Secretaries
There are some 4 million secretaries in the US, making it one of the largest occupations in the country. Even though as a result of increasing automation this will grow more slowly than other jobs, so many people move in and out of the career that there’s not expected to be any shortages of jobs.
Training is most often on the job: certainly no college degree is required. This is changing slowly though, as all those computers and so on mean that knowledge of software packages is becoming even more important. There are a huge number of different training programs offered by vocational schools, community colleges and so on and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to start seeing college degrees being offered, perhaps called something like office administration.
Most people seem to think that the job is about taking dictation, or typing up letters and so on. With most people now using computers this isn’t really the case any more. Most managers and executives do this themselves now. What the job is really about (and always has been) is organisation. Making sure that things work, that machines are ready and available, that diaries are complete, that the right people have the right information about where they should be and so on.
It is, if you like to put it this way, really about managing the managers and their time. When you put it this way then those most suited, by our EQSQ personality tests, are the systemizing, or male brain types. Not quite what you think of when considering secretaries, but it is true: the real job is all about organisation.
February 16th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
How interesting that secretarial work requires a male type brain! A Weekly Whims column on this site talks about top career choices for men and women. Another article I read online about
women\’s history and women working says that the vast majority of women in the workplace have jobs in clerical positions, factory work, retail sales, and service jobs. And, in fact, secretaries, bookkeepers, and typists account for a large portion of women clerical workers.Often in our discussions, the type of work people do is conflated with aptitude. The fact that women don\’t comprise the majority of scientists, for example, is explained as resulting from a difference in brain types. If that\’s purely the case (rather than social factors creating the differences in employment and wages), why are the majority of working women employed in a field requiring the skills inherent to a male brain?
February 16th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Ooooh, no, sorry, that’s a failure of my own intelligence if I’ve given you the impression that the current distribution of the workforce is solely to do with aptitude. Sorry, I’ve been writing all along with the point in mind that we wish it were so, that people would indeed choose careers based upon a the intelligence that they can gain about their aptitudes. That vast numbers of the populace do not already do so I agree, and lament. It’s also true that until the last couple of decades there was direct discrimination against women in a number of fields.
There is also the point about human capital. Clerical jobs do not require a huge investment in training (which is what create human capital: like a Doctor’s license for example) which makes a career in that field more rational for those who do not expect to spend all of their lives working. As some women do not, taking breaks of varying lengths to raise their children.
I’m absolutely certain that a world where men did half the child rearing would see those jobs requiring lower investment in education having a more equal sex distribution.
February 20th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Tim, I agree with your final statement. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see that happen (men resuming half the child - rearing responsibilities)? Wouldn’t it also be wonderful if we all, whether we’re having children or not, be able to NOT make work the center of our existences? Of course, there is always that option, buying that VW bus or raft, living off the land…Huck did it. I’ve always thought that selling water at Dead shows would have been nice. But I was born a little too late. Pink Floyd is back together - perhaps they need water distributors at their shows…
Anyway, I recently heard an NPR program about a woman who has chosen this line of work; she has a higher degree and often is asked why she chose to be “just a secretary.” She liked it. I think she might have said something about having a highly - systemizing mind.
The secretary position is largely transforming into the job of “Office Manager,” which, fortunately, pays better and earns a bit more respect. I did work as an office manager for a short time. It wasn’t for me. No room for creativity, other than looking at different ways to organize material.
February 20th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
I’ve done similar work myself: I should have had the intelligence to know I would be dreadful at it. I can’t organize paperwork. People, yes, I’m great at that, but schedules and documents? I use the archaeology method of filing. If it’s about “this” old then it should be at about “that” level in the pile. As you might recall my own EQSQ results: I have no systemising abilities nor empathy. So my trying to run and office really didn’t work.
In a way I have taken the Huck route. I’ve owned and run businesses for decades and made a living but never a killing. Outside of this blog I pretty much make my living by writing now. I can sit in my rural cottage and tap away to pay for things. It’s great: although I do wish I’d had the intelligence to think of doing this earlier.