Companies used to have a single secretary for each executive, manager, and other mid level worker. Mad Men isn't exaggerating. For the very high end employees,

Companies used to have a single secretary for each executive, manager, and other mid level worker. Mad Men isn't exaggerating. For the very high end employees, sectaries morphed into admin assistants. Executives and other other very high level people still get a single assistant. But the junior executives and middle management don't have a designated assistants. They may share one with many other employees. But most of them just do a lot of the work themselves or have underlings do it in addition to their other work. I work in the legal field, one of the few that still has secretaries. Our office space is set up with a secretary desk right outside each attorney office. But now I share my secretary with NINE other attorneys. My mom is a secretary. She's gone from working for one executive to essentially being the secretary for the entire staff. So yes, the title and role changed. But there still has been a massive reduction.