I fell into a job as an administrative assistant. For years I had done any number of jobs, from zookeeper to travel agent to political activist; my twenties were a jumble of jobs that had no real rhyme or reason. Then I landed a job as an administrative assistant through a temp agency. It was a good job and the pay was phenomenal. For a girl who had dropped out of university six credits shy of her BS in Microbiology, I was stunned by the salary I was making.
Not only that, the work was interesting. I did a little of everything, project management, event planning, some research here and there, the variety was enough to keep my head in the game all while I looked for jobs in what was my passion. I wanted to be a zookeeper, a real, big-league zookeeper. The money allowed me to make the weird weekend trips to Topeka Kansas and Orange County to interview for jobs. But none of them ever came through. So I kept on being an administrative assistant.
I moved to Seattle and took a job with a temp agency that again put me in an administrative position, which lead to a full time job with a financial planner; an absolute harridan who promised me bonuses and perks that just never seemed to materialize. So I left that one and took another, this time with a grocery store chain. There was lots of room to advance if I wanted it. And while I did meet two of my favorite people in the world, it just didn’t work out. But I went to work for an engineering firm, where again variety became the spice of my life.
I did land use surveys, I helped to write environmental impact statements, I single handedly rebuilt a solid waste management plan that had been destroyed by a break in – I literally retyped and re-formatted the entire document, even recreating the figures from scratch. It was fun, and I was promised all sorts of things and they even created a new position because of me. One that they then didn’t allow me to have. So I left, and went to San Diego.
There I went to work for a projector company, and I loved my boss and liked my job. Lots of variety, and more autonomy; it was great. Surely here I could advance; then the company was sold and the facility was closed. But it was okay, because I had my dream job – an editorial assistant with a small online scientific journal. Even the offices were wonderful, and I was in heaven. There was so much to learn and to do and experience – for four wonderful weeks it was just amazing. Then they closed the office and I was again looking for work.
I landed on my feet, eventually ending up at a biotech in the Regulatory department. I loved it. I loved the people (many are still close friends today), I loved the work and I loved that what I was doing had a positive impact on the world. After that company merged, I then moved on, back to Seattle to work at a biotech there. Life was good there, and I had a boss who believed in me and wanted to help me advance. I finished my degree in Communications and things were finally looking up. Until my boss was forced out and I ended up working for a man who saw admins as something slightly more advanced than the old school secretary who took dictation and fetched coffee.
I applied for jobs, blanketed the country with my resume and hit up those I thought could help me, all to no avail. I wanted to be anything but an admin. The company I was working for had a large round of layoffs, of which I was one of the hapless. I didn’t mind, it felt like freedom. I loved the people I worked with, loved the community of big brained people who allowed me to sit at the lunch table and be part of the group. But I was going nowhere fast, and it felt like a monumental relief to leave. I ran away to Europe for a while and now I am again looking for a new job.
Just the other day I applied for a communications coordinator job, one that looked promising and low and behold – they called me. Would I be interested in an executive assistant position? This one is different – no really. Except that the very different position sounded very much like a traditional admin job. Tomorrow I go interview with them.
It feels as though someone has taken a great big ‘ADMIN’ stamp and placed is squarely on my forehead. I worry that when I look in the mirror it will be tattooed there, indelible and inescapable. I worry that when I die my headstone will read “Here Lies an Admin” complete with a little filing cabinet. I don’t disparage or discount the work an admin does, but I do know that I am not the right person to be one. It is not my music. Yet every time I step through a door , I am faced with it again.
Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something. I would like nothing more than to be a writer, to write whatever I can – articles, newsletters, blog posts, stories. Maybe it is telling me that I can’t do both – I can’t be a part time writer and a full time something else; which is how I have been approaching this. Still, I wonder if I can ever scrub off that stamp and be seen as who I am rather than what I did for so many years.
