by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
When Legislative Assistant Shirley Nulf arrives at her office in the Legislative Services Department at City Hall one day this coming October, she’ll probably find a banner saluting her 30 years of service to Jacksonville’s government. Nulf said she has seen a lot of changes in how the City Council works on a day-to-day basis.
Her first day at City Hall in 1977, Nulf was one of just a handful of administrative assistants who worked for the 19 City Council members. She didn’t even think of herself as an administrative assistant that first day.
“My title was ‘Clerk Typist II’ but the job was really more like a ‘Girl Friday’ when I started. We did things like answering the phones and sorting the mail and making coffee.”
Thirty years ago, it wasn’t like it is today with each Council member appointing their Executive Council Assistants who work exclusively for one Council member. A staff of seven secretaries provided the administrative support for the entire Council.
“We were all Civil Service employees back then and everyone worked for several Council members. We also rotated to different Council members every year. It was set up that way because they wanted us to get to know the different personalities,” said Nulf.
The training program for Council assistants has also changed over the years. This year’s class of new ECAs were required to attend a comprehensive orientation to learn everything from how to make sure they get their paycheck to how to manage the electronic document management systems they will use every day.
“Back in 1977, it was pretty much up to us to learn the job,” said Nulf.
In addition to the more even one-to-one ratio of assistants to Council members, she said the technology that goes with the job has also changed.
“I used to work at the reception desk sometimes and there was no such thing as voice-mail. All the messages were handwritten and then distributed to the Council members.”
Nulf said voice-mail, without which the wheels of government and industry would today grind to a halt, wasn’t part of the administrative assistant’s job until after the 1995-1999 Council term began.
“I really didn’t care for it at first. I might be old-fashioned, but I think a live voice on the other end of the telephone line is better,” said Nulf.
For the past four years, Suzanne Warren was former Council member Lynette Self’s ECA. She recently got a new appointment. Now her desk is near Council member Bill Bishop’s office where she’ll work for the next four years.
Warren began her career in Council administrative support more than 18 years ago and has also seen quite a few changes. She thinks the one ECA to one Council member ratio makes more sense. When Warren began her career, she worked for three Council members and said it could at times be challenging.
“We took phone calls from constituents from all the different districts. Sometimes one of the Council members I was working for would be supporting a particular issue and another one would be the complete opposite. That could make you schizophrenic,” said Warren.
Nulf remembers when she took notes in shorthand and both she and Warren said they produced all the memos and letters on manual typewriters long before the personal computer became a fixture in the office.
“I remember when the City got computers,” said Warren. “The rumor was we would be going to a four-day work week, but that’s not what happened.
“Now we have more to do, but we can do more in the same amount of time. The public is getting better service now because we can be closer to what’s happening with the issues and the technology allows us to be more responsive to constituents,” she said.