Leah Warwick: Hi, everyone. I’m Leah Warwick, and you’re listening to The Admin Edge. This episode was recorded at the Administrative Professionals Conference 2025, in Seattle, with host Debra Coleman, Founder of The Seat Upstairs, and guest  Sandy Geroux, Founder and CEO of WOWplace International, LLC, and a trainer at this event. Now, let’s hear from Sandy and Deb on the show floor at APC, talking about how to deal with disrespect and advance your career while you’re at it. Deb speaks first.

00:00:43

Debra Coleman: Well, let’s get into it, shall we? Okay, so dealing with disrespect at work is tough, as you know, absolutely, especially when it comes from colleagues or even, sadly, our own executive that we support or team members that we collaborate with. What’s your go-to strategy, Sandy, for addressing it, maybe without damaging that relationship?

Sandy Geroux: Well, that’s a great question because, when you are working with someone, you don’t want to damage that relationship. And when that disrespect comes, my go-to strategy really is to just address is subtly. I don’t go charging in with “they’ve disrespected me and I’m going to put them in their place.” No.

I start asking questions, like, “Did you mean that the way that came out?” Use a little sense of humor because sometimes they don’t even realize how disrespectful what they just said or did is. So, they may be clueless and if you come charging out, accusing, it might make the situation worse.

00:01:47

So, I start asking questions. For example, if someone tries to minimize what I do with a comment such as, “Well, you know, anybody can do that. That’s easy.” Again, my go-to strategy is to be subtle and be humorous. So I would just come back with, “Wow, I’m so glad that all my hard work at making that look really easy has paid off,” because, really, isn’t that what our jobs are, to make it look easy? It’s like the ice skater who spends 10, 15, 20 years perfecting those moves, jumping and flipping and twirling in the air, and they make it look so easy. But nobody sees the hard work that went into making it that seamless, and our jobs are to make it that seamless

The double-edged sword for us is we need to make it seamless, but then sometimes people don’t recognize how difficult it really is, because we made it look that easy. So, while you’re in that situation, use your sense of humor, “Wow, I’m really glad I made that look that easy.” And then, though, make a note to yourself that, at your next performance review, especially if that came from your leader who doesn’t realize all you’ve done. That’s your opportunity to tell ’em all the practice, all the preparation, all of the studying that went into everything that you do every day, so they can recognize, “Oh, it’s not as easy as it looks.”

00:03:16

Debra Coleman: Love that. That is great advice. And I really like that you pointed out that it doesn’t always come from place of malintent. It’s honestly just ’cause they’re just not aware of how they’re coming across, so I’m glad you pointed that out.

Sandy Geroux: Yes. I just say, “Always assume positive intent and go from there.” If it’s not, you’ll have an opportunity to say something, but assume it is.

Debra Coleman: And I like that you said to present that at the performance review. That’s like the perfect time to sort of readdress it. Perfect.

Sandy Geroux: Exactly.

Debra Coleman: Good advice. Thank you, Sandy. Well, onto our next question: In your training, with over—yes, folks, between 40 and 50—40,000 and 50,000—excuse me—administrative professionals.

Sandy Geroux: 40 to 50? Yeah, that’s good.

00:04:03

Debra Coleman: Let’s just say, over 50,000 administrative professionals—I’m just going to go there; she’s that fabulous—across 41 countries, you’ve likely seen admins struggle with being undervalued and dismissed. I’m sure you’ve seen it, been unfortunately a witness to it, right?

Sandy Geroux: Yes.

Debra Coleman: How can administrative professionals show their value in a way that naturally, just naturally commands respect from people who, again, may not understand the complexity of our role? So, now, okay, we’ve addressed the negativity, so how can we maybe be proactive in preventing that in the future?

Sandy Geroux: And you’re right. I have seen that a lot, unfortunately. But one of the things I talk about, one of my flagship programs, is how to be invaluable versus what I call “merely indispensable.” The job is indispensable, the position. You are invaluable. So you have to add more value as you go along so that they start recognizing the added value you bring to the table.

00:05:00

One of the executives that I interviewed several years ago was a woman. I asked her, “If you think back to the best executive assistant you’ve either ever had or ever known, what did they do to make them the best?” One of the things she said to me was fabulous. She said, “I want them to have the Radar O’Reilly factor.” Now, I don’t know if you know the Radar O’Reilly factor. Oh, my goodness, all right.

Debra Coleman: I don’t.

Sandy Geroux: So, there’s an old show—I’m dating myself—called M*A*S*H.

Debra Coleman: I know M*A*S*H.

Sandy Geroux: Okay, so Radar O’Reilly was the company clerk, and they called him Radar because he seemed to know, before it happened, everything that was going to happen. He would sit there and say, “Choppers!” the helicopters, because this was a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Korea. That’s what MASH stands for.

00:05:51

He would say that and everybody would say, “There’s no choppers.” And then a few seconds later, everybody would hear ’em. But he heard them first. Did he really have ESP? No. What Radar had was two things that he did. He paid exceptional attention to his surrounding, so he could tell the thump-thump-thumb. It changed the air. It changed the sound. Because he knew his environment so well, he could tell when there were small things going on that nobody else would notice. But he did.

The other thing he did was she was so exceptionally good and knowledgeable and competent at his job that if someone—he would listen. He’d be right outside his colonel’s door, and if he would hear the colonel say, “Oh, we need to transfer them to a different unit,” Radar knew his job so well he’d have all the forms. He’d know what was needed, and he’s grab ’em all and he’d be walking into the colonel’s office as the colonel’s saying, “Radar, could you go and get me our 675 Stroke R Form?”

00:06:52

But, see, he knew his job that well, and that’s what we need to do. We need to know. One of the things that woman said was, there were multiple times during the day when I’ll ask my assistant—or I would’ve asked that assistant for something—and she’d say, “Already done. Already taken care of.”

Think about: What does it mean to be indispensable. Well, the mark of a good, indispensable assistant is to accomplish what’s asked of you, but the mark of a great, invaluable assistant is to accomplish what hasn’t even been requested yet because you know it’s coming, and you do it ahead of time. Think of how you can add more value. They will recognize that. And that’s how you do it naturally, without having to say, “Hey, I’m really good.” They’ll see that you’re really good.

Debra Coleman: Oh, I love that. That is excellent advice. And, yes, Radar absolutely. Yes, M*A*S*H, I hear you on that. But you’re right. I think, for me, one of best compliments I ever got was from a director who said—I followed up with her once and I said, “You know, I don’t ever circle back with you when you send me something to let you know it’s been completed, or that I did it.” And she said, “Deb, once I punt it over to you, I don’t even think about it. I know it’s done.” So, I kind of understand where you’re coming from with that advice.

00:08:02

Sandy Geroux: That’s the absolute perfect compliment. And sometimes people say, “Well, I never get thanked.” You know what, you’ve still got your job. They’re still asking you to do things. There’s your thank you, and there’s the confidence that they know you’re going to do it. You may not hear it.

Debra Coleman: Excellent. I love that. Thank you for that excellent answer. For any administrative professional who might be listening right now and saying, “Deb and Sandy, I hear you, but this happens to me all the time, and I just can’t seem to process my way through it, or find a solution.” What would you say? What is something that they can actually execute and do as soon as they leave our wonderful conference and do Monday? Is there something tangible that they can do or maybe mindset? I’m not sure what, but is there something they can do in the moment?

00:08:47

Sandy Geroux: I think it’s both a mindset and an action. The thing is that I always want people to look for opportunities to show their hidden and underutilized talents. You do certain things every day, but you, by no means—if you’re an excellent, accomplished assistant, by no means are you using every single talent that you have every day. In fact, many of them, nobody even knows about because it’s not part of your regular job. So, I say, look for opportunities to show your hidden talents. For example, back in the late ’70s, early ’80s, when I was the secretary at that time to the senior vice president of MIS, which is now called IT, we didn’t have word processing. We didn’t have LCD projectors. In fact, the new, big technology of the day was IBM’s Selectric typewriter. But, word processing and all of that was starting to come in. And because my boss was the senior vice president of MIS, when it came across his desk, it also came across mine.

00:09:55

I was fascinated by it, so one day I just blurted out, “Mike, I like all of this technology stuff.” I never knew where it would go, or if it would go anywhere, but I just said it because I had an interest in it. Well, he said to me a couple of weeks later or so, “This new word processing package called IBM’s EasyWriter came across our desk. He said to me, “Sandy, you like all this computer stuff. See if you can get it to work, and let me know what you think of it.” So I did. I played with it. I didn’t like it very much. So I typed a report on my IBM Selectric typewriter that said, “Here’s a little, tiny list of what I do like, and here’s a big, long list of what I don’t like.” And I gave it to Mike.

Not two weeks later, I swear, here he comes. Here comes a PC Magazine with a review of IBM’s EasyWriter, and the headline of the review was “IBM’s Not-So-Easy Writer,” and it said all of the same things I’d just put in my report to Mike.

Debra Coleman: What?

00:10:56

Sandy Geroux: Mike looks at the report, he looks at the review, and he says, “Jean, the guy who’s heading up the corporate-wide effort to bring word processing into the entire company, [said], ‘Get her on this project on the word-processing side.’”

Debra Coleman: Oh, my gosh.

Sandy Geroux: I know. I was like, “Oh, my gosh.” This got me out of the office for months, and I was doing varied and interesting work that I knew was benefitting the company. So, I just say, if you have an interest, if you have a talent that nobody can see, open your mouth and tell somebody. You never know what project might be in the works that they could use your talents for, which will help them and benefit you. I got faster raises, promotions, recognition, everything, because I got on that one project.

Debra Coleman: And, right away, I’m sure that separated you from the pack, so to speak. That puts a little different skew on Sandra the administrative support professional.

Sandy Geroux: Absolutely, because I got onto other research projects, technology things. I never knew I had an aptitude for technology until I said that, and it helped me, too.

Debra Coleman: Inspirational. Love that. Might I suggest we can get an IBM Selectric for this table?

00:12:02

Sandy Geroux: Oh, I love it. Oh, I would love it. I would love it. [laughter] We’ll demonstrate it in action.

Debra Coleman: Right. [laughter] Well, Sandy, this has been an absolute joy, and I think that we actually have time for the listener question that we have, if you’re up for it?

Sandy Geroux: Yes, I have a quick answer for you, I’m sure.

Debra Coleman: All right, let’s get to it. The listener asks: How do you quantify the value of all the intangible qualities that an EA has, besides just task management?

Sandy Geroux: I think that all of the intangible things—it’s really a matter of what I just said about using your talents. So what I tell people is, “You know what? Think of the benefits that you don’t always think of. One example comes to mind, and that is one woman told me that she was doing a report. It was actually three reports every week. And she didn’t think anybody was reading them, so she asked her VP, “Can I stop doing…I’ll do them, but let’s just do a test. I’ll do them. I won’t send ’em out. But if anybody misses ’em, then I can send it. Let’s see if anybody misses these.”

00:13:05

So, the VP said, “Yeah, fine.” First week, one report was missed. The other two were not. They did that for a month, every week for a month, and the other two reports were never even missed. They had been used so long ago nobody even knew what they were for anymore. So, how do you get the tangible benefits of that? You find out how many people are involved in creating that report, take the average salary per hour of that, multiply it by every single week, and that’s the amount of dollars of productivity you have saved that you can dedicate to something else.

Start looking at those types of things where you save time, you help people with morale, you do something that prevents them from having to add another job, so you’re saving salary and benefits and training time. Think of it in terms of how you contribute to that, rather than, okay, I made another sale, or something like that.

00:14:00

Debra Coleman: Perfect. Oh, this has been an amazing—empowering, actually—conversation.

Sandy Geroux: Thank you.

Debra Coleman: You really brought home some points that I think it really behooves all of us to try and remember as we go about our day, and it’s tangible that we can take back with us. It’s really nice and cozy here at conference, but the real test comes when we get back next week.

Sandy Geroux: Yes, and then you have to handle those things yourself.

Debra Coleman: Exactly. Well, if those listening want more of Ms. Sandy, where can we find you out there on the interwebs?

Sandy Geroux: Well, I am on Facebook. I’m on LinkedIn. I’m on YouTube. I have several things on all of those. I have some reels on Instagram. And my website as well. It’s called thewowplace.com. Some  people, when I say the WOWplace, they say, “The Wild Place?” No! Not that kind of place! [laughter] It’s the WOWplace. So, thewowplace.com, and I have a page just for administrative professionals, so you can find me there.

00:14:51

And my email, just—hey, now that I’m here, you’re all my peeps, so contact me any time by email.

Debra Coleman: Oh, you heard it here first. Now you’re inbox is going to get flooded, honestly. [laughter] Well, thank you, Sandy. This has been such a joy.

Sandy Geroux: You’re welcome. Thank you. It’s been fun for me, too.

[music playing]

Leah Warwick: Thank you for listening to The Admin Edge, produced by the American Society of Administrative Professionals, original music and audio editing by Warwick Productions, with audio and video production by 5Tool Productions. If you liked this podcast, please leave us a nice review, five stars, and subscribe. If you’d like to submit a listener question, you may do so on our website at ASAPorg.com/podcast.