The essential training resource for senior and aspiring administrative professionals
I Am So
Organised Because Of A Bump In The Road
One Assistant wonders why all has gone
quiet on the office front
Well,
that’s another job done’, I think to myself with some satisfaction. It has been
ages since I had time to sort out the hard files and archive older files.
Electronically, my files are all organised so I can always find documents.
Anything
significant that comes in by post or fax is scanned in straight away and filed electronically.
But my hard copy files are another matter! Its something that I tend to put on
the end of the long finger. It is my one organisational weakness. My PA kryptonite!
I just never seem to have the time to file away documents. Anyway, I can find
anything in minutes electronically; therefore, the hard files are not a
priority. But lately, I have managed to get most of my ‘long finger’ jobs done.
‘What’s
your new found organizational method?’ I can hear you all shout! This took me a
little while to figure out myself. At first I didn’t think about it, I was just
working though my task list. I was delighted that I was getting through my
urgent and important tasks and then finally getting the lower priority work
done too. There is something so satisfying about placing those completed ticks
after each task!
But, after
about a week or so of ticking off tasks and reducing my task list, I started to
think that something unusual was happening. My task list was reducing, and
meanwhile, very few new tasks were being added. What on earth is going on? How
come my phone and email have gone very quiet lately? Where are all the
colleagues asking for ‘favours’ and help with various projects? One of the
reasons I like being an Executive Assistant to the Chair is because I am not
attached to any one unit so I get to help out and learn about the entire organisation.
The downside to this, is that I get called on for help by many managers. This can
make my role very fast paced and varied. I could be helping finance one day and
HR the next, then organising an event or meeting the following week.
But lately,
things have become terribly quite.
Is the
economy downturn starting to seriously affect us in the public sector too? I
had thought that the service we provide to the public would need to be done,
whatever the economic climate. Certainly, up until a few weeks ago it was
business as usual. I wonder if everyone in the organisation is also in a work
lull. Perhaps it’s just a week of calm before the next storm?
Well, I
would have had the management meeting this week, but they have moved it from
Thursday to Friday, and I am off on Friday. Therefore, I am free from minuting
this three hour meeting this week. As the agenda and supporting documents are
normally only finalised in the hour before the meeting I can’t really help with
the meeting preparation either. Come to think of it, I also missed the last
management meeting as I was out of the office then too.
I have
already offered my services to the managers, but they have no work for me at the
moment. The quiet is unnerving now. So, I decide to subtly ask colleagues about
their workload.
The PR Officer
is my first stop and she says that she is ‘up the walls busy’. In addition to
her usual role in communicating with various trade and national press, she and
a technical officer have even been asked to organise the logistics and
facilities for a big event. Of course, she will also have to market the event
and contain the usual media hype associated with such an occasion. This is
strange – I am normally asked to do event logistics. Until casually speaking with
the PR Officer over coffee, I wasn’t even aware of the event. Why on earth were
the PR Officer and a technical officer involved with organising registration
packs and catering?
The next
colleague I spoke with was in a more similar role and grade to me, as an Administrative
Team Support. She said that she was also very busy. So busy, in fact, that she
had an application for 3 weeks leave turned down. In addition, she said that
she has been asked by ‘The Executive’ (my boss) to minute the next management
meeting. This was in spite of the fact that she tried to get out of
facilitating the management meeting as she has a number of pressing tasks to
complete for her own manager.
Once again,
this meeting is something that I would normally do, but it was changed at short
notice from Thursday to Friday – the day I have off on annual leave. I wonder
why they didn’t bring the meeting forward to Wednesday, when I would have been
available. A quick check of the manager’s diaries shows a diary gap and that
the meeting could have been held on the Wednesday.
Okay, this
is starting to look personal now. For the last three weeks or so, I have been
avoided, cut out of email correspondences, my work handed to other people and
meetings changed at short notice to dates that I am unable to attend. In
addition, various queries from me to my boss have gone unanswered. The type of
queries that would usually result in a reply something along the lines of:
‘Thanks for the reminder, can you arrange X or Y.’
WHAT IS GOING
ON?
Have I
annoyed my boss in some way? Did I do something that has displeased him so much
that he feels like he is unable trust me to continue doing my job, or even talk
to me about it? Perhaps he was searching for an original hard copy file? I look
guiltily at the newly diminished pile in the corner. But no, he would have
asked me to fetch whatever it was if he was unable to find it.
I think
back to around three weeks ago to when all the strange behaviour began, and I
wrack my brains for some incident that might have started all this off. I have
that awful stomach churning feeling you get when you think you have lost
something important, like your wallet. I am really worried about this. I
resolve that whatever it is I have done, I have to fix it.
I will
apologise and learn from the experience and never do it again. Surely The boss
will be okay with whatever it is I have done or not done? I have been working
with him for five years! But I am unable to think of any incidents that may
cast aspersions on my professionalism.
I haven’t
had any heated discussions with him or colleagues. I delve into my reading pile
searching for the March 2012 Executive Secretary article about saying sorry,
although, I am not aware of forgetting anything critical or menial.
Wasn’t
there an article in that issue about getting an appraisal too?
The only
thing that has changed is…but no… surely it cannot be THAT.
Not is this
day and age? Isn’t that illegal? But ‘it’ is the only thing I can think of.
About three weeks ago I told my boss that I was four months pregnant.
Is this the
bump in my professional road?
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