Episode 105: The Assistant

The Broad Experience

Careers, Society & Culture, Business

5.0 • 592 Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2017

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A few years ago I found out the most popular job for women in America is the same as it was in the 1950s - administrative assistant, or secretary. I was shocked. How could this be, in an era where women are more educated than men? Why are so many of us still working to support other people - mostly men - rather than pursuing something for ourselves? I set out to tackle those questions in this show, and take a look at the assistant role as it exists now. Typing and dictation are out, while managing executives' lives and company projects are in. But traditional aspects of the job remain. This is a role women still flock to, and are sought for, while men are largely absent.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to The Broad Experience, the show about women, the workplace and success.
0:12.4	I'm Ashley Milne Tite.
0:14.2	This time, the most popular job for women today is the same as it was in the 1950s.
0:20.7	I think it's viewed as a very subservient role.
0:23.4	If you tell people you're an assistant, they think that you spend all day answering the phone
0:27.6	and doing typing and dictation. And the reality now is that nothing could be further from the truth.
0:35.4	And what does it mean to make being an assistant your career?
0:38.9	I don't need to have seven promotions.
0:41.2	I don't need to branch out into a different department.
0:44.8	I'm very content supporting a person who's in charge.
0:49.3	Coming up, when your job means being ambitious for someone else.
1:02.0	Music up when your job means being ambitious for someone else. My first ever job was as an assistant or actually a receptionist at an insurance company in London.
1:09.0	Then I graduated to secretary, as it was still called in England then.
1:13.2	I was an assistant for about the first six years of my working life, and I enjoyed parts of the work a lot,
1:19.3	but by the time I was in my late 20s, I was itching to move on to something else, even if I still
1:24.6	wasn't quite sure what that should be. Since then, I haven't thought
1:29.1	about the job of assistant all that much. In fact, I assumed it was gradually going away,
1:34.2	what with executives having so much technology at their fingertips. So I was really surprised
1:39.9	a few years ago when I came across some statistics here in the US, they revealed that administrative
1:45.7	assistant is still the most popular job for women in America, ahead of teaching and nursing.
1:52.0	I checked again just recently and nothing's changed. I have to admit, I found that statistic
1:57.9	quite disheartening. Women are more and more educated.
	...

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