COOKED
The core of this job — keying data, filing and retrieving records, drafting routine correspondence, processing invoices and forms, answering and routing calls — is exactly the text-and-screen work current AI plus workflow software already handles at usable quality. What survives is physical: sorting and distributing mail, handling paper records and equipment, stocking supplies, walking documents between people, and being the person at the front desk when someone shows up. There is no license, no signature requirement, and almost no ambiguous-decision authority to anchor the role.
Core tasks are already automatable. At 5, the bulk of the day — keying entries into the AP or student-records system, pulling and re-filing folders, typing form letters from templates, reconciling a batch of invoices against POs, transferring calls — is already done end-to-end by OCR intake, RPA scripts and auto-attendants in shops that have bought them; it sits above the 0-4 floor only because mail runs, jammed copiers, walk-in visitors and the ad-hoc 'can you find that 2019 file in the basement' requests still need a body.
Some physical or field component. A 7 reflects that the physical work is real but indoors and low-skill: sorting and distributing interoffice mail, carrying boxes of records to storage, loading the postage meter, restocking the supply cabinet, staffing a front counter — controlled climate, no ladders, no field sites, nothing that would push it toward the 13+ band of technicians working in someone else's building.
No licence, no signature requirement. A 1 is honest: no state licenses general office clerks, nothing you produce carries your signature as the responsible party, and when a misfiled record or a mistyped invoice amount surfaces it is the office manager, controller or attorney of record who answers for it — the only reason it isn't 0 is that clerks handling PHI or student records are personally bound by HIPAA and FERPA confidentiality rules.
Anonymous artifact production. At 4, coworkers and regulars may know your name and the fact that you know where everything is kept, but the work is delivered as processed paperwork and routed calls that nobody attributes to a person — the requester wants the file, not you specifically, which is what separates this from the 6-12 band where a client asks for their usual contact.
Executes defined procedures on defined inputs. A 3 matches work governed by the desk manual: which retention schedule a document falls under, which department a call goes to, which coding a routine invoice gets — all written down somewhere, with anything unusual escalated upward rather than decided, and the discretion that exists is prioritizing your own queue when three people need something at once.
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