Learning to Run an Office

Posted by SceneR on June 23, 2008

I had spent a number of years working in the office setting so it seemed natural to me to say yes when I was asked to move into a position as the manager of an office. I figured that this would allow me to get higher pay for the type of work that I was already doing. I had no idea what I was getting myself into!

I quickly learned that the office manager handles a great variety more tasks than the typical office staff member will handle. Additional duties for the office manager including handling issues with other staff, delegating tasks, taking responsibility for purchasing and servicing business equipment and acting as a liaison between office staff and head people at the office.

I hadn’t realized that so much of the job of an office manager would be to deal with the people who worked in the office. I didn’t mind the other parts of the job so much. For example, placing orders for office equipment was no big deal to me. But dealing with the headaches of unhappy staff members and trying to make sure that everyone else was doing their jobs was just too much for me. It wasn’t too long before I stepped down and started doing just my old job again!