We have a receptionist at my office. Everyone kind of jokes about how useless she is because honestly, she has a few screws loose. I just try to be nice and keep my distance because the last time I had a long conversation with her she kept asking me if I was Chinese and knew Chinese because her nephew in law is Chinese. She is nasty to people who call the office and gets frustrated with our phone system and sends calls to wrong people and plays candy crush at the front desk.
But despite all this she serves a vital function in that within the hierarchy of the office, she can do a lot of the tasks that the office just can't justify having the designers and project managers do. We get paid hourly for a certain type of work, and you're not going to have a designer ripping labels for hours any more than you'll want your plumber scrubbing your floors.
Things are at a standstill now because she hurt herself and hasn't been to the office in a week or 2 (time is convoluted at this point). Deliveries aren't getting accepted, office supplies aren't being managed, when we were talking to one of the managers about labels he had the bright idea of having our main accountant do it.
Working right now feels like a circus. Not that I care, I just do my 8 hours and leave but I'm sure someone here is sweating about this stupid problem that could be solved by hiring more people and not running a skeleton crew.