Neither did I!  I am glad in the end that I did get into the field.  It is what I do well, and enjoy my job.   I still look through job ads and see if there is anything I would like to move into.  If anything it would be a event planner, but why move? I think they make less pay and I plan fun events in this job with more variety in between events.  I have to admit I wouldn't mind hosting one of those travel show and getting paid to see the world.   But since that opportunity hasn't crossed my path, this is the job for me! 

I have been here 7 years.    Besides temp jobs the shortest time at a job was 4 years.

Congrats on the new job!  I am curious on what others will say, but for me, I would suck it up and do it.  Even if I don't like or want to.  I would call the old secretary and ask if she knows or can find the information as it was her responsibility, but as it is yours now, the end results falls on your shoulders.   I will add if the paperwork is impossible or totally lost to make sure they know you did all you could.  That will not reflect poorly on you as it was before you.  It will look better if you do your best to resolve the problem.

Yes I would if it is what they want.  I would push for the college education at the same time.   More and more top level assistants are specialized.  THAT is where a degree can come in.  But if my son or daughter wanted a job and was good at organizing, communications, etc.  I would say go for it and be all you can be!

We have started to use free versions of software.   Photoscape instead of Photoshop, Inkscape for Illustrator and PrimoPDF  for Adobe Acrobat are the main ones so far.  We still use Microsoft Office and for our Marketing Professionals, they still get the expensive name versions.  These programs have a saved us over $20,000 in software and cover our needs perfectly.

The meeting went great.  I do hope this thread continues and you others do think of their work quality and providing their customers (boss, co workers) excellent customer service.  It is a really good way of benchmarking your personal performance.

I have a new manager, we sat down to discuss his "style" and his main comment was for me to provide excellent customer service but I only work for him and support a group.  What would you think is my “customer service?”  I need to come up with a response for what I think that is in my position and how I plan execute a personal customer service plan by our next Monday meeting.

I have a few ideas, provide quality work, respond efficiently to the staff, but would love to hear what others think for those ideas that I am not thinking of.

Quality training.  At this point I venture to say most of us learn what we know on our own through trial and error.  Software packages, procedures in the office, even when we plan our first major event.   We learn to represent our boss and many times mimic our bosses leadership styles.   There are so many soft skills and hard skills we can do, if we were provided training.  My recommendation for improving this situation is to talk to your boss, find out where you can make his/her job easier then research training opportunities and hope your company has a budget!   Aligning your potential studies with that on how to make your bosses jobs easier can be an win / win situation.  On top of that, read what  you can, take tutorials, always improve and learn where you can.