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Office
manager balances work, family life
By Robyn
Gleasner
Florence
Gonzales is the office manager for Arts and Sciences. She not
only balances the budget for the entire college, but also balances
her family life with work.
Gonzales
has worked for the University for 24 years. She began in the Speech
and Hearing Department in administration. It was very clinical
as well as academic and it gave me the background I needed,
she says.
Gonzales
stayed with Speech and Hearing for 16 years and then moved to
the College of Arts and Sciences where she has been for seven
years. She says, Im not going anywhere until I retire.
I love my job. It challenges me and changes every day. I like
seeing it through from beginning to end.
As office
manager, Gonzales assists the academic dean and oversees the college,
which has 20 departments and 19 programs. She deals with hiring
the staff, staff compensation and getting faculty and teacher
assistants for the summer session. She also helps allocate the
budget to departments in the college in a short two-week turnaround.
I do
like the budget. I like the global affect of it. Every paper I
see is directed to the budget, says Gonzales. She says that
working for a college opens your eyes to new possibilities and
ways of doing things.
As a woman
bustled into the room and asked for a signature, Gonzales quickly
said, Let me look it up and see how they will get paid.
Thats
the way it always is around here, Gonzales apologized. I
dont have the type of job where my desk stays clean. Once
the spring session is over, the summer session is soon to follow
and people need to get paid.
Gonzales
emphasized that the work done in Arts and Sciences is all about
teamwork.
Communication
is an important skill that she strongly demonstrates. She has
taken sign language courses to better communicate with staff who
are deaf. Phyllis Wilcox, linguistic faculty, inspired her to
learn more. Gonzales said, I love interpreting for her and
I would love to learn more if I had time.
Despite her
busy job, Gonzales says that she doesnt get stressed. Its
all about my family.
Sometimes
she has to take work home in order to finish it all, but her family
is used to it.
Both
my son and daughter are going to UNM, Gonzales said. This
has given her the opportunity to advise them.
She laughed,
I see them more at school than I do at home!
When
I started 24 years ago, I never envisioned myself retiring. Its
gone by so fast and Ive enjoyed it.
Although
Gonzales has not received a college degree and insists, Ive
developed a job and not an education, her efforts to balance
the budget and her life are extraordinary.
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