Being an assistant in any industry is often seen as the ticket to the big time, at least by those trying to break into that industry. (For those that need a refresher on the reality of being an assistant, I suggest a viewing of the Kevin Spacey movie on DVD Swimming with Sharks.)
Buying Assistants are the unsung heroes of Purchasing Departments everywhere. Despite being the lowest paid members of the departments, they, more than anyone else in Purchasing (sorry VP's), determine how the rest of the organization views the entire department.
How can this be?
This occurs for two reasons. One is that the Buying Assistants do the bulk of the administrative work. Speed and accuracy in their jobs have a direct impact on every single order that goes through Purchasing and is delivered to an end user's hands. Most people in an organization don't care about savings reports and all the other high level material we Buyers love to talk about. They only care about when they get their orders and if the items are correct.
The other reason is that Buyers interact with very few other members of the organization where as Buying Assistants are on the front lines of the customer service experience in organizations which means they interact with dozens of people every day. In each of those interactions, the Purchasing Department's reputation is formed!
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