You’d be surprised to know that the most popular profession for women in 1950s and today is the same—secretary. About 4 million girls employed in the US fell into the category of “secretaries and administrative assistants” and I believe it is a job you can be proud of.
Being an executive secretary, personal assistant, legal, medical or a school secretary means dealing with a lot of ongoing tasks at once, mastering time-management and keeping razor sharp attention to details. No matter what they may say, it’s an important and rewarding job to take. Just think of the next 15 challenges we can handle with ease and grace as part of our profession!
1. You can smile and stay friendly even if you are not in the mood.
No matter what’s boggling your mind right now or tears your heart apart, you are a true professional and will always greet your boss’s clients with a bright smile and warm notes in your voice. You are particularly good at separating you work and emotions as you are the person who makes the first impression for the company you work for.
2. You can keep any secrets.
As a secretary you often deal with a lot of sensitive data and private information. The saying “curiosity killed the cat” has a sacred meaning for you. Yes being curios is part of the human nature; however, there’s a fine line between wanting to know more and and being so exuberant that you want to tell everybody what you have just learned.
You are proud to say that you are someone your employer can wholeheartedly trust and stay sure nothing will ever leak, even the most hilarious or obscure things your boss does. Besides, you are perfectly aware of the difference between being helpful and being too bubbly. The latter includes spilling out information from a client’s file to a caller who barely introduced himself or going into too much details of what exactly your boss is now up to.
3. You can DIY basically anything.
All sort of emergencies happen in the office. Most probably you are the person to deal with them. So now you happen to know a lot of handy hacks from how to DIY last minute business invitation and business cards to creative ways to clean up wine spills fast and even making a lip scrub (true story). Everyone in the office know you can figure things out and propose an unconventional solution to any problem out there. Surely, you feel really proud of that, but sometimes constantly feeling challenged is a bit overwhelming as well.
4. You can taking notes really fast.
Your typing speed is somewhere close to the speed of light, but you also know that taking longhand notes can be even more effective when there’s a lot of information to digest. During the past few years you’ve mastered shorthand, developed your own writing system and bought at least 4 new notebooks. Also, you had to master calligraphy as you are the person asked to write some beautiful text on those last minute invitations.
5. You can always stay organized.
You just cannot let yourself zone out, daydream or be a tiny bit absent-minded. Even if you are woken up at 3 a.m. in the morning, you can fire out your boss’s daily schedule for the next month. You have a few to-do list apps in your phone, a corporate Google calendar sync with all your devices, numerous reminders on your desktop and colorful stickers everywhere with the most important tasks to handle.
6. You are a planner.
As you spend most of your days coordinating events, scheduling company meetings and making all sort of other arrangements from travel to catering, in your daily life, you have become an absolute planner as well. The world “spontaneous” makes you cringe and think of how bad will those unplanned things turn out, even if it’s just a weekend getaway to the countryside with your SO. Your have a strict daily routine and you start slightly panicking when something intervenes and you need to make changes. Some of your friends say you are a bit boring, but you just love to keep everything well-planned and organized.
7. You need to care a lot about your appearance.
Part of your profession is to look and dress well and appropriate. You carefully plan your outfit, accessories and shoes in the morning, watch for new business fashion trends and even secretly flip those “dress for success books.” You frequently visit your hairstylist (sometimes more frequent that your wallet would want to), nail salon and other beauty parlors to look groomed. You wish you could wear anything to work and stop applying makeup in the morning, but sadly there is no way around the fact that people judge you and the company you work for by your personal appearance.
8. You are in constant search of new ways to become even more productive.
Typically, you have a lot of work at hand and loads of tasks to juggle at once. So you spend most of your evenings testing yet another time-management app, reading all about the new productivity trends and hacks out there. The truth is, sometimes you get so engaged that you actually procrastinate by trying to become even more productive instead of getting things done.
9. You can be very flexible.
That means you come early in the morning and stay out til late if that’s absolutely needed. You are okay with flexible working hours that often get sporadic and can easily adjust to nearly any schedule or working environment. However, that means you can’t maintain proper work-life balance and oftentimes sacrifice your personal time for the sake of work.
10. You can deal with any type of person.
Obviously, you don’t work in a vacuum and apart from dealing with your boss, you also happen have a sort of interactions with vendors, clients, board members, other employees and all sort of other folks out there. Yes, most of people you interact with are genuinely pleasant, but you often get face to face with “difficult people” as well. You are forced to exercises all your patients and professionals to keep the communication smooth and polite. In real life you’ve probably said the f-word already at least twice, but at work you can’t let your emotions dominate.
Apart from that you are sometimes bullied by those who see you as a subordinate. It’s another unpleasant situation you have to tactfully deal with and communicate assertively while keeping good work relationships.
11. You can always learn something.
Now you can master any new accounting software in about 15 min, set up any email client, deal with different models of printers, scanner and VoIP phones without calling the IT guys. You learn new things every day and master new skills depending on the task you are supposed to handle. However, being a Renaissance man sometimes gets tiring.
12. You can never be late.
Actually, being late is your worst nightmare. So you always set two alarm clocks in the morning, especially if you have an important meeting. You leave home well in advance to have some extra time in case you get stuck in a traffic jam or something else turns out.
13. You can never throw papers away.
During your first month you were kind of afraid to throw any paper away as it might later turn out as important. Now, you need one quick glance to identify which pile the paper should go to trash; to add to the folder as it might be needed some day; important and “never through that away under any circumstances.” The problem is: you’ve stopped throwing away papers at home to and keep them neatly organized in folders just in case it’s ever needed.
14. You are very attentive to details
As you deal with a lot of paper work and important data, one small typo can not only cost you a job, but get your whole company in serious trouble. Say, typing $600.000 instead of $60.000 in a vendor contract. Your job made you manically attentive to all the details, you triple check everything you send to other people. Also, you are probably a grammar nazi and can help telling your friend that he misspelled something on Facebook or didn’t use the correct tense.
15. You can always crack a good joke.
As a recent survey found, 98% of CEOs prefer candidates with good sense of humor. Yes, you are a true professional, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun at the same time. People like you because you can give a witty remark or make a good joke even when things get really intense. Your sense of humor is among the things that help you handle even the most daunting challenges with ease!
