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Cindy Hooper's Guide for Secretaries |
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. . . A Humorous Look At Office Life |
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© 2003 - 2008 Carole Moore |
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It takes a good secretary to run an office the right way and no one knows it better than Onslow County native and former resident Cindy Hooper. Hooper can take a letter at lightening speed. She can type and file and answer the phone like the pro she is. And she knows how to make the boss look good, while avoiding the pitfalls of office politics. It's all in a day's work, according to Hooper. But unlike other secretaries, when she shoves that last file drawer shut behind her and turns out the light, she doesn't just go home and tell her spouse about her hard day at work: She puts it down on paper. Hooper, who still has family ties in the Onslow County area, recently published a compilation of some the wisdom gathered through years of secretarial experience entitled, "The Official Secretary's Guide to Sanity and Survival." It's not her first book and, she says, it won't be her last. "I believed in this book from the start – it just had be written," Hooper says. But she hasn't always been able to follow her muse – not with the constant demands of moving from pillar to post with her husband Rick, a warrant officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. At the moment the couple calls Northern California home. It's a great place to live and write, but even before she started shuffling from state to state, the Dixon High School graduate was bitten by the writing bug. "It hit me in my late teens," Hooper says of the urge to put things down on paper. She's nurtured that proclivity over the years by authoring poems, lyrics and articles. Finally, the drive to dabble in the written word combined with her frustration at being a secretary led her to author her book, honoring the profession she's honed for the past 20 or more years. But bosses beware: You probably won't find it amusing. With characters like "The Back Stabber," "The Bimbo," and "The Black Widow" – Hooper categorizes the different office types secretaries can expect to find, as well as the varying classifications of bosses. The rest of the book deals with such hot topics as the job interview and secretarial duties. But it's not meant to be taken seriously: the book is a humorous one, written with tongue planted firmly in cheek. "I didn't want to climb up on a soap box, I just wanted to make people laugh and make them think about the secretarial field," Hooper says. She's been in print before. Hooper has written several magazine articles and co-authored a book of "redneck" poetry called "Pass Them Collards, Pleeze." The poetry collection was written in collaboration with her sister, Ann, using their maiden names: The Rickett Sisters. The little book sold respectably and one poem was even set to music and used as the anthem to Ayden's annual Collard Festival. "Laughter really is the best medicine, so why not be on the administering end of it?" Hooper asks. She says she believes her creativity stems from being part of a large family. "We're an opinionated family of women: Four sisters and my mom and we're all outspoken and have a different perspective on life in general," she said. Hooper's mother, Dorothy McCausley and sister, Sandy Jarman, live in Sneads Ferry, while another sister, Joanna Lammonds, resides in Jacksonville. Her third sister – Ann Esclavon – and co-author of the poetry collection, lives in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Hooper's most recent book is a solo effort, based upon her more than 20 years of slaving behind a hot typewriter/word processor. She says the idea for the book grew slowly. "I started off writing down ideas, daily experiences, comments from other women, etc., and putting them down on post'ems and scrap pieces of paper," she said. Hooper finally gathered up all her notes and compiled them into the book, which was published by July Publishing, a small start-up company out of Carlsbad, California. Her book can be purchased on Amazon.com as well as directly from July Publishing and – she hopes – will soon be found in gift stores. In the meantime, Hooper is planning on expanding her writing career to include both a serious book revolving around a true North Carolina murder case, and screenwriting. "I'm enrolled in a script writing class which starts in January and I'm real excited about that," she says. Hooper says there are many aspects of writing that she wants to explore. "And I'm enjoying every minute of it," she said. |
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Last month's "Serious Side . . ."
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