Message #38403

[elkiedee]

I guess I'm more the career secretary in that I've no particular ambition to do anything else, but I'm not sure either category fits me entirely.

When I got my degree in quite non-vocational subjects, I was veryshy and not that sure what I wanted to do. I briefly and not very successfully tried my hand at teaching English as a foreign language, more because I wanted to spend some time abroad than anything else. Then I came home and tried to get a "real" job in 1991, a recession year. Further problems - I wanted to get a trainee library post - these are assistant or library clerk posts designated for people who want to then do a postgrad course to become a qualified librarian.

First, I had a lower second class degree and some institutions only wanted an upper second, because of the postgrad course. It was a bad year and so more people were chasing these jobs. Also, the organisations offering such posts were facing massive cuts and so there were a lot less. In short, I didn't get one.

I did some office jobs and had not very good typing and self-taught computer skills. Eventually I decided that I should brush up my skills and get myself off the dole.

At 25 I took a course leading to the LCCI Private Secretary's Cert/Diploma - a very career sec oriented course. My problem with some of the ethos is not that I'm wildly ambitious to do something else, I'm not that ambitious as a secretary either! I don't want to be a PA. Also, I was quite politically active and wanted plenty of time to focus on that.

But I'm reasonably content now - I'm a legal secretary in a local government office, and most of my political activist energies are channelled into trade union activities.

I guess I'm an "earn a living but my heart is elsewhere" secretary. I'd be interested in taking up certain other things - I did some IT teacher training and found I really enjoyed and was actually very good at working with the students, although I wish I'd had the confidence boost and chance to make sense of the understanding that gave me of the rest of the coursework earlier on. We spent a lot of time preparing teaching materials without getting to apply that in the classroom - observation, teaching practice and assessment all got packed into the last few weeks.

Luci