I’m a secretary, despite my official title as administrative support or assistant or whatever it is, here. I don’t have a hard job – I have a boring, often tedious job. I have to remember bureaucratic processes, and stay organized. I’m not that great at this job, but my heart isn’t really into it, either. I’ve done a better job at other places, but I also got paid more and had more interesting tasks at other places.
Here is my number one pet-peeve, and I’ve only ever experienced it here. People will come up to me and make a request using one word. It’s not “please”. Here’s how it usually plays out:
Me (typing furiously, appearing busy)
They (walking up, waiting for me to make eye contact)
Me: Hi.
They: Federal timesheets.
Me: Yes. Federal timesheets. We have those.
This exchange occurs a few more times, before Me opens my cabinet and finds the object in question. They takes a bunch, and walks away.
I understand my job is to hold all these things and help people find them or just get them for people. Usually people surround what they want in particular within a sentence though. When they don’t, I get a sense of an attempt at asserting superiority – since I don’t know what they want, I must be stupid. It plays out like Basil Fawlty and Manuel talking, actually, now that I think about it. Except I’m not foreign and they don’t own a hotel.
I know I don’t have the education or experience that a lot of the people I work with have. But, I’d like to believe I’m useful – they’re not paying my agency 18 an hour for me to just sit on my bum. And I’m pretty sure I’m smart, at least, smart enough not to be offended if someone tries to assert their superiority. That’s why this is a pet peeve, not a paddling offense. Above everything else, it takes up more time than being direct and makes it more difficult for everyone involved to get what they want. Me, I want to eat lunch and quit coughing up phlegm.
2 Comments
there are a handful of people that get my top respect and politeness at work (until they prove they don’t deserve the respect part):
* admin assistant/receptionist. One of the hardest, most thankless jobs frankly (I know, I used to have to cover at lunchtime at one of my old jobs).
* IT staff! which includes me currently but not always.
The folks you support are doomed to failure. The absolute, #1, most important thing every young professional needs to learn is to be nice to the admins. Besides the fact that being “nice” is just easier, admins can make your life easy or miserable. They have access to the best gossip and tend to stay in place between regime changes. Eventually, the admins become the only source of continuity and therefore the holders of the real power.
And besides the Machiavellian aspect, there’s just no reason to be surly with support staff. They’re either in your position, way over qualified and looking for the right combination of timing and opportunity to move to something else, or they’re working at the top of their abilities. There’s no reason and no future in putting excess pressure on people in either of these situations.
OK – sorry for the rant. You hit one of my hot buttons.
Dad P
Post a Comment