You know, just because I don’t do your job doesn’t mean I don’t understand a few things about the system. I know things. Truly, I do know something.

 I’ve been here longer than you have.

 I’ve dealt with this system more than you have.

 I was here at the conception of the system.

 I’ve interacted with more people who use this system than you have.

 I have valid answers. I swear to God Almighty, I have valid answers and suggestions.

 For you to blow me off and argue with me because my title is ‘administrative assistant’ and not ‘recruiter’ demeans us both. Worst of all, it angers me in ways you cannot begin to understand.

 As your admin assistant, it’s my job to make your job easier. It’s my job to know all the loop holes, the go arounds, the contacts, and the how-tos so you don’t have to do it. As your admin assistant, it’s my job to know what to say to your candidates to get the job done, and what to say to the clients to get the right answers so that your life is easier. As your admin assistant, it’s my job to catch the mistakes, to find the missing information, and to have a basic understanding of what you know so I can support you.

 If you treat me like some second hand, lower level entity because I’m ‘not a recruiter and don’t know’, you’re only doing yourself ill. By treating me like some sort of uneducated fool when I’m trying to help, you’re telling me you don’t want my help.

 Fine.

 I’ll sit in my corner of the world, and I’ll do the very bare minimum that I must. I won’t do what you’ve become so accustomed to. I will no longer be your go-to person. I’ll tell you who you can talk to. I won’t go in and find your mistakes if they don’t affect my job. I’ll let you fail. I won’t give you answers when you ask. I’ll tell you where the manual to find them is. I will sit here and do exactly what is in my job description, and you can go spend the rest of your time trying to find all the information that you depended on me for.

 Please, be my guest. Stay two or three hours after work to get everything accomplished.

 This affects me not.

 As long as I do my job according to what the higher level executives expect, I’ll have a job. What will you have when they want to know why you didn’t finish something on time? What will you have when they want to know why you’re not submitting enough people each day?

 You have the answer, “I just don’t have enough time to do it all.”

 When they ask me why I’m not helping, I’ll tell them the truth. “She told me she didn’t want my help, so I stopped offering and have moved on to other things that might benefit the company. Here’s my list. Would you like for me to foward you the emails where I've offered and they've declined my help so you have a copy for reference?”

 The bane of every good administrative assistant is to be treated like dirt. We expect it. We smile. We walk away. We generally try to shake it off.

 But, we are human, and our feelings do get hurt. Administrative Assistant Day is not the only time of the year to remember that we make your life easier, and, when we’re doing our job well, you forget we’re even there.

 But, because administrative assistants are a dime a dozen, you think you can just find another one to replace this one. How many will you go through before you decide the position is too hard? Is it really the position?

 Really?

 Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say.