Administrative Professionals Week: Day 1

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Happy Administrative Professionals Week.  If you're reading this posting, you too are hanging from the lowest rung of the Hollywood ladder.  Congratulations.

Administrative Professionals Week was created in 1952 (then as National Secretaries Week) by Harry F. Klemfuss, a New York publicist.  It marks the one week each year you're supposed to get some respect from your asshole boss.  Dare to dream.  But I respect what you do because I do it too.  You wake up every morning, put on a brave face and wonder why you went to college because a fifth-grader could do your job.  You fight the all-consuming urge to tell your supervisor to dial the phone herself, print her own documents and microwave her own goddamn lunch.  You experience a daily struggle between the anxiety and depression of knowing you'll be in this spot for another three years minimum (unless you move out of town first).  Or perhaps that's just me.

Anyhoo.  To celebrate Administrative Professionals Week, the folks at the Temp Diaries will offer a new tip each day to make your job as enjoyable as possible.  Today's tip...Scheduling.

The thing about being an assistant in Hollywood is your time isn't really YOUR time -- it's your boss's time.  And you must be there for every mind-numbing minute of it.  But when you're in charge of your boss's schedule, you can make it work for you.  Here's how...

Kill!  Die!  Wake up dead!

Let's say you want to take out your frustrations at a kick boxing class at 7 p.m. on Thursday.  Between traffic and your typical work schedule, this would normally be an impossibility.  That's where scheduling comes in.  Take one of your boss's dinners and move it to a time and location that's best for you -- in this case, Thursday at 7 p.m. on the other side of town.  If this works as planned, your boss leaves at 6 p.m. to allow enough time for traffic and a quick pre-party with Chivas 18 and booger sugar.  This clears the way for you to leave the office at 6:01 p.m., get to class on time and punch your way to sanity.

And that's how scheduling can work for you.

Good luck out there.  You'll need it.
 
Tomorrow's tip -- Catering.