I have never been able to explain "what I do." I came across this employment ad for a document center operator (encouraging!!), that has got to be made by some desperate operator, hoping to communicate to a clueless management that thinks the document center is overstaffed, how much he really does and how much help he really needs. At first I thought this wasn't nearly a comprehensive enough list, although I had never seen its like before. But then I got to the very last item - ah yes, those "special projects." NOW the list of my glamour duties is complete. [NOTE 3/26/11: I came across another ad that described my industry as "Legal, Printing-Publishing," which was the most brilliantly accurate and short description I ever heard, and I finally have the quick, "cocktail party" answer that I've always wanted.]
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The Document Specialist works as part of the document center and performs a variety of wordprocessing duties for the firm. He or she will utilize a variety of word processing skills to create, revise, format, repurpose and otherwise manipulate content into documents and other distributable formats for attorneys and staff at the firm. He or she will be responsible for assisting with the intake of document production work (via email, Regional Request System, walk-ins, and telephone), and maintenance of appropriate work logs in the document center.
Your responsibilities will include:
Creating, revising, formatting, and maintaining document files at an advanced level in "core applications" such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Acrobat and designated graphics programs.
Typing and/or assembling recorded or original material, documents, reports, financial/statistical data, and correspondence.
Creating templates, multiplying indexes, multiple TOCs, forms, and graphics; creates/edits equations and inserts links in various word documents.
Converting documents from one application to another and using application tools and add-ons to create and apply styles to documents.
Using specialized features within applications to create indexes, TOCs, TOAs, file labels, data files, merges, form documents, envelopes, etc.
Completing advanced-level projects in Excel and PowerPoint.
Utilizing Acrobat Professional to create searchable and non-searchable .pdfs, compress such .pdf files, create/revise forms, perform digital readbacks, extract text, apply proper security, add and subtract pages, and crop pages as needed.
Utilizing designated desktop publishing software to create banners, charts, graphs, invitations, maps, name badges, photos, etc.
Using "core utilities" such as OmniPage and DeltaView to fulfill customer needs.
Monitoring and responding to departmental mailbox and phones and processing emails received in the department mailbox according to established procedures.
Assisting with Word/Excel/PowerPoint help calls, and otherwise assist with workflow management as needed.
Preparing detailed instructions regarding work requests being distributed to incoming Document Specialists and Document Services Assistants.
Providing accurate and timely completion of assignments and inquiry responses. Ensuring CDs are valid, work product is accurate, print quality is correct, styles and doc structures are correct, verifies page numbers and footers, and verifies spell check before each project is considered complete.
Providing support to the Document Services Assistants and Document Specialists as needed.
Assisting the Document Workflow Coordinators with intake, Proofreaders with proofing for accuracy, and department management with special projects.
Ed note 12/17/10: Wow, there are even weekend jobs showing up in the want ads now! There haven't been ads for years, but now it seems I could work 2 jobs again if I wanted, like in the old days!
This was taken from another employment ad: The main responsibility is to routinely assist other specialists with technical or work-request related questions. Must have strong grasp of word processing functions. Candidates should have the desire to learn new programs at a fast pace and be able to disseminate information to the department. Must have the ability to troubleshoot, delegate and manage time. Excellent organizational skills needed. Ability to multi-task accurately and efficiently. In addition this position will need to be able to operate various software packages and peripheral equipment to record, edit, store, revise, convert and print legal correspondence, reports, pleadings, memoranda, manuscripts, statistical tables, forms and other materials utilizing clerical and computer skills. Assignments will involve complex, technically oriented documents and involve use of specialized software packages or equipment for legal specific document types, tables, mail merges, spreadsheet formulas, graphics, desk-top publishing or database.
Assisting the Document Workflow Coordinators with intake, Proofreaders with proofing for accuracy, and department management with special projects.
Ed note 12/17/10: Wow, there are even weekend jobs showing up in the want ads now! There haven't been ads for years, but now it seems I could work 2 jobs again if I wanted, like in the old days!
This was taken from another employment ad: The main responsibility is to routinely assist other specialists with technical or work-request related questions. Must have strong grasp of word processing functions. Candidates should have the desire to learn new programs at a fast pace and be able to disseminate information to the department. Must have the ability to troubleshoot, delegate and manage time. Excellent organizational skills needed. Ability to multi-task accurately and efficiently. In addition this position will need to be able to operate various software packages and peripheral equipment to record, edit, store, revise, convert and print legal correspondence, reports, pleadings, memoranda, manuscripts, statistical tables, forms and other materials utilizing clerical and computer skills. Assignments will involve complex, technically oriented documents and involve use of specialized software packages or equipment for legal specific document types, tables, mail merges, spreadsheet formulas, graphics, desk-top publishing or database.
My requests today:
After lunch I picked up the next request, dawdled for a few minutes before starting it, when -
Fifth Request: a rush reformatting blew in from the tech department, with no original attached. Lengthy series of emails trying to locate it, during the course of which I was to learn that I was getting an error message because there either had been an upgrade I was unaware of, or had not yet received but should have. Either way, after an hour of panic, and imagining the joys of going through yet another set of glitches from the latest upgrade, I was informed it was an error message we were all getting and was of no consequence. The hour wasn’t wasted entirely in panic, however. It took about that long to establish that whatever the tech department had done, it hadn’t made the document any more stable. It was not the first time a document that had exploded arrived in the document center. It is exactly nightmares like these that keep us awake at night and employed. And of course they wanted it now, because nobody expects a document to blow up while they’re talking to a client. I had misunderstood the entire situation when I gave them my first estimate of half an hour. It took me over 2 hours to put that piece of garbage back together, right up until the end of my shift, all the while fielding these requests:
First request: “can you pls convert this to a readable Word doc? Thanks” It took me almost one whole second to add the “.doc” extension and email it back, giving me high hopes for a quiet day when in came...
Second request: Cassette tape left in the in-box. My response: Your request to transcribe a cassette tape from the dark ages has been completed. Your ancient relic has been left for you in the "pick-up" box in the Document Center.
Third Request: An unbearably long email chain I had to read through, starting with: “Pls spell check (ignore "xx" which are notes to myself of things I still need to so; pls also ignore prompts to hyphenate words) and then send me (1) a clean copy (not a link) and (2) only those redline pages showing changes. Thanks!”
The next email in the chain indicates it was completed by Dallas, but it was returned to them by the user who said this: “can you please double check this? I had asked to get a pdf showing only those pages with changes and the PDFs are hundreds of pages long but dont seem to have any changes (I found one or two in 26 and thats it), and then forwarded on to us with this plea: Can you please help Mr. Warrick? We are overwhelmed and understaffed. Thank you.
My co-worker forwarded this to Mr. Warrick with: I am unclear of the status of this job. Are you still waiting for service on this request? If so, what still needs to be done?
Mr. Warrick wrote back: “Dallas did a spell check and was supposed to send me only those redline pages showing changes but sent a 100+ document that appeared to have no changes. Pls ask the person who worked on this in dallas to answer my email rather than having someone else re-do the work
Thanks!
My co-worker had responded to that with “No idea who worked on it, but, in any case, it's unlikely they'd still be there at this hour.”
Of course Mr. Warrick responded to that useless information thusly: “But they will be back later - can you pls follow up and ask them to get back to me?” which prompted aforementioned co-worker to send Dallas back this plea: “Sorry Dallas, I'm trying to get a handle on this request, in between litigation rushes. Apparently this request was worked on in Dallas yesterday, but forwarded to us for completion. It looks like it was not completed here, and I'm not sure quite where to pick up on it.
The attorney has asked me to follow-up, and try to find who worked on it last night, and have them contact Sam (the attorney) about what still needs to be done. Sorry if this is confused, but I am a bit confused about this and am just playing monkey-in-the-middle while trying to complete some other work.”
End of emails. I could not believe that was the last email of the chain. Nothing was made at all clear in any way. It took me forever to figure out that what was wanted was idiot simple, but took only a mere 4 hours of soul-killing monotony to complete.
My response: “Your second (ECIL 27) document had some kind of corruption in it. First, there was no way I could stop the spell check from switching to Spanish language midway through the check, preventing an accurate spell check. Second, it stopped 20 times per page for all the garbage words with an "&" sign in it. So I searched and replaced those garbage phrases to remove them, but when I compared the documents none of those changes appeared in the redline, although it printed a redline of over 100 pages. So, I went back and made the few changes I could remember OTHER THAN removing the "&" phrases, which resulted in just 3 pages changing. I do not believe there is a way to get a thorough and accurate spell check for that second document.
All that being said, attached are your redline reports, showing only the pages that changed. I have high hopes that this now completes your request.”
Fourth request: “Can you covert this document to a word document on pleading paper. Terry and Jen need to work on it. Thanks Craig” I was miraculously able to access this document despite the fact that we did not have the application it was in on our computers, and complete this request in an hour, just in time for lunch.
After lunch I picked up the next request, dawdled for a few minutes before starting it, when -
Fifth Request: a rush reformatting blew in from the tech department, with no original attached. Lengthy series of emails trying to locate it, during the course of which I was to learn that I was getting an error message because there either had been an upgrade I was unaware of, or had not yet received but should have. Either way, after an hour of panic, and imagining the joys of going through yet another set of glitches from the latest upgrade, I was informed it was an error message we were all getting and was of no consequence. The hour wasn’t wasted entirely in panic, however. It took about that long to establish that whatever the tech department had done, it hadn’t made the document any more stable. It was not the first time a document that had exploded arrived in the document center. It is exactly nightmares like these that keep us awake at night and employed. And of course they wanted it now, because nobody expects a document to blow up while they’re talking to a client. I had misunderstood the entire situation when I gave them my first estimate of half an hour. It took me over 2 hours to put that piece of garbage back together, right up until the end of my shift, all the while fielding these requests:
- We are working on an alert to go out to many lobbyists on Monday. The Secretary of State’s website does not include their e-mail addresses; however a good portion of them e-mail addresses may be obtained through _____'s outlook contacts. I have highlighted the lobbyists to in _____'s contacts to create the list. There are over 400 individuals. Please call with the name of the center's individual who will be working on this so our IT person can give them temporary access. Thank you.
- This file has two attachments in need of printing. I try to print and they are a bit "strange." Could I ask your assistance, please?
- Easy revision by 10 Monday morning?
- I made a lot of changes and added many new cases. Pls redo tables accordingly. thanks. pls also fix the footers. thanks
- Hi Gang, is anyone available to convert this doc for Laurie? I believe it's from a mac. Thx
- Would you please insert the following documents (forms) into the fifth version of Phoenix #3293790 so that they are correct and "functioning" within the document?
- Please check numbering again. Everything is numbered Section 1.
- Can some please take this pdf and convert it to a excel spreadsheet? I need to get this within the hour.
- Sorry but we have to manually file this document ASAP and the page numbering is all messed up. Please fix.
- Can you please run a redline against the two documents? The first is the earlier.
- For some reason, this document keeps opening and treating itself as though it has comments and/or a redline in it by shifting to the left and inserting a huge right margin. I can't see any comment or tracked change (although there were, at one time, comments in the doc). Can someone please assist?
- The attached documents is "faulty." The Section numbers (second level of the numbering scheme only) do not appear on screen, and do not print, although they do show up on the TOC. I need to send this document to the client for review. Please see what can be done to make sure that the second level section numbers appear in the document and print correctly. Please let me know the results of your efforts.
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