Aibu? Sexism in the office

[TheMysteryCat]

From a woman perpetuating the myth that women in professional industries should be old-fashioned, tea making, telephone answering, tidiers...

It's driving me insane. Small professional company with a female secretary in her mid fifties, a group of men ( professionals and juniors) and me (managerial, but not her manager).

She seems to think that just because I'm female ("the men can't make tea, or answer phones"), that I should be the de facto skivvy if she's unavailable. It's driving me crackers.

I really want to tell her to sod off and that neither of us should be chasing round making teas and coffees, washing up, tidying up or answer their phone calls.

Would I be unreasonable to try and change her attitude? There is btw an office junior... But he's a man, so exempt! Bah!

You could always try a variant of the old phrase:

"It's below my pay scale" or, in the case of her making arbitrary decisions "That's above your pay scale"

Not sure what the others make of it really. There tends to be some eye rolling from some, others seem to think their tea just appears and pay no attention to her.

My small rebellion this week was to find some biscuits and put them on a plate for visitors to a meeting I was chairing. She responded with lots of sighing and scowls for the rest of the day.

It's all so flipping petty. I don't want to argue, and I doubt I can change her, but it does drive me mad.

Why don't you just bring in your own jar of coffee and use this to stop her moaning about using up the communal supply? and don't let her borrow any of it even if she's desperate for a cuppa.

My old boss used to be like this - women (except her) were there to make tea and do photocopying, men (and her) were there to do important stuff. I was more senior than some of the guys I worked with but she still expected it.

In fact, at one annual review she told me I needed to 'make the tea more'. I was very but there's only so many things you can say to your boss.

It drove me so mad I left after 3 years. I hate her, even now.

If I were you, find little ways to piss her off. Amuse yourself with how inventive you can be and then come here and tell us about it.

I am laughing at a boss using an annual review to tell a member of staff they should make the tea more. She must have been really struggling to find something to criticise - not to mention showing what an idiot she was.

Actually, with all the scowling and sighing she subjects you to, I'd be hard-pressed not to resort to my Aunt Jean's retort of "Who died and made you God?"

She tells me that I'm/others are drinking too much coffee, makes snidely comments and starts moaning to all the office that she's got buy more because the supply is going down. She will only permit one chocolate biscuit once a day, which she puts on the desk. She then hides the biscuits.

Right here's what you do,

Monday ask whoever job it is to get more biscuits/tea/coffee because X is concerned the office doesn't have enough. (Or get more yourself, or tell her to if it's her job).

Randomly make tea (at least 6 cups), whenever you want it and make for others/ask others if they'd mind awfully making you one as you are gasping and really busy etc... Anything to get as many people involved in the rebellion as possible.

If the biscuits go missing ask for them- loudly. And laugh in amusement if she says she's hidden them, feign 'why would anyone do that?' Be as lightheartedly amused as you can. If she says there are none left send her out for more!

Ignore any huffing and grumbling unless she gets too vocal and then publicly assume she is joking (because after all it is ridiculous) and then quietly ask her if she has quite enough of a workload if she has this much time to worry about something so petty.

I can see how it would be good to use an annual review to say "make tea more" if someone was a tea freeloader who always accepted tea but never offered it. But it would be within the context of "don't be a dick to your colleagues, you might need them someday".

I used to work with a female manager who had a very strict three drinks a day rule. They were at precisely 9am, 11am and 2pm. The dishwasher went on at 3pm. If you started at half nine (and most of the office did) you weren't allowed a hot drink until 11am even if it was snowing etc. And you weren't allowed a hot drink after 2pm. If you got up to make the drinks even a couple of minutes before the time she would be vile and stop you.

I now work with all men. For about three months they didn't even ask me to make a drink as I don't drink normal tea and coffee, but when I started drinking fruit teas as it got older they might ask me to make one. One will sometimes hint, but as he hints to me and the managing director at the same time I don't take offense. I will make drinks for visitors, but then thats because we've only got a small office so often the visitors get my seat and I get to go and skive so its not a bad thing.

Last person I made a cup of tea for was the secretary. I spied her cup by the kettle with a teabag in. It had been there for a while and she just didn't have 2 mins to make herself a cuppa.

Some groups of people do coffee/tea runs, but I'm not in any of those groups.

...and these days I'd never make a boss a cuppa and wouldn't be expected to . I hate arselicks at work.

Reading this, I love where I work. We take it in turns to get the tea, depending on who is most free / desperate for more tea rather than hierarchy or gender. I've never experienced attitudes like some described in here in 12 years of working in a male dominated IT environment.

I've tried making her a cuppa when I saw her cu by the kettle (she's allowed to break her own rules!), but she told me not to bother!

I think your idea felicity might be a good one. I reckon the others don't get involved because they don't want to make tea. They only do on the rare occasions she's not there. In fact, everyone is more relaxed when she's not about.

minshu I've not seen anything like this for over a decade at least. Mind you, I've not worked in this kind of environment since I was an office junior.