Question of the Day,, on Success

[andrea843]

s question?



How do you measure success? What quantifies it for you?



Is it the amount on your paycheck, the title behind your name, a sense of personal satisfaction, degrees or training?



What is it that tells you that you have achieved success as an Office Professional?

 

[kknisley]

For me, it's the title and any initials you can put after your name, whether it CPS, FLMA, CPCU, CPA, PhD., etc.  Money is a good thing, but in 99.9% of the places I've worked, the title is the sign of successs.  I've seen people with the "Administrative Assistant" and "Executive Secretary" titles get more respect than the "Secretary" title, even though the jobs and duties are exactly the same.



I was in a job once where I made more than the department managers, but they got more respect than I did because they were a "manager" and I was "just a secretary."  

[yankeestarbuck]

Recognition, by far, I feel is the mark of success.  Title is nice, but how did everyone feel about the CEO who wrote that rediculous email? (I still think it was an interesting measurement of employee work.)  Yeah, he had a title, but he lost all respect and thus, success, the stock dropped.



I think that the admin, or secretary, or recptionist, who everyone goes to for EVERYTHING (and we have a few of those here at TAA) are the most successful because they are the people everyone thinks of first for assistance.  Co-workers know who works and who doesn't.  When you know your co-workers can rely on you, respect your work and value your help, I think for me, that makes success.  It makes one busy, but none the less successful.



Just keeping my head over the papers - Yank

[msmarieh]

My husband and I recently had this conversation as we tried to determine "how do we measure our worth? (in the philosophical sense, not the monetary sense)". I asked him how he thought I measured myself and his response was by the number of projects I can get done.  



Ultimately I consider success in business to be the respect of my colleagues. I enjoy being THE person in the office that is the keeper of the knowledge, the one that everyone knows will have the information or know how to get it quickly.



As it happens, I have found that with this respect the titles and the money came along. No amount of money or title however is worth compromising my integrity and ethics.



Marie

[Katie G]

Oooh, it's a little early in the morning to be doing my Aretha imitation, but all the same.....



I like to be known as the person who "can get it done."  I get a great deal of satisfaction when somebody in the office (especially the higher-ups) come to me with some seemingly impossible situation and I get to buckle down and fix it.  I've been here only two years, and evidently it was one of those places where "after all was said and done a whole lot more was said than done."  I like to think that I helped turned that around.  And actually, people outside the office are rather surprised to find out that I'm "just the secretary."    

Titles around here tend to mean very little.  I'm not even officially a secretary.  My pay stub reads "Clerk".     No to toot my own horn too much, but we have all kinds of assistant VP's, Directors of this or that, Department heads, you-name-it, but I'm one of five people in an office of forty that can actually get something done!

Now I'm working on getting PAID for it!

[jewels6567]

Respect and recognition would be it.  I love it when the higher-ups tell my boss they're going to offer me a job or compliment my work when I'm not even around.



Also like someone said before the money and title just seemed to follow along with that.



Julie

[icebreakerpenguin]

I would have to say getting the respect is being successful.

[msepulv854]

I felt I reached success when my boss asked me to read something and make necessary changes.  I felt he was confident in my work and felt what changes I imposed were of importance to him.  I liked that.  (May sound silly to someone else).  I have a degree, but chose not to pursue a career that would take too much of my personal time away from my family.  We as women have to be respected for what we chose is more important, our home and families or our careers.  It's tough but no matter what we do in our lives, we should all be respected as intelligent individuals.  Not for our titles but for the person we are.  

[dedlered]

I have to agree that respect given is a good measure of success in this field.  When your coworkers respect what you do and how you do it, your success speaks for itself.

[elleny]

For me it's whether or not I can leave home, office, etc.. and know that I have set everything up so that the world will continue despite my absence.  I'm taking a vacation in a few weeks, and I know that the office is already apprehensive about it.  I know, though, that everything will be fine because I have everything set up, and a temp agency finding me a fill in.  



It may sound selfish, conceded, or just plain egotistical, but I love it when everyone is so "dependant" on me.  My mother once said that she thought I would put all the burdens of the world on my shoulders if I could, and now that I thing of it, she's right!



Yes it causes me a lot of stress, but I THRIVE on stress.  So in answer to the original poster, I measure my success on the amount of stress I have in my life.



Ellen (AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH) in TX  

[Katie G]

MSepulv:

You reminded me of a quote I heard or read somewhere:



"Men make important decisions;

Women decide what's important."



While I don't necessarily agree with the blanket gender assignment, it raises a good point about priorities.



 

[chris68]

Here is another quote that my mom has hanging in of all places the garage:



"Behind Every Good Man is A Good Woman Telling Him Exactly What To Do"



Anyway, I guess for me is the Respect.  Especially in that when the boss gives a project that has to be done it gets put into my hands with confidence it will be done correctly and on to the next thing.  We just completed a merger here this week and I have seen that first hand, and it was great.  He would hand me something to do so he could make some urgent phone calls, and then I would give him the next step and back and forth all day long until we were done.  There have been days I would either work through lunch or stay late, and BTW, boss did buy lunch and did go out to get it for us too.  But, the respect is definetly a good thing and the pay increases usually do follow because they know you are doing a good job throughout the year.



Also on the vacation issue, I went away for a week last July and the boss goes the week before, so there is two weeks in there where we don't see each other, and by the end of my week he was starting to miss me a couple of days when things were crazy.  Nice to know you are missed (BTW he had no Temp helping him).



Chris68

[barbri]

I agree that it's respect and recognition. Money would certainly be the icing on the cake, and I love icing LOL! But for me, it's a) knowing I'm doing my best, and b) knowing that others also feel I make a valuable contribution and appreciate my efforts.

[winkiebear]

I'm at the point now where I would say that personal satisfaction defines success for me.  



That takes into account a number of different inputs:  respect from others, resourcefulness, knowledge, recognition, money, and a general contentment that I do my job, and I do it well.  I'm good at what I do, otherwise I would not have been promoted, I would not be given pay raises, I would not have respect.



 winkie