I've been meaning to post about some of the issues of being an office assistant, and just happened across this short piece. The website Save the Assistants sounds very interesting but I haven't had the chance to look at it yet.
For me, the most frustrating part of the job is being asked to do things which I have not been given the tools to do. Because of high turnover, no one here has any idea what vendors we use for certain things, what our lease information is for office equipment, etc. So "order more envelopes" is a huge project because I first have to somehow figure out what we did last time, then get authorized by our accounting department in our corporate office to place an order. And they have gotten behind on so many bills that we have had service cut off. Our fax/copier was broken and it took a week to get a payment to the repair people so that they would fix it - and in the meantime, everyone kept coming to me to find out why it was still not working. Or the other annoying task of being asked to make a phone call without being told all the info the person will need - so then I have to go back to the boss for more information and I end up sounding stupid.
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This is a huge issue. In my office, which I believe in this respect is similar to most in my field, the professionals' increasing comfort with typing and word-processing has transitioned the secretaries from what used to be really a typist to a true assistant. That means that my assistant is helping me with all sorts of aspects of my work, and must essentially be re-trained at every office she works for (which does not really have to be done with a typist). While it's great to have that transition, because it means a more productive, interesting job for both of us, it also means that the person for whom the assistant works must be flexible enough to allow her perspective to transition as well. It is not possible for an assistant to jump into a new position without a long adjustment period because these days we are demanding so much more of our assistants.
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