PA and Secretary Community - Deskdemon.com

During the past couple of weeks it has come to my attention that no matter whether I am a temp or not, my boss thinks I can just pick up the phone and have things done immediately.

For example, he has a visitor today who has sent over drawings in Visio.  Now at the moment I don't have Visio installed on my pc but he has just asked me to call IT and get them to do it so I can print the drawings.

Temp or not, there is a procedure for all of this eg. log an IT request via the intranet and await for the call to be actioned and closed.  What authority do I have (working for a senior manager) to ask IT to have it done immediately?  Answer - none.

So my question is, how do you manage demands which you have no control over especially when you are a temp?

I would log the IT request with your IT department by email in your manager's name (So-and-so has asked me to ... so we can print off ...  etc") and copy the email to your manager, and ask IT to let you know when this matter can be actioned.  

This is not YOUR demand, Gee, but your manager's and therefore copying your manager into an email indicates: that you have done what he asked and if his request fails then the ball is in his court.  

It depends, also, on the culture of your new company.  They may be able to action urgent requests very promptly.  This request, after all, is not one made on a whim and probably doesn't come around very often; it is a request to facilitate what, I assume, is incoming business.  And business equals money  and jobs for everyone.  Procedures are one thing, but they are not legislation and occasionally, in order to ensure profitability, customer retention and so on, those processes may need to be speeded up or worked round.  If you can't achieve this, then just let your manager know and it's up to him to deal with the matter.

This also could be a prompt for IT to ensure that you have all the software you require for your job.

Thanks Rain.  I know I harp on about the temp thing and while I don't mean to, it's hard to adjust.

On one hand I don't have the perks of everyone else, yet on the other I am expected to carry out my job to the standard required.

This morning was a learning curve.  Bossie required a projector for his meeting but hadn't booked one so I had to source one from another department.  Then he wanted powerpoint handouts printed and the colour copier decided it required yellow toner - eek!

Some things you can plan ahead, others you can't.

It sounds to me as though your new Boss could do with a bit of organising.

That's your new project, Gee - take him in hand!

Mmm if only I was given the opportunity to get more involved, I might be able to!

I'm more of a plan and proritise gal.  I don't do lastminute.com

I have to laugh.  Has anyone been given pages of notes that someone else took at a meeting and asked you to type them up?

I seriously need a drink!

Gee, don't forget that if your boss is amenable to the idea he could always ask you to do that sort of thing via email.  Then all you have to do is forward to the relevant party (i.e. in this instance IT) and that should be authorisation enough!  I used to find it worked from IT, to Hospitality, to Facilities Management and other Managers and Directors - authority by pseudo-postal e-temp-worker!  

The world is your oyster (card) at least until you either get a permanent 'home' or the Olympics arrive here in London!  As a temp, you can do no wrong!!!

re the notes ....

All the time! Our guys do all their own rambling minutes and expect a fantastic document!  Worse still is when they fax it over from a dodgy fax machine!

Hang in there Gee, maybe the boss isn't used to having a Miss Efficient on their hands, and it'll be a learning curve for them?

It's not efficient, it's the dark ages!  Who does this these days?  You either take a PA to a meeting or take the notes and type them up yourself.  

Our guys take their laptops with them and work wireless in the conference rooms and take their own meeting minutes.

I go from one job to the next and it seems some companies need bringing up to date.  I might suggest this the next time I have to decipher someone's handwriting.

Here's one you'll like.  We were late getting meeting papers out (by one day and then some!) due to my boss not having had enough time - she is on a 2 day a week contract and it's tough fitting everything in as there's quite a lot of complicated stuff going on that should have been finished by now! - to prepare/write her papers.  After a quick meeting with managers, she added handwritten notes to the final paper and then decided she would just make the amends herself - she writes most of her own stuff, I just do the tidying (she types as quickly as I do!).

I moved a meeting with the management team from the morning to afternoon so she knew she had to be finished by lunchtime.  I had everything else ready but there will still a big collation / stuffing job to do, with which I always get help from one of my colleagues.

In the end, my boss said she would start the management team meeting and take notes, and I should put together the papers and come into the meeting when ready, as we had arranged for other staff to hand deliver the papers to our committee members.

When I got into the meeting, she continued to note take during the item they were on so I could just listen and work out where in the agenda they were and then at the start of the next item, as agreed by both of us, she handed me her notes - she generally takes her own personal notes throughout anyway.  The rest of the MT laughed and she then offered to type them up, but having quickly scanned them, I said I could read them ok.

That's what I call teamwork!

Jackie, Peer Moderator
www.iqps.org

Why is it when I am in a job and still learning that someone thinks I can put my hand on a form or document straight away?

Navigating my way into this place is bad enough without having to navigate the intranet for half an hour looking for a particular form.  Please allow me time to find what it is you require.

Also, why are people so nit-picky about how I type an email.  I hate sending an email to loads of people with all the names in the To box, so sometimes I list them all in the Bcc box so the email doesn't read like a long list of people, especially when I am sending an email to a distribution list.  Let the PA do it her way, you got the mail didn't you?!

I think I should have brought my crystal ball with me today! << sighs >>

Dear me .... the all-important "TO" line in an email!  

One of my new colleagues was ticked-off by a Committee Chairman last week for doing exactly what you did.  Apparently, he told her that "people would be offended" for being put in the "cc" line.  

Oh Rain honestly, the things people notice.  I never did it to cause trouble.  As I said it was to save showing a list of names where it wasn't necessary.

The email was only to direct reports so they all know who each other is anyway.

To chime in here, I do a newsletter for the pumpkin club I'm in and to protect the growers to some degree, I always send out the newsletter in bcc format.  I see I am one of few that do it this way, as I'm a member of other clubs and they don't.  I guess to some degree it would bother me to have my email information out there for who knows who to see, but you can't be too confidential in the business world.

Diamondlady
Peer Moderator

Diamond Lady,  before the IQPS branch in Belfast was closed down, members used to get emailed regarding meetings and events.  Some of the email addresses were work and some were personal.  I pointed out several times that members do not need to see the email addresses of others and suggested they be listed under Bcc.

Gee, I was told by the club operators to do it this way to protect some of the members confidentiality and I had no problem doing so, so just carried it forward with everyone's email.  They seem to have no problem with that. And in this case, most of the time, if you asked for their email, they would provide it to you.  I just don't like seeing emails with hundreds of accounts for all to view and use at their discretion.  Sometimes it's a dangerous thing, guess I'm being too protective.

Diamondlady
Peer Moderator

No you are right to be protective, I am the same.

I guess this morning's email didn't need to be sent under Bcc but sometimes that's just the way I work if I am mailing a lot of people.

I think some companies are still in the dark ages and I am finding when the "newbie" comes along, people get thrown by our approach.

Takes people time to figure how you work too.  Give them time to adjust.

Diamondlady
Peer Moderator

You could always try the approach that a colleague of mine in a previous job had.  She was a very scary secretary - the old-fashioned type that left school at 15 or 16, did a "shorthand and typing" course, and grafted her way up the secretarial ladder.  Some director tried to order her about one day and her response was "Do I try to tell you how to do your job?"  No response.  Then she chipped in with her body-blow, "Then don't tell me how to do mine!"  

Not particularly courteous, professional or friendly, but he never messed with her again.  

Mmm well I guess I don't want to end up out on my ear but I will bear it in mind for future use should I require it.

Never a truer word spoken.

As a comedian once said "It's the way you tell 'em", Gee, and that particular colleague always used a bit of humour to take the sting out of difficult things.  

You seem to be very forceful and unafraid of addressing issues.  A true professional - even someone who works at a junior level in a company - is never subservient.  Just because someone is your manager or senior to you does not mean that you have to take whatever dirt is dumped on you.  In my experience, a person can always set ground rules if need be, but always courteously and professionally.  

Rain you are right, but I guess over the years having been treated as "only the secretary" for example and trying to prove my worth is difficult when people have the attitude that you are at their beck and call.

That is why I get so frustrated when a job promises so much yet does not fulfil its promise.

The manager who spoke to me yesterday about how I composed my email was in a meeting with my boss and other managers.  I went into the room to deliver some forms and was not about to reply to him in front of others that I hardly know.  But don't worry, it is filed and noted!

It was obvious they had been talking about me and the email but to address the issue in front of everyone, I felt was a little out of place.

In such a case, I would turn the tables on that person.  You either let it go and wait for him to say something to you or you do something about it.  If I were in your position, I would wait a day or two and then approach that person and say that you couldn't help overhearing such-and-such a conversation, you wondered whether it was about you and whether he would like to discuss the matter with you.  That gives him an opportunity to say something and you a chance to say your piece about how you want to provide a good service etc etc.

Naturally, I don't know all the details or circumstances, but what you did doesn't sound like a hanging offence or anything for dismissal.  Mistakes happen from time to time.  And procedures and styles for correspondence vary a great deal.  

I'm sure you will take a great deal away from this experience. My own view is that names in a "To" list (whether in an email or a hard copy memo) means that the communication is addressed directly "to" those people and they have to act on it; names in a "cc" list means that they have to note it but not necessarily do anything about it.  You may disagree, but the simple truth is that people do get offended about the smallest details in business.  Petty, yes, but that's human nature, and none of us is perfect.

Well the saga continues.  Bossie had his passport photos returned and I have been asked once he gets new pics to go again to the post office and fast track it.

I have flagged the issue again with my agency and again with HR as Friday after work (12 noon) is my own time and this Friday I have things planned.

I am not sure if he is chancing his arm or is oblivious to the implications involved, but I am not being used while I am in a temporary contract.  I am extremely angry that this issue has not be resolved.  What were HR thinking or doing prior to me starting here?  Did no one think of the does and don'ts of a person hired in a temp to perm position?

Just about to have my first (yes!) cuppa of the morning and I have been here since before 8am!

IS IT FRIDAY YET?

Gee,

Maybe the post requirements have changed since the last incumbent and they haven't appreciated that.  Maybe that company doesn't actually need someone at your level, if all that is being offered is little things.  It is possible that they have a PA because they think they ought to have one - which isn't a good way of running a business.  "I'm a manager now and I need a PA because PAs are what managers have".  None of that makes good business sense.  

If you have time on your hands, maybe you could read through past correspondence and files and get a good handle on that company.  And work out whether after six months you really want to be there.  

In my own post, I know that if my predecessor (who left some 11 years ago - I have been here nearly ten years) came back, she wouldn't have a clue how to do this job because the nature of the work, and the level at which the work is done, has altered so much.  Maybe a similar change has happened to your current post.  Companies don't always do the rational thing when a post becomes vacant, i.e. consider whether the job is actually required and what the job really should be.

Rain I couldn't agree more.

Personally (and this is only from an admin perspective, which I am), I would have gone about the whole recruitment process for this role in very different way.

I think it's exactly as you say...having a PA because it's the done thing.  I am glad I have flagged the issues I have come across because no one else has realised they might become issues for someone in this role.

As most of you know having temped before I can quickly ascertain if something is right or not.  I guess I will have a lot of thinking to do over the Christmas and New Year period.