SECRETARIES DAY: WHAT'S A BOSS TO DO?; TRIBUTE NOW DILEMMA.

Byline: Ben Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but what about a secretary?

Variations on that theme have plagued companies across the area as bosses facing National Secretaries Day today ponder offering flowers, candy or a free lunches to employees with titles as varied as office manager, administrative assistant and receptionist.

Will the staffers be offended, embarrassed or hurt by such a gesture? Or, worse still, slighted if their work goes unrecognized?

With just 18 percent of the nation's 5 million administrative personnel now carrying the title ``secretary,'' and some considering the term a pejorative, the 46-year-old celebration has arguably outlived its name, but not its aim, according to Rick Straub, spokesman for Professional Secretaries International of Kansas City, Mo., the main trade group for office administrators.

``Secretaries are stereotyped as merely typists or clerical positions, but the role has evolved well beyond that,'' Straub said. ``Today they've got to be fluent in several software packages and be able to handle many of the day-to-day functions that every business has.''

Secretaries and other administrative professionals are the ones hired to ``sweat the details,'' Straub said, and as such deserve recognition by whatever name.

Include in those ranks Toni Forfar, office manager at Westlake Village-based Synthonics Technologies, a small 3-D software developer. Because her company has fewer than a dozen employees and the principals are often on the road drumming up business, the 42-year-old Forfar is sometimes the top official at company headquarters.

Though her title is office manager, Forfar said she's comfortable in the secretary's role.

``I'm probably more from the older school - I used to do dictation at previous jobs - but I feel good about it,'' she said. Far from being offended by a token of appreciation on Secretaries Day, Forfar said she welcomes it.

``Everybody should get an attaboy for doing a good job,'' she said. ``It's nice to be singled out one day a year.''

Things are stickier for Ed Pope, founder and chief executive of nearby Matech Biomedical Technologies, where Pope's secretary is also his mom.

``We don't use the s-word around here; she's an executive administrator,'' Pope said. ``She used to be an administrative assistant, but then everybody started calling themselves that. You had inflation going on that devalued her title, so now she has a better one.''

For the record, Pope's mother has the day off.

Jan Yager, a sociologist who specializes in business etiquette, said that given the diversity of titles, responsibilities and opinions about secretaries, bosses have to play it by ear on who to celebrate today and how.

``There's no one rule of thumb,'' Yager said.

An option is to conspicuously not mark Secretaries Day, but instead pick another day to recognize administrative workers, Yager said.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO (Color) Secretary Toni Forfar is office manager at Westlake Village-based Synthonics Technologies, a small 3-D software firm.

Tina Gerson/Daily News