office rants PART 1

i am unofficially a japayuki.

I work for the japanese but i am very much based in the Philippines. in fact, our office already qualifies as (philippine) heritage site and the area around it as heritage zone. 

i was hired to staff the japanese experts and some filipino counterparts. 

i am the only staff.

i manage the office as a one-woman army. i manage 3 male japanese and a filipino lady. these are the things that i basically do. 

i will tell you of my admin responsibilities for a start.

1. simple accounting. meaning, waht i spend i input to the simple accounting ledger which the project leader provided;

2. simple filing. i will not further explain the meaning of this but just to describe, i have a filing system for my computer files, based on the project leader's system also. the hard copies filing is generally based on gut feel because i am no office filer.

3. simple coffee-making. this means i make coffee for them and for myself. this means i turn on the water dispenser the moment i arrive, wait for the red light to go off while i take out the styro cup from the steel filing cabinet, the top drawer i turned into a cupboard, and sticks of Nescafe instant coffee (no, not 3-in-1 because one of them is diabetic and can't stand coffee with regular sugar in it), cut it open and empty it to the styro cup, pour hot water, take a stirrer, stir and serve it to the bosses--where i get a "thank you very much" and a nod in return--and serve a cup to myself. 

4. simple photocopying. meaning i have a photocopier in my antique office, meaning everyone in the whole building who knows i have a photocopier in my office thinks we are so lucky or that our office is so sosyal. meaning one of the many tasks assigned to me before were to reproduce 10 copies of a 700-paged traffic management and control handbook, 1 spread = 1 paper, back to back to limit the number of pages and therefore save on paper, as specified by project leader, and reproduce discussion materials for 20-30 people where 1 set could have 5 parts. Meaning, this particular task couldn't get any crazier. 

5. simple letter-making. meaning i draft letters for the millions of correspondence.

6. simple email checking and replying: meaning i check the emails and i answer them and i am copy furnished with all their letters. meaning if one consultant does not know how to email, i am asked to email it for him/her, check his/her emails. meaning i manage several emails, not counting my own and the project's. one email from project leader is sometimes enough to give me panic attacks and i get 3 in a row but 0 if he is in Africa. 

7. simple phone call answering and calling. meaning i call to confirm the attendance to the many many meetings that seem to go on and on and on sometimes 3 meetings in a week.

8. simple computer troubleshooting. okay, so this is supposed to be technician's job. but since i'm a Renaissance woman in the office it means i also do this. one of the recent task would be to look for a sound card driver for a japanese model a vaio laptop because the lolo accidentally deleted or uninstalled the driver somewhere and he wants to have it working NOW NA! because he needs to talk to somebody using skype NOW NA! but skype is constantly displaying error messaging in japanese because everything in that japanese model vaio laptop is japanese but he tells me it means error because the system cannot locate the driver for the speaker so i checked the site and **VOILA!** the site is in japanese and yes, Google has a translation feature but that does not it make itany easier to find the driver so i told lolo i can't do it and he has to find a technician who can troubleshoot is japanese model viao laptop and understand japanese text at the same time. 

9. simple coordinating. meaning i have to decipher when a government agency representative answer "or" when i ask him/her a simple "yes or no" question. for example, confirming attendance for a next day meeting: me: "will you be attending the meeting tomorrow?" (MAATEND KA HINDI?? YES OR NO??!! sabat!!!)  him/her: "it depends, i will call you tomorrow morning."

10. simple event organizing. meaning, i organize as many meetings as the bosses want to have. say, 3 meetings in a week. and i make the minutes right after because the minutes has to be in by the next day. 

sometimes, when i also attend the counterparts' meeting where our project is asked to attend so we can also update the counterpart, i also take notes because project leader said i should. then i ask the counterpart for their minutes so i can email an official records of discussion to project leader. the counterpart boss would tell me, "you know, my staff are a little incompetent in making minutes and they are not really good at it. so as an assistance to us, can you just make the minutes in our behalf? anyway, you're good at it and you do it speedily."

hmmm.

AND THAT IS JUST A PART OF ADMIN WORKS. 

when this project is done i expect to be able to apply as circus performer and be hired without any trouble. 

more to come.