I worked as a receptionist before finishing college. Then I had a professional job for a while before the economy went to hell. So I have been on both sides of the admin staff vs. staff-who-do-the-actual-work-of-the-enterprise divide. I loved having my mind engaged and stretched at work. I loved that my intuition and intelligence were essential while working in my field. Many times I was under tremendous pressure and was frustrated by the blank stares, hostility and indifference I got from the reception desk. I always give people the benefit of the doubt to start, and I always try to be respectful to people who have shitty service jobs. But there were times where it
really mattered if I got a certain fax and the person whose job it was to care about the fax machine thought it was not her problem. I wasn't like that when I was a receptionist, but it did make me re-think how I could have approached such a job. I could read the manual to the fax machine. I could solve problems.
(Un)luckily I now have the opportunity to revisit this type of work, and I was actually excited to approach it with this can-do attitude. The people I work for tell me almost nothing, so there is plenty of room for self-education. My first week there someone called and said she was getting an error message when trying to send us a fax so I volunteered to investigate and call her back. I looked up the manual online and followed all the instructions to reset a crashed machine. Everything seemed to be working so I asked my sweetie to send a test fax. I let him know it was right behind me so I would be the only one to see what he wrote. It's fine to be goofy, it's just between us! I also sent a test fax from one of those free online services. When my message didn't go through I returned to google, and noticed that most fax machines have a dial pad on them like a telephone.
Yes, after twenty minutes of research I learned that the fax machine was not a fax machine -- it was a printer. I eventually figured out that the office is set up so that all faxes are emailed to all four members of the company in PDF form. I figured this out after the entire office received this:
