An Interim Job
Wed., March 5, 11:00 AM
The question has come up — should one apply for a secretarial position if one’s training is for something else? Of course, if you need the money and that’s all you can find, it becomes a rhetorical question. However, I think I want to refer back to my own entry about a woman of the nineties. Yes, much of that is valid, but the working place as changed tremendously in the fifteen years or so since I wrote it. The kind of secretary produced by the Katharine Gibbs School is efficient and flexible, but many of her skills have been replaced by technology, leaving her free to provide a different kind of service, perhaps unique to that particular employer.
[Husband asks Son if he has a secretary. “My boss has a secretary,” he replies, “but I can do the job better myself.”]
Let me tell you about the last “purely secretarial” position I had, a temp assignment at a place called Creative Output. The company no longer exists, so I can talk about it; however, I think it illustrates how “secretary” can evolve into something else. As I drove up for the first time, I remember thinking, “I hope you people are creative, because I am not, but I work very well with creative people.”
The original assignment was just the kind of thing for which one hires a temp, a promotional mailing. No one in the Communications Department knew how to use the company-wide software, so one innovative fellow had put the database and cover letter into his own Mackintosh. The task was complicated by the fact that the author of the letter, a rather long-winded writer, couldn’t bring it down to less than two pages. Thus someone had to babysit the Mac, inserting first a piece of letterhead and then a plain second sheet…
Dull, you say? Beneath my skills and training, with not only a college diploma but also certification from the Katharine Gibbs School? Having left my previous job after six underpaid years, I had to find some way of earning a few bucks until the “perfect job” turned up. Anyway, dull or not, a truly educated person is never bored.
While each page was printing, I had time to set up the assembly of the materials that would go into each package. Having done that, I was now free to read those materials. And one of those was a book called The Goal, which I have mentioned before. It was a “novel about manufacturing”; I didn’t know anything about manufacturing, so what did I have to lose? To my surprise, the book was interesting, and I brought a copy home to finish reading it. I felt there was real potential in this company.
Obviously I was good at what I did, and other junk tasks were found for me. Most of the books were soft-cover, but there were a couple hundred hard-cover copies that would be autographed for special recipients. Nice little books — except that the dust covers were off center. The publisher provided better dust covers, but someone had to fold them properly and put them on the books. Guess who was beginning to get very possessive about “her” books.
There was a job opening in the Communications Department, and my supervisor suggested that I apply for it. I did so, but by the time I actually interviewed, her supervisor had hired someone else. Would I please stay on until the new person learned the job? The Goal had actually begun to sell, and the company could not afford to let orders go unfulfilled. I was disappointed that the job was not permanently mine, but I was glad that I had completed all the HR screening; maybe something else would turn up.
Eventually the new girl came. She was skinny and cute, just the type that manager liked. She may have had some background that he wanted, but evidently she did not have a work ethic. She was late on her first day, obviously hung over. She did not seem capable of learning the software necessary to her job but stayed late to do the day’s typing on that Mackintosh, which the owner kindly allowed her to borrow. Within a few days, our supervisor told me to be patient, because this gal was not going to last. After about two weeks, during which her work habits did not improve at all (did she have no shame?), she quit. My supervisor, happy that she did not actually have to fire her, went to her own supervisor and said, “Now will you let me hire Empress?” (As it happens, he was the guy who wrote about managerial hiring practices.)
I did good work in that department, above and beyond secretarial duties. I learned the software — at last, a chance to learn something about computers — and I made everyone’s work look good. I researched the best ways to ship our books, and I maintained the client database. By the time ten thousand copies of The Goal had been sold, I had shipped about eight thousand of those copies with my own little hands!
Eventually, a position opened in the Computer Support and Service department. I had a good personal relationship with the guys in that department, and I mentioned my interest to one of the managers. He went back to HR and asked about the aptitude screening I had gone through. On the basis of those tests and my ability with written and spoken English, as well as my performance in the current job, I became secretary to the head of the Computer Support and Service department, which was one of the most enjoyable jobs I ever had. (My boss was bilingual; but he really needed a secretary who could figure out what he was trying to say and to write it properly.)
As I say, the company closed. I was able to go to work for one of its successors. You never can tell where a job will lead.
