Career Day

When we were on the boat the other night, we ended up sitting with a charming older couple and their brother.  They were wonderful people with awesome stories to share.  At one point the woman turned to us and asked what we did for a living.  So the Pants Monkey talked about working in IT and we found out that one of the sons of the couple works in California for Pandora - how cool is that?  Then she turned to me for my answer and I said I was an administrative assistant for a health organization and started to explain I work more behind the scenes but somehow she heard "assistant" and "health" and automatically assumed I was a medical assistant and started telling me how wonderful it is that I do that kind of work and how important it is.  I didn't bother correcting her, I didn't want to make her feel bad.  But it made me think, I've talked a little about my job here, but not too much about what it is I "do".  So today is career day!

My official title is Administrative Assistant, Facilities.  My boss is the Director of Clinic Facilities for the clinics in our organization located in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis. In layman's terms - she makes sure the buildings are in good shape, the heating/cooling is working, the building isn't falling apart, etc.  Our office is on the 3rd floor of one of the clinic buildings and it is a building that has tenants that are not part of our organization, but we manage the building.  Part of my job is to field calls from those tenants when they have a light out or something and route it to our maintenance staff.  Another part of my job is to print the employee ID security badges that each person wears.  Sometimes I even take the new employee photos.  I replace badges when they break or are lost.  And then finally, because my boss is someone who is often on the road and busy, I do everything I can to make her life easier - manage her calendar, reconcile her company credit card, enter her mileage, code invoices for payment, etc.  It's your basic admin type job.  So as you can see, I do nothing with patients at all.  I don't even really interact with patients or really even clinic staff other than when I go get our mail or punch in and out for the day down in the clinic.

Sounds so exciting doesn't it?  It's really not too bad though, I do enjoy it for the most part.  Fact - I probably way overdress for this position in all honesty.  Our maintenance staff wears jeans and polos.  My own boss is pretty much a chinos and a nice shirt kind of woman.  Most of the clinic staff wears scrubs.  The front desk staff don't even dress up much, many of them wear khakis and we're all allowed to wear these fleece zip up jackets that our company provided us, so many of them wear that.  Not to mention, I'm holed up in this office with just my boss, so I really don't have to dress up as much as I do sometimes.  But I do it because I enjoy it!  I love clothes and I like to look good!  I do dress down on Fridays as you've seen.  I have to say though, when my boss's boss comes to visit he always has a suit on, so I feel good when I'm dressed up if he stops by!

And even though I'm not directly involved in patient care, I still get a lot of perks that come with working in healthcare.  I get a free flu shot every year - in fact it is required.  Our benefits are so crazy awesome and uber affordable.  We carry both myself and the Pants Monkey on our health insurance and barely pay anything.  And you've probably noticed with all these days off I've had lately, our time off program is sweet - if you don't use the time you accrue in a year it carries over.  So I had a bunch saved up because I hadn't understood that when I first started here.  So that's been kind of nice to have!  We get a lot of employee discounts for things like cell phone service.  So I really can't complain!  Not to mention, I'm about 10-15 minutes from home and 5 minutes from my parents house at this office.  Yay short commutes!

So there you have it.  That is what I do for a living.  My boss is awesome to work for and I'm nervous because she plans to retire in January 2014 - so in just over a year things may be different here, but for now things are good and stable and I'll enjoy it while it lasts!

Outfit rundown:

Dress - handed down from Lynne

Blazer - F21 (last year)

Shoes - Madden Girl, thrifted

Necklace - Maurices

Tights - Target