Monday, August 19, 2013

A Glorified Servant

Have you ever giving a thought to become a secretary? Well, if you really want to choose this career, you should brace yourselves falling head to toes to brand your own image. There is nothing wrong with secretarial works or duties. If professionally committed, the career should offer you the same challenges as any other profession.


Formerly, an organization reduces the role of secretary as a stereotyped apple-cheeked woman in a pencil skirt seen on TV shows who does as they are told when they are told. In so doing, a secretary is often assigned to menial tasks such as screen calls, arrange meetings, manage calendars, type dictation, running errands and making coffee.


While in fact, in today’s changing world, such traditional role is ever transforming and evolving as well. Long gone are the days when secretaries now commonly known as personal assistant were just expected to type and answer the phone. Nowadays, executive secretaries are the gatekeeper to a top ranking executive in a business or establishment. They are their right hand and confidante. Secretaries’ vital role is to ensure the business runs smoothly on a day-to-day basis; managing the scheduling insanity and keep the wheels turning. They should be able to handle task with excellent organizing skill and thinking at least a step ahead of the game, as well as being a great communicator just like in a game of chess.

 Today’s executives even have taken the game into the next level. They require executive secretaries inside a boardroom doing more than just taking minutes. They should also required to spend time correlating activities for the executive outside of the office. Secretaries are responsible for making travel arrangements for their boss. This involves scheduling flights, making hotel arrangements and scheduling car service. It is essential for them to remember dates, numbers, appointments and many other tasks that must be orchestrated within the shortest possible time. They are expected to have the memory of an elephant and a brain of a sponge.

Further, the position requires them be always be ready for more duties at any given day. Their phones should always be stand by for twenty hours a day on any given day. She should stay in the office for as long as the boss is there. When the boss calls for her, she should drop everything she might be doing and rush to attend to him. Oh yes, the chores seem limitless and timeless. Others joke that secretary is called the boss’ “glorified servant” at office.

Unfortunately, vital as it might seem their role, the organization often unconsciously does not bother to improve their skills and career outside the role. It has low expectations on the profession except the traditional role assigned to the profession These are a few of the things other office workers take for granted, but from which secretaries cannot benefit:

 1. Career. Many organizations still draw incorrect assumptions secretaries are not bright, thus having few skills outside administrative areas. They cling to the image of traditional secretaries of typing and answering phones; reinforcing the marginalization of the profession. Thereby, they are trapped in the position forever, impossible to cross over another area. The only way up is being executive secretary to top executives.

 2. Competency. Secretaries will not usually get any workplace training or organization support for courses unless you want to do something related to secretarial work.

 3. Secretaries’ peripheral role, in most cases, will not enable them to learn enough to be able to rise through the ranks. They often will remain as low-skilled worker and will miss the benefits of being a highly skilled worker with negotiating power and able to choose the kind of work they want to do.

 Realizing the importance of secretary role, it is time for any organization to reevaluate and reassess their policies over this issue. Secretaries are more than just glorified servants. They should be entitled the same benefits as any other employees. They should be given the chance to improve their competency outside their areas so that they are competitive and not trapped in the same position for eternity.

Health is Wealth

In the dead of the night, suddenly I got my lesson in rather a hard way. The old maxim that “health is wealth” rings true indeed.

The sound of agony woke me up from my slumber on that one particular night. Searching for the sound, I saw my husband was ashen white. Writhing and wriggling in pain, he clutched his stomach tightly. It’s only seconds to run, before he started to vomit, emptying all the former scrumptious foodie we ate earlier out of his bowel.

The stench sent my stomach to churn as I knelt beside him to offer any comfort to ease his torment. I brew some tea to no avail. Once it entered his stomach, it came back in a waste.

Panicking, I called my brother to come to bring us to nearest hospital. Luckily, my home was only a few kilometres away from his. Arriving at hospital, we took him immediately to the ER. The first thing to hit me in the room was the stale stench of chlorine and blood.

Then, we heard screaming and groaning from the far off bed where a group of nurses and doctor tended a patient. It really sent a shiver through my skin. We waited a few minutes before getting admitted. The nurse examined him carefully, asking this and that. Minutes later, she came with an intravenous (IV) and injection kits. His nausea and affliction abated once he was treated. He remained in observation for two hours.

When dawn broke, the doctor said he was allowed to go home. It was only minor food poisoning. I was releived. A few days of proper medication and care at home should mend his health again, the doctor said. 

As I was waiting for the outpatient medical prescription, I couldn’t help to overhear the arguments of the medics with family members of one of the ER patients. It appeared that the patient was in need for a surgery. Yet, the medics refused to do so without the family first settling the administration procedures for payment. Asking for leniency, they were told to negotiate with the administration officers at front office.

At a glance I saw frustration and desperation in their eyes as if the earth they stood on shook with an earthquake. While at the same time, sympathy and helplessness in the the medics didn’t escape my eye either. Without money or solid guarantee, they could not perform their task. It was a dilemma like eating simalakama fruit, our ancestors once said. The sacred code of honour for medical staffs is to save lives. The harsh reality however often binds their hands to do so as without money the hospital will suffer a loss. Both parties suffer the same ordeal.

 Receiving the bills, I was electrified. It was way too expensive even to my steady income. It almost cost us a million rupiah. The bills choked me! Oh dear Lord, what about those who suffer the scarcity of income?

Surely, they could not afford such skyrocketing medical service. Is health reserved only for the wealthy? This is just so unfair L. Thanks God, my company provides health insurance. But for low-income families, they would not be so fortunate. They will be left with no health insurance options whatsoever. They barely survive to live a hand to mouth. They would be forced to cry tears of blood to get proper surgery or any other medical services which charge higher and higher prices.

Health becomes expensive and unreachable for the poor. Therefore, the program such as the Jakarta Health Card (JKS) is really beneficial and helpful to give the less fortunate people access to medical services. Despite its shortcoming, the program should be lauded with praise and improved continuously. It is the responsibility of the government to care for their citizens.

That night, I realize how expensive health is. It is health everyone seeks after. Without it, wealth or fame means zero. As I spend days shuttling between hospital and home, subjecting the body to one test after another trying to find out what has gone wrong, I am forced to remember that Health is indeed Wealth. It is truly a divine bless, untradeable at whatever cost!