Social Service Receptionist

I have always assumed that a Receptionist working for a social service agency would have thankful people walking in the doors, or calling for help daily; and, as the first person who speaks to those in need, the Receptionist would obtain a high sense of fulfillment from providing information regarding needed services to people, However, if you think this is true, then you only have half of the story.

It is true that, as the Receptionist, you get the honor of helping people, but you also take on the weight of hearing the stories of the clients who are calling for a variety of reasons – their water just got shut off and, if they cannot afford to get it turned back on, this could lead to Children’s Services taking their child away; or taking

Some of the changes I have made have been to incorporate volunteer receptionists, so that she is free to leave the reception area in order to, not only grow in understanding of other positions of the agency (slight variance of job rotation and enrichment), but gives her more autonomy to do her work at a different location in the building (such as an open cubicle). By doing this, her work is varied and she is able to cut down on the emotional exhaustion. There have been times when she was in tears or upset, so I would take over at the front desk for her in order to allow her the time to deal with her emotions privately. Additionally, I set the tone from the beginning that she could trust me and could speak openly to me, so that, if she was upset or frustrated, she could talk to me about it. And not only talk to me, but I showed that I would do something about it. For example, internal staff can be rude to her and put undue pressure on her by “telling” her to do something, rather than “asking” for her help and checking to see if she has the time. I wrote into her job description that she was required to say “no” if she was unable to complete an assignment for any reason and made sure she realized she had the power to say no, rather than feeling powerless. It was nice to receive confirmation from the article that what I had done was in-line with their