I'm leaving secretarial work. I ought never to have started. A large part of being a secretary is offering false, tolerant smiles to entitled people who are shouting at you. I imagine the entitled people are far, far worse when the secretary is female. There is the cliche: The things you love about a new situation are the same things that you will come to hate. I became a secretary because the mundane, predictable tasks appealed to me. Now the predictability drives me up the wall. I think the number-one thing I hate about secretarial work is The Diplomatic E-mail Task. Your privileged client has not done the thing you've requested. You know this--clear as day--but you can't begin your follow-up email by saying, "You didn't do that simple thing you needed to do." You must feign tact, even feign a small amount of mystification: "My record indicates you have not set up your account. The record may be in error. If so, could you please..... But if the rec...