# Being an administrative assistant/secretary/receptionist?

Category: Jobs and Employment

## Post 1 by MDN1988 (the Zone BBS remains forever my home page) on Friday, 13-Mar-2009 2:43:54

Hi all!
I am just starting college and thinking about potential careers, mainly being an administrative assistant, secretary, or receptionist. I am totally blind and read Braille and use the computer a lot and know about different software and things like that. With that being said, I would like to know if anyone here on the zone works in this field? If so, how hard is it to work in this field if you are totally blind? Was it hard to get the job? What education and/or experience did you have to get in order to start work in this field?
Thanks,
Misty

## Post 2 by Blue Velvet (I've got the platinum golden silver bronze poster award.) on Friday, 13-Mar-2009 15:50:37

I worked as a word processor for a rehab agency until recently. This basically involved typing reports using MS Word. The reports were on tape. I also filled in for the receptionist a lot, and she was also totally blind. However, being that it was a rehab center, they may have been more willing to hire blind people than companies not used to dealing with blind people. As far as education, the receptionist there had only a high school education. I had some college and word processor training and excellent typing skills.
Being an administrative assistant might be a lot more difficult for a blind person. There is a lot of paperwork and things that do not involve using a computer. You may have to do filing, keep track of time off and insurance for other employees if they don't have a regular human resource department for that sort of thing.
Hope this helps somewhat.

## Post 3 by MDN1988 (the Zone BBS remains forever my home page) on Friday, 13-Mar-2009 23:14:28

Thanks. I was thinking about taking classes at the local community college, because they have classes for being an office assistant or administrative assistant. Some of the classes seem to deal with graphics and presentation software. Has anyone here ever taken similar classes or ever gotten certificates or anything like that?
Misty

## Post 4 by blw1978 (I'll have the last word, thank you!) on Saturday, 21-Mar-2009 18:37:52

Hi, I haven't taken any office administration classes. I did work for a semester at my college's department for students with special needs. I didn't do much filing, but I did do a lot of scheduling tests. Unfortunately, the office wasn't equipped with a computer at the front desk, so I had to type test schedules by hand (which totally sucked). I think another poster is right when they stated that a lot of office work is going to involve a lot of paperwork, and generally not the kind that is accessible by computer. Also, while this work is fine, you might want to considder something more intellectually challenging. Would you be satisfied doing monotonous work each day? Have you thought seriously about how you would do things like filing or reading or filling out written work? Perhaps there are solutions to these problems, but I'm not sure what they'd be. Even if you labeled each file in braille, you still might need to access printed materials, some of which may be handwritten, and therefore, not scannable. If you think of ways to solve any of these problems, please post them, as I'm always looking for creative ways to improve things at work. HTH.

## Post 5 by MDN1988 (the Zone BBS remains forever my home page) on Wednesday, 25-Mar-2009 0:27:39

I guess as far as handwritten materials, I could always get a reader, and whatever is scannable can be scanned and read. Also, if the employer allows it, as you are filing the paperwork you could put a label on it in Braille so you can easily pull up that file if needed, such as putting the person's last name or whatever the paper would happen to be about, like on a sticky note or something on the page.

## Post 6 by redgirl34 (Scottish) on Wednesday, 25-Mar-2009 9:57:50

I did Business Studdies at college. I also tried doing he ECDL course which is European Computing Driving Licance. It is hard. I didn't get it all. There is 7 modguells I only got 1 or 2. Wordprocessing. When I di business studdies it wasn't easy either, especially tings like Filing, Spread sheets and Database. I have got some job tasters coming up in April as a reseptionist well answering the phone anyway.