Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Happy Administrative Professionals Day!

In case you're not in the PC loop, 'Administrative Professional' is PC code for 'Secretary'. I don't know why the word 'secretary' needs to be flowered up. Secretaries kick ass. Everyone knows this. And if they don't, well, they don't count. But no, some secretaries don't like being called 'secretaries'. They want to be called administrative assistants, or administrative professionals, or administrative whatevers, or admin ass, or... okay, maybe not that last one. But it's a handy abbreviation for some people, such as the beyotch who was our last secretary administrative professional.

I guess some people think of secretaries as being just phone answerers and filers and low man on the totem pole slugs. So maybe it makes some secretaries administrative professionals feel better to have a fancier, more official sounding title. I know it would make me feel all squishy inside to get a fancy schmancy title. Something cool I could have printed on a business card.

My official title is currently 'administrative assistant'. Not so fancy sounding, eh? Makes me sound like I'm a secretary. Which I'm not.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you.

Whenever I say that I'm an admin assistant I wonder if people think I'm trying to make myself sound better by using an all important sounding office title. I'm not. I just don't know how else to say what my job is.

"I... uh... stare at a computer screen all day. And... uh... work with this maintenance software thingy and uh..."

Administrative Assistant sound much better. More office-y. But I'm not really an assistant. Sure, I assist my fellow coworkers, because I'm all Super Employee like that, but I'm not an administrative sidekick. That's what assistant means: sidekick. And I'm not Robin to anyone's Batman around here. I'm my own Batman! A Batman who has many bosses, but nonetheless, still Batman. More like Batwoman, actually, since I have girly equipment, but you know what I mean. (Hopefully. Heh.)

I have a spiffy title that I attach in emails and such, but officially, in the record books I'm still an 'administrative assistant'. I'm getting a new title in a few months though because They want to keep me around and waived the promise of more money under my nose during my last evaluation. They gave me a little bit but can't give as much as They say They want to under my current 'title' so they're going to make a new title up for me so they can give me more money. A new (and probably highly superfluous, I'm sure) title. Just for me. Because I'm Super Employee.

I'm hoping for something like... Dynamic Applications Manager (my title initials would be DAM!). Or maybe Principal Usability Strategy Specialist (PUSS!) It's just a bullshit title, doesn't have to mean anything. If it did, I'd have to suggest something along the lines of Super Administrator Goddess Extraordinaire. Or something business card worthy like...





So I guess you could say today is a holiday in honor of me. I do administrative stuffs. And I'm a professional. No, really I am. I may not act like it all the time, but I get paid dammit! That means I'm legit. Too legit to quit, if I may be so bold as to suggest such an amazing characteristic of myself.

So happy Admin Pro Day to me! And happy Admin Pro Day to all you little worker bees out there! I hope your special say is going to be as special as mine. Because today, the Management Team here wants to recognize all us lowly members of the Admin Pro Team with a luncheon. Free food! Woo!

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