It's time to take out an enormous Sharpie pen and cross "secretary" off my list of potential future careers. Strictly speaking, I haven't actually written such a list, but should I ever pen one, I would like to publicly announce that "secretary" will not be on it.
I hate it. I hate Post-Its, "While You Were Out" sheets, and "Sign Here" stickies. I hate form 1735, form 1676, and especially form 1676A. I hate the fax machine. I hate signing for Fed-Ex packages. I hate the mailroom. I hate that my $46,000 education has abandoned me here, answering the phones. "Exobiology, how can I help you?" I feel like I lose an IQ point every time say it. I want to bathe myself in bleach after each utterance.
Oh, I know there are worse jobs. I know I could be pumping someone's gas or working at a horrible restaurant chain where they make you wear fourteen pieces of flair. I'm sure management forces you to say and do all sorts of gacky corporate things. I'm sure you make shit money from tips. I'm sure customers are rude. I'm sure reciting the salad dressing selection gets old. But you don't have to say "Exobiology, how can I help you?"
It's something about that phrase that gets to me. It sounds wrong, somehow, every time it falls from my mouth. And of course you have to say it with that perky secretarial falsetto with upward inflection. You can't just say it like a normal human. No darling, that simply wouldn't do.
I'm an English major type; perhaps I can rewrite it. "Exobiology, for whom does this bell toll?" "Exobiology, speak low if you speak spectroscopy." "Exobiology, I was your peer reviewer." "Exobiology, how may I steal your data?" "Exobiology, I'll only do your paperwork if you offer to make me a co-author."
Or perhaps something simpler, more to the point: "Exobiology, fuck off and stop wasting my time."
1 comment:
There are no secretaries any more; now there are admins.
Admins -- at least the ones I work with -- spend much of their time "out of office" (oof) in training. They learn to use software like our baroque purchasing system. Then they teach us to use it so that they don't have to. We promptly forget what they've taught us, so no-one uses the purchasing system. A positive spin? Admins and training work together to save the company money.
They also wield a particular kind of cruel power. When I was at UMass, one of my fellow grad students asked the admin for post-its so we could leave each other phone messages. The admin gave him one post-it and told him to write in pencil.
See? You've got to harness the power of the job.
Arranging a trip to attend an NSF meeting in Washington for someone you don't like? Get them a hotel room in Seattle, Washington. Feign ignorance. Say "I thought you were going to Washington!"
Admins actually run the place.
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