Wednesday, May 18, 2005

The good news is that I didn’t get fired; the bad news is I didn’t get hired, either—I was passed over *again.*

Boss #1 just hired someone else to take the place of the woman on maternity leave, who is not coming back. (She wants a part-time job in her neighborhood.) I’m not a happy camper.

I think I understand what the problem is. Boss #1 hinted at it a few weeks ago when he said that I wasn’t all that good at the secretarial stuff, which is not entirely untrue. I’m absolutely dreadful at answering more than one phone call at a time, much to the dismay of the senior administrative assistant in that office. And while I suspect that I’m one of the best in my organization at keeping records of my computer files, keeping track of paperwork is another matter entirely.

On the plus side, what I am good at is working on special projects on the computer. My command of the English language is pretty good, which makes me a good editor. My formatting skills in Word are also pretty good. I can also go back and find old documents—not only do I have records of everything I’ve typed for this organization since I first began temping for them several years ago, I also have copies of every one of those documents on my home computer, in case of disaster. (What, you’ve never had a computer “eat” a document?) So I’m the go-to person for special projects. But in between special projects, I’m unemployed.

2 Comments:

Blogger Moishe said...

Have you looked at being an office manager for a small company? I know we could use your skills. Maybe you're not looking for the best position for your skills... just my 2 cents. Good luck, we're pulling for you.

Thu May 19, 08:19:00 AM 2005  
Blogger Shira Salamone said...

If I could figure what constitutes "the best position" for my skills, I'd look for it! I'm not sure that I'm ready to be responsible for *other* people's work, and I have no experience in "human resources" (hiring and firing, in plain English). I also hate paperwork.

One thing I do enjoy, though, is showing people the best way to go about doing something on the computer (usually in Word, where my skills are strongest). One of my proudest accomplishments was creating an 8-page how-to guide for formatting all the documents in a major project to match one another, so that they would look presentable when bound together in one book. That's still on Boss #2's assistant's computer, waiting for the *next* time that that project comes due--it has to be updated about every 5-7(?) years.

On the other hand, this isn't the first time that someone's suggested that I'm office-manager material. Hmm. Thanks for the thought, and thanks even more for the encouragement.

Thu May 19, 11:31:00 AM 2005  

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