Unfortunately for those administrative professionals in the schools system the next day after that was "Take your daughter (and in some districts son) to school day." As any attendance secretary will tell you, "Take your blank to school day" is an administrative bitch.
It used to be being a secretary was a good thing; a career people chose because they were good at juggling a million things at once and keeping alcohol befogged upper management's ass covered.
Don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't think secretaries are professionals. They are. I just don't know when it was that the term "secretary" suddenly became pejorative. I've certainly never used it to refer to anyone negatively. I don't think it's sexist. It never was a sexually laden term, was it? Literature is full of both male and female secretaries.
There is just plain nothing wrong with the word Secretary. To me it's like the terms Doctor or Lawyer or Teacher. Or Indian Chief. It's something we aspired to be when we were young. I'm sorry. I don't want to hire or respect a Medical Professional or a Legal Professional or a Learning Professional or even a Tribal Management Professional. Because really, to me "professional" is a term I reserve for someone who does his or her job well. Don't make me tack it on someone's title automatically. I can have a bad doctor. I would feel like an idiot contradicting myself by saying he was a bad medical professional.
But since we're euphemizing everything anyway (euphemizing is when you employ a term or phrase to divert one from the harshness of reality. As in: I'm putting my dog to sleep) we may want to call the whole thing Administrative Professionals Calendar Unit. That "day" thing is so limiting and demeaning. Who knows? At some time we may want to expand the honor period to a whole week.
And what are we going to do if this thing catches on? The term Administrative Professional is just too unwieldy for day to day life. Secretary is so much shorter. Those of us who are not administratively professional, and type with all the grace and speed of a one-legged gazelle with a knee injury, like to use as few letters as possible when we are tapping on our keyboards. I mean, I get fatigue when I'm typing but it'll never be from "repetitive" stress. I never use the same finger twice to hit the same damn letter.
And what about in the media? What about the highest positions in the land: Secretaries? If this catches on are the newscasters going to start referring to Colin Powell as the Administrative Professional of State?
The media may already have to face a new appellation for him anyhow. I heard a rumor he's having an operation to remove part of his gut. Then they'll have to call him Semicolon Powell.
Badabump.
