A perfect office - Career in Office Administration

   No office would be able to function effectively with the structural backbone - the administrative staff.

Sector overview 

   Technology can make the various jobs easier, but the fact remains, that there needs to be a person to run the technology effectively. The job in question here is one that you watch happening in every office in every city or town in every country. Whichever office you go to, one thing is common. Virtually every business needs office support personnel. This is needed and is not likely to change anytime soon. Many small businesses started out by working without support staff (admin or assistants), but with expansion, they had to give in and hire.

   lt is understandable that when dealing with the employees internally and in dealing with other business parties externally, businesses need the services of such personnel, apart from the day-to-day office administration functions. Whatever the number of people working in the administrative capacity in an office, the role could mean looking after severa! functions. lt could all include handling the telephone, dealing with difficult phone calls from customers or other parties, handling challenging clients,maintaining reports, accounting for petty cash, mail management, banking work, and so on.

    ln fact in severa! companies and professions, a trusted administrative assistant is looked upon as a confidant. Many managers prefer assistants who know everything about them, about their lives and especially about their style of work. There is something deeply comforting about having everything in office run smoothly, and meetings happening on time, with the correct coffee and snacks. And for that, you need personnel!

     To getthere 

    Since a formal education may not be necessary to get a job, there is no single route to becoming an administrative assistant. There are severa! ways in which one can go about it. lt often happens that people get a job, and learn on it and develop expertise while working. Even then , there are certain soft and behavioural skills, apart from technical skills that assistants are supposed to have.

     Aspirants should ideally think of taking a professional course, since the curriculum is designed to look into particular job descriptions and so training will be offered in those areas. This training provides an upper hand in many cases in terms of getting a good job. ln either case, the skills are essential. When hiring office support personnel, many companies look for employees with a combination of the types of technical skills that are needed in the particular job as well as a positive attitude and strong communication skills. With technology now ruling the roost, most positions look for personnel who not only display the soft skills to work on the job, but also have a fair knowledge of operating computers and the required software on them. Often, before recruitment, companies ask applicants to take severa! tests to gauge their abilities in handling the tasks that lie ahead.

( ... ) 

    Whatever the designation or the title, the person in charge of office administration (management) carries a lot of responsibility. The diverse duties comprise those that must be performed on a daily basis, and some that need to be handled on a case-to-case basis. The role may vary with the business and the size of the office, but the primary duty is to ensure that the daily running of the office is smooth. Among other things, the office administrator is responsible for collecting and sending out mai l, for directing the calls to the appropriate offices or extensions, and making sure that the documentation is in place. 

     These job prospects are usually high for those who are qualified, since offices will always need administrative personnel, and with expansion, they tend to take on more and more people. Openings can be found at departments and offices in the public as well as private sectors, no matter the industry. A variety of positions are available depending upon the work and the kind of hours to be put in. Usually, the aftice administrators and assistants have fixed hour jobs. It is a good option for those looking for a little flexibility, or even a single shift, and they should be able to work something out with employers.

    Salaries vary like night and day. They depend heavily on the size of the organization, the duties involved, the tasks assigned and most importantly, the experience the person has.

Available in: http://www.freepressjournal.in/education/a-

perfect-office-career-in-office-administration/656443. Adapted. 

Read the text to answer the question.

Five Things to Know About Brazil’s New President, Michel Temer

(Ian Bremmer. Sept 1, 2016.)

    Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, was thrown out of office by the country’s senate on Wednesday following after an impeachment trial that ended the leftist Workers’ Party 13 years in power. She has been replaced by her former vice president and coalition partner Michel Temer of the centrist Democratic Movement party (PMDB). Temer has been running Brazil since Rousseff’s suspension in May, and is set to continue as president until the next election in 2018. Here are five things we know about the 75-year-old:

    1. He is “nearly the opposite” of Rousseff

    Temer, who has been elected to Congress four times, is “nearly the opposite” of Rousseff in terms of his political views and experience, according to The Economist. The magazine described him as a multitalented politician; a charming, elegant and conciliatory man who believes in a “blend of economic and social liberalism that is unusual in Brazil”. An example of this is his belief that abortion should be legal, which is at odds with the view of most of Brazil, which has some of the toughest abortion laws in the world.

    2. But like Rousseff, he has been accused of corruption

  Temer is not free from scandal; he’s currently being investigated for receiving an illicit $400,000 campaign donation in 2012 from the state oil company Petrobras. This has implicated him in the country’s biggest ever corruption scandal, known as “Operation Car Wash”, which has led to the jailing of dozens of executives and politicians and contributed to Brazil’s worst recession in decades.

    3. He is pretty unpopular in Brazil

    A poll in April by Brazil’s Folha de S. Paulo newspaper found that 60% of respondents supported Rousseff’s ouster, and 58% wanted to get rid of Temer too, USA Today reports. His unpopularity is partly to do with his implication in Operation Car Wash, but it hasn’t been helped by his controversial decision to create a cabinet made up solely of white men in a country where 53% of citizens are mixed race and 52% are female.

    4. His wife is a 33-year-old former beauty queen

   Temer’s wife of 13 years, Marcela Temer, is former Miss São Paulo and more than 40 years his junior. She has been criticized by media outlets for her ‘Marie Antoinette’ spending during times of Brazil’s economic uncertainty, with MailOnline reporting that she has a nanny, a cook and two maids, as well as her mother and sister, to help her look after her only son, Michelzinho, who is seven. She recently appeared on the cover of the conservative magazine Veja where she was described as “Beautiful, demure and homely”.

    5. He is a keen poet, to the amusement of some Brazilians

   Temer is the author of a book of poems, titled Anonymous Intimacy, as well as a textbook on constitutional law. According to the New York Times, the president began writing poetry when he found himself jotting his thoughts on cocktail napkins in airport lounges when working as a lawmaker a few years ago. He has mused on the themes of letter-writing in the text-messaging era, lust and radicalism – the latter being a one line poem that simply read “No. Never again!” Temer’s poetry has not been particularly well received in Brazil and there is even a Twitter account with over 33,000 followers that frequently mocks the president’s creative expressions.

(Available: http://time.com/tag/brazil/page2.)