computer passwords, whose turn it was to clean out the office refrigerator, which of my boss’s clients preferred communication by email, which had blue eyes, which drove a domestic vehicle, which had a toddler who was teething, and which required a wheat-free meal at luncheons.

I also spent a lot of time filing defensively. My boss would accuse me of keeping too much stuff, and that I needed to only keep what was important. Then he would come up to me and ask for that piece of paper he used as a coaster in that meeting in 1995 – surely I remember the one – the one when that lady with the short hair made a presentation. Then he would hover over my desk while I painstakingly went through every file in my possession trying to find that piece of paper.

There must be a word that combines panic and apathy. That’s the state I finally reached

I’ll admit it up front. I was a lousy secretary. It wasn’t for the lack of trying. It was just because it was a bad fit for me, but it took me years of being a secretary to convince myself.

Other secretaries in my department could organize circles around me. They could manage a 55-line telephone with one hand, word-process a memo with the other, and do the filing with their feet. They didn’t freak out when their boss dumped a three-day project on their desk with orders to have it ready in an hour. They knew when everyone’s birthdays were, and they remembered to change the water in the flower vase on their desk.

Not me. My typing looked as if it were done by foot, calls I answered ended up on hold for years, and the filing was perpetually 6 months behind. I freaked out when my boss came within two miles of my desk. I forgot my own birthday, and my flowers were always straining desperately towards other, more nurturing, secretaries.

My real problem was that I was always the victim of the “Pile Syndrome.” If you’re a secretary or if you have any kind of paper-pushing job, you know what I mean.

You’re working on the A project, and you’re trying to be focused, even though your phone keeps ringing and the gal at the desk next to you wants to discuss her nephew’s foot fungus. (By the way, it’s illegal for secretaries to let their phones go to voicemail. Look it up yourself: Bylaw 213, Section 3, Paragraph A.)

Your boss comes up to you and says, “How are you coming along on the B project? I know I asked for it tomorrow but could I have it for my meeting in an hour?”

You know it will only take 10 minutes to finish off the B project, so there’s no reason for to put the A project away. You put the B project right on top of the A project on your desk and set to work.

The phone rings. The man on the other end is having an emergency that for some reason you are the only person on the planet who can solve. This is part of your job too – customer service. In fact, the company devotes a lot of lip service to this priority. So this becomes C project, which has to happen right now. But you’re really trying to whip through the B project so you can get back to the A project, which is what you’re REALLY working on anyway. So there’s no need to put the B or the A projects away. You put the C project right on top.

The day ends while you’re working on the P or the Q project, and you can barely see over the top of the pile. Everyone is upset with you because you didn’t get projects A through N finished.

Time management gurus would have a field day with that one. They INSIST that you must put away whatever you’re not working on, and focus ONLY on what you’re working on. Okay, they’re right. How many of them were secretaries? Let’s take a poll.

In between (and usually during) all of these projects, I was expected to schedule meetings for people who only had enough space on their calendar to inhale once. When I reported to my boss that the first mutually available opening for the people he wanted to meet with was Tuesday of 2009, my boss would say “No, try again and see if you can get it for Monday of next week.”

I was also expected to keep track of how many paper clips the office went through in a month, whom to call when the toilet in the men’s room stopped up, which travel agent could find the best rates, all of my boss’s computer passwords, whose turn it was to clean out the office refrigerator, which of my boss’s clients preferred communication by email, which had blue eyes, which drove a domestic vehicle, which had a toddler who was teething, and which required a wheat-free meal at luncheons.

I also spent a lot of time filing defensively. My boss would accuse me of keeping too much stuff, and that I needed to only keep what was important. Then he would come up to me and ask for that piece of paper he used as a coaster in that meeting in 1995 – surely I remember the one – the one when that lady with the short hair made a presentation. Then he would hover over my desk while I painstakingly went through every file in my possession trying to find that piece of paper.

There must be a word that combines panic and apathy. That’s the state I finally reached.

birthday, and my flowers were always straining desperately towards other, more nurturing, secretaries.

My real problem was that I was always the victim of the “Pile Syndrome.” If you’re a secretary or if you have any kind of paper-pushing job, you know what I mean.

You’re working on the A project, and you’re trying to be focused, even though your phone keeps ringing and the gal at the desk next to you wants to discuss her nephew’s foot fungus. (By the way, it’s illegal for secretaries to let their phones go to voicemail. Look it up yourself: Bylaw 213, Section 3, Paragraph A.)

Your boss comes up to you and says, “How are you coming along on the B project? I know I asked for it tomorrow but could I have it for my meeting in an hour?”

You know it will only take 10 minutes to finish off the B project, so there’s no reason for to put the A project away. You put the B project right on top of the A project on your desk and set to work.

The phone rings. The man on the other end is having an emergency that for some reason you are the only person on the planet who can solve. This is part of your job too – customer service. In fact, the company devotes a lot of lip service to this priority. So this becomes C project, which has to happen right now. But you’re really trying to whip through the B project so you can get back to the A project, which is what you’re REALLY working on anyway. So there’s no need to put the B or the A projects away. You put the C project right on top.

The day ends while you’re working on the P or the Q project, and you can barely see over the top of the pile. Everyone is upset with you because you didn’t get projects A through N finished.

Time management gurus would have a field day with that one. They INSIST that you must put away whatever you’re not working on, and focus ONLY on what you’re working on. Okay, they’re right. How many of them were secretaries? Let’s take a poll.

In between (and usually during) all of these projects, I was expected to schedule meetings for people who only had enough space on their calendar to inhale once. When I reported to my boss that the first mutually available opening for the people he wanted to meet with was Tuesday of 2009, my boss would say “No, try again and see if you can get it for Monday of next week.”

I was also expected to keep track of how many paper clips the office went through in a month, whom to call when the toilet in the men’s room stopped up, which travel agent could find the best rates, all of my boss’s computer passwords, whose turn it was to clean out the office refrigerator, which of my boss’s clients preferred communication by email, which had blue eyes, which drove a domestic vehicle, which had a toddler who was teething, and which required a wheat-free meal at luncheons.

I also spent a lot of time filing defensively. My boss would accuse me of keeping too much stuff, and that I needed to only keep what was important. Then he would come up to me and ask for that piece of paper he used as a coaster in that meeting in 1995 – surely I remember the one – the one when that lady with the short hair made a presentation. Then he would hover over my desk while I painstakingly went through every file in my possession trying to find that piece of paper.

There must be a word that combines panic and apathy. That’s the state I finally reached

to put the A project away. You put the B project right on top of the A project on your desk and set to work.

The phone rings. The man on the other end is having an emergency that for some reason you are the only person on the planet who can solve. This is part of your job too – customer service. In fact, the company devotes a lot of lip service to this priority. So this becomes C project, which has to happen right now. But you’re really trying to whip through the B project so you can get back to the A project, which is what you’re REALLY working on anyway. So there’s no need to put the B or the A projects away. You put the C project right on top.

The day ends while you’re working on the P or the Q project, and you can barely see over the top of the pile. Everyone is upset with you because you didn’t get projects A through N finished.

Time management gurus would have a field day with that one. They INSIST that you must put away whatever you’re not working on, and focus ONLY on what you’re working on. Okay, they’re right. How many of them were secretaries? Let’s take a poll.

In between (and usually during) all of these projects, I was expected to schedule meetings for people who only had enough space on their calendar to inhale once. When I reported to my boss that the first mutually available opening for the people he wanted to meet with was Tuesday of 2009, my boss would say “No, try again and see if you can get it for Monday of next week.”

I was also expected to keep track of how many paper clips the office went through in a month, whom to call when the toilet in the men’s room stopped up, which travel agent could find the best rates, all of my boss’s computer passwords, whose turn it was to clean out the office refrigerator, which of my boss’s clients preferred communication by email, which had blue eyes, which drove a domestic vehicle, which had a toddler who was teething, and which required a wheat-free meal at luncheons.

I also spent a lot of time filing defensively. My boss would accuse me of keeping too much stuff, and that I needed to only keep what was important. Then he would come up to me and ask for that piece of paper he used as a coaster in that meeting in 1995 – surely I remember the one – the one when that lady with the short hair made a presentation. Then he would hover over my desk while I painstakingly went through every file in my possession trying to find that piece of paper.

There must be a word that combines panic and apathy. That’s the state I finally reached

hed.

Time management gurus would have a field day with that one. They INSIST that you must put away whatever you’re not working on, and focus ONLY on what you’re working on. Okay, they’re right. How many of them were secretaries? Let’s take a poll.

In between (and usually during) all of these projects, I was expected to schedule meetings for people who only had enough space on their calendar to inhale once. When I reported to my boss that the first mutually available opening for the people he wanted to meet with was Tuesday of 2009, my boss would say “No, try again and see if you can get it for Monday of next week.”

I was also expected to keep track of how many paper clips the office went through in a month, whom to call when the toilet in the men’s room stopped up, which travel agent could find the best rates, all of my boss’s computer passwords, whose turn it was to clean out the office refrigerator, which of my boss’s clients preferred communication by email, which had blue eyes, which drove a domestic vehicle, which had a toddler who was teething, and which required a wheat-free meal at luncheons.

I also spent a lot of time filing defensively. My boss would accuse me of keeping too much stuff, and that I needed to only keep what was important. Then he would come up to me and ask for that piece of paper he used as a coaster in that meeting in 1995 – surely I remember the one – the one when that lady with the short hair made a presentation. Then he would hover over my desk while I painstakingly went through every file in my possession trying to find that piece of paper.

There must be a word that combines panic and apathy. That’s the state I finally reached

computer passwords, whose turn it was to clean out the office refrigerator, which of my boss’s clients preferred communication by email, which had blue eyes, which drove a domestic vehicle, which had a toddler who was teething, and which required a wheat-free meal at luncheons.

I also spent a lot of time filing defensively. My boss would accuse me of keeping too much stuff, and that I needed to only keep what was important. Then he would come up to me and ask for that piece of paper he used as a coaster in that meeting in 1995 – surely I remember the one – the one when that lady with the short hair made a presentation. Then he would hover over my desk while I painstakingly went through every file in my possession trying to find that piece of paper.

There must be a word that combines panic and apathy. That’s the state I finally reached. I was in a constant state of panic over maintaining control over the minutia of my job, but I was apathetic because I genuinely and sincerely really didn’t give a hoot. Nothing I did created any meaningful progress for myself. I filed; someone yanked the file out again, used it, and dumped it back on my desk. I typed a memo for someone else, and someone else got the credit for a great idea. I was a member of the “team” when it suited the department, but when it didn’t suit them, I was expected to remember my “place.”

To all of you who are efficient and wonderful secretaries, my hat is off to you. Those of us who are lousy at it really need people like you in the world.

How many secretaries does it take to change a light bulb? None. She calls maintenance and they do it. Or, if she’s like me, she pretends not to notice until someone else takes care of it.