Having an Effect

For some weeks, I've been immersed in my new admin job at the university. It has perks, to be sure. The pay is good, and the benefits are unbelievably generous. The center I work for has funds earmarked solely for office supplies and equipment, so I've been encouraged to spend, spend, spend before we lose the funds. Accordingly, I've bought new computer equipment and a very expensive, ergonomically advanced desk chair. In addition, the new director has never had an assistant before. He was full of glee when he asked me to order him new business cards and I came back to him minutes later with three options for approval. He seems amazed that he can ask for something and I will respond promptly and efficiently. It's kinda fun.

But on the whole, my work is dull. I am crammed into the corner of an office with one retired professor and two department tech support guys - I don't even know their names. My desk is a metal dinosaur in a hideous shade of green, and I spend most of my time staring at the computer, editing research funding reports. It's easy work, but tedious and mind-numbing. And whenever the director asks me for something, I have to reinvent the wheel because the previous assistant was one of these old-school secretaries who knew everything and everybody at the university. Consequently, she kept minimal records to tell me how to do things. With a university this large, finding out who to contact about invoices or how to order supplies is far from an intuitive process, and there are no other staffers on my floor to ask. So, I have to go at things the long and hard way, following one lead after another until I hit on the right method. And nearly everything is done through online systems now. I submit my timesheet online; I order furniture and supplies online; I request computer assistance through an e-mail process; and even if I want to make a change to the center's webpage, I have to submit an online request to some web-support person I will never see or hear. It's all so impersonal and isolating. And finally, the university bureaucracy means that mountains have to be moved and months have to pass to make even the tiniest thing happen. I think half of the staff (the university's number 1 expense, by the way, a huge investment when you consider the uni's operating budget is over $2 billion) exist just to keep the other half busy filling out paperwork. I often think the staff could be cut down by 2/3 if 1/3 of the people could just do things directly instead of the massively convoluted systems that are in place.

I know that my work is important in some remote, intangible ways, but like many office workers, it seems so pointless. There are very few direct, visible rewards.

Contrast this with my crossing guard duties. Some people laugh when I tell them I work as a crossing guard. It seems like something little children and old women do. But it's serious work. Anytime you put a half-dozen speeding vehicles up against a flesh-and-blood person with nothing but a stop sign and a whistle, it's serious... and dangerous. Not to mention that it involves an incredible amount of responsibility. Large numbers of children depend on the crossing guard each day to be able to get safely to school. It may seem easy, but people are always in a hurry these days; drivers and cyclists have to get to class, or work, or dinner, or a ball game, or any one of thousands of places. They don't want to stop. But I don that orange vest and hat and take on that responsibility several times a week, and it feels good. I have a direct effect when I step out into the street and cars stop, and I am immediately rewarded when a child or parent gives me a heart-felt "thank you," which a surprising number of them do, even the middle and high school students at my current location. (I really didn't expect this from teenagers.) And that's why I keep doing it, even though I really don't have the time for it anymore. People appreciate my work, and I feel like I am accomplishing things. I wish everything I do could be this rewarding.