What do they do?
Every morning Vipra Jain checks the e-mails, letters and faxes addressed to her boss, Antony G Paton, general manager, The Grand, Delhi. She screens them, and then decides if she has to forward them to Paton or hold them back, depending on their importance.
Having worked with him for one year, she even has the liberty of taking minor decisions on Paton’s behalf. “In such instances, I never forget to inform him because I need to justify what I did in his absence,” says Jain.
Personal secretaries hold a very responsible position, doing everything from booking flight tickets to scheduling office meetings. The idea is to make the boss’s life simpler and less stressful.
The job demands patience. “I am an impatient person, but when I enter office, I can’t afford to demonstrate my personal shortcomings. Understanding your boss as a person is equally important to discharge your duties as a secretary,” Jain adds.
The work is very demanding, challenging and — tiring too. “You can have a boss relying on you for almost everything — and at times you might find it hard to find time to even run out and grab a bite for lunch,” says Anuradha Rao, assistant to Analjit Singh, CMD, Max India Limited.
Sandhya Nair, a secretary at Ritu Overseas, says one has to be ready for anything… even convincing the boss that tickets worth R5,000 for the Commonwealth Games 2010 had been sold out. If they want something, they expect you to be efficient enough to get it.
What counts, however, after a hard day’s work are those few words of praise these ladies get from their bosses. Exhaustion then just seems to melt away. “My boss praises me at least ten times a day. Those words are worth a lot,” says Jain.
This feedback for the efforts put in at work is what motivated Shalini Dev to become an office secretary in a company (she does not want to disclose the name) after quitting a front-desk job in a hotel.
“The best part about this work is that the person you are interacting with constantly is the one who will review your work. All that hard work will never go unnoticed — something that is quite common in other routine office jobs,” she says.
A secretary’s role has undergone a major transformation. “They also work as office assistants or office coordinators. There are some who later get into administrative or HR positions too,” says Radha Raja, a faculty member at YMCA, Delhi, an institute which runs courses in secretarial practice.
“My boss also takes me to his meetings and seeks my suggestions on small and big issues. We often brainstorm on matters together. An office assistant is supposed to be a thinking person these days, which earlier wasn’t the case,” says Jain, who has around nine years of work experience.
With responsibilities follows the growth and power. There are secretaries who report to the CEO/MD of big corporations and can earn as much as R1 lakh a month. But more than money, it’s the stability and job satisfaction that draws young women to this profession.
“I like the sense of being attached to a very senior guy in the organisation. I cherish my power. It’s certainly not a bad deal for someone who is just a graduate,” says Jain.
