I'm Nate Marshall and this is The Slowdown.

For a lot of my professional life, I've had an office.

Sometimes like when I was a part-time professor, that office was shared, cramped, and window

lists.

Sometimes, like in my first full-time teaching job, the office was spacious and felt opulent,

with bookshelves and high ceilings and enough room to have a small dance battle.

Sometimes, like in my time as a non-profit administrator, the office was not really an office but

instead the dreaded open office of startup lore, where I got so little done because I

am so easily distracted by other people.

In all these varied office spaces, I've been a white collar worker, or what my family

might call having a sit-down job.

This means I've known the wonder of a good administrative assistant.

Those workers in an office setting who are often the most reliable, most underpaid, and

frankly most competent people in the building.

Anyone who has worked in an office like I have has probably seen how vital these workers

are as the brain at the center of any business or organization or department.

These workers not only know everything you should have learned when you were daydreaming

through your orientation, they often know so much more about the inner workings of any

workplace.

Today's poem celebrates one such worker who not only knew more about her workplace, but

society at large.

Firey young colored girl by Alison C. Rollins.

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