I'm a lifer support person....very content with my role.
As a sales coordinator, I feel more like a full-fledged team member than a secretary, which is the position I'm used to holding. For instance, when visitors come from other facilities to work on presentations, I help coordinate the whole thing, and sometimes we order lunch and eat together.
The coordinators are encouraged to go to the same team-building training as the sales/engineering associates. This is different from other jobs I've held over the years, where the secretary is kept at a distance from the rest of the staff. My guess is that other admin assistants are finding this same phenomena.
I've had experience as a supervisor, and definitely don't want to go that route again. So I'm content to stay in a support position, where I have lots of variety and new challenges await me each day. I'm also encouraged to keep current with my software skills, as my employer pays the tuition.
There is one are of malcontent, in that my pay (and that of the design engineers) is not even close to that of the associate sales engineers, and I don't think that's fair. A lot of the orders they get would not go through if it wasn't for the detail work done by the support staff. In addition, the customer problems are often handled through me when they're out. I have a 4-year degree in business, which is put to great use in my job. I don't see why the coordinators are not given compensation more in line with their services. I mean, I realize that the sales associates bring in the business, which results in the bottom line profit, but I believe that profit depends on a lot of others pulling the product and services together to keep the customer happy.
Movinonup 
