Go on then...who has a secretary or PA?
Discussion
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8071860.stm
I think it'll be a good few years before I'm in a position to need a PA and even then I'm not sure if I'd want one...
If you have a PA are you secretly infatuated / scared of them as per the above?
BBC said:
"Miss Keating?" "Mr Taylor?" "I'd like you to take a letter, Miss Keating." "Certainly, Mr Taylor."
I rose from my desk and began the sort of slow pensive perambulation around the office that I knew from experience was the accepted way to begin a piece of dictation.
"Dear Mr Clarence Maude. Further to your letter of the 19th, I am now writing to inform you that your order - fill in the number will you Miss Keating - that your order for 40 beams of 100/30 denier L23 rayon will be subject to further delays."
It was my very first piece of dictation, my first dictatorial act. And even though it was over 45 years ago, I can still recall every detail of the scene: the dented grey filing cabinets against the far wall, the piles of flat black ledgers on my desk. But most of all the sight of Miss Keating - Sheila - sitting below me at her secretary's desk with a note pad balanced on her slim knee as she waited to record every detail of my next utterance in her best Pitman's shorthand.
In the sales offices at the rayon factory where I worked for five years, there was no stronger indication of status than having your own secretary. And even though Miss Keating was technically the "property" of the deputy sales manager, his absence on business abroad meant she was available for my sole dictation for an entire month.
All the male sales assistants in the department - and at that time only men were ever engaged as sales assistants - had to rely for their secretarial services upon the typing pool.
This was not a happy predicament. For although on the one hand the typing pool, with its complement of over 30 women, was regularly spoken of over instant coffee in terms which might otherwise have been reserved for an oriental house of pleasure, everyone knew the reality was considerably less erotic.
Any male assistant who required typing help from the typing pool was forced to enter the actual pool room and deliver his request to the fierce matriarch who presided, not unlike a galley master, over the 30 young women who sat in neatly arranged desks before her. He'd then be given a chit to take to the woman selected as his typist.
This was the moment of ritual humiliation. Even the most pre-possessing young men in the department knew they wouldn't emerge unscathed from their walk into this slave market, knew that they'd be the subject of muted catcalls and giggles and whistles, knew that they'd be lampooned for their hair style, their clothes, their facial blemishes. ("Hey, spotty, give us a big kiss.")
Of course, in the strictly gendered division of labour which existed at that time, secretaries like Miss Keating would never mingle with mere members of the typing pool any more than they would be seen dead with any of the hundreds of head-scarved women who laboured away in the coning room of the rayon factory.
They were far too refined for that, so refined in fact that they were the only women in the works who were allowed to take lunch in the staff dining room, where they could sit in the same room as managers and eat off white table cloths.
My infatuation with secretaries, with their poise and demeanour, stayed with me for years after I left my rayon job. So much so that during my early years in higher education, I formed a liaison with a departmental secretary.
Anne shared all Miss Keating's charms. She wore similar secretarial clothes - fresh frilly white blouse, tight black skirt, and sensible high heels. She was ultra smart and very efficient.
But the relationship quickly began to cool. One night we lay together in bed. Both of us staring silently at the ceiling. "This isn't much good, is it?" I said. "No," said Anne. "What should we do about it?" I said mournfully. "I know," she said. "I'll go and sit behind a typewriter."
I rose from my desk and began the sort of slow pensive perambulation around the office that I knew from experience was the accepted way to begin a piece of dictation.
"Dear Mr Clarence Maude. Further to your letter of the 19th, I am now writing to inform you that your order - fill in the number will you Miss Keating - that your order for 40 beams of 100/30 denier L23 rayon will be subject to further delays."
It was my very first piece of dictation, my first dictatorial act. And even though it was over 45 years ago, I can still recall every detail of the scene: the dented grey filing cabinets against the far wall, the piles of flat black ledgers on my desk. But most of all the sight of Miss Keating - Sheila - sitting below me at her secretary's desk with a note pad balanced on her slim knee as she waited to record every detail of my next utterance in her best Pitman's shorthand.
In the sales offices at the rayon factory where I worked for five years, there was no stronger indication of status than having your own secretary. And even though Miss Keating was technically the "property" of the deputy sales manager, his absence on business abroad meant she was available for my sole dictation for an entire month.
All the male sales assistants in the department - and at that time only men were ever engaged as sales assistants - had to rely for their secretarial services upon the typing pool.
This was not a happy predicament. For although on the one hand the typing pool, with its complement of over 30 women, was regularly spoken of over instant coffee in terms which might otherwise have been reserved for an oriental house of pleasure, everyone knew the reality was considerably less erotic.
Any male assistant who required typing help from the typing pool was forced to enter the actual pool room and deliver his request to the fierce matriarch who presided, not unlike a galley master, over the 30 young women who sat in neatly arranged desks before her. He'd then be given a chit to take to the woman selected as his typist.
This was the moment of ritual humiliation. Even the most pre-possessing young men in the department knew they wouldn't emerge unscathed from their walk into this slave market, knew that they'd be the subject of muted catcalls and giggles and whistles, knew that they'd be lampooned for their hair style, their clothes, their facial blemishes. ("Hey, spotty, give us a big kiss.")
Of course, in the strictly gendered division of labour which existed at that time, secretaries like Miss Keating would never mingle with mere members of the typing pool any more than they would be seen dead with any of the hundreds of head-scarved women who laboured away in the coning room of the rayon factory.
They were far too refined for that, so refined in fact that they were the only women in the works who were allowed to take lunch in the staff dining room, where they could sit in the same room as managers and eat off white table cloths.
My infatuation with secretaries, with their poise and demeanour, stayed with me for years after I left my rayon job. So much so that during my early years in higher education, I formed a liaison with a departmental secretary.
Anne shared all Miss Keating's charms. She wore similar secretarial clothes - fresh frilly white blouse, tight black skirt, and sensible high heels. She was ultra smart and very efficient.
But the relationship quickly began to cool. One night we lay together in bed. Both of us staring silently at the ceiling. "This isn't much good, is it?" I said. "No," said Anne. "What should we do about it?" I said mournfully. "I know," she said. "I'll go and sit behind a typewriter."
I think it'll be a good few years before I'm in a position to need a PA and even then I'm not sure if I'd want one...
If you have a PA are you secretly infatuated / scared of them as per the above?
Mannginger said:
Road Pest said:
Loving the forum choice, wouldn't it be more suited to Jobs and employment?
On topic I have an administrator who works for me if that counts!
On topic I have an administrator who works for me if that counts!
I put it in "The Lounge" as I felt it was a light-hearted, non subject specific banter thread...ah well, no loss I guess.
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