When I Grow Up...

I want to be a Secretary. An Administrative Assistant.

 

Yeah right. No one says that.

 

But get this. This is a major job for people in my family. It is considered a good job. The fact that I dress up for work is enough to impress my parents. When I got my first job with my own cubicle with my name on it, my parents were impressed. I had my own extension and voice mail, the works. Woo hoo!!! I was a customer service representative for classified advertising at a local paper. All this accomplishment, all at the tender age of 19 or 20! Wow! In my family, that's a big deal. Right now, I make more than my mom does, and she has more than 10 years in at her company.

 

And I have to admit that this job doesn't entirely suck. I am paid enough and I get to work with nice people in a nice environment.  Usually, I am treated with respect.

 

But when you were growing up, did you ever hear anyone actually say, "When I grow up, I want to  be a Secretary"?

 

Has anyone actually uttered that phrase since the 1960's? Nope.

 

That's because being a secretary is not considered to be the brass ring by any means. It's not considered to be anything great. Administrative Assistants are important in an office; but they are too often undervalued. And they are not just undervalued by their officemates. They are undervalued by society as a whole. No teacher is ever going to encourage you to take a perfectly decent position as an Administrative Assistant and make a career out of it. Unless you are going to run your own business as one -- as a Virtual Assistant or freelancer.

 

Suppose you are a student in a high school, and you tell your teachers that you want to be a secretary. You are not going to see cheerleading for you or happiness for your lofty goals. No. Unless you are from a poor family and secretaryism is a significant cut above what anyone in your family has accomplished thus far, no one is going to think that this is a step up. If you are an honor student, they are going to look at you like, "Why the hell do you want to waste your brains? Do you want to encourage them to melt and run out your ears at night?"

 

I think it is actually connected to poverty. That whole thing about the next generation doing better than their parents. Ok, so I am at the ground floor of that, right? So I guess that means that my kids will be managers...providing I am able to have any? Yippy skippy.

 

Get the jist of this? Great, because I must go and prepare for lunch for my client visit happening today. And I am falling-over tired.