May/The Kentucky Derby/ #Winning/ and elections
What do these things have in common? They're relevant to our very active chapter.
May!
Our next program is May 17-Best Practices: Making and Implementing International Travel Plans for Your Executive/Executive Team : ** note that the location has changed to the SHRM offices -1800 Duke Street. Our peers at SHRM have graciously offered to help out with our crunch for meeting space. See you there. Here's the link for info and registration.
The Kentucky Derby.. okay..so this is about a horse race.. and really? what does this have to do with our chapter events? Well, in a s-t-r-e-t-c-h of a tale... (Get it, Tail?. Horse?) Our program year is literally headed towards the finish line, we're about 3/4 of the way around the track.. and it's a speedy trip!
#Winning.. ahh..That beat to death joke related to Charlie Sheen. Well, actually that has several relevant meanings for our chapter.
1. We talked about digital media and business etiquette last evening at our Administrative Professionals Day program in the program presented by Ian Gainor, Division Director, OfficeTeam.
2. We talked about Twitter which uses # to basically act as a flag, or as it's called a hashtag, to pull key words from the TwitterVerse. So if you see #IAAP on a tweet, then search for #IAAP-- it should pull all the Tweets that have #IAAP in them!
3. Winners! We had lots of winners for fun door prizes. We won because the food was pretty delicious (Thanks, ZPizza) as was our cake.
4. AND we had winners today..because today was our chocolate tasting reception at Artfully Gifts and Chocolate - located on John Carlyle-just behind the SHRM offices and off Eisenhower Avenue. We tasted spicy chipotle chocolate, white chocolate with toffee bits, a honey chipotle chocolate and a cinnamon chocolate. All wonderful.. along with some very tasty hot chocolate drinks. Really.. I can't believe how anyone could pass on free chocolate.. Frankly.. I'm a little concerned about you.. :) Some folks even got in some shopping buying up gifts for friends and maybe one or two pieces of jewelry for themselves.
5. Winners? Could we be? Carla Thorpe, our fantastic newsletter editor and webmaster has submitted our entries to the VA-WV Division to be considered for Division Media Awards. We'll find out the result at the June Division meeting in Fredericksburg.. Hope to see you there.
And Elections?
Well, hopefully you 've elected to review the Bylaws and voted. Having the foundation of Bylaws ensures that no one member is president for life (Thank goodness) and that we have a written governance on how our chapter is lead. Very important.
Once we announce the vote outcome on the Bylaws- we can send out the notice for officer elections and the requirements for running.. hold our elections and close out our very, uber productive chapter year.
Oh,.. one more thing..re: elections.. Jan Szych, CPS/CAP and I have been hard at work visiting area companies to share the strength of our chapter and benefits of IAAP membership to their administrative team and leaders. We've gained three new members in the last two weeks. And we're anticipating gaining more members prior to the end of the program year. Let's hope they elect to join OTAC.. because we think we are a great chapter offering program content relevant to conquering some of the daily challenges of the admin world. And that, my friends.. is really #Winning. (smile).
Hope you had a superb Administrative Professionals Week®.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Why Recognize Admins and not other Staff?
I respectfully decline to agree with admins that don't believe we should have a day of recognition. It's a topic of conversation within our administrative community of peers..and quite the hot button topic if I do say so myself...
There are other professionals that have their day of recognition. There's Nurses Day and Teacher's Appreciation Day etc... and perhaps it is just recognition fatigue. Kind of like that fatigue that sets into parents about the fourth week of a new school year when their kid is coming home with enough forms to cover the DC Beltway. Enough. Right?!
Well, I see both points of view... and if my supervisor came to me and said we're not going to do anything special for the admin team this year for Administrative Professionals Day, I probably wouldn't like it but I wouldn't be surprised. Most executives and teams only think about the admin that supports THEM.
Then we have the administrative professionals that don't want to be known as administrative professionals. They insist on telling you that their title is -- Coordinator or Project Associate or Team Lead.... That's fine. But it's a disservice to the younger professionals coming up behind them AND it gives managerial/human resource staff more leeway to dismiss the importance of the volumed variety of administrative tasks we take on daily. You know what you cover in a day.. so if you want to sidestep because the title seems less than.. go right ahead.
So I say to you- to quote a fairly recent song.. Go ahead and hate on me haters.
I love being an administrative professional. I never have a dull day. I have to constantly learn new skills and pay attention to what is going on around me. I'm good at what I do. I get paid a decent salary and I see myself as a vital part of the success of my workplace. I can celebrate it all by myself..but I'd rather celebrate it with as many of my peers as possible. Why? Because we celebrate the amazing things we accomplish with less resources, less time and less guidance...and we pretty much get the job done right on time. Kudos my peers... This day is for you!
There are other professionals that have their day of recognition. There's Nurses Day and Teacher's Appreciation Day etc... and perhaps it is just recognition fatigue. Kind of like that fatigue that sets into parents about the fourth week of a new school year when their kid is coming home with enough forms to cover the DC Beltway. Enough. Right?!
Well, I see both points of view... and if my supervisor came to me and said we're not going to do anything special for the admin team this year for Administrative Professionals Day, I probably wouldn't like it but I wouldn't be surprised. Most executives and teams only think about the admin that supports THEM.
Then we have the administrative professionals that don't want to be known as administrative professionals. They insist on telling you that their title is -- Coordinator or Project Associate or Team Lead.... That's fine. But it's a disservice to the younger professionals coming up behind them AND it gives managerial/human resource staff more leeway to dismiss the importance of the volumed variety of administrative tasks we take on daily. You know what you cover in a day.. so if you want to sidestep because the title seems less than.. go right ahead.
So I say to you- to quote a fairly recent song.. Go ahead and hate on me haters.
I love being an administrative professional. I never have a dull day. I have to constantly learn new skills and pay attention to what is going on around me. I'm good at what I do. I get paid a decent salary and I see myself as a vital part of the success of my workplace. I can celebrate it all by myself..but I'd rather celebrate it with as many of my peers as possible. Why? Because we celebrate the amazing things we accomplish with less resources, less time and less guidance...and we pretty much get the job done right on time. Kudos my peers... This day is for you!
Monday, April 11, 2011
Sending Your Boss to DC on Travel? Heads UP!
If you've lived in our area for more than a year anywhere near our beltway system or downtown- then you have already lived through one tourist season and lived to tell the story.
But for those admins not from our area - but maybe you will have bosses, friends or family headed this way. Be aware that travel in our region takes much longer than anticipated. We have oodles and oodles of tourists ...[That translates to about 25,000 per oodle- Cherry Blossom viewing, school tours for Spring Break, major time for Capitol Hill visits etc..] In Alexandria, it's the same. Lots of visitors to Mount Vernon, Old Town etc.
And, I have not even mentioned our roads/beltway/tollroads/HOVlanes etc.... that's another blog for another day.
Here are a few local links to help you navigate our tricky region.
1. WashingtonPost : Dr. Gridlock and the Traffic and Commute pages. [Twitter: DrGridlock]
2. WashingtonPost: District Taxi Fare Estimator
3. WTOP.com : Follow Adam Tuss' Sprawl and Crawl [Twitter: atuss]
4. All About our Metro System: http://www.wmata.com/ [Twitter: wmata]
Busiest times on our Metro system are between 6:00am and 9:00am; 4:00pm and 7:30pm
** Note*** Since our Capitals (Washington's NHL team) has made the playoffs- you may want to check the playoff schedule if you have plans near GalleryPlace/Chinatown***
Of course, this applies to any major city you are visiting or sending executives to visit. Check the city schedule for major events and ANTICIPATE and plan for potential travel delays.
But for those admins not from our area - but maybe you will have bosses, friends or family headed this way. Be aware that travel in our region takes much longer than anticipated. We have oodles and oodles of tourists ...[That translates to about 25,000 per oodle- Cherry Blossom viewing, school tours for Spring Break, major time for Capitol Hill visits etc..] In Alexandria, it's the same. Lots of visitors to Mount Vernon, Old Town etc.
And, I have not even mentioned our roads/beltway/tollroads/HOVlanes etc.... that's another blog for another day.
Here are a few local links to help you navigate our tricky region.
1. WashingtonPost : Dr. Gridlock and the Traffic and Commute pages. [Twitter: DrGridlock]
2. WashingtonPost: District Taxi Fare Estimator
3. WTOP.com : Follow Adam Tuss' Sprawl and Crawl [Twitter: atuss]
4. All About our Metro System: http://www.wmata.com/ [Twitter: wmata]
Busiest times on our Metro system are between 6:00am and 9:00am; 4:00pm and 7:30pm
** Note*** Since our Capitals (Washington's NHL team) has made the playoffs- you may want to check the playoff schedule if you have plans near GalleryPlace/Chinatown***
Of course, this applies to any major city you are visiting or sending executives to visit. Check the city schedule for major events and ANTICIPATE and plan for potential travel delays.
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