Your Administrative Assistant today was Self

Today’s shadow work on a doily – when you do data entry tasks on your own time, instead of someone else being paid to do that.

Filling out the forms at the doctor’s office on paper, when I’m there anyway, is faster. Dealing with each office’s particular software and dealing with its limits and annoyances, takes longer, and it’s on my time, in my house, when I’d rather be doing something else.

Where else do we do administrative and data entry tasks that used to be handled differently?

I’m not only grumping about all these businesses eating away at my free time. There’s another loss – human interaction and relationship building. When there’s no receptionist and I check in on a computer – that’s a loss. When there’s no staff, or less staff, to be friendly, supportive, caring – that’s a loss.

Okay, not all staff is friendly, but still. We’re human, we generally like humans. And humans, and jobs are fewer in our daily interactions, and that’s a less friendly world, where everyone is overworked and more frazzled.
Yesterday, I did self-check out and made a mistake. I thought I’d heard the “BEEP!” but I missed scanning an item. The lone employee had to politely let me know that I’d missed it. As I wasn’t trying to shoplift, this was a bit awkward and unpleasant.

Instead of a friendly chat with a cashier experience, I left feeling badly that perhaps they thought I’d intentionally not scanned the item. Apparently I’m a bad cashier! And I don’t want to work at your store! I want to chat with your employee.