MISFORTUNE IN THE 1980s
9174 Secretaries
I have always valued the support of my various secretaries, and generally speaking always have been fortunate enough to be supported by very good secretaries.
I have just occasionally, had secretaries who were useless -- I suppose that there must be plenty of those around. In Gallahers, we had one who was useless, but who it was very difficult to get rid of. Accordingly we had to campaign for several months to persuade her to go to Lucie Clayton's modeling school, which was what she really wanted to do.
We heaved a sigh of relief when we got another secretary, who was actually not too bad, but who even then distinguished herself when Gallahers was taken over by American Tobacco. In fact, the initial take-over offer was put in by Philip Morris. We learned this on a Friday afternoon. We were all talking about this, regretting that none of us had known about this - since we could have made a killing on the stock exchange - only to be told by the secretary that she had received the message that morning but didn't think it was important enough to tell us about!
In fact, although American Tobacco actually wanted Philip Morris to take over, this proved impossible. Thus, American Tobacco were keen on their compettor’s proposed takeover, as they thought Gallahers would be better managed by Philip Morris and they had a substantial shareholding which resulted from Gallahers taking over Wicks the Old Holborn manufacturers. The problem, which American tobacco's lawyers suddenly realized, was that - if Philip Morris took over - American anti-trust laws meant that American Tobacco would have to sell off their shares at whatever price Philip Morris wanted to pay! Accordingly, they were forced to take it over themselves!
We all had a particularly close relationship with the secretary my boss had in his previous job in the cigarette group. She was a lovely girl, but it was especially fascinating to hear her stories about her mother, who had been parachuted into France in the Second World War as part of the SIS operations at the time. She had actually been captured and tortured by the Gestapo; and put in a concentration camp. Fortunately she been rescued by the Americans. But, as a result of the Gestapo treatment, she was crippled.
To our disgust, however, Gallahers then moved on to use a central typing pool, with audio typing, which most other organisations also started to use.
At Cussons I had a really excellent secretary, who had just come back from a very messy divorce in the United States. Accordingly, she required a lot of support -- as much on the emotional level as with her work. Unfortunately, she was so good she was taken by one with directors. He treated her as badly as he treated all other secretaries, and she left within a couple of months.
At IBM I had a range of secretaries, from one who had been the girlfriend of Pete Townsend, but who was not the best secretary ever, through to some very homely girls who were much better at the job. Again, I had a very good one who was taken from me by director. She too soon had a breakdown and ended up in the typing pool.
In IBM, however, I really built my contacts with the typing pool -- since they did most of my work. It was very profitable relationship, and a very friendly one.
At the Open University my first secretary was, unfortunately, an alcoholic. In the morning you could smell the alcohol on breath, even despite the mints she constantly chewed to hide the smell of alcohol. She didn't do a bad job -- but within a matter of months she had been rushed into hospital with her liver destroyed - and died in a matter of days. Thereafter I had a number of very good secretaries, all of whom I found were excellent to work with.
In terms of even closer relationships, the personal assistants in my life -- especially two very notable ones -- have made my life much more pleasant. As you will see, in one short story I have written about this, the relationship was sometimes almost like that of marriage. On the other hand, the rules about sexual harassment, especially in the OU, meant that there was never the possibility of any sexual element. Even so, apart from that, the relationship -- and work -- was indeed almost as symbiotic as marriage
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