administrative world #2: the rural wasteland

All offices are not created equal. That's a fundamental rule, one which is learned through experience, hard knocks and the occasional stab wound in the back.

When thinking of an office, most people conjure up images of cubicles, high-rise buildings and a bustling urban core. What do you think happens in rural communities? Everyone goes to the barn to milk the cows? Okay, some people actually do that. And we're not knocking the cow milking - we eat diary products. It's a good source of calcium.

Most rural communities have little mini-urban hubs where low-rise buildings have the same stature as those high-rises in urban centres do. In a rural community, many young people dream of movin' on up to the big time, settling into one of those 1960's sparkly-rock stuccoed boxes and pulling up their non-ergonomic chair to a faux wood grain desk. Doesn't that sound glam?

Maybe some rural areas have been updated to include fake marble, but most still have that government office feel from 1967 - complete with macrame plant hangers and round vinyl seating. Not the cool kind of round vinyl seating, either.

This is the administrative world in the rural community, and it's as rife with gossip, back-stabbing and stereotypes as their urban counterparts. Perhaps it's even more apparent in these small microcosms, simply because of the lack of filler - the acres of sub-middle management that can exist in urban offices but can't be justified in smaller rural ones.

We've worked in these little cesspools of conflict, and it isn't a pretty picture. Sure, on the outside one might see the happy, smiling 'secretary' (rural offices have a difficult time embracing the term 'administrative professional' - likely too many syllables). But around that happy, smiling secretary is a secret world of betrayal, unmet expectations, skeletons and ugly, ugly dirt.

We'd like to share some suggestions and insights with those rural office dwellers, if they would be so kind as to listen to some of our recommendations.

To the rural office professional:

• Just because you worked here for fifteen years doesn't mean that you're slated as next in line for whatever management job comes up; if you want to move ahead, get off your ass and get some education like we did.
• Take down the macrame planters - no one will take you seriously with a macrame planter hanging over your desk, regardless of how many diplomas you might have.
• Trash the typewriter; we've had computers for a while, and they're not going anywhere. Carbon copies are prehistoric, and make you look that way, too.
• Don't laugh when the office products salesman stops in and calls you 'hon'. It undermines our hard work. Tell him to address you by your actual name or get the hell out.
• Stop making the coffee. Someone else can. They've got hands. And while you're at it, stop cleaning the dirty dishes. You're not their mother. Okay, maybe you are (if it's a small town), but that's even more reason not to.

So we came from the 'big city' and are full of 'big city' ideas. Who cares? Take these ideas. Claim them as your own. We really don't care. But this advice is for your own good. The longer you remain the dithering secretary, the harder it is for administrative professionals everywhere to become more than the coffee-getter.

If you're working in an office in a small town and can't see yourself taking any of the recommendations we make, that's fine. We understand. But know that we're here. And at the first sign of weakness we'll pounce. Consider yourself warned.

There is another option. If you've been at this rural office gig for a while, maybe it's time you started thinking about retirement. We'll even break our own rules and throw you one hell of a retirement party, complete with paper streamers, one-time-use cutlery and bad singing.

But, for the love of all that's right and good, pick it up or get the hell out of the way.


~ Paige