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More Than a Third of Assistants Asked to do Personal Tasks
AdminSecret
November 03, 2009
According to a UK study, over a third of administrative assistants surveyed (okay, okay, they say “secretaries”) reported being asked to do tasks that were not in their job description. From the article:
“One secretary had to bathe her boss’s elderly mother, another was asked to make curtains and one respondent said she had to hold her boss’s hand on a car journey.
The report, by Professor Katie Truss of Kingston University and Rosemary Parr of training firm Global PA Network, said a new qualification was needed to improve the status of secretaries.
Ms Parr said: ’’The perception of the role is stuck in a time warp from 40 or 50 years ago when secretaries were seen as surrogate wives or housekeepers.
‘’Now they are more like management assistants – they need to be their managers’ second brain, anticipating what their bosses want next as well as doing what they want now, but what our research has shown is that they are not getting the recognition for it.’’"
Clearly!
AnastasiaWun
4 days ago
4 comments
I agree with Jodith. Doing stuff for the wife and buying gifts/presents on wife's behalf are already too much to ask of, but these instances of personal errands are much too way overboard. I will fire the boss away regardless.
Jodith
15 days ago
26 comments
Whoa! While I'm one who doesn't balk at *some* personal duties for the boss, those examples are going way too far. When I think of personal duties, I'm thinking picking up the boss's lunch or making dinner reservation's for his wife's birthday.