asked him to call me by my first name. He expects me to say that nothing is new, so that he can sit in his office and hide. I love when I have stuff for him to do first thing in the morning.

Um, I think we get the idea. Let’s move on to something else:

Describe the relationship between yourself and your boss:

Which one? I have at least three bosses. My direct supervisor is an Administrative Assistant, and she’s the person who does the bulk of my yearly evaluation. She also handles my vacation time, so I have to see

This is a real interview with a real secretary. Her identity has not been revealed as to protect her anonymity and her job.

Describe your typical morning for me:

Well, I get to work a couple minutes early every morning. The “big boss” requires that we’re in the office and ready to work at exactly 8:00 am, so there’s usually a rush to get in the building a few minutes before. I stop at the lounge to drop off my lunch in the refrigerator, and the fridge always reminds me of the time that someone stole my yogurt and ate it. The jerk. Anyway, usually there’s a few faculty members in there, waiting with empty mugs in their hands for the coffee machine to stop dripping. We don’t have a ‘pause and serve’ one, so they have to wait for it to finish. One morning the coffee pot was gone because a secretary had taken it home to thoroughly clean it, and a woman actually started screaming when she saw that the coffee pot was missing.

When I get to my office suite, I have to turn on twelve lamps on my way to my desk. The fluorescent lights gave us headaches, so we all switched to “task lighting.” When I get to my desk, I turn my computer on, ignore the three error messages that pop up every day (I don’t understand them, and my computer works fine anyway), and put my purse away. Then I unlock the door to my boss’ office, because he always forgets his key and depends on me being there to let him into his office.

Then I open the copy room. Most likely, a professor already unlocked it to do some last minute printing before his/her 8:00 am class. I go through the pile of papers that are sitting next to the printer. Most of them are e-mails that were printed the day before and never picked up. I throw those in the trash. The newer ones get placed neatly on the table, in the hopes that someone will claim them. If I find any exams, I take them to the professor and tell him/her not to leave exams in the copy room. I turn on the shredder, which is probably full, but if I don’t check it I don’t have to empty it.

My boss arrives later with his usual greeting: “Hi beautiful! Anything new and exciting?” I ignore the “nickname,” although I’ve asked him to call me by my first name. He expects me to say that nothing is new, so that he can sit in his office and hide. I love when I have stuff for him to do first thing in the morning.

Um, I think we get the idea. Let’s move on to something else:

Describe the relationship between yourself and your boss:

Which one? I have at least three bosses. My direct supervisor is an Administrative Assistant, and she’s the person who does the bulk of my yearly evaluation. She also handles my vacation time, so I have to see

he jerk. Anyway, usually there’s a few faculty members in there, waiting with empty mugs in their hands for the coffee machine to stop dripping. We don’t have a ‘pause and serve’ one, so they have to wait for it to finish. One morning the coffee pot was gone because a secretary had taken it home to thoroughly clean it, and a woman actually started screaming when she saw that the coffee pot was missing.

When I get to my office suite, I have to turn on twelve lamps on my way to my desk. The fluorescent lights gave us headaches, so we all switched to “task lighting.” When I get to my desk, I turn my computer on, ignore the three error messages that pop up every day (I don’t understand them, and my computer works fine anyway), and put my purse away. Then I unlock the door to my boss’ office, because he always forgets his key and depends on me being there to let him into his office.

Then I open the copy room. Most likely, a professor already unlocked it to do some last minute printing before his/her 8:00 am class. I go through the pile of papers that are sitting next to the printer. Most of them are e-mails that were printed the day before and never picked up. I throw those in the trash. The newer ones get placed neatly on the table, in the hopes that someone will claim them. If I find any exams, I take them to the professor and tell him/her not to leave exams in the copy room. I turn on the shredder, which is probably full, but if I don’t check it I don’t have to empty it.

My boss arrives later with his usual greeting: “Hi beautiful! Anything new and exciting?” I ignore the “nickname,” although I’ve asked him to call me by my first name. He expects me to say that nothing is new, so that he can sit in his office and hide. I love when I have stuff for him to do first thing in the morning.

Um, I think we get the idea. Let’s move on to something else:

Describe the relationship between yourself and your boss:

Which one? I have at least three bosses. My direct supervisor is an Administrative Assistant, and she’s the person who does the bulk of my yearly evaluation. She also handles my vacation time, so I have to see

switched to “task lighting.” When I get to my desk, I turn my computer on, ignore the three error messages that pop up every day (I don’t understand them, and my computer works fine anyway), and put my purse away. Then I unlock the door to my boss’ office, because he always forgets his key and depends on me being there to let him into his office.

Then I open the copy room. Most likely, a professor already unlocked it to do some last minute printing before his/her 8:00 am class. I go through the pile of papers that are sitting next to the printer. Most of them are e-mails that were printed the day before and never picked up. I throw those in the trash. The newer ones get placed neatly on the table, in the hopes that someone will claim them. If I find any exams, I take them to the professor and tell him/her not to leave exams in the copy room. I turn on the shredder, which is probably full, but if I don’t check it I don’t have to empty it.

My boss arrives later with his usual greeting: “Hi beautiful! Anything new and exciting?” I ignore the “nickname,” although I’ve asked him to call me by my first name. He expects me to say that nothing is new, so that he can sit in his office and hide. I love when I have stuff for him to do first thing in the morning.

Um, I think we get the idea. Let’s move on to something else:

Describe the relationship between yourself and your boss:

Which one? I have at least three bosses. My direct supervisor is an Administrative Assistant, and she’s the person who does the bulk of my yearly evaluation. She also handles my vacation time, so I have to see

e printer. Most of them are e-mails that were printed the day before and never picked up. I throw those in the trash. The newer ones get placed neatly on the table, in the hopes that someone will claim them. If I find any exams, I take them to the professor and tell him/her not to leave exams in the copy room. I turn on the shredder, which is probably full, but if I don’t check it I don’t have to empty it.

My boss arrives later with his usual greeting: “Hi beautiful! Anything new and exciting?” I ignore the “nickname,” although I’ve asked him to call me by my first name. He expects me to say that nothing is new, so that he can sit in his office and hide. I love when I have stuff for him to do first thing in the morning.

Um, I think we get the idea. Let’s move on to something else:

Describe the relationship between yourself and your boss:

Which one? I have at least three bosses. My direct supervisor is an Administrative Assistant, and she’s the person who does the bulk of my yearly evaluation. She also handles my vacation time, so I have to see

asked him to call me by my first name. He expects me to say that nothing is new, so that he can sit in his office and hide. I love when I have stuff for him to do first thing in the morning.

Um, I think we get the idea. Let’s move on to something else:

Describe the relationship between yourself and your boss:

Which one? I have at least three bosses. My direct supervisor is an Administrative Assistant, and she’s the person who does the bulk of my yearly evaluation. She also handles my vacation time, so I have to see her if I want some time off. However, she doesn’t do the same work that I do, so it’s hard for her to evaluate my work. She doesn’t work directly with me on a daily basis.

My other boss is the Department Chair. He works directly with me in my daily activities, but he is usually unaware of what I’m doing. That can be evidenced by the number of times he comes to my desk while I’m swimming in a river of paperwork and asks, “Can you type an e-mail for me?” He doesn’t know how to type, and he’s an old-fashioned guy, so he thinks my main job is dictation. He also loves words like “empowerment,” which means (to him) that he will give me as much of his work as he can before I reply, “That’s not my job! That’s your job!” Recently, he started bringing cupcakes for me every morning. I’m wondering what big job he’s going to try to talk me into doing for him.

My third boss is “The Big Boss.” He is the dean of the college. If he asks me to do something for him, I have to drop everything else. However, he has no direct input on my yearly evaluation.

Does your office celebrate Secretary’s Day? If so, how?

Our office celebrates “Administrative Professionals Day” by inviting us to attend an all-day seminar for all of the clerical staff on campus. Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone who has the time to attend an all-day seminar. Sometimes they arrange the seminar activities so that we can attend for half of the day. In general, it’s not a good practice to celebrate being an administrative professional by spending the day out of the office and having to work twice as hard to catch up the next day. Nice try, though.

Can you describe the relationship between you and other secretaries? Every office is filled with people that have a lot of character. It’s what makes the days more interesting, and our differences are something to be celebrated. My office has the following characters: The Talker, The Mother, The Meanie, The Cheerful One, and The Quiet One. In general, we all work together pretty well.

The Talker is a woman who knows everything. She’s been here forever, and she’s the one to go to if you have a question. Howev