Why are you a secretary?

originally posted on Anthropology.net

The Queen has the Power, but the Ants See the Sun, or Some Such Parable

Revisiting the anthropology of the office motif, I was thinking the other day about what it means to define a job as a “support position”. An incident comes to mind when I was having a conversation with a friend, who happens to be a professor, and I told her that I am a secretary as well as a student. She often responds straight off the hip, with pep, and she said incredulously: “Why are you a secretary?! How can you take classes?” “Well, it pays the bills, and the benefits are good,” I said.

I didn’t tell her, however, that when I’m in a respectful enough environment, there are many things I like about the job. (It’s a s**t job when people are haughty, demanding, or otherwise demeaning — and when the paycheck comes in). I like doing things for people. I like having specialized knowledge like how to write fifty recommendation letters in ten minutes. For some perverse reason, I enjoy editing. Not to glorify it too much, but clerical assistance is a job that comes with a skill set like any other job, that has its rewards and drawbacks, and which is generally important enough that every organization requires it. Still, I find that there’s a general sense among people that secretarial positions, like many jobs, are usually occupied by the people who couldn’t make it doing something else. And interestingly enough, being a secretary is not a goal that anyone is supposed to have.

At some point when I was very young and had associated package delivery with good things, I said that I wanted to be a UPS driver. I learned soon enough by the way adults laughed at that idea that it wasn’t an assertion to be taken seriously. I was supposed to say doctor, or president, or something, even though I was poor as dirt, and wasn’t supposed to do those things — well, unless I worked hard at the American Dream. Of course, at that age, I also wanted to be a dancer, an astronaut, a pianist, and a dolphin caretaker, none of which I’ve done yet.

So the idea is that everyone wants to be a doctor or something, the cream rises to the top, and everyone else gets to be bakers and waiters and factory workers and office staff. Essential to the sustainability of this construction is the fact that nearly everyone buys into it (even though supervisors, entrepreneurs and CEOS often have s**t jobs too — they just get paid more). Who is the cream, of course, would be totally different if we idolized “support” rather than “leadership” or “altruism” over “ambition”. I wonder who would get paid more in such a scenario?