Diary of a Secretary: `Smart-casual' in a Grateful Dead T-shirt

STILL WEARING a black or navy suit day after day? If so, you're becoming a minority; British firms - including the most formal ones - are finally succumbing to a more casual image. Even the poshest of banks - Coutts - has thrown caution to the wind, allowing bankers to have facial hair (well, the men anyway) and not insisting on frock coats. "The days of the LA Law look are being replaced by the `smart casual' look," says Judi James, author of Bodytalk and adviser to the Industrial Society. But people are confused as to what "smart casual" means. "I recently trained a man who truly thought it meant being both at once. So he wore a formal waistcoat and trousers with a Grateful Dead T-shirt," says James.

NOW THE low-down on the real meaning of classic business phrases. A new booklet from Avery, May I make a suggestion? says it really means "Do this or you're up to your neck in trouble"; "We've done a lot of analysis" is "The invoice is bigger than you expected"; "We'll need to visit the manufacturer" equals "We know you have a factory in Florida", but "We won't need to visit..." is "We know you have a factory in Swindon".

ACCORDING TO Addecco's 1999 secretarial and clerical survey, PAs continue to rule the roost, commanding the highest salaries in secretarial positions - an average of pounds 15,653 - just below senior accounts clerks but just above office managers. The poor office junior is still the lowest of low in the salary stakes with an average of pounds 9,438 - a slight increase over last year, but not in line with inflation - while telephonists' pay dropped by 3.6 per cent. If you want to pass the blame, look no further than e- mail and voice mail.

IF YOUR manager thinks he or she is the most important person in the office, give yourself a pat on the back. In a recent survey, 98 per cent of executives polled believed that admin assistants played a vital role in increasing the efficiency of managers they supported. "Managers need to acknowledge the efforts of their secretaries by offering competitive salaries and giving them challenging tasks that encourage continuous learning," concludes Mark Ingram, of the specialist administrative recruitment consultants OfficeTeam. "The contributions made by office support professionals should be clearly recognised." Wise advice indeed!

THE LATEST no-no in the world of the secretary is - red ink. According to Office Secretary magazine, it is considered bad manners; and, in any case, it's the colour of overdrafts. "It was very difficult to photocopy red ink when checking a cheque fraud," suggests one reader. "Red ink tends to fade and in olden times, in gaslight, red ink was difficult to see in banks," claims another. The way forward is apparently green ink - except that there are even some arguments against this. "The only people in the Navy to write in green ink are the admirals," explains one reader. "And if you are in lower ranks, you may refer to the admiral as a nutter."

NEARLY A third of employers could not find a single applicant to apply for an advertised job, the Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD) claimed this month. "Employers need to be wary of placing too much importance on relevant job experience. It can stifle creativity and ignores the fact that people can have transferable skills and experience," says Angela Baron, IPD policy adviser. "In addition, some employers have to wise up about what people are looking for in a new job. Although money is important, people are put off by restrictive, old-fashioned attitudes about when and where they work." At home for, say, three hours a day, sound any good?

The Temp is on holiday