The secretary is dead. Technology and flat corporate structures have consigned the job to the corner office waste bin. In the future, personal assistants will be constructed from microprocessors and remote controlled. We are halfway there, after all. Want to dial your sales director? Ask Siri. Still determined to retain secretarial services? Then hire a virtual assistant, based in Mumbai or Brooklyn, by the hour.
秘书这份职业已死。科技和公司结构扁平化已将这份职业打发到了办公室角落里的垃圾桶里。将来，个人助理将用微处理器制成，并能够远程控制。毕竟，这样的前景已实现了一半。想给你的销售主管打电话？用Siri就可以啦。仍然决定保留秘书服务？那就按小时付费招一个在孟买或布鲁克林工作的虚拟助理吧。

The secretarial role crystallises fears over creeping automation of white-collar jobs. Once a concern solely for factory workers, today robots are marching into offices. Drawing on ONS data, Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne of the University of Oxford found that 33,000 secretarial roles had disappeared between 2001 and 2013, a drop of 44 per cent. That was just in London. In the UK as a whole it was a 47 per cent decline, or 163,000 job losses. Much of this can be attributed to the downturn, when employers reduced headcount and required secretaries to work for multiple executives. Research by the Roosevelt Institute, a US non-profit body, found that private sector job losses during the recession particularly hit female support staff whose work was distributed among others.
秘书职位具体体现了人们对于白领工作逐步自动化的担忧。曾经只是让工厂里的工人担忧的机器人，如今正大步流星走进办公室。根据英国统计局(ONS)的数据，牛津大学(University of Oxford)的卡尔•贝内迪克特•弗雷(Carl Benedikt Frey)和迈克尔•奥斯本(Michael Osborne)发现，2001年至2013年，有3.3万个秘书岗位消失，数量减少了44%。这还只是在伦敦。在整个英国，秘书岗位减少了47%，也就是减少了16.3万个岗位。这很大程度上可归咎于经济低迷时期雇主裁员、并要求秘书同时为多个高管工作。美国非盈利机构罗斯福研究所(Roosevelt Institute)的研究发现，在此次经济萧条期间，私营部门工作流失对于支持性岗位的女性员工打击尤为严重，使她们的工作被其他人分担。
Despite the economic gloom lifting, automation remains a threat to the secretarial profession. “Secretaries are an occupation where the increasing ability of sophisticated algorithms to substitute for cognitive labour is already being felt,” says Mr Osborne.
尽管经济悲观情绪正在散去，但自动化仍威胁着秘书职业。奥斯本表示：“复杂算法取代认知劳动力的能力正在增强，秘书职业对这一点已有所感受。”
This could not be more different from the scenario described in 1961 in US trade magazine Today’s Secretary. The “electronic computer” would allow the future secretary to start work at noon and take month-long holidays. Contrary to the bleak predictions by the Oxford university researchers, this article suggested that secretaries would remain much sought-after.
这与美国行业杂志《当代秘书》(Today’s Secretary)在1961年描述的场景相差简直十万八千里。当年那篇文章称，将来“电子计算机”将让秘书们得以从中午开始工作，并享受长达一个月的假期。与牛津大学研究员做出的悲观预测相反，那篇文章当时认为，秘书职位未来仍会非常吃香。
The truth lies somewhere between dystopia and utopia, believes Lynn Peril, a secretary in California and author of Swimming in the Steno Pool: A Retro Guide to Making It in the Office. “It is a profession in decline. In the old sense, yes. But it also offers greater opportunities today.”
生活在加州的秘书、《从速记室中脱颖而出：经典职场成功指南》(Swimming in the Steno Pool: A Retro Guide to Making It in the Office)一书的作者林恩•佩里尔(Lynn Peril)认为，真相既不乐观，也不悲观。“这一职业正在衰落。从过去的观点来看，确实如此。但如今它也提供了更大的机遇。”
One hard-to-replace characteristic of the job is that it gives executives trophy status. As busy-ness is a badge of honour, so too are secretaries.
这份职业难以替代的地方之一在于，它让高管有一种胜利者的感觉。忙碌是荣誉的标志，拥有秘书也是。
The secretary’s relationship with technology has not always been vexatious, Ms Peril points out. After all, the typewriter was largely responsible for bringing unprecedented numbers of women into the office from the late 1880s. From the 1970s, early word- processing systems began to make real inroads into what had traditionally been the heart of secretarial work: dictation and typing. “That was a good thing, as it allowed secretarial work to evolve into more varied, managerial tasks, even though it meant less secretaries hired as it also destroyed the one boss, one secretary ratio,” observes Ms Peril.
佩里尔指出，秘书工作与科技的关系并非总是让人苦恼。毕竟，之所以从1880年代末开始有空前数量的女性走进办公室，很大程度上要归功于打字机。从上世纪70年代开始，早期的文字处理系统开始真正入侵秘书工作传统上的核心领域：听写和打字。佩里尔认为：“那是件好事，因为它让秘书工作进化为一种更多样的管理工作——尽管那意味着聘用数量减少，因为它也破坏了一个老板配一个秘书的模式。”
But like her, many believe there will always be demand for secretarial jobs. “It makes sense for the higher echelons of management to have someone act as a gatekeeper as well as to take care of complex but time-consuming tasks, freeing the boss up,” she says.
但与她一样，很多人认为，秘书工作一直会有需求。她表示：“较高管理层会聘用某人担任‘看门人’，并处理复杂但耗时的任务，给老板们腾出时间，这是合理之举。”
Titles mean different things in different offices. Executive assistants may be differentiated from PAs to denote the fact they are called upon to stand in for their boss in meetings. According to the US’s International Association of Administrative Professionals, formerly the National Secretaries Association, college degrees are necessary for high-level assistants.
头衔在不同的办公室有着不同的意义。高管助理可能不同于个人助理，他们会根据要求代替老板参加会议。前身为美国国家秘书协会(National Secretaries Association)的美国行政管理职业协会（International Association of Administrative Professionals，简称IAAP）表示，具备大学文凭是担任高级助理的必要条件。
Victoria Rabin, founder of Executive Assistants Organisation, says technology has made the assistant’s gatekeeping role more important in guarding against the deluge of requests by email. At the very top, an assistant in the US can command $250,000 plus bonus, she says. (The average salary is $50,000 to $54,999, according to the IAAP).
行政助理组织(Executive Assistants Organisation)的创始人维多利亚•雷宾(Victoria Rabin)称，科技使得助理的“看门人”角色更重要了，无数请求通过电子邮件向高管涌来，他们需要助理对这些邮件进行初步过滤。她称，在美国，最高级的助理可以拿到25万美元的年薪，另外还有奖金。（根据IAAP的数据，秘书和助理类职位的平均年薪为50000至54999美元。）
The top tier “do what it takes to be indispensable”, she says. This requires resilience, communication skills and sacrifice. “You can’t take anything personally — sometimes it’s like being a babysitter.”
她称，顶级助理“做的是让其不可或缺的工作”。这要求抗压能力、沟通技巧以及奉献精神。“任何事你都不能往心里去——有时候这份工作就像是照顾幼儿。”
Steve Hallam, managing director for secretarial and business support at PageGroup, the recruiter, says diary management is one of the most important roles. “If a CEO isn’t on a plane it can affect the bottom line.”
招聘机构PageGroup的秘书与商务支持总经理史蒂夫•哈勒姆(Steve Hallam)称，日程管理是最为重要的角色之一。“如果一名首席执行官(CEO)没能登上一架飞机，就可能影响到利润。”
Sara Everett has been a PA for private equity veteran Jon Moulton for 30 years. He has another PA dealing solely with his Better Capital business. Ms Everett says she has known Mr Moulton so long that she knows how he thinks. “My job grows all the time. I can’t ever see it will be less work.”
萨拉•埃弗里特(Sara Everett)已经为私人股本界老将乔恩•莫尔顿(Jon Moulton)当了30年的私人助理。莫尔顿还另有一名私人助理，专门帮他处理Better Capital业务。埃弗里特称，她认识莫尔顿太久了，以至于她连他在想什么都知道。“我的工作一直在增加。我永远无法想象工作会减少。”
Laura Schwartz, a professional speaker who worked for the Clinton administration for eight years, started her career as an assistant, answering phones. She believes that “PAs have been empowered due to cuts” because the job is more creative and less repetitive. However, she warns that one of the pitfalls of the “PA field” is that some assistants start speaking as if they are their boss, which in her case would have been the president.
劳拉•施瓦茨(Laura Schwartz)是一名职业发言人，曾为克林顿政府工作了8年。她的职业生涯从一名接电话的助理开始。她相信，“人员裁减使得私人助理更有力量了”，因为这份工作变得更具创造力、而不那么单调重复了。然而，她警告称，“私人助理这一行”的易犯错误之一是，有些助理的说话方式会变得仿佛他们就是老板一样（以她的情况，可能就是像总统了）。
Zelda La Grange, personal assistant to the late Nelson Mandela for 19 years, says people underestimate the gatekeeper. “It’s a unique job. It’s a job of serving. I had to learn it’s not a popularity contest.” The relationship for her was transformative. “Growing up in years of apartheid makes you a racist. It was through working for him I realised I’d had a very one-sided view of history.”
曾为已故的纳尔逊•曼德拉(Nelson Mandela)当了19年私人助理的赛尔达•拉格兰赫(Zelda La Grange)称，人们瞧不起“看门人”。“这是一份独特的工作，是服务性工作。我曾不得不教会自己，这不是一场声望竞赛。”这段经历改变了她。“在多年的种族隔离政策中长大会让你成为一名种族主义者。正是通过为他工作，我意识到自己过去对历史的看法非常片面。”
The profession remains largely female: 97 per cent of the IAAP’s 15,000 members, for example, are women.
从事这份职业的大部分仍然是女性：例如，IAAP拥有的1.5万名会员中，97%是女性。
The personal relationship can cause problems, however. One PA, who worked in London for more than 10 years, says working for CEOs can be difficult: “It’s always their way or the highway.” One employer was “inappropriate and hands-on”. When no one was in the office, he would make his move.
然而，助理与雇主的密切接触可能会带来麻烦。一名曾在伦敦工作10余年的私人助理称，为CEO们工作可能会很困难：“总是要么听他们的，要么滚蛋。”另一名雇主则“行为不当和动手动脚”。当办公室里没有别人时，他就会随心所欲。
More than the sexual harassment, it was the frustration that wore her down. “He’d put me down. He stopped saying thank you.” He would also wait until everyone was sitting down in a meeting before asking her to make him a cup of tea, which she felt was designed to keep her in her place.
比性骚扰更让她感到心力交瘁的是一种挫败感。“他总是让我出丑，也不再说‘谢谢’。”开会时，他还会等待所有人都坐下后，让她去给他倒杯茶，她认为这么做是为了让她恪守本分。
Finally, she left. Ultimately, it was the personality of the person she worked for that ended her secretarial career. “He was the last straw,” she notes.
最后，她离职了。最终，是她曾经效力的那个人的个性，终结了她的秘书生涯。“他是最后一根稻草，”她表示。