Happy Administrative Professional's Day
It's Administrative Professional's Day. Have you sent flowers to the Administrative Professional in your life? If so, they're probably really pissed off.
How much do you want to bet that, in the trash can under Condi Rice's desk, there is a bouqet of roses along with a card reading, "To a #1 Administrative Professional of State. Love, George."
This is the one holiday where you're guaranteed to have more of an awkward moment if you remember than if you awkwardly pretend it doesn't exist. Because it shouldn't. Why have a day for secretaries? And, while we're on the subject, what's so bad about calling someone a secretary? It's a perfectly challenging job that doesn't typically involve a name tag (as most truly heinous jobs do), and often requires a college education - preferably in Classical Studies or Anthropology, and/or an MFA in Dance.
But, if we're going to have a day for secretaries, shouldn't there be a special day for, say, dog groomers, or air traffic controllers, or people who work at the Gap? And let's not forget Waste Collection Professionals (who will at least have the perfect place to put all that crap from Hallmark).
In my post-college years, I had a short-lived career as Administative Professional, despite inflated titles such as "Associate Trade Attachee," which sounds like something you might find on pg. 76 of The Sharper Image catalog, available in leather or suede. Later, when I was pretty unambiguously the Executive Assistant to the president of a company, I never got anything on secretaries' day. This may or may not be because I was the world's worst secretary, considering my utter lack of organizational skills and my utter inability to care about the font style in your travel report, which - yes, I know - should have been Times New Roman instead of Ariel, or that I forgot to cancel your dog food delivery the week you were travelling to Aspen. Samuel Beckett meets Dilbert with a twist of Dada, for good measure.
Come to think of it, maybe the Administrative Professionals do deserve their own holiday. Better yet, why don't we have a National Ambiguous Job Title Day? That way, nobody will get their feelings hurt.
How much do you want to bet that, in the trash can under Condi Rice's desk, there is a bouqet of roses along with a card reading, "To a #1 Administrative Professional of State. Love, George."
This is the one holiday where you're guaranteed to have more of an awkward moment if you remember than if you awkwardly pretend it doesn't exist. Because it shouldn't. Why have a day for secretaries? And, while we're on the subject, what's so bad about calling someone a secretary? It's a perfectly challenging job that doesn't typically involve a name tag (as most truly heinous jobs do), and often requires a college education - preferably in Classical Studies or Anthropology, and/or an MFA in Dance.
But, if we're going to have a day for secretaries, shouldn't there be a special day for, say, dog groomers, or air traffic controllers, or people who work at the Gap? And let's not forget Waste Collection Professionals (who will at least have the perfect place to put all that crap from Hallmark).
In my post-college years, I had a short-lived career as Administative Professional, despite inflated titles such as "Associate Trade Attachee," which sounds like something you might find on pg. 76 of The Sharper Image catalog, available in leather or suede. Later, when I was pretty unambiguously the Executive Assistant to the president of a company, I never got anything on secretaries' day. This may or may not be because I was the world's worst secretary, considering my utter lack of organizational skills and my utter inability to care about the font style in your travel report, which - yes, I know - should have been Times New Roman instead of Ariel, or that I forgot to cancel your dog food delivery the week you were travelling to Aspen. Samuel Beckett meets Dilbert with a twist of Dada, for good measure.
Come to think of it, maybe the Administrative Professionals do deserve their own holiday. Better yet, why don't we have a National Ambiguous Job Title Day? That way, nobody will get their feelings hurt.
posted by Marguerite at 10:31 AM
3 Comments:
The "secretaries" at my job are snobs. They walk around like they run the company. (Actually they probably do.) Still, they're snobs. They think everyday is there day.
You are right, what an awkward holiday! To me it seems demeaning. Like if you acknowledge, you are somehow saying you are superior, since you are NOT a secretary, uh, I mean administrative assistant. And if you DON'T acknowledge it, you're an ogre for forgetting.
This year, I got off easy. My administrative assistant (that's quality assurance coordinator to you nice folks) happens to be out on a well-timed medical leave.
Have you noticed that "coordinator" seems to be the new code word for "admin assistant"? It's so confusing. I work in a school, so they are very clearly Secretaries, with a capital S. I'm kind of scared of them. School secretaries are inherently frightening, somehow. The fact that they're all French doesn't help ...
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