I first started working in the administrative field when I was 20 years old. My first admin job was working as a secretary at the county juvenile probation department. My was that an awkward feeling. Awkward because I was the only male in a secretarial pool of seven people and the rest were females. Imagine all of the strange looks from the juvenile probation officers that passed through the admin section and visitors who came into the lobby while I provided receptionist relief.

The Chief Juvenile Probation Officer and the Juvenile Court Judge thought that I was from the Information Systems Department. I asked myself, "What have I gotten myself into?" I just knew that I had chosen the wrong field to get into. As time progressed, my face became more familiar around the facility and the staff began to start using my government name instead of "admin guy."

I learned a lot in the two years that I worked at the facility. The most important lessons that I learned were:

1) Nothing can function without the admin department.
2) You don't make enemies with the admin department.
3) When in doubt remember lesson number one always prevails.

What a way to get my feet wet! I took my "almighty" knowledge with me to the United States Navy to build on the foundation that was laid at the juvenile probation department. After basic training during the winter in Great Lakes, Illinois and a long training layover in Pensacola, I got my orders to the Naval Technical Training Center in Meridian, Mississippi. I never heard of Meridian until I saw the destination on my orders.

It was time to hop on an airplane from Pensacola Regional Airport to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport where I was ready to get on board a big jet to Meridian. Or so I thought.....thought wrong. I'm now on an Atlantic Southeast Airlines EMB-120 Turboprop really second-guessing myself at this point as we pass 28,000 feet (I didn't know those things flew that high). The pilot announces that we are on final approach to Key Field and I'm looking out of the window like, "Where is it?" We landed right after a US Air Force C-141 transport plane and I'm like, "You can't be serious!" I walk from the plane to the terminal and out to the taxi stand and ask the driver where the base is located. He told me that it was 20 miles from the airport and I nearly had a stroke.

I finally arrived at the base and checked in late that night only to be cordially awakened at 4:30 a.m. by the ASDO (Assistant Squadron Duty Officer) banging on the barracks door to get downstairs into formation for PT right now. I finished that task, ate breakfast, and reported to my first day of class to learn administrative assisting the Navy way. One of my civilian instructors, Ms. Williams, was a tough as nails African-American lady who let us know in so many words that anything that we learned in the "outside world" was of very little value to us in her classroom.

The first lesson learned was that nothing gets done in the Navy without the yeoman. Hmmm, that sounds like something that I've heard before but I guess it was my imagination. The second lesson learned was that nobody in the Navy wants to get on admin's bad side. Darn, I think I heard of that one too. Third lesson learned was that the admin assistant doesn't need to know everything, but does need to know how to find the information that he/she doesn't know. The fourth and final lesson is that when things go wrong admin is going to shoulder the blame. I said to myself, "Wow! Now we're getting somewhere. I'm not required to know everything and because I don't I get the blame. How cool is that?"

After going through eight of the most demanding and grueling weeks of my life covering every conceivable aspect of naval office administration they could throw at us, it was finally over. It was time for our final exam. I'd done very well in the course and missed a total of two questions combined on all of the tests and quizzes. Three of us were running down to the wire on our GPA for the course and this was the monster of all monsters that would make or break us. Ms. Williams and our other instructor Mr. Kerr graded the exams as everyone was getting anxious to know how they fared. They began whispering and rechecking one exam several times.

They called everyone back into the room from the lounge and made an announcement. Ms. Williams said, "I've been teaching this course for over 20 years and this is the second time in this school's history that a student aced the final exam with a 100% score." The score belonged to me. It pushed my final GPA to 99.18% which was (and still to this day) is the second highest GPA in school history behind the highest score which was a 99.21%. It came with an automatic promotion, choice of duty station, a letter of commendation, and a wonderful engraving inside of the Chief Petty Officer's Hall of Fame.

The attitude that was forged in that small town in Mississippi has carried me all the way to the person I am today. I learned to stay true to the values of a profession that oftentimes is thankless and unnoticed. A value that regardless of what anyone says, is to remember rule number one, "Nothing can get done without the admin assistant."