Aug 19, 2011

CAN I TAKE A MESSAGE?

Is it weird that I like being the secretary, the admin assistant, the office worker?  I just love answering phones, taking messages, asking "can I help you", answering people's questions, and clicking around on the computer like I know what I'm doing and am an important person within this establishment.  I think I have a complex of sorts.  I really like to be the person who knows what's going on and who can point you in the right direction.  I like the power the knowledge gives me.  Huh...yep, I have control issues.  I think that's one reason I liked being an Admissions Counselor.  I had all this information about a college, which this person or that knew nothing about, and I got to share it with students and parents all while helping them choose their future higher educational institution.  I made a difference in people's lives....I also got to go on trips!  But that's not a control/power-trip issue, more of my desire for experiencing new things and the need for creativity in my life....a topic for another time.... I think I also like the normalcy of the job, the consistency, the structure, and predictability.  For sure there are crazy times with the occasional tricky situation to throw things a little off balance.  Overall, though, it is the same.  I know what to expect.  I like the pattern of it all.  Like I said...I have a complex.

Today I subbed in the main office at one of Rogers' middle schools--your favorite and mine--Oakdale.  I LOVE working in the office!  I always have.  Ever since I was an 8th grader at Oakdale and got to be an office aid.  THEN I worked as an Attendance office aid in high school.  *sigh*  It's so fun.  I got to answer the phone, "Oakdale Middle School" (though the first few times I said, "Oakdale Junior High" as it used to fondly be named...until I was corrected by a teacher--whom with I actually went to high school. Crazytown!), in a confident and friendly declarative yet giving the obvious interrogative tonal lean of "how may I help you?" without actually having to say it.  Ya, I'm that good.  I liked knowing exactly where students/parents could get their slip to sign up for their gym clothes and how much each piece costs.  The icing on the cake was learning and perfecting the use of the school-wide intercom.  Oh, it was quite a treat when I got to call a student to the office.  Oh how I like to work in the office.

I'm so....weird.

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