That sounds like a health and safety issue to me oz.  Surely they have to put in some form of air purifying system to stop your suffering, cost cutting or no cost cutting.

I feel like a dinasaur!  I remember the days when (said with old croaky voice, leaning on my knarled stick, wagging bony finger) , there were no mobiles, no blackberries and my typewriter had a golf ball that made a sound every time I typed a document!

If there was an emergency I either contacted my boss through the company he was visiting or interupted a meeting at the office.  I could always get hold of him one way or another or, where possible, dealt with it myself or got someone else to deal with it.  

I hate mobiles and my kids are always berating me for leaving mine at home.  Mobiles are not the b all and end all!  People can live very fruitful lives without being in contact  24/7.  

Mobile phone calls in our open plan office drive me mad!  I'm a Team secretary for the sales department (8 people) and not only do their mobiles ring constantly, so do their landlines.  I find it so distruptive and sometimes  just cannot concerntrate, particularly when I'm working with numbers.  I also get annoyed when I have to contact someone on their mobile and it turns out that they're on holiday abroad and they get cross because I've interupted their break.  If they're on holiday why don't they turn off their mobiles!  Grrr.

I know that admins can (and do) lend a hand to all nature of tasks,  but I've just read about one in DeskDemon's news alerts that surely beats all others.  An NHS trust has just turned down the proposal for secretaries and admins to weigh babies as part of their secretarial tasks, instead of health visitors and care assistants, who normally do the job.  Has the NHS gone completely nuts?!  The fact that they were even considering it beggars belief!   It would be interesting to find out if anyone has an unusual task you have perform as part of your everyday job?

I read the article 'Flu pandemic still major risk to business continuity' on the UK site (Home Page - In the News).  I work for a company of about 100 employees and am not aware of any emergency proceedures in place for our business to continue  if half the work force is sick.  This leads me to ask if your company has any proceedures, what they are and who is responsible for activating them.  

Personally, if there was a flu pandemic, I am not sure that I would go to work as I would not risk the health of my two young kids.  Would you?

I watched Jade's PA last night and was amazed that the majority of the people shown at interview had absolutely no admin or organisational skills at all!  As you would expect, the ones that showed the most professionalism were experienced PAs.  I'm putting my money on the celebrity PA chap.  

Is anyone planning to watch Jade's PA on Living TV tonight at 9pm?  I've just watched a 'behind the scenes' trailer - which you can see by clicking on the Jade's PA button on the DD home page, which is good fun.  Would you put yourself up for something like this?   Looks very tongue in cheek.

Depends on the context the word is being used.  However, Goy and Shiksa (the femail equivalent) can be used in a derogatroy way amongst the Jewish community, alternatively, it can be simply used to describe someone who is not Jewish.

I've been a couple of times and I didn't find any particularly new companies, that I didn't already know about - so I didn't get any new contacts.  It seemed to have loads of venues / hotels - none of which were new to me as I see them at some of the other exhibitions I visit.  I prefer to go to more focused exhibitions like the travel and event ones and get much more out of them.  Guess it depends on what you are looking for.