Today’s Secretaries Dictate Vast Changes in Job Description

Celebrate Secretaries Day while you can--it may be on the way out.

Not only have the tools of a secretary’s trade changed dramatically in the last decade, but the word “secretary” itself is becoming as passe as carbon paper.

Yesterday’s IBM Selectric is today’s Microsoft Word or Powerpoint, and yesterday’s secretary is today’s administrative assistant.

Next year, in fact, April 22 might be called Administrative Professionals Day. Members of Professional Secretaries International--the group that founded Secretaries Day in 1952--will vote in August on whether to change its name to International Administrative Professionals Day.

Carole Eustice, chairwoman of Oxnard College’s business department, says the name is only one of the profession’s changes.

“You no longer make the coffee,” Eustice said, “and if [the boss] uses the word ‘girl’ today, he’s going to be written up.”

Eustice has taught office training for 25 years, since the days secretaries typed masters to run off on mimeographs and the Cadillac of secretarial skills was 150 words per minute in the Gregg shorthand method.

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If the secretaries association does opt for the name change, it will be reflecting what’s been going on in the office during the ‘90s, said Barbara Journet, director of human resources for Ventura County. No such job title as “secretary” exists anymore as a county job, she said.

“We stopped using ‘secretary’ in 1991,” Journet said. “The old ‘executive secretary’ is now ‘management assistant.’ A secretary’s job has become more technical--more graphics, reports, charts--she’s literally more of an assistant. If I have a project, that person helps me with it instead of waiting for me to hand it over to her to reproduce.”

Eustice agrees that everything began changing early in the 1990s.

“It was in 1991 when we all realized we had to drastically rethink the secretary’s job,” she said.

When the computer replaced the electric typewriter as the backbone of the secretary’s trade, it carried side-effects: The secretary was brought into the technological age, and, consequently, sometimes became the most computer-literate person in the office.

Unlike typewriters and steno pads, computers were levelers. Bosses, usually male, wanted to learn them too. And they learned right along with the clerical staff.

“In my opinion, the ‘profession’ of secretary has now become a legitimate profession,” said Genette Snyder, branch manager of Select Personnel in Thousand Oaks, which specializes in clerical temp-for-hire placement.

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“Being a secretary is not typing anymore,” Snyder said. “You really have to keep up with the technology. If you do, you’re highly marketable.”

And even the experts can fall behind.

“I myself take six units a year just to keep up,” Eustice said. “My teaching syllabus and materials change every semester, or 16 weeks. I have to rewrite everything because the change in software is so rapid.”

But some things never change.

“I swear, the No. 1 skill for a secretary is to have people skills,” Eustice said. “You could be lousy at other aspects, but with good people skills and a good grasp of grammar and language, I want you.”

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Another constant, Journet said, is that the secretarial profession is still predominantly a women’s world. “That hasn’t changed at all,” she said.

Secretaries themselves like how their jobs have evolved. Nancy Whitt, confidential management assistant to Ventura County Probation Agency chief Cal Remington, says that one of the most obvious changes for her is that with the introduction of computers, “more top management staff are doing their own work.”

Three legal secretaries at the Ventura law firm of Benton, Orr, Duval and Buckingham--with, one said, “eighty years of secretarial experience among us”--echo Whitt’s words.

“Secretaries aren’t disappearing; they’re changing,” said Carol Sherwood. “It’s more a partnership now.”

Co-worker Chris Bradley agreed. “The attorneys all have computers on their desks. They do more of their own memos and documents now.”

Bradley pointed out that her boss might close a business letter with “DMS” at the bottom, for “did it myself.”

That’s not to say that the secretary-turned-administrative assistant has less to do today.

“With personal computers, we probably get three times as much work done,” said Jo-Anne Labbe of Benton, Orr, Duval and Buckingham.

The manager of clerical services for the Ventura County Probation Agency knows why.

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“I started out in 1973--those were the days when we spliced out typos with an Exacto knife,” said Elaine Harris, whose title once would have been steno pool supervisor. “We made copies by mimeograph and multiple carbons. We took shorthand instead of using laptops or micro-cassettes.”

All of that took a lot of time. Time that now can be used more productively.

Two other aspects of a secretary’s job also have changed, although not as dramatically: money and status.

Even in Ventura County, which has lower clerical wages than, say, Los Angeles or Orange counties, “I’d be comfortable with saying there are executive secretaries . . . earning $60,000 a year, if not into the 70s,” Snyder said.

But the average secretary is more likely to pull down $12, maybe $15 per hour, and not always that, she said.

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Which translates to some $25,000 or $28,000 a year. Not stunning for a job that’s never entry-level and one that requires ongoing training.

“The pay still lags,” Eustice said. “Pay for women in general lags. But it’s getting better.”

As for the social status of the once lowly secretary, “I think clerical staff gets a little more respect these days and are better compensated, but we’re probably still invisible to upper management,” said clerical services manager Harris.

And Bradley said the democratization of the office coffeepot shouldn’t be discounted, even if it’s all psychological.

“It’s important to secretaries; at our office, when the coffeepot empties, the next person up makes a pot,” Bradley said.

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Does all this professionalizing and partnering in the workplace mean that bosses aren’t expected to remember that bouquet of flowers or even lunch on Secretaries Day?

Not a chance.

Although a Professional Secretaries International pamphlet suggests that instead of flowers, a bonus or subscription to a professional magazine might be nice on Secretaries Day, bosses still say it with flowers, according to local florists.

“It’s a bigger day every year,” said Ventura florist Rick Smith. “After Valentine’s and Mother’s Day, Secretaries Day is our biggest.”

Michelle Marsico at Conroy’s in Camarillo agreed that it’s the third-biggest flower day.

Except that many bosses forget, said Oxnard Village Florist manager Mona Ram. “They need their secretaries to remind them.”