Is there anything a secretary doesn't do these days?

Is there anything a secretary doesn't do these days?

I am assuming that you're coping just fine with the immense shock of this extraordinary "news". I assume that because, frankly, this could only be novel information to anyone who has never been in an office, seen an office, or watched a sitcom set in an office.

Myself, I've done all three of those things so I managed to contain my astonishment when scanning the list of things that respondents reported they'd been asked to do as part of their job.

Peeling an apple was one: a neat demonstration of how alarmingly often the world of secretarial work butts up against the skills set required for childcare. Valeting a car was another, as was finding out how to remove red wine stains from a carpet. Googling football scores, organising family parties, buying personal gifts and lying to spouses were all included, to the great surprise of precisely no one. Bring me a survey that says, "Secretaries are allowed to get on with their work in peace without once being interrupted and asked to pop out to Starbucks for a cappuccino because the one from the canteen 'tastes of soap'" and then I might be interested.

But wait! What is this buried within the findings? Apparently - and I say "apparently" because I still can't believe it, despite this coming with all the moral and.....continued below

Advertisement starts

Advertisement ends

Now, first of all, how much do I wish I could be party to one of those conversations? "Right, so if you could check with the Paris office that they got last week's amendments to the conference schedule, that would be great. Oh, you might want to call New York and make sure the proposal for the Latimer project reached them OK. I need the minutes of yesterday's meeting by the end of the day. And one more thing: I haven't had sex since Tony Blair was prime minister, so if you have an hour or two this morning to work on that, brilliant."

Second: are these people idiots? They might be lazy, venal, thoughtless and self-obsessed. But are you really telling me there is no glimmer of self-awareness in the sludgy pulp of their brain, telling them the person whose life they clutter up with pointless tasks and unreasonable demands might not be motivated entirely by guileless magnanimity when armed with their boss's credit card, the log-on details to their dating website of choice and the task of nurturing their secret romantic hopes?