5/9/09

This weeks pain in the rear end!

Printing the school awards for our Awards Assembly next Friday! There have been times this week when I have been driven to distraction, chasing down names from teachers, making sure I had enough certificates when numbers changed and then the whole kerfuffle of actually printing them!

We give a nice range of awards and most of them will just run through my desktop printer easily. But then we have these lovely embossed ones which melt in my printer, so they have to go through a different printer in the back office. Initially I was feeding each one individually into my printer and then my boss became my fave person of the week. She suggested I try our big copier/printer for melting tendencies and when it didn't melt them, I was able to load lots of certificates and shoot them out much quicker.

And of course there's trying to line up my typing with the lines on those certificates. At this point I know more about using character and paragraph spacing in MS WORD, then I ever anticipated needing to know in my lifetime! There was one in particular today that took me nearly 45 minutes to finally get lined up and by that time I was at head banging on wall stage. I also got a workout running back and forth to the printer to change certificates and check on them!

But I got them done, they all look great and now I have them neatly sorted by teacher in folders waiting to be signed. Then I will sort them for each teacher by student, something they usually do themselves, but I offered this year as I am up to date otherwise.

This gives you an idea of just how many I have produced and four folders are missing from this hefty pile. In the end it wasn't as bad as I anticipated, but it sure is time consuming!

20 comments:

Girl Tornado said...

Yowza, I'll bet it feels really, really good to have this project behind you! But since you were so dedicated, I'm sure they must look great. :-)

Enjoy your weekend, you sure deserve it!

Pat said...

You are Ms. Super Secretary, Sarah! Any boss would love to have you as an employee. Maybe your boss will sneak out an award certificate just for you.

Missy said...

Speaking of Awards, you have one on my blog. You don't even have to print it! Just go get it and pass along!

Anonymous said...

It's not really called Okieland Elementary School, is it?

Snippety Gibbet said...

I have to ask this. You have tech savvy teachers at your school. (An assumption based on the fact that they have SmartBoards.) Why aren't THEY printing out their own certificates????????? I have no idea who does that sort of thing at my school. Teachers? Secretaries? I just know that I make and print out my own. Doing 25 or so is not a big deal. Doing 100s of them IS a big deal. I vote that now that Teacher Appreciation Week is over, they should take on the job of typing names on certificates.

Richard Lawry said...

I think that an award is in order for the person printing the awards!!

An Arkies Musings

Sherri said...

Wow, that is alot of work! I'm glad everything worked out well in the end!

Vickie said...

You are totally going to be the teachers' bestest buddy now! What a sweetie pie!

Almost American said...

I remember when I was an undergraduate, donkey's years ago, my department head irritated the computer department by suggesting that it must be possible to print all the degree certificates on the computer rather than having every department head lose the use of his or her secretary for several days while they typed the certificates. The computer department insisted it was technically too difficult a task. He made them try. My class was the first to graduate and get computer-printed certificates. (I actually got three though because the first two had mistakes on them!)

I sympathise with the frustration of trying to get things lined up perfectly!

Nancy said...

But all those sweet little kids will be so appreciative - even if they don't know it. :-)

Pam said...

Girl, the trick to that in word is to use a text box instead of trying to get the spacing just right. Then you can draw your text box anywhere and edit within the box. Of course, you have to turn off the outline, but that is Pam's trick to weird word placement. Just measure down from top and left so you know where to place your text box. 29th is a go btw!

Pam said...

Or, also I use "Word Art" which you insert like a text box, and then you can change colors and fonts within the Word Art. Me love Word Art. And you just move it where you need it to go, stretch it, scrunch it up if needed. Word Art = The Bomb.

Unknown said...

Dave - LOL no it's not really called that, just protecting privacy!

Jan - me thinks that won't go over!

AA - the HS does this and they have done some of mine for me too.

Gaelyn said...

What a fun way to learn some new things. I'm sure the kids will like them.

Kay said...

Our school secretary was always the MOST important person in the office. If you got somebody inefficient, it goofed things up. I can see you're the angel that keeps the school together.

Unknown said...

And just think about all those proud, beaming faces of the children when they receive their awards.

Yogi♪♪♪ said...

The awards! SuperPizzaBoy's school will soon have their awards ceremony. I never realized how much work went into preparing them. Know I have an idea.

Daryl said...

Well done ... next time in a pinch email or call and I will happily help ...

Sassy Britches said...

Ohmigosh, you are SUCH a trooper! I think I would have poked my eyes out!

Wendy Hill said...

I bet the teachers love you! You sound like a real catch for school secretary.