Office Manager

On Friday I thought that, seeing as this job was sold to me as an 'office manager' role (not just a glorious sitting-on-reception-doing-nothing job), I would take it upon myself to do some 'office-managery' type things (mainly just to keep myself amused and to pass some time).

So.. On Friday I ordered enough stationery to last atleast three years... I think I may have gotten a bit carried away once I started - when I saw it this morning it worried me slightly. I have already diligently laid it all out in the stationery cupboard (which is actually a big messy room). It looks lovely in there now, the walls look really white (because they are stacked high with every kind of envelope the supplier had to offer). It also smells really new, because all the goodies came wrapped in plastic - which has that particular smell of newness about it.

That's why I was busy this morning really, because I was carefully arranging my expertly purchased envelopes and pens..

Now though, I'm on to my next 'managing the office' task. Checking supplies... Of everything. I have checked the kitchen supplies although I already knew what we needed before I looked. I also knew that we can't get what we need - so I don't really know why I bothered looking in the first place! It's all about the cups. Everyday I have numerous complaints about the lack of poxy cups! There are an abundance of proper mugs in the kitchen cupboard, that the employees here don't even have to wash themselves after they've used them, but the preferable choice is paper cups which I can't get hold of. Why is that? If we had paper cups stacked sky high I can guarantee everyone would be drinking out of china mugs..

I discovered that the milk is hugely overstocked as usual. Old milk is thrown away near enough every day which angers me because it is still in date, there's just a lack of room in the fridge. I was going to start taking it home, but I thought someone might catch me and accuse me of stealing it. Because it does feel a bit like something I shouldn't really be doing it's quite likely i'd be acting really shifty anyway, so I'd probably own up to stealing it - even though I wasn't! I tried using a bit of initiative and reducing the order once but that day everyone seemed to want to bathe in milk (or something similar) as we were left with none. Of course I denied all knowledge of the reduced order.

So the kitchen is fine. The stationery is fine. I glanced around desk tops and skirting boards and the cleaner seems to be doing her job, so I don't have to pull her into line. I didn't even see any dead leaves that I could remove from any of the plants that I passed on my rounds. Everything is running tickedy boo. Even the air conditioning is humming obediently.

Really scraping the barrel for things to do I have been around the office checking for out of date posters that I can remove from the walls. Apparently I am the only one who is allowed to stick things on the walls (strange but true) so there could have been lots of old posters that were still there (because no doubt I am the only lucky person who can remove posters from the walls as well). See - I do have my uses! There weren't any though, so it was a bit of a wasted effort.

I have no invoices to check, no bills to pay...

This office totally manages itself, which just goes to prove that there is no need for me to be here. If they attached the door opening button to one of the other desks, they could open the door when the doorbell rings and the company could save a modest wedge of money each year. Unless the new door opener commanded a higher wage of course - in which case they may as well have someone here incase an emergency happens and they need someone to activate the fake panic button!