They are often the first to arrive and the last ones to leave. Somehow, they always just seem to be there, smiling and cheerful, despite having to peek through towers of never-ending paperwork, sick, bloody and bruised learners lined up in winding ques behind their desks and a constant soundtrack of ringing telephones that never seem to dull their shine. These are the admin ladies! Being a proud and exhausted school admin lady myself, I proudly stand on my soapbox today to sing the praises of my fellow sisterhood. Sorry gents - feel free to jump up on the soapbox too if the shoe fits. I love this environment. The hustle and bustle of learners and teachers going about their business has become the tune to which I get on with the day's business. For those who do not work in a school environment, the assault on your senses is quite hard to explain. My long-suffering children knew when I started this job many years ago, that the drive home from work was always done in silence. It was only when we got home and I sat on the couch waiting for my ears to stop ringing and my brain to slow down, that I could finally look up at them and say "Hi - how was your day"! I recall the early days when I had just moved to the school from a corporate environment (and everybody's favourite sentence said to me was "relax!") as I scurried and sped to get things done in corporate fashion, while my admin peers stared at me in blank horror. Not that school admin offices are not busy. Boy, are we busy! To-do lists quickly get brushed aside, as the events of the day unfold and one quite quickly learns to master that most important skill - multitask or die. The life of a school admin team beats with a different heartbeat. There is nothing I do not know about the frustration of SAMS, never-ending curriculum changes, Department demands and HOD's constantly peeking around my door to pile on a few more tasks for the day. We take it all in our stride - confidently and with the utmost style, we achieve the impossible. Newsletters, parents' evenings, detention slips - we do it all. Those little “extras” that the admin ladies are always doing for everyone – laminating something for your class, quickly printing something that you may need, helping with mark sheets, typing your question papers for you – are the things that make us special. The things that nobody sees us do, but somehow when they are needed, they are just done. I often watch our teachers in their classrooms and wonder how on earth they manage to do what they do. I have the privilege of teaching a CPR class to our High School learners once a year, and we have great fun, living out our Grey's Anatomy fantasies and learning valuable life skills while we play. The learners often say to me that they think I should become a teacher - to which I reply that I certainly wouldn't last a week! I have the utmost respect for teachers - they have an incredibly difficult job, sometimes under challenging circumstances, and are most often not recognised for the amazing work they do. Teachers, on the other hand always come to tell me that they don't know how I do what I do. That is exactly the beauty of a school environment. A symbiosis of skills that, when put together, just seems to work. Next week, when you walk past the admin office, go in and high-five an admin lady. Lord knows, she was probably at work long before you got there and she most certainly hasn't had her first cup of coffee yet. Today, she will most likely be vomited on by at least one learner, hold a bathroom break until she absolutely cannot hold it anymore and will get her best work done late this afternoon, after everyone has already gone home and she can finally enjoy that cup of coffee. Most of all, she loves her job and she returns every day to do it all again with finesse, and a smile! Admin ladies – you rock!
