ing on the A project, and you’re trying to be focused, even though your phone keeps ringing and the gal at the desk next to you wants to discuss her nephew’s foot fungus. (By the way, it’s illegal for secretaries to let their phones go to voicemail. Look it up yourself: Bylaw 213, SecI’ll admit it up front. I was a lousy secretary. It wasn’t for the lack of trying. It was just because it was a bad fit for me, but it took me years of being a secretary to convince myself.

Other secretaries in my department could organize circles around me. They could manage a 55-line telephone with one hand, word-process a memo with the other, and do the filing with their feet. They didn’t freak out when their boss dumped a three-day project on their desk with orders to have it ready in an hour. They knew when everyone’s birthdays were, and they remembered to change the water in the flower vase on their desk.

Not me. My typing looked as if it were done by foot, calls I answered ended up on hold for years, and the filing was perpetually 6 months behind. I freaked out when my boss came within two miles of my desk. I forgot my own birthday, and my flowers were always straining desperately towards other, more nurturing, secretaries.

My real problem was that I was always the victim of the “Pile Syndrome.” If you’re a secretary or if you have any kind of paper-pushing job, you know what I mean.

You’re working on the A project, and you’re trying to be focused, even though your phone keeps ringing and the gal at the desk next to you wants to discuss her nephew’s foot fungus. (By the way, it’s illegal for secretaries to let their phones go to voicemail. Look it up yourself: Bylaw 213, Sect

55-line telephone with one hand, word-process a memo with the other, and do the filing with their feet. They didn’t freak out when their boss dumped a three-day project on their desk with orders to have it ready in an hour. They knew when everyone’s birthdays were, and they remembered to change the water in the flower vase on their desk.

Not me. My typing looked as if it were done by foot, calls I answered ended up on hold for years, and the filing was perpetually 6 months behind. I freaked out when my boss came within two miles of my desk. I forgot my own birthday, and my flowers were always straining desperately towards other, more nurturing, secretaries.

My real problem was that I was always the victim of the “Pile Syndrome.” If you’re a secretary or if you have any kind of paper-pushing job, you know what I mean.

You’re working on the A project, and you’re trying to be focused, even though your phone keeps ringing and the gal at the desk next to you wants to discuss her nephew’s foot fungus. (By the way, it’s illegal for secretaries to let their phones go to voicemail. Look it up yourself: Bylaw 213, Sec

to change the water in the flower vase on their desk.

Not me. My typing looked as if it were done by foot, calls I answered ended up on hold for years, and the filing was perpetually 6 months behind. I freaked out when my boss came within two miles of my desk. I forgot my own birthday, and my flowers were always straining desperately towards other, more nurturing, secretaries.

My real problem was that I was always the victim of the “Pile Syndrome.” If you’re a secretary or if you have any kind of paper-pushing job, you know what I mean.

You’re working on the A project, and you’re trying to be focused, even though your phone keeps ringing and the gal at the desk next to you wants to discuss her nephew’s foot fungus. (By the way, it’s illegal for secretaries to let their phones go to voicemail. Look it up yourself: Bylaw 213, Sec

rthday, and my flowers were always straining desperately towards other, more nurturing, secretaries.

My real problem was that I was always the victim of the “Pile Syndrome.” If you’re a secretary or if you have any kind of paper-pushing job, you know what I mean.

You’re working on the A project, and you’re trying to be focused, even though your phone keeps ringing and the gal at the desk next to you wants to discuss her nephew’s foot fungus. (By the way, it’s illegal for secretaries to let their phones go to voicemail. Look it up yourself: Bylaw 213, Sec

ing on the A project, and you’re trying to be focused, even though your phone keeps ringing and the gal at the desk next to you wants to discuss her nephew’s foot fungus. (By the way, it’s illegal for secretaries to let their phones go to voicemail. Look it up yourself: Bylaw 213, Section 3, Paragraph A.)

Your boss comes up to you and says, “How are you coming along on the B project? I know I asked for it tomorrow but could I have it for my meeting in an hour?”

You know it will only take 10 minutes to finish off the B project, so there’s no reason for to put the A project away. You put the B project right on top of the A project on your desk and set to work.

The phone rings. The man on the other end is having an emergency that for some reason you are the only person on the planet who can solve. This is part of your job too – customer service. In fact, the company devotes a lot of lip service to this priority. So this becomes C project, which has to happen right now. But you’re really trying to whip through the B project so you can get back to the A project, which is what you’re REALLY working on anyway. So there’s no need to put the B or the A projects away. You put the C project right on top.

The day ends while you’re working on the P or the Q project, and you can barely see over the top of the pile. Everyone is upset with you because you didn’t get projects A through N finished.