Don’t Mess with the Admin Mafia by Elia Sheldon
The first lesson of great importance that I learned in my professional career was from a partner at Price Waterhouse (prior to the merge with Coopers and Lybrand) during the first week of orientation for me and thirty of my peers who were kicking off our training to become technology consultants. He said that we should make friends with every Administrative Assistant that we could because they are the most important people in corporate America. We listened as he explained that Administrative Assistants hold the keys to access and power in the world of business and if we wanted to be successful consultants, we’d heed his advice.
“Administrative Assistants hold the keys to access and power in the world of business and if we wanted to be successful consultants, we’d heed his advice.”
Fast forward several years and it seems to me that the PW partner completely understated his advice. I would not be where I am today if I’d been stupid enough to cop an attitude with an Admin or treat someone who has such a key role in the organization with anything other than respect, gratitude, and genuine appreciation for their critical contribution. The talented Administrative Professionals with whom I’ve had the honor of working have ordered flowers for me when a family member passed away. They’ve arranged meetings that enabled million dollar decisions to be made. They’ve welcomed new employees to the organization with a fully functioning computer, phone, and all the logins needed on day one. One even provided a color-coded map of the building to ensure that my new employee wouldn’t get lost.
I’ve seen what happens to the poor schmucks who are operating under the false impression that an Administrative Assistant / Secretary / Administrative Professional is someone lower who should just take orders and shut up. Such a rookie mistake. See, you don’t mess with the Admin Mafia. You make one angry, or if one decides he or she doesn’t like you, you might as well pack your belongings into your overpriced designer briefcase and go home.
The network of Administrative Professionals at most companies is typically very strong. The visibility of their work demands that they coordinate coverage for their function at all times. When someone takes a break for lunch, there’s someone who takes over his or her phone lines, scheduling responsibilities, and any other requests that come in from the teams being covered. They talk, like most professionals on the same team, about the people and groups they support. You want them to say nice things about you. You want to be sure that you are on the Good List. If you treat them with respect, they will take care of you (and not in a dead horse head in the bed kind of way).
As an example, when you desperately need a meeting to come together, a meeting involving a lot of senior people with insane calendars, you pretty much have no chance of making it happen unless you can gain access to everyone’s calendar. Good luck with that. Your meeting will take place in October of 2021 if you try to schedule it yourself. Not exactly the best timing if you need to take action within the next decade or if you don’t want to conduct your meeting in a room the size of a closet with no A/V during lunch hour with no lunch.
These men and women in the Administrative Professional role work hard. They deal with more competing and overlapping priorities than almost any job I can think of, and most of them have the patience to chuckle at my lame jokes, the agility to jump through fiery hoops to help make a deadline, and the attention to detail to proactively adjust the lunch menu because they know that someone in the meeting is allergic to peanuts and we’d ordered Pad Thai.
If you missed Administrative Professionals Day this year (it was on April 22nd), have no fear. There’s always next year, April 21, 2010. Even better, don’t wait for a holiday to show your appreciation. A hand-written note, an e-mail thanking them with a cc to their manager, flowers with a thoughtful note, or hanging out with them over a cup of coffee are just a few ways to show your gratitude.
Elia Sheldon is a working mother of two daughters who lives in Chatham, NJ and manages large scale programs for a Fortune 50 company. She enjoys time with her family, working on her novel, and attending hot yoga classes. Her column focuses on providing ideas, thoughts, and advice to help demystify the corporate jungle and achieve better work life balance. Need advice? Send questions to: elia@eliasheldon.com.
