Welcome to another PA entry for the "OUCH! I wish I'd known that!" slot. We finish the year with Marcia, a PA with several years' experience, who recalls one incident early in her career which still makes her wince! Marcia, who now works for board directors in a West Country design firm, began her secretarial career as a junior secretary in London in 1989.

Over to Marcia…

I had been at the firm about 7 weeks, and was getting along quite nicely. Many of the tasks were new to me, and I was excited about all the things I was learning. The firm had recently invested in some word processors, and getting to grips with all the functions was really interesting. One morning, one of the managers plopped a huge pile of envelopes on my desk, and a box of A4 paper, and a letter to be typed. "I'd like this to go to all of our London-based clients, Marcia," he said. "As soon as you can, please." So, I set to work. I typed in the letter, asked another PA to tell me where the client list was stored on the word processor, and began typing. It took me three and a half days to type the name and address details on to each individual letter, but in the end I was really pleased with myself. The stack of letters all ready to sign looked most impressive. And I finished them just before my first training day, on the following day. Perfect, I thought! Well - guess what my training day was all about? Yes - MAILMERGE!! I could have wept! After an hour's training, I could have taken all those addresses from the word processor, and automatically merged them with the letter, which would have then been printed out for me! That was definitely an 'OUCH!' moment - I really did wish I'd known that beforehand!

What's YOUR story?

Poor Marcia! If only the training had come a few days earlier, she would have saved herself hours and hours of work! So, we want to hear more of your stories. Simply email us in the first instance with your "Ouch!" stories and we'll come back to you for a quick chat. Together we can write them up for the "Ouch!" page, for other readers to enjoy and for us ALL to learn from.

Get thinking – when was the last time you groaned, "Oh, I wish I'd known that…!". Tell us about it! Email me at express@deskdemon.com and give me the rough outline of your "horror and hindsight" scenario, and we'll choose the best ones to publish.

Look forward to hearing from you!