The way that you work as an administrative assistant also depends a lot on how many of you there are. If there is more than one of you, then how is the work divided? For example, many universities hire students as part time AAs for departments. They serve under the Departmental Secretary as a rule of thumb, and as such, she or he is pretty much the one who decides what the student assistant can and will do. However, there are times when other people will come in and issue an instruction.
For a lot of other jobs like these, there are two shifts, either a day and night, or two part time personnel. However, this depends a lot upon the industry that you are working in. You might find yourself the full time weekday worker, and never see but know of a weekend staffer. Of course this means that now and then something will have happened where your work overlaps.
In many large corporations there are several people in a multitude of administrative sectors within the company. Whenever there is a group, as an entry level person you just do your best to catch on to the pecking order and play along in the beginning. Once you have a sense of who everyone is and what the job is and how you fit in, then you can act according to your newfound knowledge. Here’s an obvious tip: if you are very good at the work and you get bored, go and ask the supervisor if you can do anything else. They tend to love that, and it is often the only hope you have of getting the chance to learn anything more or to spread your wings within the organization. It seems to work with women and men.
Now to address the matter of reports. So many companies have these and as an administrative assistant the chances that you will be handling at least one report to be made daily and/or weekly is well above 60%. Now, you may or may not be ‘in charge’ of the report. If you are, then take it as a compliment which is how it was intended. If not, then find out whether this a responsibility that you can try to get and get as a sign of trust from your colleagues and / or supervisors. Don’t be surprised if you have to apply computer knowledge that you already have and learn some new program that you hadn’t even known existed until after you accepted the job. Reports have a tendency to be very important and the realm of the detail oriented.
There is a good chance that a place with a hierarchy of administrators working within one office or department will divide up the work in certain ways, every company will nuance their own ways of managing who does exactly what. Do make an effort to learn everything you can, and to make sure that those above you become aware of what you are best at, especially if you are meek. Shyness and competence often do go together but don’t have to.
