The Gift Exchange

I’m a trivia freak and have always had a fascination with the origins of things. When I began looking for gifts to recommend for the upcoming Administrative Professionals’ Week during the week of April 21st, it got me thinking. Who came up with this holiday in the first place? Surely it must have been the brainchild of some unappreciated secretary from days of yore.

Well, according to an article I found on Wikipedia, “National Secretaries Week was created in 1952 through the work of Harry F. Klemfuss of Young & Rubicam. His goal was to encourage more people to consider careers in the secretarial/administrative support field. Using his skill and experience in public relations, he promoted the values and importance of the job of administrative assistants. In doing so, he also created the holiday in recognition of the importance of administrative assistants. The name was changed to Professional Secretaries Week in 1981, and became Administrative Professionals Week in 2000 to encompass the expanding responsibilities and wide-ranging job titles of administrative support staff.” The article goes on to say that it is celebrated in the United States by “giving one’s assistant flowers, candy, small gifts, lunch at a restaurant, and time off.”

Wow. An unofficial holiday created by a gentleman who recognized all of the work that the “secretary” did. Any day that is devoted to passing out candy, flowers and free lunch or time off is fine by me!

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.