Today is officially Administrative Professional Day. But we should take each day to recognize all the things these admin professionals do and thank them for all their hard work. These admins who are more than just secretaries often run an office and an office would not be able to function without them.
Admin professionals are the first to greet you when you enter an office, the voice you speak to on the phone, the person that directs you where you need to go. They are the ones that organize any office function, fix the copy jams, order supplies. They do it all.
While I was not the best at phone and greeting stuff (I definitely got a lot better as I spent more years on the job), I was good at a lot of other things. My official title was Administrative Specialist and I eventually became a Department Specialist. Then I left the Admin Union and entered the Professional one I’m in now as Coordinator of the Pool and Fitness Center.
While I started out with many secretarial duties I quickly took on many jobs and roles while I was the Administrative Specialist. I was a compliance officer and monitored the academic eligibility of our athletes. I was an accountant: writing expense reports, requesting checks for travel and entering purchase orders.
I was an event organizer: starting what became an annual Breast Cancer Awareness Fundraiser at our basketball games. I helped organize a Spirit of Boston 5k to raise funds for a children’s hospital in Boston following the Boston Marathon bombing. I organized a food drive for the Mercer Street Friends Food Bank for several years and we took some athletes to work several hours at the food bank.
I also worked several regional tournaments we hosted including tennis, baseball and softball. I helped with the District men’s soccer tournament we hosted and the NJCAA Men’s Soccer National Championship Mercer hosted in my first year working there.
I was a web manager and began posting scores and eventually was able to make edits and create pages to our athletic website. I created the Mercer Athletics Facebook page. I took on a role as Sports Information Director, providing live updates on playoff games for our teams, writing articles that I sent to Publications and a regional website on our sports teams.
I acted as an academic advisor to some of the athletic teams. I was able to register students for classes and helped them find the classes they needed or should take. I could access grades before the end of each semester. If any athlete didn’t pass that didn’t know they weren’t going to pass I would contact the coach and scramble to find a winter or summer class they could take to try to get eligible.
I know I was not the only Administrative Professional who did beyond what their job entailed at Mercer. I felt lucky to work at a campus that had so many great admins to hold down the fort and keep each department running.
And I also know this is true of most admins and secretaries in any office. So while today is the official day to recognize these professionals, we must thank them throughout the year for all that they do. Because the reality is most offices anywhere would not survive or function if it weren’t for the hard working admins who often go above and beyond to keep an office running.
