Secretarial Christmas

In the world of a secretary, or administrative assistant as the lucky ones are titled, holidays represent work. The birth of Jesus and celebration of Christmas requires more work than any other holiday in corporate world.

Non-offensive, logo-maximized holiday cards full of generic holiday cheer require a tremendous amount of effort to design, produce, and distribute. Unfortunately, the creative minds who design the cards aren't the individuals who sign the cards, address the envelopes, combine the two, and distribute them. That's usually the job of the secretary.

When the person who designs a project isn't the person who executes the project, often things don't progress smoothly. For example, the creative mind of the designer might think Christmas cards with dangling stars might look incredibly artistic. While the secretary responsible for distributing the cards is faced with boxes of tangled stars mangled between bended cards. It might be incredibly innovative to use vellum or other glossy material to print the cards, but it might require the secretary to go through 13 ink pens before finding one that won't smear on the slick paper. After find that perfect pen to use on the shiny, festive cards, the secretary might also discover the ink doesn't dry quickly on slick paper; thus "Happy Holidays, Bob" may become imprinted on the back of every card in the stack.

While odd-sized cards and envelopes do distinguish one card over another, they don't fit into the standard postage machine. In this case, the secretary gets to seal each individual envelope and apply the stamp. In small quantities, this task seems menial; however, in quantities of several thousand, minor inconveniences become major pains.

Traditionally, corporate holiday cards accompany holiday gifts to faithful, well respected, or large volume customers. What sounds like the ideal gift to a person in the Advertising Department, might be a nightmare for the secretary. Wine makes a nice gift for almost everyone, however, strict alcohol shipping laws require the secretary to learn a lot about the consequences of shipping alcohol across state lines. In addition, elegant wine bottles in festive wine bags seem thoughtful, but not overly personal, an excellent gift choice. However, they require bubble wrap for each bottle, special shipping boxes and packaging. Compensating for the additional expense of nicer wine bags is usually offset by utilizing the secretary for the handling part of shipping and handling charges.

Soup mixes, rice, salsa, or other regional delicacies may seem like an excellent way to reward a special customer with a little local flavor, but they create a lot of adversity for the secretary responsible for distributing the gifts as inexpensively as possible. It only takes one broken jar or one ruptured bag to douse an entire case of anything. Ensuring the gift and card are appropriately presented is a challenge when bubble wrap must be incorporated into the equation to prevent accidents.

Most businesses employee one secretary per department, or one secretary per x-number of employees. Most businesses enjoy relationships with a large number of customers. At Christmas time, the businesses reward employees and customers with thoughtful cards of well wishes and/or gifts. Ironically, it's usually the secretaries who represent the smallest percentage of employees, but are responsible for spreading the largest amount of Christmas cheer. Secretaries take it in stride and do it with pride; however, a little help every now and then would be appreciated.