2/03/2005

Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to be administrative assistants

There are a lot of sucky things about my job. Executives often feel free to order you around like you're a well-trained poodle - no "please" or "thank you". You get left out of staff meetings where decisions are made that affect everyone in the office because "we just need you to grab the phones!" People hand you huge projects 10 minutes before they *must* go out in the mail. Or they hand you huge projects that *must* be completed "today, before you leave", when it's 5 minutes before you're supposed to leave.

But one of the things I find most frustrating is when they give me busy work, work that is a waste of anyone's time. For example - 30 minutes ago, the Director gave me a file folder and said she needed 30 copies of everything inside of it for a 2 o'clock meeting. There was a memo on top, then 3 separate sections that were about 20-35 pages each, each section stapled. So, without further instructions, I made a judgement call, and made the copies the same way they were in the file folder: 2 page memo on top, section 1-30 pages stapled, section 2-25 pages stapled, section 3-35 pages stapled. I collated all 4 sections together and paperclipped them all together.

10 minutes ago, the Director came running over to me with the stack, and said that the 2 page memo on top had to be stapled together, so could I please set aside what I was doing (which was given to me by another Director, and was in the "must go out today before you leave" category) to do this crucial stapling.

So this was my priority, given by one of my bosses: set aside the revenue generating project you are working on, and take apart each one of these packets to staple the first two pages together.

Oy.

On the other hand, I did get paid over $16.00/hour today to staple things together, so it could be worse.

Yeah, it's not enough to make it worthwhile.

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