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Part of Factory By Lois Kerr
All departments in any organization need clerical support to function, and Sidney's Holly Sugar is no exception. The ag department, accounting department and warehouse and shipping department all have their own internal clerical support to handle departmental needs. However, the remainder of the departments at the plant share a clerical staff of two ladies, Sharon Nelson and Jan Getchell. These two ladies handle the necessary clerical requirements of several different departments. Sharon Nelson, officially the District Manager's secretary, not only handles the clerical requirements of the district manager, but also handles correspondence for the operations department, the maintenance department and personnel department. Sharon handles correspondence, works on budgeting and keeps track of charges to the account numbers. She also proofreads purchase orders, maintains budgeting and purchase records, enters requisitions for new supplies, and answers the telephone for the operations and maintenance departments. Sharon began working for Holly Sugar in 1991. She has seen many changes in those nine years, not only with office procedures but also in office personnel. She has worked for five different district managers in that time period, each of whom created a different working environment. She also has gone from using a typewriter for her correspondence to a personal computer and printer. When Sharon began her duties in 1991, she spent about half her day typing letters, reports and postings. She spent the remaining half day on the Mainframe computer, entering requisitions for new items in the factory and working on the budgeting. The Mainframe computer linked her directly to corporate headquarters in Sugar Land, TX. In nine short years, the typewriter disappeared, as did the Mainframe computer. Sharon now spends nearly all her time on her personal computer, working on the new and different duties that evolved with a completely new company computer program. "Holly Sugar put in a new program about a year and a half ago," Sharon explains. "Duties have changed with this new program. I spend a lot of time entering new items into our new software's catalogue, still do some requisitioning and maintain records for purchasing and budgeting." Sharon also continues to handle correspondence concerning a wide variety of topics, such as state DEQ payments and company travel plans. Surprisingly, Sharon finds the new software does not save any time. "There are too many people on the system," she says. Even with the increased use of electronic mail, Sharon sees no change in the amount of paper she handles. "I handle as much paper now as I did nine years ago," she laughs. Sharon enjoys her work at Holly, and feels every day offers a new challenge. "I seldom have the same routine," she says. "I always have new things to do and different projects to work on. I really enjoy the job, and I like the challenge and the variety that I face every day." Jan Getchell, the other lady on the clerical support team for the upstairs offices, works mainly for technical services and maintenance. She has many responsibilities, including compiling a five-page daily, put out every day during campaign, which assembles all the daily technical services data numbers into one record. This collection of data numbers gives management a daily overview of what's happening with sugar production in the factory. Jan has been at Holly Sugar for 19 years. She started out as a ticket clerk, working during harvest, and spent 13 years at that job. Six years ago, she accepted a promotion, which is the job she holds today as clerical support. She works with a data collection system, and culls data from all reports throughout the factory into a coherent form, which keeps management abreast of factory production. "At one time, everything was calculated by hand," Jan remarks. "Now it is entered into the computer." She also looks after the lab sugar samples and specific sugar analyses. "I check to make sure each sugar sample passes the specifics required by each customer," she says. "I also make certain each customer receives their copy of the specific analysis form." Jan can fax over the modem between 20 and 40 specific analysis forms per day, depending on how much sugar the plant ships out by rail or by truck that day. "At one time, we'd send out handwritten certificates, and usually not more than five or so per day," Jan says. "Now we have fax machines, and send out 20 to 40 certificates per day." Jan's work doesn't end with campaign's end. Technical services requires year-end logs as well as set-ups for the following year. She also works for the maintenance department, by assisting and training with a computerized preventative maintenance program. This program will allow maintenance to cut down on emergency repair, as it keeps a history of the machine parts requiring work, as well as the parts and tools needed for the repair. "We're putting the inventory system on computer, plus listing all spare parts," Jan explains. "We have three storerooms, and we want to have the location of all parts in each storeroom logged on the computer. We should be able to know what's on hand and its history. This computer program will change inventory and the way we see it." Jan also works with storeroom inventory in receiving for the ag and warehouse departments. As well, she does the clerical work for the local buyer, which includes turning requisitions into purchase orders and ensuring prices are correct. She also works with the accounting department to assure herself that all accounts are paid. "This is a great job," she says. "The variety is great, and I have a lot of fun. I work with wonderful people." She adds, "I love working with numbers. Numbers are what I do." |
