Today is Administrative Professionals Day. Even after all these years, not to mention a significant name change from “Secretary’s Day,” this particular day still feels like MINE.
I began my secretarial career at the age of 15 when my English teacher chose me as her office assistant. Soon, the entire English Department was remarking favorably about my secretarial skills, and I landed my first part-time typing job the summer I turned 16. My skills increased and my career continued into corporate positions with up to 11 bosses simultaneously. At 29, with the help of an SBA loan, I opened my own Secretarial Services company, Happy Fingers. In 1984, mine was the first of its kind in Charleston to offer “computerized typing” aka word processing. Happy Fingers has continued for 29 years, and I still love it.
I acknowledge there’s a huge difference between being someone’s secretary and owning a secretarial service company. It became crystal clear my first year in business as I observed a huge increase in the level of respect I received from my clients versus what I had received from my bosses. I was still the same person, doing basically the same things, but I was no longer a mere secretary; I had become a business owner. It was a paradigm shift that changed forever the way I saw myself.
Over the decades I have grown in both ability and confidence. I expanded into bookkeeping and payroll and received certification as a Professional Résumé Writer. Assisting people with their job searches is actually what led me to become certified as a Life Coach, and that’s why I started writing a blog. My English teacher would be proud!
In 2013, I am not only grateful for my skills but for my 1984 self who was willing to take a big risk. My husband treated me to lunch yesterday, a tradition that started when I was his secretary in the late ‘70s. We reminisced about those early days, talked about the many technological changes, and celebrated the myriad of good choices that led us to an outdoor lunch in a beautiful setting.
This is my day to LOVE the Secretary part of me: the organizer, the detail person, the one who can do four things at once and do them all with amazing efficiency. Happy Secretary’s Day!
From the 1974 Nebraska Public Service Commission Annual Report – This was my first Professional Secretarial Position – I was 19
Coach Barbie Dallmann 
You were SO CUTE!!!
She is so cute… and smart!
I love the secretary part of you!
You are an inspiration–taking a leap of faith and landing exactly where your heart desired to be. Happy Secretary’s Day
OMG, Barbie!! Can’t believe you saved a photo for so many decades. And you look so tiny & young … great message; been quite a few years since I was acknowledged on secretary’s day … used to love it during the corporate days – flowers, lunch – maybe I’ll grab a bouquet at the florist tomorrow.
Wonderful! As a “medical secretary” for five years [changed to “office assistant” before I left the job], I can attest to the amazing work that is done by secretaries. Keeping doctors organized was challenging and being appreciated meant a lot. My mom went to secretarial school while my dad went to college in the early 1940s. Her skill served her incredibly well. She worked in the school system once we were all in school and loved it. What was really cool about my mom was that she knew SHORTHAND! Remember that? A totally foreign language to me [by the time I was a secretary, we had Dictaphones so didn’t even have to BE in the same room with our bosses]. She would write herself notes that only she could decipher and it always drove me crazy! Thanks for the memories, Barbie, and congratulations on your years of success and still LOVING your work!
Wow! I had no idea we had so much in common. Guess what? I learned shorthand. I was up to about 100 words a minute when I was in high school. But since I could type faster than that, it really didn’t make sense, from an efficiency standpoint, to write it in shorthand first and then type it. Also there was the very real problem than I could WRITE shorthand really well … but I couldn’t always READ what I had written. I have that problem with regular cursive quite often, too. Oh, well! Back to the keyboard!