Did you hug your admins on April 22? If you did, good for you and thanks in advance for not being creepy and holding us longer and tighter than you should have. (If you did, well, hmm…) April 22 was Administrative Professionals Day. If you were wondering what I do at the OK Corral, other than baling hay, yes: I’m an administrative professional. It’s…an interesting…let’s stick to the positive.
Anyway, before we get into how the day was commemorated here at my office, have you wondered where Admin Day came from? I did. A little research:
“During World War II, there was an increased need for skilled administrative personnel, particularly in the United States. The National Secretaries Association was formed to recognize the contributions of secretaries and other administrative personnel to the economy, to support their personal development and to help attract people to administrative careers in the field. The association’s name was changed to Professional Secretaries International in 1981 and, finally, the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP) in 1998…The first National Secretaries Week was organized in 1952 in conjunction with the United States Department of Commerce and various office supply and equipment manufacturers. The Wednesday of that week became known as National Secretaries Day. As the organization gained international recognition, the events became known as Professional Secretaries Week® and Professional Secretaries Day®. In 2000, IAAP announced that names of the week and the day were changed to Administrative Professionals Week and Administrative Professionals Day to keep pace with changing job titles and expanding responsibilities of the modern administrative workforce. Many work environments across the world observe this event.”
Interesting, right? Of course, initially, I had no idea what day it was. The days kind of blindly merge into each other during the work week for me, filled with blurry-eyed mornings and exhausted evenings before and after work and only punctuated by blissfully received weekends. A flowery way of telling you that I’m not the happiest worker bee. Anywho, I only realized what day it was after perusing Facebook and seeing a bunch of friends post statuses and photos to that effect. Then I realized that a hastily dismissed event sent to my work calendar was actually an invitation by our department director for all the assistants to join him for a lunch celebration of Admin Day. Moments after I realized all of this, my boss arrived in the office and surprised my fellow colleague and me with two teeming bouquets of gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous flowers.
I was pleasantly surprised and actually moved by the gesture. Like I said, I’m an automaton when it comes to work: I do it because I have to, because a woman has bills, and because deep down, I don’t think Idris Elba knows that we’re married. Add all that to the fact that I’m not really doing what I love (more about that in another post, but if you guessed writing, you’re pretty darn close) and there you go: I join the billions of other people around the world who feel similarly about their jobs. That said, when he presented me/us with those petals, I thought it was lovely. It was nice to be thought of. It was nice to feel appreciated. He certainly didn’t have to do that, but he did.
He then happily forced my colleague and I to pose for photos with our bouquets. And because I likes to share, see below.
Beautiful, right?
Like I said, later in the day, our director invited us to a great lunch, complete with delicious sandwiches, sweet desserts (yes, readers, I cheated and ate), and a promise to let us work a half day for Administrative Professionals Day 2016. I know, right?? I’ll refrain from discussing how I feel about potentially being here in 2016 (that sentence should communicate everything you need to know, actually) and end on a positive note: it was an awesome day.
Happy Belated Admin Day to my fellow admins out there! May the copiers bow down before you, their gentle and patient master.
If you’re an admin, tell me if your bosses did anything special, won’t you?
This Square Peg. 