Alexis Barad: Playing Office

When I was a kid, one of my favorite games to play was "office." My mom had bought me an "office kit" one rainy day driving around my town. I was ecstatic to have an abundance of brand-new notepads, new pens and pencils, appointment calendars, and a very serious-looking stapler. My friends didn't quite enjoy this game as much as I did. In fact, I'm pretty sure the ones who agreed to play it with me were merely humoring me. How does one play office? Well, there has to be an imaginary boss behind an imaginary office door, and you and your friend get to be the secretaries (I was obsessed with the movie, Working Girl at the time). You take imaginary "very important" calls and write down the names and numbers of the callers. When I stumbled upon the remnants of this game a few years ago, I read some of the names on the call lists I used to keep: "Mrs. Kitty" and "Mr. Smelly face" seemed to call quite often. Most importantly when playing office, you have to "look like you are doing something important."

It's not like I aspired to grow up and become someone's administrative assistant, but boy did my office game come in handy. My first job was as a sales assistant at a major publishing house. The way I assisted was by answering phones for my boss (annoyingly so, Mrs. Kitty never called), booking conference rooms, and creating endless Excel spreadsheets. I realized that "office" wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I was always busy, but I never felt that what I was doing was at all important. I mean, I had graduated from an excellent college, maintained a great GPA, and was a quick learner. But here I was, reserving the second-floor conference room for a lunch at 2, and faxing spreadsheets to an office in Houston. Hello? Torture?

It turns out that that sales assistant job led to an amazing opportunity in the same company to work as an editorial assistant to a high-profile editor. And yes, there still was a lot of administrative work, but by that point I realized that every step on the career ladder has its purpose. In publishing, and probably in most industries, there is a certain amount of "paying ones dues" that has to happen before you get to do the fun stuff (like actually editing books.) So, when you start to think about your career, and where you want to be, you might want to prepare yourself for a long game of "office."

I wouldn't be as happy as I am now as an editor if I hadn't had to endure that dues-paying period. And to be honest, I did learn a lot about the publishing industry from just being around the higher-ups in my office and taking notes in their meetings. I just think it is funny that as a child I must have had some sixth sense of needing to prepare myself for the corporate world in my future. To this day, I still feel that same childish thrill when I open a new box of pencils and Post-its.

Alexis Barad,
Associate Editor, HarperCollins Publishers