Admin Woes

If you've ever worked as an administrative assistant (a.k.a legal slave, a.k.a executive babysitter), you will know what I'm talking about. What the heck is up with the entire office' expectation that the admin knows everything about everything?! Really? You are going to pay me the lowest wage in the office to take care of all the crap that you don't want to deal with and than blame me for it? You are paying me to write names on forms, enter data, answer telephones, and put appointments on your calendar. You are NOT paying me nearly enough to provide directorial advice, counsel and compose people who you have angered, fix hardware and software issues like an IT pro, and pick up your slack.

Ok. So out of the goodness of my heart, I wouldn't mind being your contact while you take your two week vacation, even though that's not on my job description. But out of the goodness of your heart, please TELL me about it and let me know what kind of things I might be dealing with as a result of that! How the heck am I supposed to know your workload (and 14 other people in the office)? I'm an admin, not a psychic!

I'm not even going to go into all the ways that admins aren't generally treated as people in the office. But honestly, stop blatantly taking advantage of us. We aren't a machine that can magically solve any problem that comes up. We also can't keep absorbing more and more work as an entire department decides to "delegate." We don't have anyone to delegate to! And if you are going to keep delegating, stop expecting it to be done right that minute! Honestly, with 15 people also expecting that, we aren't sitting at our desk all day waiting for you to show up and give us something to do. Use your head once. Do the math!

Oh and also... before you yell, please make sure we really are wrong. Or before you go and rant on us to the big boss. Try letting us know you are upset about something in a gentle way. Most likely there's a reason for something missing (like you took it home to work on, and then forgot about it, for example,) or neither you or anyone else has ever communicated to us that we are supposed to be doing whatever we are not doing. And please, PLEASE don't expect us to have our hearts and souls in our work at the expense of family, hobbies and social life. I mean, do you really expect a college graduate with a major that has nothing to do with what your industry is, doing annoying, unappreciated, never-ending busywork, on an entry-level salary, to be REALLY in love with what they are doing?! Get real! We got this job to support our families, social life and hobbies, not to abandon them.

Ok, I think you got the point. Other than everything above... I'm happy to be your admin (and the other 14 people's in the department.) I like helping people. I like learning new things (and I am.) I just don't like unreasonable expectations that aren't properly compensated. Otherwise I'd volunteer.