Quick question if you have a PA or are a PA

[rubbishatballet]

Do you know the name of your PA's children (if they have any) and/or their basic living arrangements ie who they live with and roughly where (the PA, not the children), and/or a couple of things they enjoy doing in their spare time?

Or if you're a PA would your boss know this information if I asked them?

It would be useful if you could also say how long the PA/boss relationship has existed and at roughly what point in that relationship would this information have been known.

I'm interested as I'm trying to assess how reasonable (or otherwise!) my own expectations are for an Exec/PA relationship.

Thanks

Of course it is normal to know those sorts of things about someone you work closely with.

(For full disclosure, I have an administrative assistant rather than a PA).

Unless of course the other person didn't want to talk about their home situation.

I don't know when it would come up - it just happens naturally during the "how are you and how was your weekend" type conversations.

Yes I do know, and think it would be normal to know - we’ve worked together c 18 months.

But I know people who wouldn’t know - some older male bosses.

Yes I know all of that and tons more besides. I know that for my other reports as well. Whilst colleagues know I have two dc and am married and the town I live in, I am very circumspect about I disclose about my personal circumstances at work.

Women are more likely to know that info on their PAs in my experience.
My DH can barely remember his PA’s surname. He thinks she is good at her job but after three years of her supporting him and a couple of juniors, I asked him if she was married and he said he had no idea. I don’t know if she ever told him in the first place or if he just forgot but he writes her a cheque at Christmas to supplement her bonus and I buy her a present to make it a bit more personal. He doesn’t know if she has children, just that seems never been on Mat leave. It’s insane.

Yes my boss would know this stuff, we've worked together for about a year. As Stompy says, it just comes up in conversation.

I would have mentioned the same things to my previous boss but she often forgot things I did tell her!

I used to be a PA and my boss knew loads about me/my personal life, and I knew loads about him and his wife and kids. It's only natural in a close-working relationship. I'd often organise his wife's anniversary gift or children's birthday presents, book days out to the theatre for them etc.

Yes, I know all of this and more about my PA (and so does my male boss) but many others in our business wouldn't have the same relationship. Depends on the people involved - one of the PA's in our business sadly lost her husband after a long illness and was given incredible emotional support by her boss and his wife.

When I used to have the support of a PA, who was female, I did not solicit this information, because I did not want the create the perception of crossing boundaries by having an intrusive level of curiosity about her personal life.

Asking who she lives with could be taken as a roundabout way of asking “are you single?” Asking about children could be taken as a surreptitious way of asking “are you planning to get pregnant?” Either of those could easily be perceived as a really inappropriate question for a manager, especially if male, to ask of their female PA.

So I would only ever find out any of this stuff if she brought it up on her own, unprompted.

Yes, am an EA and my boss definitely knows all of that kind of stuff about me. We have a very close working relationship and have worked together for 4 years - I'd find it odd if we didn't know details of each other's lives.

I've worked as a PA for 10 years to the same person. He probably couldn't tell you the names and ages of my kids - forgetful - and like me you forget how quickly time goes, I still think of his children being the same age as when I started working for him but they are young adults at uni now.
He does probably only know as these life events have happened whilst working with him, got married, 2 lots of maternity leave etc

Yes - I also know about her brother and sister in law, her sister and brother in law, her nieces and nephews, her friends, what she did at the weekend etc. I buy her birthday and Christmas presents. She knows a lot about me as well as we chat about things. In short, she is a person and I treat her as such!

I'm an EA, I have worked v closely with my boss for years, he knows a lot about me, knows my DH, and when we Zoom his wife quite often come into his office (we are WFH) when we are mid discussing something usually quite serious, and she asks to see my dogs (who are, admittedly, v v cute). My boss and his wife came to my wedding, I have been to their and their children's milestone bday and anniversary parties.

I know everything about my boss, everything.

Having said all of the above, we have a very professional working relationship. My boss rarely asks me how my weekend was or wants to chit chat, he is v 'business'.

I have a PA (shared with a male colleague) and yes, I would know all those things and she would about me too.
I think the opposite is true for my male colleague.

My friend is a PA for the CEO of a huge company, his spouse is a senior partner at one of the big 4 accountancy firms. She and the spouse's PA run their bosses' lives - book their holidays, sort out their DC's school uniforms (they all board, the youngest from 5) and the DC call them to arrange things etc, my friend's boss didn't even realise when she got divorced and changed her name - they take absolutely no interest in her life despite her being a huge part of theirs for over 10 years (my friend kind of "belongs" to them and moves job with her boss). My friend gets paid well but she is always on call.

I have worked as a PA at a high level and whilst I got on well with them all it was a professional relationship and any family detail was superficial. Never brought problems into work, never counselled them. Although I was dispatched more than once to Cartier et al to buy gifts for a CEOs mistress and wife.

I think it really depends upon the workplace tbh. If there's lots of informal chat, you'll know about people's private lives, but if the conversation is focussed on work, then you won't.

Tbh, I think people are less likely to chat about private life than they used to. It's not just that people are more aware of the potential for discrimination if they disclose that they have children, a same-sex partner or whatever, but also that there's a much greater appreciation of the value of diversity in a workplace. If people are gossiping about their husbands and kids, then you feel excluded from the clique if you're unmarried and childless.

I don't think personal relationships play the same role in business that they used to tbh.

I used to have a shared PA and yes, I definitely knew those things about her. Tbh, I know the relationship and child status of pretty much everyone in my team, even if I can't necessarily reel off all of their partners', children's or pets' names on the fly. I'd be fine if someone wanted to keep it a bit more private. But I consider it normal to take some interest in who people are outside work and it's normal in my work - especially now we all WFH - to chat about dogwalking, homeschooling, date night with partners etc.

As a PA i knew lots about my bosses personal life, I knew all her pets names (no kids) etc.
She knew lots about me, she came to our wedding, she gave a treasured set of books of she had as a child to my daughter.

Have had two EAs in 6 years. One was private so I knew very little about him which was fine by me as that is what he wanted and was the same with everyone at work. Current EA is more open so I know the basics. She's a person not just my EA.

I know the basics. I'd probably know more if she hadn't become my PA just a few months before the pandemic hit. You don't get those five minute catch ups in the kitchen when you are both grabbing a coffee over zoom.

I'm an EA. Worked for the same 2 bosses for 20 years. We are more like friends - know about each others extended families also. Swop gifts for children etc. Have a new boss and gradually getting to know each other - the relationship needs to develop over time and zoom doesn't really help.

In the place I used to work the big bosses had EAs and PAs and the difference was significant. EAs were expected to do no more than 2 years in the job, it was a plum role, and they were very much supported into another plum role after the 2 years.

PAs stayed for ever and there tended to be a very close relationship - which was almost always paternalistic. My boss and I were women and had a much more equal relationship, but it was very transactional on her side which I really didn't realise till I left the post and she basically went from being super chummy to wanting nothing to do with me. It was weird.

I think it's a really fascinating topic actually OP, particularly given there are fewer and fewer PAs around. Someone should do a phD on it.

I'm an EA and all of my bosses have known this information. I know the same about then, too. I've always worked for very nice people who like a chat.

I'm an EA, I have so far looked after (and it often is looking after) 1 woman and 2 men. I knew absolutely everything about them, family, extended family, when elderly mother in laws were ill and what was happening with them, unexpected pregnancies, school applications for their children, the works and they knew the same about me.

It's a relationship that I've found definitely works best when you're friends as well. Also, it's often very lonely at the top so they'd often speak to me about these things because they couldn't to others. No difference in the relationship between a male or female boss. One man in his 40's, one man in his 50's and one woman in her early 60's, so different life stages and different things going on.

Just to add that I was EA for these people for a few years each and knew the information fairly early on, certainly within the first couple of months.