Administrative Professionals Week is celebrated in the last full week of April. Some people may be confused about who the week celebrates, thinking that "administrative professional" refers to CEOs, COOs, hospital administrators, and other miscellaneous Master's-prepared people. However the week celebrates those once known simply as secretaries or clerks – today's administrative assistants, executive assistants, office coordinators, office managers, assistant-to-the-whatevers, and, yes, secretaries and clerks (the titles are by no means obsolete).

The etymology dictionary tells us that the term "secretary" dates back to the late 1300s, and that it comes from Medieval Latin secretarius, which meant clerk, notary, confidential officer, or confidant – not "confidante," for at that time, secretaries were typically men. "Clerk" itself is from Greek via Late Latin and Old English, meaning "of the clergy" or "clergyman" – at the time, clerics (men) were often the only literate people around, thus the ones responsible for drafting and reading documents and correspondence. And "administrative" is also ultimately from the late 1300s, and is derived from Latin words meaning to minister or serve. Again, these folks were men.

So, today, while few clerks are clerics (and vice versa), but secretaries may still be secretaries, and most clerks and secretaries are women, one wonders how the two seemingly different groups, secretaries and secretaries' bosses, now share the "admin" title.

If you read the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook's section on Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, the duplication may in part be explained by the fact that "secretaries and administrative assistants often use computers to do tasks previously handled by managers and professionals, such as: create spreadsheets; compose correspondence; manage databases; and create presentations, reports, and documents using desktop publishing software and digital graphics At the same time, managers and professionals have assumed many tasks traditionally assigned to secretaries and administrative assistants, such as keyboarding and answering the telephone."

These changes have undoubtedly resulted from the explosion of technology. Only a couple of decades ago, a book on careers urged the reader, "Imagine for a moment that you have just stepped inside the office of a major corporation – computerized work stations, desktop terminals, and electronic printers. Don't panic at the