Assistant's Best Friend: Hand-band Scotch Tape Dispenser | Online Executive and Admin Assistant Training

My First Office Friend

Submitted by Ethan on April 24, 2009 at 06:41 PM

Handband After graduating college, I was offered a job as an editorial assistant at a high-powered Washington, DC consulting firm. We edited and produced all of the World Bank and IMF’s publications. I was so psyched since I had always loved to write and this sounded like the most glamorous job. Me, working for the World Bank?? Suhweet!

My first day on the job, I arrived to find a huge stack of paper and a tape dispenser on my desk. That’s all. My new boss, the editor-in-chief, came over and told me to go in the conference room and hang each sheet of paper on the wall, in chronological order. And it had to be done before the client arrived in 30 minutes. I didn’t ask any questions, I just hung.

Of course my mind was a flutter: How far apart should the pages be? Will there be enough wall space for 196 pages? Why the heck am I doing this???

But then I got to watch my boss work his magic on the document and in turn, the clients. He drew all over the pages and renumbered paragraphs with a marker. There were scribbles on each page that meant something to him…and eventually to me too. It was his way of seeing the big picture and figuring out how the flow of the document should go.

After the first few “wall sessions” with clients, I began to see how the documents really transformed under his crazy artist’s hand. Despite the sniggers around the office at my paper hanging responsibilities, I secretly enjoyed being part of these meetings, where the pages were being transformed into important publications. More importantly, I learned that it took about 20 minutes to hang a 200-page document on the wall. But man, I hated those cumbersome tape dispensers. There had to be a better way…

Right before heading home for the Christmas holiday, my boss left a Scotch handband tape dispenser on my desk as a gift. He didn’t say much in the way of praise or feedback but I knew that he appreciated my hard work.

Moral of the story? There might be easier ways to “skin a cat” so either look for those ways or ask someone else if they have any ideas. As for my new handband tape dispenser? Let’s just say it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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