Award Entry: Best Assistant

(composed by ECR)

In her relatively short time as an Unnamed Department assistant, Flip Flop Girl has brought a level of skill and dedication that could scarcely have been anticipated upon her arrival in the spring of 2005. With a quick wit and a quicker smile, Flip Flop has consistently brightened workdays office-wide through the sheer force of her personality; but her greatest contributions have come within the Unnamed Department, where she is revered in a manner befitting her unparalleled combination of grace and talent. Flip Flop has come to be regarded as the calm in the eye of the storm that is that Unnamed Department, and her co-workers draw strength from her sound judgment and steely resolve in times of apparent crisis. Flip Flop has developed a personalized working relationship with each member of the department, ranging from strictly professional to bordering on fraternal, that allows her to demonstrate a quiet leadership rarely seen in her position. It is these unseen emotional contributions that make Flip Flop’s impact on the department so difficult to put to paper. In fact, the only hesitation that I have in submitting this nomination is that Flip Flop may be too deserving; indeed, a dozen of these awards, which Flip Flop would undoubtedly win should she unexpectedly deign to remain in her current position, would still pale in comparison to the impact she makes on each of our lives each and everyday.

Raised amongst the depressing strip malls of Any City, Pennsylvania, Flip Flop’s family yearned for their eldest daughter to escape her suburban malaise, only to see those dreams shattered by her enrollment amongst thousands of like-minded youths at Unnamed University. Nevertheless, in 2005, Flip Flop brought a unnamed degree and a precocious professionalism to the position of Unnamed Department assistant at Any Company Corporation (henceforth ACC). Flip Flop faced the unenviable task of finding her professional footing while replacing an assistant who specialized in maintaining interdepartmental communication through daily personalized communication throughout the office. Undaunted, Flip Flop immediately displayed an unmatched aptitude for professional growth, quickly developing an office-wide reputation for her scheduling acumen. As easy in phone manner as she is on the eyes, Flip Flop created a personal rapport with power players throughout the city, putting them at ease with a courteous banter that reinforced the bonds of trust upon which ACC’s business relationships are built. In addition, it became abundantly clear in a matter of days that Flip Flop’s skills far outstripped her responsibilities, and she was soon integrating into the creative process an all-purpose copy writer and editor extraordinaire, duties for which she received universal acclaim and ultimately, a promotion to a full-time New Department position. While Flip Flop will undoubtedly focus her considerable efforts on training her successor to approximate in some limited capacity her everyday duties as Unnamed Department assistant, her personal skills are, to be frank, irreplaceable. Flip Flop’s loss will no doubt reverberate through the Unnamed Department, growing progressively more pronounced as the pages of the calendar turn. Perhaps this richly deserved award will serve as recognition for at least a fraction of what she has brought into all our lives.