More coffee, Sir? Being a Secretary. (My Experiences and Advice)

Member Name: Stephoohla

Product:	My Experiences and Advice
Date:	03/11/09 (97 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Safe office job, no 'customers', just clients

Disadvantages: Dealing with office politics, making coffees!

I've been a secretary for just over a year now. Let me tell you about my experience.

I didn't go to uni. There was primary school, high school, sixth form (which I only did because my parents expected it of me) and that was me done. I didn't enjoy studying, and I hated exams. I actually got pretty great GCSEs and came out of sixth form with 3 A Levels and 2 AS Levels, between B and D grade, so fairly good. My real dream was photography and journalism, and I had my own ideas about how I'd accomplish those dreams, rather than gaining it the typical way by going to university. I had plans to travel as well. I decided that I needed a full time job to save my money for a year until I could pursue these goals.

I applied for plenty of jobs, mostly in shops and offices near where I lived. I was offered a couple of interviews, and then landed myself a job working as a Trainee Secretary for a Surveyors. £11k a year. For a first full time job, I was pretty pleased with myself. It didn't require many qualifications, just good grades at GCSE. I didn't need experience either as I'd be trained on the job.

I began shortly after, and quickly picked up the 'Office Rules'. Rule 1: Never presume anything. Rule 2: In spite of the first rule, no questions are allowed. Rule 3: Be prepared to meet the most bitchiest people you've ever met, and become one of them.

I worked with two other secretaries, and one of them was the Senior Secretary. Both of them very were opinionated and very soon one of them I began to hate after she began 'bullying' me to some extent. But I was told this was natural, as she did it to everyone.

Apart from the people I directly worked with, I liked everyone. They always came to me to ask me to do things, so were always polite and asking me how my day was going.

*My Duties*
When I began they were pretty easy. Filing, photocopying, binding, answering the phone to current and prospective clients, "Good morning, how may I help you?". Opening the mail. Distributing said mail to the Senior Partner. Writing letters. Avoiding bitchy secretary.

As I said, I found it fairly easy. There weren't too many mistakes I could make on the job, so there wasn't any pressure.

Generally, my typical job is to give administrative/secretarial support to the Surveyors and the Partners of the firm. Sometimes they'll ask me to write letters, sometimes it'll be draft emails, excel spreadsheets or even to research a person/company/telephone number for them.

My hours were 9am til 5:30pm every Monday to Friday, and because I was low down on the food chain, I wasn't expected to come in early, or leave the office late, or come in Saturdays. I could literally get there about five to 9, leave dead on 5:30pm.

Each company has their own way of doing officey things and I picked these up pretty quickly. I'd say the most important things I have learnt whilst working as a secretary are the skills to be professional to clients at all times, how to deal with working at the bottom of a company and prioritising the tasks that everyone gives you, and how to sneakily have Facebook up whilst pretending to do work!

A few months in came the office politics, where on top of a workload I have to deal with everyone's emotions being dumped on me too. Unfortunately when you've got an office job, you seem to be mostly affected by those particular people who want to be spiteful and menancing. For the Surveyors in the office, they can go out to meetings and on site visits to escape the office every few days. Unfortunately for me, I'm here for the whole day and everyone does dump their troubles on me.

My job has gotten progressively harder since I started working here. For starters, the Senior Secretary was diagnosed with breast cancer a month into my starting here, so she was off work a lot. The other secretary was very work-shy and did not want to take on responsibility, therefore, despite being a 'Trainee', I had to become the cover Senior Secretary.

With that came more duties: Sending and replying to ALL emails. Mail merges to big companies (no mistakes allowed!). Assisting with important meetings. Audio typing. Booking meeting rooms and hotel rooms. Booking flights. Diary management. Writing minutes.

I deal with a lot more HR stuff now too, for example, last May, we had a bout of redundancies. (Bitchy secretary lost her job, I kept mine). I had to write letters to all those who were made redundant. I also look after petty cash, staff holidays and those who are off sick.

My duties have gotten a lot more complicated in the past year, sometimes I feel like I'm acting as a PA to all the Surveyors!, but unfortunately I'm still on my £11k wage, due to the redundancies. The company is back on its feet now, but I'm too worried to ask for a pay rise, therefore am looking for a new job (after looking at the Reed website, Job Centre website and a few others, I realise most secretary jobs pay about £16k.

To be a secretary, generally you don't need formal qualifications, apart from an education to GCSE level and some good common sense. I occasionally see job advertisements saying they are requiring a secretary with proper admin course qualifications, but these generally pay quite a bit, so they are for someone with a bit more experience. But with most things, the better qualified you are, often the more likely you are for landing a secretary job.

I believe with most secretary jobs experience is key, unless you do what I did and applied for a Trainee position. Most offices are the same, so if you have experience in an office environment then generally that can be applied for most secretary jobs. Generally you have to be able to show you can prioritise and be highly organised, accurate, as well as polite, professional and motivated. With these traits, sometimes qualifications do not even matter.

The role is very computed-based, so having a good knowledge of computers is very beneficial.

Being a secretary can have it's fun and interesting moments, especially if you get more responsibility, such as becoming Senior Secretary, but generally can be very boring. I find there are times when I have no work to do and end up waiting for people to bring the work to me. I know I should be using my initiative and finding work to do, but when literally everything is done... there's only so much to do!

Being a secretary can be a good career choice if you find the right company. The firm I am in at the moment is fairly small and there is no progression for me (another reason why I am looking for a new job). There are many ways you can rise up through a company from being a secretary.. you could become a Senior Sec (as mentioned before), a PA to a Director, you could even become qualified for a job at whatever company/industry you work for. There are plenty of ways to go, so whilst you may not see a secretary role as a career, there are places you can take it to so you'll be fulfilling your maximum potential.

Some of the best things about being a secretary are (from what I've found at the company I work for):
No uniform
You get the in-knowledge for the company
When it's busy, the day goes very fast
Not too much pressure on you

Some disadvantages I've found at this particular company have been:
Low wage
Office politics - bitchy staff
You're the lowest of the company - all the rubbish gets dumped on you!
Little opportunity for overtime
Sometimes boring when there is little work to do
Repetitive day-to-day jobs, nothing really exciting

Generally, a secretary is seen as a woman's job, and so far, I haven't seen a man doing this role. My mum has been a secretary, as has a female friend of mine, whereas my dad part owns a company, my stepdad owns a company and my boyfriend is a Mortgage Adviser at a bank. I'm starting to see a trend of blokes having more important jobs than us women! This should not be the case however, and as I said, if you stick to this job for a little bit and prove yourself, there are plenty of much more exciting and important ways to go, especially if you apply for roles with the NHS, as there are so many different job titles you can progress to.

Overall, not a bad job, but has it's down sides. I am looking for a similar job but just not one in the same company as I wish for a bigger salary and the opportunity for career progression. I understand that plenty of people think I should just be grateful I've got a job, but I believe I have proved I am capable of so much more than being a 'Trainee' which is why I am looking for a new company to secretate! (If that's a word!)

I believe I'm an excellent secretary, so if anyone fancies hiring me, please get in touch! :P

Summary: It has its ups and downs. You mustn't wear your heart on your sleeve in this role.