Why is it that office workers were and probably still are, much maligned for their profession? I’m retired now but looking back over 35 years of working in offices, I feel strongly that generally office workers have been judged unfairly, so today I stand to defend them!
When I was looking for my first job in the 1970s school leavers with A levels went to university or opted for a polytechnic or college course. If higher education didn’t ‘float your boat’, career options were much more limited than they are today. Consequently, many people fell into office work simply because it was readily available or just to get a foot in the door in the hope that something more akin to their dreams would turn up.
Working in an office was often considered to be a last resort on the job search front, being of low status, poorly paid, having narrow job content, few promotion prospects and being under an archaic patriarchy system.1. Disparaging remarks about “so and so only being the secretary” were common with no thought whatsoever for the feelings of the office worker or the circumstances under which they’d taken on the role.
Office work for a woman with caring responsibilities could offer a reasonable life balance by working part-time but this was often detrimental to promotion prospects. Sometimes of course there were no promotion prospects to even strive for, so moving on to another employer within a few years was very likely. In recent times working from home has become commonplace so the previous necessity of being close to the bricks and mortar of an organisation has mercifully diminished.
I confess I fell into office work because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I wasn’t academic but I did have some of the skills required, being practical, organized, a multi-tasker, trustworthy, dependable and a reasonable communicator. As you’ll see on this website in the ‘My World of Work’ section, my own 35 years of office worker experiences were mixed, but it was partly the era in which I worked. Initially some posts were bleak but as I became more experienced and savvier, other doors opened to new worlds.
There were a few oddities about office workers. For starters many didn’t have job descriptions and there were certainly no regular job reviews dissecting the successes, failures and future goals of your role.
It would be difficult to think of other professions where there were so many different titles for an office worker from Secretary, Personal Assistant, Executive Assistant to Administrator to name but a few, and none were nationally recognised so meant little to those outside a specific organisation. Some office workers with a humble title appeared on paper to be at the bottom of the ladder but were often the linchpin of the organization, only being fully appreciated when they were absent! Others had some elevated title but were merely answering the phone, keeping a diary and wafting visitors in and out.
Nowadays there are numerous diplomas and training courses available for secretaries but as far as I know there is still no nationally recognised training programme.
Technology in the 80s and 90s certainly helped most office workers in one way or another. Tedious tasks could be achieved more quickly and efficiently. Spreadsheets, presentations, e mails, became the norm and finally the antiquated scenario of boss dictating letters to his secretary/PA died a death. The light dawned, that given the opportunity, office workers were capable of supervising other people, arranging major events (including conferences abroad), controlling budgets, creating presentations, recruiting, training colleagues, researching, problem solving, translating or preparing reports. Being an office worker may still not have warranted much kudos, but we were more fulfilled and more likely to be rewarded accordingly.
One of the best things about office work was that you could enter completely different environments. Initially, I worked for a managing director of an advertising agency and then had three diverse university posts enabling me to have a taster of the worlds of dentistry, architecture and veterinary medicine. In Cheshire I landed up in one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies and had several distinct roles over a 22-year period until I retired.
Ironically, despite the derogatory comments about office workers, it always amused me that any CEO, VP, director, manager of any organization would have several ‘office workers’ with grandiose titles providing a tonne of vital support to enable the ‘high heidyin’ (as my Glaswegian mother-in-law would have said), meet the demands of their revered position.
To sum up, next time you feel tempted to roll your eyes or make a snide comment about office workers, don’t forget that though some may keep a low profile, they are essential to keep many an organization afloat. Remember the worker bee analogy:
“The humble worker bee serves as a powerful metaphor for understanding impact beyond size and power. If bees can cross-pollinate and self-organize to find resources and solve problems, we can too. We can unleash this same level of self-organization to serve the higher purpose of our organizations.” 2.
- Catherine Truss, Kerstin Alfes, Amanda Shantz & Amanda Rosewarne . Still in the Ghetto? Experiences of Secretarial Work in the 21st Century. Gender, Work and Organization, 2012.
- Dr Kathleen Allen, Leadership for the Greater Good: Reflections on Today’s Challenges from Around the Globe. Learning from Bees. International Leadership Association. 5 Dec 2023
