut that then raises could be given. I tell her she didn’t receive a raise because they thought they didn’t need to give one. I think she’s starting to see the light.
So what you’re saying, Andymurph, is that secretaries/admins need to unionize. WOOHOO!!! Decent pay, decent hours, decent benefits, job descriptions that don’t include the phrase “and other duties as assigned”, here we come!!
So what’s the difference between a secretary and an administrative assistant anyway? I’ve never really been clear on the defining line.
Featherlou,
Go for it!
Imagine my chagrin when I thought this was a place for people to vent about their secretary.
My secretary will take an hour lunch, then return with her food…completely uneaten. Then she will proceed to eat it during the afternoon. Generally I would be abashed at interrupting anyone during mealtime, but I got over that and now just hand her assignments and ask her to complete it soon, while eying the half-eaten food.
I don’t honestly know. My secretary doesn’t seem to care about the title, but I have been lectured by an “administrative assistant” about how the title secretary is demeaning, out of date, blather, blather, etc.