Anticipating the Unknowns and Other Advice from an Administrative Associate 

I received an admin handbook my first day working at Ceisler Media and was told “everything I will ever need” will be in it. For the most part, everything I have ever needed has been in that book. It’s what everyone else needs where the real challenges appear.  

When our team has something to celebrate, when a client has an all-hands emergency, when something needs to be purchased or returned or adjusted, when someone doesn’t know what they don’t know – that’s where I come in. Yes, I have a handbook. And also, I am the handbook. 

Here are just a few times that I have been asked for something that could not possibly have made it into the handbook —  these things can only be so big — and how I managed to pull things together in time. 

Champagne  –and flutes! – for 85. In three business days. 

It can be exciting to mark an important occasion with a toast — it elevates any moment. It can elevate your heartrate as well if you don’t have scores of champagne flutes lying around. 

Now, champagne can be easy, certainly if they’re willing to settle for Prosecco (who really NEEDS to see the bottle before you pour the glasses, right?). Flutes on the other hand? Obtaining those is a deceptively easy task. 

We’re an office of about 20 in Philadelphia. One doesn’t often find themselves tracking down deals and delivery rates on wholesale sites often, but for these such occasions, these miracle sites can be your friends. And, if you want to make sure a champagne toast remains a highlight in everyone’s eyes as they look in the rearview mirror of company bonding activities, go with plastic every time. If you can’t reuse them, it becomes a once in a lifetime event, right? Right?!? 

Oversized Checks —  that photograph well. 

All of us, above a certain age, have dreamed at some point of answering the door to find Ed McMahon with a ginormous check in hand and a gaggle of folks from Publisher’s Clearing House cheering us on as we fantasize what we’ll do with our weekly payments for life. 

But when your morning alarm starts blaring, your eyes flutter awake, and you check your phone to find that a client is giving a press conference tomorrow and needs to write a big check, it’s time to make dreams become a reality fast. 

I may not have familiarity with the nature of giant checks, but I do know the ins and outs of the local print shop. This means the ask would require a compromise. If we wanted it turned around in time, we couldn’t print a scaled-up check. Instead, it had to be a 2:3 ratio for a next-day print, which meant the designer on the client end needed to send us a new proof. This wasn’t something to hang up in an office and beam at — the idea was that this would be covered in print news and recorded.  So, no glossy printing, which means a quick call to the printer right after the order goes in with a measured, yet urgent, tone to let them know they can’t put a finish on it but they should put a rush on it if they can. 

Friendly staff and a slow day at the print shop meant we had it available for pickup in plenty of time. I ran in, gave my name, and as she does with every banal corporate print job she’s done for me over the years, the printer takes it out of the envelope with the same joke as always: “Is it everything you’ve ever dreamed of!”  

Yes. This time, a million times, yes. 

No dull moment 

There’s never a dull day on the ops team. In many ways the role of the ops team is to make sure everyone else is having as dull of a day as possible — not so much in a “making sure everyone’s doing their timesheets” sense (though, if you’re reading this, whether or not you’re at Ceisler, please take a moment to save your local ops team member the headache and fill out your timesheet). But more in the sense of keeping everything going as smoothly as possible.  

Remaining flexible, thinking outside the box and being a good team player are crucial.  Whether you work as an administrative associate or not, these qualities would serve you well in any job. It doesn’t mean there won’t be a few bumps on the way, but with a little creative problem solving and gumption, the bubbly gets poured, the novelty checks get signed, and the admin handbook gets a little bigger.