It is difficult to prioritize work as everything is an emergency. Systems are very antiquated such as the software system Lawson. It cannot do basic things like lookup an invoice by invoice number. To submit invoices for payment, they all must be printed, stamped, and account information entered by hand. They then are manually signed, scanned, and emailed to the corporate office. The corporate office does not like to pay its vendors and leaves the local offices to deal with vendors who want to be paid. When asking for payment status, the corporate office does not respond to emails. They have stopped paying vendors for the last 4-6 weeks.
There are inefficiencies everywhere. For example, I had to schedule annual physicals for technicians. I would call another admin assistant in a different state letting her know the appointment needed to be scheduled. She would choose a date, time, and location which was often not close to the office. I then had to contact the technician with the information. Often appointments were set for times when the clinic was not open. If admin assistants were able to schedule medical checks for their local staff, things like this would be avoided.
There is no cross-training. So if someone is out on vacation or leaving no one else knows how to do the job so things don't get done.
As a female admin assistant, there are no opportunities for growth at the company. I have observed that female engineers do a lot of admin work that male engineers would not be asked to do. This place is definitely a boys club from the corporate office down to the local offices.
