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We Really, Really Appreciate This…

By Brian | April 11, 2006 | Share on Facebook

Red Envelope informs me that April 24-28 is Employee Appreciation Week.

First of all, I remember when this used to be called “Secretary’s Day.” My first year out of college, someone bought the office manager in our office a huge bouquet of flowers on Secretary’s Day, and she got royally pissed off that he thought of her as a secretary. Now, not only do we appreciate all of our employees (not just the secretaries!), but it takes a week, not a day.

Here’s the irony, though: The Thursday in Employee Appreciation Week Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, which itself used to have a different name (“Take Our Daughters to Work Day”). For the employees with kids, this day can be a lot of fun. For everyone else, especially the secretaries quite frankly, we’re basically telling them we appreciate them by making them take care of our kids all day.

Interesting thing, this Political Correctness, huh?

Topics: Random Acts of Blogging | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “We Really, Really Appreciate This…”

  1. Jeff Porten says at April 14th, 2006 at 5:37 pm :
    How things change… my mother was a secretary at Penn for 40 years, and she used to get very angry at people who referred to her as an executive assistant. “Secretary”, in her lexicon, was a career requiring a honed skill set — as evidenced by the fact that every time she changed jobs it was common for the department to collapse in ruin once it found out all of the ways she had kept it running. Executive assistants, on the other hand, are cherub-cheeked twentysomethings fresh out of college who are taking entry level jobs until they can find something better.

    I can attest that my mother had access to technology that I don’t and wish I did — I’ve always regretted that she didn’t teach me shorthand. It’s stunning what you can do with that.

  2. Brian says at April 15th, 2006 at 1:37 am :
    Hmmm…shorthand. I haven’t thought about that in a long while.

    Question: I type roughly 110 words per minute. Could your mom (or, I guess, an average secretary) take shorthand faster than that? Given the presence of laptops with wireless LAN connections, I wonder if I’m better off than she was with the help of the new tools…

  3. Jeff Porten says at April 15th, 2006 at 4:31 pm :
    110? Impressive. I have trouble cracking 80 or 90 on a good day.

    But shorthand has us both beat. It’s designed for taking perfect dictation. The average speaker runs around 200-250 wpm. The last time I *used* shorthand was when my conference startup was in the transcription business. I handed out laptops like popcorn to my temps. Even the best of them was completely blown away by the one woman who showed up, turned down the laptop, and took out her steno pad.

    I even asked her, “where do I find more people like you?” She shook her head sadly and said, “we’re a dying breed.”