9 to 5

I am not a business owner, nor do I aspire to be.  I am not a head honcho type either.  I am a secretary, plain and simple.  I started when I was 18 and I've been at a few different companies, but pretty much always in the same capacity.  Administrative support, administrative assistant, secretary, receptionist, clerical, office help, whatever you want to call it.  It's all the same.

 

I'm the person who does a lot of the work so higher-ups don't have to.  I'm the person who gets dumped on when something bad happens.  I'm the first person most callers encounter, whether it's because I answer the phone or because the phone tree led them to my extension.  So I'm the first person they can yell at.

 

I have always enjoyed my jobs.  (Well, mostly.)  Sure, people may yell at me for no good reason - because hello higher-ups, being a jerk is actually NOT a good reason - but those are the same people who will come to me when they realize they actually don't know how to do their own jobs without my help.  If customers yell too much, I transfer them to someone else who gets paid more to listen even if they still don't know how to solve the problem. 

 

So I feel a little bit qualified - because I think 20+ years of secretarial work does make me qualified - to give bosses/owners/anyone whose title is a series of letters that stand for something longer, a little employee  relations advice. 

Please note:  Below, "secretary" is used as a generic term for any office help you currently employ.

 

In the words of the Lorax, I speak for the trees.  So listen up, tree killers.

 

• You cannot survive without your secretary.  You may THINK you can, but you really can't.  (One company I worked for unplugged their fax machine a month after I left because there was a paper jam and no one knew how to fix it.  True story.  Sad, but true.)  The work we do is the stuff you can't be troubled to worry about.  Sure, you can type on your little laptop and print to the office printer and call us repeatedly on your little cell phone, but we are the ones who know where to order the printer ink and who to call when the printer breaks down.  We know where to order pens, and while you certainly can keep bringing them from home or stealing them from the banks, eventually wouldn't you just rather go to the supply cabinet and get one?  Yes, you would.  And we're the ones who make sure there are pens in there.  The specific type of pen you like.  We know that stuff, even if we roll our eyes at your insistence.
• In every office, there are two types of secretaries:  those who do the work and those who shuffle papers around to make you think they do the work.  And let's face it, you know who is who.  If you don't have the - hmm, let's say SPINE - to fire the ones who shuffle, then you don't.  We know you don't.  But it doesn't mean you can shift all of a shuffler's work to the actual workers.  It's annoying and makes us crabby.  And you should know you don't want us crabby.  Because eventually, we'll get frustrated and leave to work someplace else and you'll be stuck with an office full of shufflers who unplug the fax machine to stop the constant beeping.  See previous paragraph.
• Don't ever - EVER EVER EVER - say we're replaceable.  We might be, and we know that, but here's the bigger secret: SO ARE YOU.  The difference is, you don't seem to know it.  One company I worked for transferred executives every couple of years.  Example: In 7 years, I worked for 7 different executives.  I knew all the employees, I knew the business, I knew the customers, I knew the terminology.  I knew the history of the office, the gossip and the best place for a salad at lunch.  I knew the bars we hit after finishing a big project.  My last executive came into my office - because I had been there so long, I had an office - a few weeks after he transferred in and said to me "I've asked around, and while no one here can tell me exactly WHAT you do, they all agree that things don't go well when you're not here.  So I'm giving you a new title and a raise."  There was a man who knew what was what.  We got along great after that.  Because to transition right into my next point: 
• Flattery is nice.  Praise is nice.  But if you really want us to like you, give us a raise.  Don't give us a big speech about tough economy, industry depression, blah blah blah.  Don't give us a "performance bonus" that is based on goals that are unattainable or based on the performance of others.  (See previous paragraph regarding shufflers.)  Just show us the money.  Base it on a performance review if you must, but give us something.  Because nothing says "I don't think you're important" like not giving us a yearly pay increase while you attend "industry conferences" on a damn cruise ship or some tropical island after parking your brand new car in the airport parking lot.  We're not stupid.  No real work gets done at those conferences.  I've been to them and once you get off the plane and collect your luggage, all the work is done.  We've seen you come back from those conferences so hungover you admitted that you threw up in a little bag on the entire flight home.  So shut up and put some extra money in my paycheck.  That will get you off the hook for a few weeks, at least.
• Finally, if you came to your position by moving up the ranks, don't forget that you were once one of us.  If not a secretary, you were once just a regular old peon with no real power.  We may have liked you then.  We may have hung out and had drinks.  We may have laughed at the higher ups with you about their over-blown sense of importance.  We may have skipped out on the afternoon and sat in a bar to celebrate the end of a big project until we were all too drunk to drive home.  Once you move up the ladder, we don't forget that, even if you would like us too.  Don't expect us still be your "buddy" if you're going to turn around and tell us to "just quit complaining and do what I tell you".  It doesn't work that way.  You don't get our respect because of your title, you still have to earn it. (Or earn it back if you are stupid enough to say something like that.)  I'll do my job, without question, but all the other stuff I do that really isn't part of my job?  Yeah, that will go right out the window if you start walking around with your head all swelled up and acting like a jerk.  So just don't do it.  Or you may find that your tuna sandwich isn't quite cold.  Or that client you've been avoiding is suddenly ringing through to your cell phone.  These things happen when your secretary is unhappy.

So the bottom line is this: be nice to your secretary, receptionist, office help, whatever.  Don't be an arrogant fool.  Your job might be very important.  But so is ours.  Maybe more than yours.  Because we make it possible for you to do your job well.  And if you piss us off, we can make you look like an idiot. But if we're at this point, it probably wouldn't take too much to do that.

Ever see the movie "9 to 5"?  Go back and watch it.  See what happens when bosses get too full of themselves.  I suspect that was based on a true story.  Except for Dolly Parton's chest size anyway.