To my former cow-orkers:
Hypochondriac Henrietta: Yes, I'm sure all those stomach aches you used to get were probably just hunger pangs because you never ate lunch. And the blurry vision could probably be rectified by getting your eyes checked (yes, ten years is a long time to wear the same pair of glasses). Or maybe an anti-glare screen for your computer. The backaches would probably have gone away if you'd asked the ergonomics person from HR to show you how to properly adjust your (absurdly expensive) office chair. And those headaches you kept getting? Ah, to hell with it. You probably had a brain tumour.
Game-Day Gina: You know, you weren't fooling anyone by calling in sick. Anyone with half a brain would have noticed that you consistently called in "sick" on Mondays or Fridays, coincidentally the day after the (local sports team) played a home game. A hangover is not a legitimate illness.
Cheerleader Cynthia (office manager): Look, I don't care what half-baked pop-business-psychology shite you read during your free time. My morale would have been greatly improved if you'd have just left me alone to do my fragging job. You hired me to manage the files of a hundred-odd graduate students enrolled in the distance learning program, and I did a damn good job of it. I didn't need a little mailbox so my co-workers could leave me mash notes about the fact that I was performing my duties to the expected degree of competence. Oh, and I really hope you've stopped hugging people. Seriously - if you were a dude, that'd constitute sexual harassment. As it is, it's just annoying and vaguely creepy.
Freakout Frank: Okay, just for the record - when you came storming into the office that day demanding that someone drop whatever they were doing that instant in order to help you make 56 copies of your midterm... I wasn't laughing at your predicament. I honestly thought you were joking, because I'd never seen an adult human being (and a professor, no less) throw a tantrum like a sugar-crazed three-year-old. Take a damn sabbatical or something and chill out.
AWOL Andy: No, I'm not sorry for refusing to back-date the thesis chapter you were supposed to turn in two weeks previously and tell your advisor that I'd misplaced it. Particularly not after you treated me and the rest of the office staff like a bunch of peons.
Office staff are like NCOs - they actually run the organization, but get no respect for doing it, except for in my department, where the Chair insists that we show our secretaries a degree of respect commensurate with the fact that we'd all wither up and die without them. As an academic-by-way-of-former-clerical-jobs, I approve of this attitude. And I'm DAMNED nice to the office staff.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, I get just about whatever I want. Wonder why that is?
Oh please, Wylodmayer. Some office staff (just like some faculty) are notoriously inept. Being nice doesn't solve all issues with them. And being kind to them doesn't make them miraculously competent.
ReplyDeleteI've worked with office staff at universities that actually could practically walk on water. But those people usually got promoted to work for higher ups and their replacements were usually recently graduated snowflakes who couldn't write a clear sentence in a memo, who goofed off way too often, and probably wouldn't have gotten the job if not for nepotism or favoritism of some sort. In fact, they often got in the way of some instructors doing their jobs because what little power they had controlling the office was often used to re-enact their petty dreams of having control over people they perceived as their superiors.
Oddly enough, my sister has a lengthy job history of clerical work and she's seen the same crap happen out of the academy too in doctors' offices and elementary schools). She's usually the one who cleans up the mess left by the incompetents.
And Electric Maenad, your office manager WAS sexually harassing you. No touchy at worky. All the instructors at my U got that lecture, so I bet the staff got it too. Oh, and congrats on not punching out those last too wackos; both deserved it.
Our current office admin walks on water and we all bow down to her and treat her like the goddess she is. We do this because our previous office admin, um, didn't walk on water, was more likely to toss essential files in the lake to badly extend the metaphor, so we know when we're well off, and we are doing our very best to make sure this one is happy and won't want to leave us!
ReplyDeleteI seem to oscillate between office staff who are very professional and effective, and ones who are anything but. One secretary at the R2 had seemingly no memory at all: she forgot seemingly everything that took longer than two minutes, and had a real talent for losing important documents and completely forgetting their existence. She was considered the rising young star: the old secretary justified seemingly everything with, "That's the way we've always done it," even if we'd never done it before. But then, at $8/hour, you get what you pay for. And they were a step up from the surly, openly uncooperative, and seemingly unionized office we had at the R1 where I was a postdoc.
ReplyDeleteOur secretary now does everything wonderfully, and even has the whole department over at her place for a pool party every fall! I dread what happens when she retires.
P.S. Freakout Frank ought to know never to go home at night before making sure he is completely ready for class the next day. This includes making sure all photocopying is done and ready to be handed out.
ReplyDeleteI love, love, love our office staff. They're unionized and have a merit pay system and are smarter than the rest of us put together. I used to work in a department occasionally filling in when the admin. assistant was out, and I found out then just what a-holes professors can be. Somehow they maintain good cheer despite the worst of us.
ReplyDeleteAnd they take it on the chin every time we have budget cuts. When I found out what one of the most competent ones earned yearly -- a bit more than 1/3 of my salary -- my jaw dropped.
Our recent secretary was so bad for so long that our expectations of competence were very low. Every single proffie who deals with our new, hard working secretary is flummoxed by his statements, such as:
ReplyDelete"I'll do that right now."
"Here's the spreadsheet you asked for this morning."
"Yes, I'd be happy to do that."
"I don't mind helping you. That's part of my job."
We only hooked this guy because of the bad economy. Is it bad form to openly cheer on a recession?
I continue to be amazed about Second String U's department secretary's willingness to photocopy my exams. And be cheerful about it. Even when I write in emergency flake mode begging her for help.
ReplyDeleteAlas, today our department at Big Southern U is losing its administrator. Someone is going to have to sign and file a shit-ton of papers so that I can graduate this year, and I am afraid. Very, very afraid.
The real kicker was that Freakout Frank had expected his grad student (read: dogsbody) to do it, and then neglected to send her the file. In Cynthia's defense, I don't think she meant to weird me out. I just have two categories of people I hug - family members and very close friends, and she was neither.
ReplyDeleteOn the upside, the place I work at now is much better. Math geeks are just happy to have someone around who knows how to submit their expenses according to the arcane rules of the university's accounting department and keep all their non-math-related crap (hotel and flight bookings for conferences, journal deadlines, etc.) organized so they don't have to waste time thinking about it.
I'd like to emphasize that being supportive and friendly to admin staff can only help. But it can also go only so far.
ReplyDeleteMy department has 3 secretaries. Two are condescending, fiercely protective of their very long lunches, and addicted to online gaming while at work. This one sends out weekly emails of grant or fellowship opportunities, but doesn't bother to put any text in the email. So you have to wade through 10 or so attachments each week to see what is there -- 90% of which is crap, but 10% has led to some really lucrative opportunities. Sometimes the attachments include pictures of kittens or announcements about bungee jumping. It is ridiculously unprofessional and sucks balls.
But our third secretary is a goddess. She works longer hours picking up after the other two. She knows all 60 profs by name/rank/field/courses/book projects and all 210 grad students by name/hometown/level of progress in the program. She is an amazing superstar. And without her, our program would be falling to pieces.
I'm nice to them all, but what Secretary #3 brings to our department cannot be replaced. The first two secretaries desperately need to be replaced. But what can you do?