Let Us Now Praise Famous Administrative Professionals

            Wednesday was Administrative Professionals Day, that annual day when America honors the wonderful office workers who greet the clients, answer the phones, process the words (a task formerly known as “typing”), organize the files, schedule the appointments, cancel the appointments, make sure all the business trains run on time, and above all, make the boss look good even if he or she is really a board-certified goober.

            Being one of those board-certified goobers myself, I am very appreciative to the administrative professionals in my life, including my assistant, Faye, my receptionist, Kim, my office manager, Peggie, my IT computer geek, Curt, and my private investigator, Paul Drake.

            In their honor, and in the honor of all administrative professionals, I have compiled a list of my all-time favorite administrative professionals, with one very important qualification.  No one in this list has ever worked for me.  They have all entertained me on television.  With apologies to David Letterman, here is my “Top Ten” list of my all-time favorite administrative professionals:

            10.       Susie McNamara – Ms. McNamara is the first secretary I ever met.  She came into my life when I was a pre-schooler.  In the 1950s sitcom, Private Secretary, Susie was a secretary to a Broadway theatrical agent.  (A pretty cool job!)  Susie was played by actress Ann Sothern, who later was the voice of Gladys Crabtree, the car, in the 1960s sitcom, My Mother the Car, which may have been the dumbest show in the history of television.  The plot of My Mother the Car was so inane that it made Gilligan’s Island look like Dr. Zhivago.

            9.         Mary Tyler Moore – No, not Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show or as Mary Richards when she moved to Minneapolis and went to work for Mr. Grant at WJM-TV.  No, the first time I saw Mary Tyler Moore was when she was a telephone receptionist on the 1950s TV show Richard Diamond, Private Detective.  And when I saw her, all I saw were her legs.  In that series, we never saw her beautiful face.  In every scene in which she appeared, we saw only her legs and heard her voice.  Take it from me, Mary Tyler Moore has some great legs.  I was quite taken by them even though I was only about six years old when I watched the show.

            8.         Lucy Carmichael – We all loved Lucy in the 1950s when she was Mrs. Ricky Ricardo and was always trying to sneak her way into the cast of one of his shows at the Tropicana.  But by the 1960s, Lucy and Ricky had split the sheets, and their son, Little Ricky, had become the lead singer for the group, Dino, Desi and Billy.  So what did Lucy do?  She came back to TV on The Lucy Show as Lucy Carmichael, secretary to Mr. Mooney, played by the classic TV sitcom character actor, Gail Gordon.  Mr. Mooney did not run the Tropicana, and Fred and Ethel did not live across the hall.  But Lucy still had lots of “s’plaining” to do, and it was great fun.

            7.         Carol Kester – Carol was the receptionist for psychiatrist Bob Newhart on the Bob Newhart Show.  She also served as receptionist for Dr. Jerry Robinson, an orthodontist, who shared an office suite with Bob.  Funny, but we have otherwise never encountered an office sharing arrangement between a psychiatrist and an orthodontist.  This, no doubt, came in handy for folks who thought their teeth were driving them crazy.

            6.         Pam Beasley – Now Pam Halpert, Pam continues to serve as the receptionist for Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  She is the classic administrative professional who covers for her boss, the totally dysfunctional Michael Scott.  And congratulations to Pam and Jim on the new baby.

            5.         Aunt Bea –Okay, she was not on the payroll for the Mayberry Sheriff’s Department.  Nevertheless, she was an unofficial administrative professional for the Sheriff’s Office, bringing wonderful home-cooked meals not only to Andy and Barney, but also to inmates in the Mayberry jail, including Otis, Ernest T. Bass, and Briscoe Darling.

            4.         Murphy Brown’s secretaries (All of them!) – One of the greatest long-running gags on the sitcom, Murphy Brown was that on almost every episode, Murphy had a new secretary.  They were played by such extraordinary celebrities as Bette Midler, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Don Rickles, and Marcia Wallace, the actress that played Bob Newhart’s receptionist, Carol.  (See above).  In a hilarious send off, Bob Newhart made an appearance on the Murphy Brown Show to take Carol back to his office in Chicago.

            3.         Della Street – No doubt about it, Perry Mason was the greatest trial lawyer of all time.  For ten seasons, he won nationally-televised jury trials each week, proving his client was not guilty of the charge of murder.  And how did he do this?  Well, he didn’t use the any reasonable doubt defense, putting on a knit cap and saying, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”  No, he proved his client was innocent by exposing the real killer right in the courtroom.  I think he pulled this off week after week after week for years not just because he was a great trial lawyer, but because he had the able assistance of Della Street.  And by the way, Della was not Perry’s secretary.  She was his paralegal.  His secretary was named “Gertie.”  If you don’t believe me, just watch some Perry Mason reruns.  You’ll never see Della doing any typing or even taking down dictation.  That was done by Gertie.

            2.         Mrs. Wiggins – Played by Carol Burnett (in my opinion the greatest comedienne of all time), she was the secretary for Mr. Tudball, played by Tim Conway (in my opinion, the greatest character comedian of all time).  In a running joke, Mr. Tudball would try to communicate with Mrs. Wiggins by an intercom system that never worked.  It was quite simply wet-your-pants funny.

            And the number one administrative professional of all time . . . drum roll . . . Miss Jane Hathaway!  Yes, Miss Jane Hathaway, able assistant to Mr. Drysdale, the President of the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills in the classic 60s sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies.  Miss Hathaway ran this fabulously-successful bank that, to my knowledge, never received a bail-out from the federal government.  And she did it with no assistance at all from her boss, Mr. Drysdale, who spent his full-time at the Clampett mansion smoozing the bank’s biggest customers, Jed, Granny, Jethro, and Elly May.

            Miss Jane was educated, erudite, and sophisticated.  A real woman of letters.  And in my all-time favorite Beverly Hillbillies episode, she tried to impart her knowledge and wisdom to Jethro.  “Jethro,” she told him, “under my tutelage, someday people will look at you and say, ‘There goes Jethro Bodine, BA, MA, Ph.D.!’”  And Jethro responded, “Miss Jane, you are a smart lady, but that ain’t the way you spell Bodine!”

            So there you have it, the greatest administrative professionals of all time!  And while I have been sitting in my office dictating this, my phone has been ringing constantly.  Fortunately, my administrative professional, Faye, has been answering the phone and lying like Pinnochio, telling my clients that I am in a very important bidness meeting and will be getting back to them soon.

            God bless Faye for covering for me!  I really need her.  I am looking and acting more and more like Mr. Tudball everyday.