Admin Support at Work

[Miss Tequila]

Jan 28, 2014 11:27:42 GMT -5 @athena53 said:

At my last job (very large company HQ'd in Switzerland), Admins slowly dissapeared, mostly by retirement and other attrition. At the time I did a fair amount of travel. I didn't mind booking my own travel; I'm a bit of a control freak about how much layover I want for a connection in particular airports at particular times of day. So, I'd go on Orbitz (feeling guilty), find what I wanted, then use our on-line booking program. It was a very stupid program. You were REQUIRED to fill in the drop-down box about whether a visa was required even if you were flying from Kansas to Chicago. I took to selecting "Yes" and then when it asked what country I'd type "whooziwhatsistan". Like, shouldn't the travel agency be more expert than I am in determining whether or not a visa is needed? But if you contacted a human at the travel agency they were dumber than the program. I heard that one of our execs couldn't board his flight to Brazil because he didn't have a visa. Oops. (Americans must get a visa in advance to enter Brazil.)

What really drove me nuts was booking meetings and getting meeting rooms- especially since reserving most of the meeting rooms was blocked to everyone but Admins.  I did have access to everyone's calendar but it just seemed a huge waste of my time to try and find an available block and book a meeting room.

Our expense account system was awful, especially with multiple currencies.

Current company, my boss has an Admin and it's great to have her around. To book travel I just go upstairs and talk to the humans from our travel agency who sit right there. I don't use the Admin much, but I'm really glad to have her around- and I've told her that repeatedly.

Lol! The same thing happened to our old president. He booked his flight to brazil through a travel company and they never told him he needed a visa to go to brazil. He tried to check in at JFK and was informed he couldn't go...was he PISSED!

[muttleynfelix]

I work at a company of 7 people - although only 5 of us are full time. We have an office manager. She does everything from billing, payroll, answer the phones, does my scanning, does deliveries, makes copies, proof reads bid documents, and cleans the office. And she doesn't even work full time.  She's done personal stuff for my boss and I.  She took care of getting my DH's suit dry cleaned for a funeral when the dry cleaner across the street from my office couldn't do it by the time we had leave.  She has helped with my kids on the rare occasion I have to bring them to the office for any hour or two.  She takes my boss's dog to the boarder when he goes on vacation.  When she started 4 years ago, my boss had her work full time. But as the work dried up she went down to part time - just 3 days a week and then not even full time on those days. This fall we were busy enough that my boss asked her to work 5 days a week although not necessarily all day on those days. Like today she isn't coming in until 10. This week she worked all day Monday and Tuesday, Starting at 10 today for 4 hours or so, off tomorrow, and then most of the day on Friday.  If my boss is on vacation, then he asks her to come in everyday.  When our cleaning lady quit, our office manager said well shoot it doesn't take that long to clean the office, I'll do it.  She is absolutely scary efficient. The amount of work she can crank out in a short amount of time is crazy.  Anyone else would be working full time and not get it done.

[hurley1980]

I work at an top 10 engineering firm. Our office has about 75 people, and there is a receptionist who does a lot of admin work as well as accounts payable, a production person who does scanning/printing/binding, several project administrators who handle billing to clients, and then me.  I handle pretty much everything else anyone wants me to do that I am capable of doing.  That includes report formatting, spreadsheets, powerpoints, graphic design, specifications, AutoCadd, anything really.  I know about a zillion programs, so there isnt much I cant do, except the actual engineering work. 

Out of those 75 people, only one technical group used me on a regular basis.  That group just created their own Admin Manager position for me, so now I will work primarily for them, although I can help out other groups if I have time.  I'm sure we will hire another admin person, but it will probably be part time only.  It seems to me, a lot of people do their own admin work by choice, like its easier for them to do their own expense reports, then to explain the justifications of each expense to an admin to complete the report.

Admin positions seem to be fading, which is why I have a backup plan.

[Phoenix84]

I think one of the reasons many employers have reduced and/or eliminated their admins is technology, specifically computers.  With computers, anyone can write a word document or create an excel spreadsheet.  So maybe that factored into the decision.

[Phoenix84]

Doing monthly credit card statement reconciliation isn't too bad.  Maybe 30 minutes a month, and most of that is driving up to another building because I don't have a scanner here.

Travel used to not be that bad, but they changed the computer system and now it's totally confusing.  I'll probably get better at it as time goes on, but it took pretty much all day doing it the first time.

I end up buying my own office supplies at local office supply stores.  But that's not too bad either.  I don't use that much and only need to go shopping couple times a year.  When I do go I get plenty of stuff so I don't need to go back any time soon.

The real rub lately is contracting.  Government contracting rules are extremely complicated and you really do need specific training on them to really be effective.  There's also a specific financial computer system they use for it that you also need very specifc training for.  And right now we have no one to do that, and some are suggesting I get trained.  Even my boss is asking "is this something that phoenix should really be doing?"

I wrote the statement of work, which makes sense, since I'm the technical expert and need to identify what exactly needs to be done and put it into linguo contracters understand.  But this other stuff?  I have no freaking clue.

[Phoenix84]

Jan 28, 2014 7:40:09 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

What a shame.  that would be a perfect part time job for someone who  might want to work while their kids are in school and then no bennies or overtime to worry about but an amazing amount of productivity and morale boosting. I know a lunch lady at McDonald's who does just that. I'd love a job like that myself but I'm thinking, after last night, travel agent! Time to reinvent myself. I thought they went the way of the dodo bird but it seems not.

Travel agents are still around.  They seem to be common for coorprate travel and specialty trips.

[Deleted]

I work at a school, and although we have many Admins, they don't work directly for the teachers, or the students ... they work for the school LOL.

Some admins do scheduling for both students and teachers. I can ask "my" Admin to change my schedule or reschedule a class if I have a problem. I do it occasionally, but VERY sparingly. Other Admins deal with student attendance and grades. We also have an Admin for foreign exchanges (both our students who go abroad, and foreign students who come here). I need to write recommendation letters for my students who go abroad, and they need to be sent using a certain protocol, so I write them and email them to that Admin, who sends them off. 

But, I think my school has a pretty good system for many of the things you guys are talking about. There are 4 FT receptionists, for 3 receptionists at 2 reception desks (2 receptionists in the main building, 1 receptionist in the annex). Each receptionist also has another "job" besides reception (and they all have their own computers): one books travel for the Paris staff (flights, trains, hotels), another is in charge of photocopying (a BIG job at a school, she outsources the bigger jobs and does the smaller ones herself), a third is in charge of catering: both ordering food / beverages and setting up the reception area. The 4th just went from PT to FT in Jan, her "extra job" is just covering for the other 3, at reception.

I think it's a pretty good system, because the reception area is quiet much of the day. I'm not sure how feasible that would be in a bigger company, although I think it could work well in a smaller one. 

[ZaireinHD]

seriously Scottish Lassie!
I know it is my job to file

but the time it takes for that manager to get up from his desk, walk around his desk, PAST the file cabinet in HIS office, take a few steps down the hall, hand me paperwork to file, I follow him back to HIS office, to file the paperwork he handed me.
doesn't make since!

he should have done that filing himself!

[ZaireinHD]

if someone asks me to do something for them and either sits in my visitor chair til done, or stays on the phone while I ask them a zillion questions while I complete a simple form for them, or stay on the phone or look on my screen while I make flight arrangements.

They can do it themselves because they are taking the time with me, staying with me, until the task is complete; they should just answer their own questions. there is no need to hold up time for two people. it's not like they are off doing something else. including if that something else is just talking to other co-workers about nothing!

[msventoux]

Jan 30, 2014 23:30:35 GMT -5 ZaireinHD said:

if someone asks me to do something for them and either sits in my visitor chair til done, or stays on the phone while I ask them a zillion questions while I complete a simple form for them, or stay on the phone or look on my screen while I make flight arrangements.

They can do it themselves because they are taking the time with me, staying with me, until the task is complete; they should just answer their own questions. there is no need to hold up time for two people. it's not like they are off doing something else. including if that something else is just talking to other co-workers about nothing!

In my case, just because I'm there and participating with you doesn't mean I'm not doing something else.  If I can delegate something to an admin even if I have to sit there and answer questions, I can zone out for the most part and work on mentally prioritizing my workload, puzzling through a complex client issue or any number of things I have to think my way through in my work. 

As far as the filing goes, I don't file anything.  We have a set area in our office to return files to for the admin to file and loose papers get put in their inbox to deal with.  Depending on the admin who is doing the filing, their alphabet may not follow the commonly accepted alphabet.    They can find misfiled files quicker than we can and in the meantime we can be doing other billable work.  Best for everyone involved if we stay out of the file room and let the admins deal have at it.

[happyhoix]

Jan 30, 2014 23:22:43 GMT -5 ZaireinHD said:

seriously Scottish Lassie!
I know it is my job to file

but the time it takes for that manager to get up from his desk, walk around his desk, PAST the file cabinet in HIS office, take a few steps down the hall, hand me paperwork to file, I follow him back to HIS office, to file the paperwork he handed me.
doesn't make since!

he should have done that filing himself!

He may not be that good at it. I know there are filing systems, but I don't know what they are. Since I don't have my own admin, I wing it, with mixed results. A couple of times I've had to go through 3 - 4 filing drawers looking for a file because I couldn't remember what group of files I filed it with. Which is better than a previous boss, who just threw stuff in a filing cabinet in chronological order.  

Then he yelled at his admin when he couldn't find stuff.

[ZaireinHD]

DANG! happyhoix!

for YEARS that has haunted me!
YEARS of saying that to people as an example!
that never made any since why a Manager would do such a thing?
GEEZ!! I mean fuck'n YEARS - like 17, 18 YEARS!

Thanks for releasing that ghost!!

[plugginaway22]

I was an admin for many years and you are so right Zaire...simple simple things that I was asked to do, always did with a smile on my face, but boy if they could hear my thoughts!

[ZaireinHD]

agreed plug!
I learned that 'Skill' from working in a public customer service for a few years after High School.

[michelyn8]

I worked for all types of managers but when it came to filing if the files were in their office, they did their own filing.  Anything I was to maintain was kept in a common area or my office.  What it boiled down to was the files in their office were their "personal" work files and I maintained the actual project files. 

As for having them sitting and answering questions for things like travel arrangements, I just considered that a chance to chat with them on a more casual level.  I also learned to anticipate what information I would need from them beforehand so I could get it when they asked me to make arrangements and they only had to sit with me if they wanted to. 

There are days I miss admin work but more days I don't.  I have always been fortunate in that I never worked for micro-managers and 98% of those I did work for allowed me a lot of autonomy to get things done. The other 2% that were more "controlling" (but not to the point of micro-managing) I didn't stay with long because our personalities/work styles just didn't mesh.

[Deleted]

We have no admin assistants.  I have to get under my own desk.