usa job typing

Have you ever had a moment's hesitation when you thought, "I should question that" or "I should take one more look" and then don't and later wish you had? Well, I have had two such incidents in the past two weeks. I read something that made me pause, but because I was in a big hurry and felt confident that the other person was covering that base, I let it go. It is wise to take a moment and evaluate the situation. In both of my situations, it would have been helpful if I had given my input. I am not sure if it would have changed the outcome, but at least I would feel confident that I flagged it for my boss. Lesson learned and will now put me on high gut alert...

I use Word 2007 at my new job and have never really had a chance to go through it to find the quick tips and how-tos that I had in Word 2003. Finally this weekend I searched out some of my old favourites and have listed them below in no particular order. I have also included some Outlook 2007 tips: Word 2007: Change Case To toggle between upper, lower and initial caps. Highlight word and press Shift F3. Change measurement for margins to inches (or centimeters if you prefer) Click on the Office button, bottom middle there is a button called Word Options, click on it. Choose Advanced. Scroll down to Display Section, Across from Show Measurements in Units of, there is drop down to change from centimeters to inches Dot Leader On the horizontal ruler, set the tab stop that you want (probably 6 on Ruler) On the Page Layout tab, open the Paragraph Dialog Box by clicking the arrow down. In the Paragraph dialog box, click Tabs (bottom left). Under Leader, click the leader option that suits your

We all have them. You know those times when you just have to shake your head and wonder why something that seemed so simple had to get so complicated. My boss calls them Grrr! moments. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Well here is one of my Grrr! moments... At one office I worked in we had a mail cart with slots for everyone's mail, but it was filed First name, Last name. Each time I went to get my mail I would find my mail in the other Patricia's slot or vice versa. Or if I was delivering mail to someone I had to stop, re-think and look for their first name. Of course there were four Karens and three Bobs. See what I mean? Grrr! Question... Which do you prefer, First Name, Last Name or Last Name, First Name? I grew up in a world that used Last Name, First Name (i.e. the phone book, standard filing practices etc.) so that is my default and I find it very user friendly. In some offices however they have First Name, Last Name as their default and I find it confus

I spoke for the first time to a group of about 40 administrative professionals at a local hospital on Administrative Professionals Day. Well...I had spoken to a group of teen girls at a camp once and I did speak at my daughter's shower, but this was different. I was the keynote speaker at a professional event and had to speak for 45 minutes. Yikes! I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. Nobody there knew me so they would have no idea if this was my first time or the hundreth time so that made it a bit easier. I had my material prepared and knew what I wanted to share, but I wasn't sure about delivery. I am happy to report it went very well. Whew! At the end of my presentation I told them it was my first time presenting and there was an audible gasp in the audience. I think that meant they were surprised. I wrote an article some time ago called "Just Say Yes" and told about my decision to not let fear stop me from doing things that I really wanted to try. I

We're getting close to the end of my blog. After today's entry, I only have three left to write. After that, I'll only blog anonymously or (more likely) not at all. This is part three of five in my "Programmer's View of the Universe" series. I struggled for a while with how best to introduce the ideas in this installment, and ultimately opted for a short story. This is a science fiction short story. It's different from many other sci-fi stories in that it is set in the "near future", but it has realistic schedule estimates. So unlike 1984, 2001, The Singularity is Near and all the other sci-fi stories that grossly underestimated their project durations, this one is set 1000 years in the future. I.e., right around the corner. The story is disrespectful to pretty much everyone in the world. It will create a fantastic shit storm. This is probably a good time to point out that I don't speak for my employer. [Edit: Yay for fiction! Appa

I was introduced to Google when I went back to work as an assistant in a law firm in Ottawa. I had taken time off to raise my daughter and when I came back computer technology had gone from DOS to Windows and the Internet was becoming very popular. I shied away from it however. I was happy just to know how to use the computer. I was always amazed however when I asked my co-worker any questions. She would say, "Just a minute." A few clicks later and she had an answer for me. Finally, I asked her how she knew the answers and what was she doing to get the information? It was then she introduced me to Google. I have loved it ever since and that is when my list of handy Favourites was born. Recently, a temp worker at my job gave me another Google tip. Google has an information line ( 1 800 466 4411 ). It uses voice recognition and is fantastic. Of course before I recommend anything I try it out so I picked up the phone and it asked me what I was looking for and what city and provi

Would you take a job just to get your foot in the door of an organization you really wanted to work for, even if it was a position that you didn't want to make a career out of? Would you hire someone you thought was just trying to get their foot in the door? Many times the administrative assistant position is a good way into an organization and what a great training ground to know an organization's inner workings than in this profession. Where I used to work one of the lawyers encouraged her daughter to work for the summer in law firms as an admin just for that purpose. She saw the importance of this training to help her daughter know the workings of an office from the bottom up and the office benefitted from her educational training. She was a smart kid and picked up the tasks assigned to her very quickly. I think many university students are seeing the value in having this kind of training. So much is expected of executives these days. It used to be the secretary did everythi

I like working with someone who has initiative, wants to do a good job and is keen to contribute to the team, but is there a time when initiative is not a good thing? Sometimes a new person will want to contribute to the team and show their new employer that they have initiative so they will dive into something that they don't have quite enough information about yet. If you are a new hire, take the time to learn and ask questions. Your new employer is not expecting you to know everything right away and it is in everyone's best interest that you proceed cautiously at first until you know the ropes. I always feel more confident when a new hire asks me a question and gets all the information before proceeding. I don't see it as a weakness, but as a strength. Of course there will come a time when questions about certain things will not have to be asked as it is hoped the new hire will catch on to the office procedures and their initiative will kick in and they will take on