Well, shut my mouth.
For the last few days, my department had been preparing for an internal sort of process audit, where a few employees from other offices come to review our department processes, to be sure we're doing things efficiently and all that other sort of stuff that's typically reviewed in a process audit. Sorry, a "Work Excellence Review".
Anywho, my boss voluntold me for the job of "wrangler of files and other things the reviewers may need", which meant printing phone lists and floor maps, pulling files, and finding documents for about a dozen clients, so that they could be reviewed. I ended up with a bit of help from the other two assistants (the fourth one is on vacation, and then she comes back for two days, and leaves for a new job, boo), but I ended up putting in a large amount of non-billable time. I was at work on Friday until 8:00, for example, because I spent a good chunk of my afternoon with this stuff, and combined with a proposal I was working on for my boss, I was pretty far behind in my own work. I was feeling a little frustrated too, because I was put in charge of feeding the reviewers both days, and it wasn't good enough to pre-order lunch, I had to find out on each day what they wanted, and then go buy it. I also had to set the room up with coffee and juice, and make sure throughout the day that they were okay. This was all going on in a boardroom on the floor below me, which added to my irritation - good exercise, sure, but not so good when the feet hurt. I was also at their beck and call when they needed a document that wasn't in the file they expected it to be, and so forth. Hard to get my regular work done with all this, and also hard to get in my billable hours (for which I have a 1600 hour goal to meet). At least they finished end of day yesterday, so I can get back to my regular stuff.
Honestly, as an admin assistant, I would understand that this was what I'm expected to do. But officially I'm not an admin assistant, I'm a pension assistant, which means I assist with pension calculations and other things. There's a difference, really! However, the line is a bit blurry with us. We're the lowest ranking people in the department, so we get to do a lot of "standard" admin assistant type stuff, the stuff admins usually get stuck doing when no one else wants to. Frankly, I was feeling a little unappreciated, and irritated that I'm always the one that gets stuck with this stuff, not so much the other two girls. And when they get involved, they do a bit, and then go back to their own workload. AND, because of all the stuff I had to do for the review, I've had to put in a bunch of overtime to get caught up on my already past due work. Argh. And other stuff too, that has to do with being several people short with vacations and such...I could go on.
When I got into work today, I was definitely not looking forward to having to clean up the 3 carts of files, office supplies, and other leftover mess in the boardroom before a 10:00 meeting started (by myself, I might add, because the other assistants don't get in until after me). I got to my desk and discovered a TAG ("Thanks A Gazillion") award nomination from my boss for taking ownership of the review preparation. If I win one of the TAG awards for the month with this nomination, it's at least $100 on an Amex card, tax free, maybe more.
Maybe I should learn to not be so cranky, until everything is said and done - if at the end, I'm still feeling unappreciated, then maybe I can be cranky then. But maybe I should just wait and see, and maybe my boss will surprise me by, say, TAGing me, and then I won't feel so stupid for being unjustifiably cranky. Eesh.
Anywho, my boss voluntold me for the job of "wrangler of files and other things the reviewers may need", which meant printing phone lists and floor maps, pulling files, and finding documents for about a dozen clients, so that they could be reviewed. I ended up with a bit of help from the other two assistants (the fourth one is on vacation, and then she comes back for two days, and leaves for a new job, boo), but I ended up putting in a large amount of non-billable time. I was at work on Friday until 8:00, for example, because I spent a good chunk of my afternoon with this stuff, and combined with a proposal I was working on for my boss, I was pretty far behind in my own work. I was feeling a little frustrated too, because I was put in charge of feeding the reviewers both days, and it wasn't good enough to pre-order lunch, I had to find out on each day what they wanted, and then go buy it. I also had to set the room up with coffee and juice, and make sure throughout the day that they were okay. This was all going on in a boardroom on the floor below me, which added to my irritation - good exercise, sure, but not so good when the feet hurt. I was also at their beck and call when they needed a document that wasn't in the file they expected it to be, and so forth. Hard to get my regular work done with all this, and also hard to get in my billable hours (for which I have a 1600 hour goal to meet). At least they finished end of day yesterday, so I can get back to my regular stuff.
Honestly, as an admin assistant, I would understand that this was what I'm expected to do. But officially I'm not an admin assistant, I'm a pension assistant, which means I assist with pension calculations and other things. There's a difference, really! However, the line is a bit blurry with us. We're the lowest ranking people in the department, so we get to do a lot of "standard" admin assistant type stuff, the stuff admins usually get stuck doing when no one else wants to. Frankly, I was feeling a little unappreciated, and irritated that I'm always the one that gets stuck with this stuff, not so much the other two girls. And when they get involved, they do a bit, and then go back to their own workload. AND, because of all the stuff I had to do for the review, I've had to put in a bunch of overtime to get caught up on my already past due work. Argh. And other stuff too, that has to do with being several people short with vacations and such...I could go on.
When I got into work today, I was definitely not looking forward to having to clean up the 3 carts of files, office supplies, and other leftover mess in the boardroom before a 10:00 meeting started (by myself, I might add, because the other assistants don't get in until after me). I got to my desk and discovered a TAG ("Thanks A Gazillion") award nomination from my boss for taking ownership of the review preparation. If I win one of the TAG awards for the month with this nomination, it's at least $100 on an Amex card, tax free, maybe more.
Maybe I should learn to not be so cranky, until everything is said and done - if at the end, I'm still feeling unappreciated, then maybe I can be cranky then. But maybe I should just wait and see, and maybe my boss will surprise me by, say, TAGing me, and then I won't feel so stupid for being unjustifiably cranky. Eesh.