Gems from Administration

So there's an administrative assistant working in our office. She was hired for a few reasons, one of the big ones being the ability to speak 3 other languages--2 which were highly needed to help service a large portion of our clients. Those other 2 languages other than English are her stronger languages, so sometimes things get a little lost in translation when she makes small talk with the rest of us.

Or so we tell ourselves to refrain from punching her in the face. (Okay, we really wouldn't punch her in the face, but we've all paused for a moment too long when receiving her comments.)

To the girl who straightens her hair every morning:
    "You should get a [Japanese] straightening perm. You would look better."

To me on Friday mornings:
    "Did you play volleyball last night?"
    "Yes."
    "Oh yes, because you look really tired."

And with the other languages being her stronger ones, sometimes things just do not follow for her in English. In our office, we file our clients by last name; however, the labels on the files are first name first, last name second and once in a while, we'll have a file labeled under the client's company name instead. Even before she started working here, files went missing all the time, but recently a whole bunch of company files disappeared. Another co-worker and I were the ones to take note.

    "Have you seen the file for ABC Holdings? It's not filed under 'A'."
    "No, but I can't find XYZ Holdings either--it's not in 'X'."

A couple of days later, we found them. They were both under "H."

Yesterday, I had sometime on my hands. I noticed that she hadn't done any filing in a while and so I took all of the paperwork and alphabetized it for her. When she asked for it today, I gave it all to her and explained what I'd done with it when I'd taken it from her desk. She took it to go file and when I saw her again later on, she told me:

    "Wow, that makes it so much easier!"

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