Need an Assistant?

Second in an occasional series

Last week, I posted about my qualifications for being a nanny. Tonight, I am writing up my qualifications to be an assistant. Administrative Assistant, Executive Assistant, Secretary, Office Clerk... I'm not sure what all the shades of distinction are there, but there are many titles for the same general job; helping someone who is more in charge get their work done, by making it your work, and not screwing it up so that their life is even more harried and difficult.

Here goes, my qualifications to be an assistant:

• I find it to be humorous that job posters feel it necessary to put "greet guests and visitors courteously" and "answer phones politely" in the job descriptions. Last time I checked, in a business/work environment, it is generally important to always be polite and courteous to whoever one encounters. Golden rule and all. I'd hate to meet the assistants who caused those descriptors to be added to the listing.
• I type well. Its a side effect of using instant messenger-type programs since I was 14 or 15. I believe that I type around 50-60 wpm, and I don't suck at 10-key data entry either, provided that I don't have to switch between a keypad and a phone frequently. Does anyone know why calculators and computer keyboards are reversed from touch-tone phones in the order of the numbers? I misdial frequently when working on a job bid because I'm switching back and forth a lot.
• I have good math skills. I haven't studied past Calc 1 in 1999, but if I can break a problem down to an algebra, geometry or trig equation, then I'm golden. Apparently, I learned something in school.
• I take good phone messages, as my parents trained me well at an early age.
• If you, the boss, would like me to, I will keep track of your calendar. I attempted to do that for a previous boss, and it turned out that he didn't keep a calendar at all, and didn't want to start. I just kept an eye on him, and he told me when I needed to remind him about things.
• I read people well. I can tell who is slimy and who is for real.
• My PDF making skills are pretty darn good for someone without any formal training. Your tear sheets will never have catalog prices going to the client.
• I am skilled with Excel and Word.
• My proofreading skills are good. You won't send out any notices about "costumer service" unless the dressers and stitchers are going to be receiving massages.
• I travel a lot, and know my way around travel arrangements. I can get you fancy digs, refundable, first-class tickets and a car service to pick you up, or I'll get the cheapest plane ticket, a bed at the Red Roof Inn and a compact rental car. Tell me what you need, and I'll find it, book it, and give you a neatly typed up list of all the details you'll need to have smooth sailing through the trip.
• I know how to use ACT! I do not do it willingly because in my experience it is cumbersome and slows down the whole computer, but I know what it does and how to get around in it.
• I am good on the phone with screening calls, and promise to actually find out what the caller wants before passing them on to you.
• I have experience with ordering food for large groups of people, having taken that on in high school during shows with matinées. You won't have to eat the same old sandwich tray everyday if you don't want to, and I'll make sure to find out (and write down for future reference!) what the clients' likes, dislikes and restrictions are.
• Having seen the wide variety of holiday gifts and cards sent out to clients and vendors, I can help you avoid the duds and get the most bang for your buck.
  

And now, of course, the down-sides of me as your assistant:

• I have successfully avoided Power Point almost entirely for a decade because I've never seen it used well except as a server of images for a theatrical production. However, its just another MS Office product, and I'm pretty sure that if you know what you want in your presentation, I can make it work and not be so boring it puts the clients to sleep.
• My experience with QuickBooks is solely in the Sign*A*Rama custom install, but I've read the manual and it sure doesn't seem like rocket science or brain surgery.
• I hate slimy sales people with a passion, but enjoy developing relationships with vendors who are genuine. Please don't make me order mini-blinds, but I'll get you a great price and service on flooring!
• If there isn't a certain amount of math and hands-on production of stuff (even well-made presentation packets work for me) I will become bored and irritable. Especially if you are working to bring about the downfall of society.
• I need to eat every 4 hours or I will edge towards a melt-down. Conveniently, I tend to come with snacks just-in-case.

This time around, the list is a bit more balanced between pros and cons, but I think that is because I have less knowledge of what assistants do, besides anticipate the boss' needs and try to work independently.

More to come in the future.

Need a Nanny?

I am looking for a job, and am coming to realize that I'm not terribly inclined to return immediately to the commercial scenery business. I would do it for some money, but I'm not begging anyone to give me a job doing what I did before. As I consider what I am qualified to do, I have decided to start writing a series of blog posts describing my qualifications for various sorts of jobs, looking for feedback, leads, and just putting it out there to remind myself that I'm not totally useless (even if I am unemployed and rapidly draining my savings).

First in an occasional series

Here are my qualifications to tend to your children on an on-going basis:

• 15 years babysitting experience (Red Cross Certified Babysitter at age 10/grade 5)
• I love babies
• I enjoy elementary age children
• I am amused by toddlers and pre-schoolers
• I understand pre-teens, even if I totally understand why we put them all in a place called middle school to wait out early puberty
• I will confidently mentor your teens through the rocky years of high school
  
• I can help with homework at any school level
• I will encourage reading and discourage television dependency
  
• I am fluent in my native language, English
• Legal to work in the United States (so you can run for political office someday!)
• Your parenting philosophies will be my parenting philosophies, and if you are new to it (first baby) and still unsure, we will work together to raise a happy, healthy, resilient child
• I am a trained Red Cross lifeguard, having completed the full training and testing twice (high school and college), so you can feel confident sending me to the pool, lake or seaside with your children
• I like animals and can deal with pets
  
• I have experience caring for children with special needs including diabetes, asthma, Down's Syndrome, mental and physical retardation, high-functioning autism, and other special situations.
• I also excel at caring for happy, well-adjusted, pleasant children!
• I understand that I am bigger and in-charge. It is unlikely that your children will wear me down to give in to their demands to eat sprinkles for dinner, color on the walls with the new crayons or let them watch cartoons when its supposed to be bedtime. In fact, none of those things have ever happened when I've been left with children in my care.
  
• I am a good driver, having had my license continuously for 9 years
• I have a valid passport and would be happy to accompany you on family vacations
  
• I can do laundry, dishes and generally keep the house tidy
• I'm not a big fan of juice for children (as it is essentially liquid sugar), but I will feed them whatever diet you would like.

As everyone has some faults, negatives or downsides, here are some qualifications to the above:

• I cannot handle more than 4 children at a time on my own. I have learned that a family with four children is my upper limit.
• I cook well enough to feed kids and myself, but am not exactly a gourmet. However, I learn quickly if mentored in this department. I'll try to fix whatever your children want to eat.
• I have very little experience driving boats.
• I suck at sports. I will try, but you've been warned.

News and Upcoming

Most of you do not know this, but its time to put the word out. I no longer work at CSSI. Therefore, I am searching for new employment, though first I have to decide what I want that employment to be. If you have any ideas, leave a comment or send an email. Thanks!

Now, onto the fun stuff.

I have had an Etsy account and an empty shop for years now (since November 2005, right after they started), and have decided to really try my hand at crafting for sale. The product line, at this point, will include record bowls, woven flowers, coasters/mug rugs and spiral notebooks. The notebooks are the things that I am most excited about, as I have some great ideas for them and a coil binding machine (manual punch, electric roller insertion) on its way from Canada, and supplies on order from a US vendor. As much as eBay is annoying, you can get good deals there with a lot of effort (and the help of eSnipe).

You can help me out in a number of ways, some of them right now, and others in the future (watch this space!).

1. Go to my etsy shop here: Bee-Ewe-Tee-Full Creations and "heart" me to put me on your favorite shops list.
2. I have a logo of sorts that I have used in the past for tagging items under this name. If you are able to help, I need some graphic design help, once I scan in the sketch that I do. I've got that covered at a friend's house.
3. If you have any sort of interesting stuff you think I should use as notebook covers, old vinyl records or unused paper (blank, lined, gridded, colored, etc...), let me know and I probably will make it into stuff.
4. When the binding machine gets here, I will be more than happy to beat Kinko's price and make your books for you! The thing needs to earn its keep, even if it is making workbooks and marketing material, or securing your knitting pattern booklets.
5. There will be some naming contests coming up on this here blog! With prizes!

I think that 5 ways to help are enough for now. Tell your friends, and keep an eye out on my pages.

I don't get it

I frequently peruse the job listings on Craigslist. There are many jobs that list "Blueprint reading a plus" or "must be able to read blueprints". These are not jobs for nursing or phone answering (where the skill is not necessary, obviously), but instead, they are jobs for working on a construction site or as an estimator or a project manager. Who can't read a blueprint and still has any idea what they are making? A blueprint is a picture, to scale, with some ridiculously obvious and logical conventions, and perhaps some notes, of the thing you are trying to make.

Did you see that phrase? the thing you are trying to make. How would you even think that you could do that job if you couldn't read a drawing? And if you can read (really, that's a necessary job for pretty much every job, and how did you get to a CraigsList posting without that very basic skill?) and figure out how to make the thing, and use a measuring device, how could you not be able to read a blueprint?

I understand that sometimes you have crappy drawings to work with, or they don't all match up, and there is some skill in analyzing a drawing, but I don't really see how this is even something you would put in a job listing or on your resume. I don't write "can do math through pre-calculus" or "mastered high school algebra" on my resume, nor do I add "successfully uses a scale rule on a daily basis" or "familiar with Cartesian plane geometry". That is assumed. Kind of like how you figure that I can read and write to the level that is demonstrated with my resume and cover letter.

For those of you out there in the construction field, or who write such ads, what's up with even mentioning blueprint reading?

Resumes

I've been with my current employer for almost 2 years now, and this is my first real job out of college. The last time I did a resume was when I was finishing school, with the intention of finding the job that I have now. The most current resume that I have is dated October 2004, but it was written to be current as of January 2005. Somehow, I think that I will fall behind in my resume skills, as well as how it fits in to have real, working experience on your C.V., if I don't update soon.

I am looking for *your* resume, primarily for arrangement and language and which sections you put in, to figure out what works best for *my* resume. I don't really care what your industry is, or how old the resume actually is, I just want lots of bits of inspiration. I accept almost all formats, and I'm pretty sure all of the ones that a person sends a resume in, and there is an email link in my blogger profile, or leave a comment here.

Has anyone ever applied for a job online? They frequently have boxes that you are supposed to fill in, (like sections in a resume) and I suspect that there is a trick to them. If you know what it is, let me know. How are you supposed to format it? Do you just use list-format words, or full sentences? I can't apply to work at Google if I don't know the trick to the form.

In two years of working in a real office, as the smallest fish in a big lake, I have learned things about my work habits and preferences that are not necessarily positive, but will have a bearing on whether I would be any good at a job, or if I would like it. The one that is safest to mention on the internet is that I am a lousy negotiator. It could be the best job in the world otherwise, but as soon as they put "strong negotiation skills needed" into the description, I'm out of there like a fat girl in dodgeball. I can stand firm in my position, and I can see your side of things, but I don't really have an inclination to negotiate. I do poorly shopping in third-world markets. How do you deal with that both in the search and the interview?

This may return to the drafts pile in a couple of days, depending on my confidence. I am mostly motivated by the fact that the most recent item on my old resume (a relative asked me to send it to them) is The Duchess of Malfi, which was my Senior TD crew assignment at CMU. Just a bit out of date. But it did have a neat staircase, a super-butch cantilevered platform, and a clever pneumatic fire curtain avoidance trick rig. Still, not exactly the most recent project that I've worked on.

Freeze! Keep your hands off the Mouse... my continued love affair with the big G

Because the world is a good and decent place, my friend Charlie, who I met during orientation my freshman year at CMU, is currently in town visiting. C used to live in Chicago, but now he works for Google in Mountain View. He makes servers work, I think. I'm sure that there is more to his job than that, but that's the gist of it. He moved out there a year ago, and I have missed him quite a lot, especially when I want to go out to dinner or see a movie, as he is good company for both of those activities. Tonight, I was on the schedule.

We met up, wandered around the vicinity of N. Michigan Avenue and then decided to retrieve my car from the parking lot it was in from my appointment, drove up to my place and had dinner at Thai Pastry. Afterwards, he came over to hang out, and as usually happens, showed me some new tricks that my computer can do, which, also as usual, involved seeing the clever new things that Google is up to, since I had mentioned that I couldn't figure out where they were hiding Reader, and I wanted to give it a try.

Here are the clever new things:
-Keystrokes are now enabled in my Gmail... way faster, its like using Pine or an old-school library computer card catalog system, but with a way better look and, sadly, no cheat sheet row at the bottom telling me all the choices.
-Google Reader, which is where I intend to read all bloggish things, in an attempt to increase productivity by not clicking through my entire list of things I read multiple times everyday, hoping for an update. Also, provided that I update it based on my link list at work, I won't have any more regularly read things that I can only check from one computer or the other because I don't actually know the web address.
-Personalized Google homepage is another thing that I have known existed, but never really explored in any depth, since the last time I had something like that, it was when the MyAndrew thing (is that what it was called? I just know that the SquirrelMail changed) at CMU was launched and it was a mess, so now I was wary of that sort of thing.
-Google Apps for Your Domain makes me want to go and get a domain, just so that I can use this product. In fact, I just might. Does anyone want to get in on a domain for something? I just want to try out the service and such. It comes with private label email...

Clearly, I am a Google fangirl, and there is not much that can be done about it. Someday, maybe, if I am lucky, I will find a job at Google that this theater major is qualified for and maybe I'll even get it. Suggestions? Let me know. Also, go and try out these new toys! Switch to keystrokes. Keep your hands off the mouse!