askerian | (no subject)

anyone around here who works or has worked as a secretary and would be willing to answer, uh… like three pages of questions? i’ve got to do research on that job for the unemployment agency before they’ll consider whether they want to help me pay for the training, to prove i know what to expect etc etc, which is a bit of a pain but oh fucking well. anyway i’ve got two real-life people already but that’s not enough, i need at least two or three more. not all the questions will be relevant since it’s geared toward the french job market but most of them will be!

also if anyone has ever HIRED a secretary…?

(also any other job ideas to suggest for someone who likes computers but isn’t a wizard with them, can’t carry heavy stuff, hates the outdoors, and can’t deal with customers? -__-;;; i just generally want to work in an office, i can learn to deal with phone calls. i thought about library jobs but even to reshelve things you’ve got to have a stupid big diploma. also patrons, augh. government office worker is a possibility i’m considering pretty strongly but the thing is you don’t really decide where in the area you’ll work even if you pass the tests, and i can’t drive. :X might be time to try to change that… )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There is always data entry! ...Which can turn your brain to oatmeal after a while, but it's a not terribly demanding computer-based job that doesn't require much interaction with customers beyond an occasional email or call to ask for clarifications about glitches in the files/forms you're trying to enter into databases. And some jobs of that nature then also involve some minor manipulation/organization of the data being entered, so they're not quite as brain-killing.

I've done much more receptionist work than secretarial work, which you probably wouldn't like because receptionists are always dealing with people, whereas secretarial work can be people-heavy or people-light, depending on the nature of the office one works in. But when I was (briefly) a secretary at a maintenance department of a larger organization, what I did was receive, sort, and send faxes; answer phones and either route calls/take messages; create work orders, assign them to the appropriate maintenance specialists, and file them once they were completed; and some general office tidying and such-like. Basically a secretary (or administrative assistant) is there to take care of the routine business of their office so their boss can deal with the bigger issues, and also to run a little interference between their boss and people who come by and want to set up meetings.

haha yeah, i've done some data entry and ... well i managed it for one month which was what my contract was supposed to last for, but i think any longer and i would have bitten someone. DX

this is very useful, thank you. ^^