The nice people at APN remind me that it is Administrative Professionals Week. I used to thik that there was just Secretary’s Day on like the second or third Wednesday of April or something like that. Turns out that there is a whole week dedicated to the concept. I love all sorts of thematic celebrations, but my family doesn’t really do holidays and special occasions, so all holidays strike me as interesting more from an academic social anthropology perspective that, ya know, as a traditional participant. It is not terribly difficult, however, to entice me to attend or otherwise celebrate any themed event at least once.

The International Association of Administrative Professionals or IAAP has trademarked a number variations of the name for both the day and the week, including Professional Secretaries Week. There seems to be some controversy whether someone at IAAP originally came up with the celebration in 1952 or whether they hired the ad firm Young & Rubicam to come up with something snazzy to invigorate secretaries and other administrative professionals or whether an advertising agency came up with the idea on their own as part of the war (WWII) recovery effort. Some sources credit specifically a Harry F. Klemfuss at Young & Rubicam as the architect of Secretary’s Day and Administrative Professionals Week. And, like most holidays, Administrative Professionals Week and/or Day engenders the suspicion in some that it is engineered by a greedy secret cabal of flower, greeting card, and boxed chocolate distributors.

Over time, the IAAP has pushed for the term Administrative Professional to be used over the term secretary. The idea behind this evolution of language is that the changing and expanding role of support staff should be reflected in the terminology. The original secretary title, however, meant literally keep of the secrets and referred to the sort of person a king could trust with uber-important information. Sovereigns truly need trusted keepers of secrets. I think that by this time next year, we should work to transition the name of this celebration to Keepers of Secrets Week.

Are you mad as hell and not going to take it any more a la Network? Don’t vlog blowing your head off. Just celebrate INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY today and digitally yell your head off. According to founder Derek Arnold, “CAPS LOCK DAY IS A CELEBRATION OF LIFE AND FOREVER SCREAMING TEXT FOR ALL ETERNITY AND LOVE” and I guess he ought to know.

So don’t be shy. Start your engines, keyboard warriors, and say it LOUD.

In case y’all were wondering, the illustrative photo here is actually a snapshot I just took of my real life Caps Lock key, along with a special, limited-edition, 10 year anniversary Release the Bats, Blue Blood commemorative pin . . . and the piece of dental plastic I have been sleeping with, in order to avoid breaking all of my teeth via the combined power of stress and my mighty jaw.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY!

PS In case anyone reading this is entirely new to teh intarwebs or has been wondering why people get peeved when they type in ALL CAPS, the reason is that ALL CAPS is a simple way of communicating screaming blue murder via keyboard and web connection. You can try opening your window and yelling too. Fewer people will hear. You may get in more trouble. But it might be more satisfying and you can always explain to the arresting officer that you were only throwing an offline holiday celebration for INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY.