Jim,
While Perry Mason is one of my all-time favorite shows, and I devoured almost every book that Erle Stanley Gardner penned, my views of a secretary's role are arrived at quite apart from that.
A secretary is privy to the most intimate details of the corporate inner sanctum and this knowledge frequently extends to the employer's business clients, associates, and friends--poeople who must rely on the inherent discretion in such relationships. In the employer's absence, the secretary often must be trusted to act in the employer's stead and best interests.
Again I will state that with this intimate knowledge, by default the secretary becomes an extension of the employer, and to attempt to elicit such information from the secretary comes dangerously close to forced self-incrimination.
I didn't use the word, but since you did I will state that I believe the secretary-employer relationship to be sacrosanct and thus should be off limits to inquiring minds for any purpose. Like the other generally recognized sacrosanct relationships, it just can't be made to work any other way.
Notice also that nowhere in any of my posts have I or will I assume that secretary equals female and employer equals male. CGB, are you taking notes?
Now, may I bring you some coffee? Would you prefer tea or something else? What do you take with it?
Holly |
