My first job was in a ‘policy’ department in a high level government office, as an ‘Admin Assistant,’ spending all of my time ‘administering a website.’ When I began the job I didn’t know what any of those things were, I just knew I could type fast and file things effectively.
Honestly, I found all of this work very satisfying – learning new ways to organize things, while also observing from close quarters how the government worked. I will always remember the glee I felt assembling giant binders, with the industrial-sized hole puncher and the paper that was coloured so that it couldn’t be photocopied. So much fun! (That may sound sarcastic. It isn’t.)
I also had to set up a website with absolutely no background or experience whatsoever, it was a brand new ‘content management system’ (I did not know what one was or how it was supposed to work) which was full of bugs, and out of which I managed to jerry-rig something the bosses told me they needed. (I only realized many years later how underpaid I had been for that gig, and how many times I should have pushed back and told them what they were asking was impossible. But I did learn everything I needed to know about content management systems, so I feel it was worth it in the long run.)
But I was just a temp, and all the admin people there were temps so there was no career path. I was not eligible to apply for a permanent job in the government, so when my job went permanent I had to train my replacement. (I did an excellent job because I had documented all my procedures.) (She did not have the faintest clue how to update the website, because of all the ridiculous customizations I had to do, so I think they had to pull the plug.) (She probably got paid a lot more than me, too.)
I somehow got out of the admin pigeonhole and worked for nearly a decade in a role that was sort of a mix of policy, communications and admin. The policy stuff fascinated me but I found it fundamentally unsatisfying. I looked there for answers to questions that always plagued me, but all I ever found was more and more questions. Unlike the analysts I worked with, I did not enjoy this process, but in my particular role I was able to take on challenges that were more easily attainable. Maybe I could not affect Ontario’s energy policy, but I could make sure our report about it was delivered on time and error-free. I could not solve the biodiversity crisis, but I could get more people to read our report about it online.
I went on to own a restaurant with a partner. Talk about the complete opposite kind of workplace than a government policy office! We hired people off the street and let them go if it didn’t work out. People had the most intimate conversations with their coworkers over a deep fryer. There was nothing written down! Some of the staff didn’t even have email addresses!! Fortunately we never had to stoop to sending out staff memos by Snapchat, but things were definitely weird for a bureaucrat like me.
The long and the short of it is that I started writing things down and everybody’s lives got so much easier. A lot of confusion comes from good people doing their best, but since they’re not clear about what’s expected of them, the best isn’t what is needed. People work at cross purposes. At a restaurant this is magnified by the fact that it’s extremely uncommon to have all the staff present at once, so vigilant communication is required to avoid constant games of broken telephone.
The power of writing down an expectation, printing it on a piece of paper, making everyone read and sign it, then hanging it on a wall … ahhhh, it’s like a cool spring rain washing everything clean.
The other thing about the restaurant that was so different was this:
I had worked with a lot of brilliant policy analysts who were at the top of their game. But what they did all day, for their whole careers, was sit at a computer and type things (and go to meetings to talk about the things they typed). I know they get job satisfaction from solving knotty conceptual problems, researching and discovering new topics, providing well-grounded advice to people who have the power to do something with it. But a lot of them experienced significant anxiety and job dissatisfaction.
My restaurant had an open kitchen. The cooks (when they had time to) liked to watch the food go out, and then watch the customer’s reaction to it. They got a little thrill each time. This type of moment, so common in the life of a line cook, was unattainable to so many of my former colleagues (even if they did get the same thrill out of seeing their name on a list of authors on an important document – it certainly did not happen multiple times a day!)
Now, I’m not here trying to tell you that line cooks don’t experience anxiety or job dissatisfaction. But they do get to experience this kind of satisfaction that comes from tangibly solving a problem, making an actual material positive difference in someone’s life.
This was a major light bulb moment for me in terms of my career. I selfishly need this kind of regular feedback, that I’m making someone’s day better or their life easier. And that’s what customer service is, right? (Wait until I tell you about my first retail job as a barista for a café with literally the worst customers in the city.)
I went on to work for a few other small teams: I founded a startup, worked for another, and ran some political campaigns. I always would gravitate towards the admin work, like spreadsheets and websites, drafting procedures and policies, finding better ways to solve tedious problems, making sure everyone (customers, stakeholders, coworkers, voters, media, etc) understood what they needed to.
Looking back on my early career in admin, I never took it seriously because the institution didn’t. Every signal I got, both spoken and unspoken, was that someone as smart as I am should not waste their time/skills in such a low-status position.
It was true, being a government admin assistant was not for me. I did not ‘fit in’ with the other admin assistants, and I felt so disrespected by everyone who was not an admin assistant. But my problems were not with the work itself.
Now it’s 2022, and admin work has been displaced from the office. This is so liberating for employers and employees alike. I can do the admin work that I love, without dealing with the social politics of the workplace. I can work autonomously with clients I admire and respect. I can do what I’m good at and make sure it helps the people who need it. I’m excited!