to think a work experience should make the tea?

[LouiseD29]

I work in a large-ish agency in central London. It's fairly competitive and as a result we have a steady stream of youngsters all keen for a work experience placement. Some good, some not so good, but I am increasingly noticing that most of them NEVER offer to do a tea round for the team!

It's not like I'm expecting them to be churning out six rounds a day for 25 people, but AIBU to think that it shouldn't be beyond them to spot that 1. People here like tea; 2. If you do a nice thing for people it shows manners and team spirit and they're more likely to remember you and bear you in mind for future vacancies and 3. Everyone else has made a round today so GO AND PUT THE KETTLE ON!

When I was starting out I was constantly looking for opportunities to impress and wouldn't have dreamt of letting someone more senior make me a cup of tea.

AIBU and hopelessly old-fashioned, or do these youngsters have no clue?

I'm amazed that offices with a tea round culture still exist in the 21st century, especially in competitive big London agencies (agency of what?). People flaking off to make & drink 5 cuppas a day / go out for repeated fag breaks would get noticed for all the wrong reasons here. We've had amazing interns who've got themselves noticed by doing a good job, putting forward bright ideas, getting just drunk enough & being entertainig at the christmas party, organising a fun run team etc and many of them are now colleagues instead of interns. In an environment that's pacier than a 1950s solicitors office, I'd be annoyed if something needed doing but had to wait for intern to finish totting up a list of milk / no sugar in a task that bears no relevance to their suitability for the job (they can pitch in on the photocopying & filing though, that relates to how the job gets done)

What easter said.

how old are these people? 16-17? If so, LOL at the thought of them knowing enough/being confident enough to just make tea for everyone off their own bat. It's been a long time since I was doing WE, and I would HATE to make a round of tea. No idea who wants how many sugars etc. I would also not want someone else to make me tea.

But, if you want them to do it, why not just tell them that's how it works when they arrive? And be prepared for some terrible cups of tea!

I agree, Easter and GetOrf. I'm agog that there are offices where there is that much time to waste.

DontmindifIdo yes, if that ever happened! I've never worked somewhere where it was like that, though. My current job charges you for tea/coffee (only 20p, but it adds up if you're buying rounds) so people just go and get their own as/when they want it.

I wouldn't like to feel obliged to offer every time I fancied a cup of tea, that''s all.

luxemburgerli - most them are grads or in their final year of uni, so early 20s.

I also find companies charging for cups of tea pretty tight unless you're public funded & have to justify every cent. The BBC make staff pay for everthing - not a perk in sight, and apply in triplicate if you want some new paperclips (but never mind the £100m wasted digital conversion programme)
There was outrage here at the End of the Good Old Days when the free Lilt, Coke, 7Up, bottled water was removed. And my Times subscription for that matter. Seems like a lifetime ago now everyone's doing the work of three & are grateful for it.

I'm senior at work. I make a brew for all - baby newbies to the CEO alike. So too does the CEO. We too have a steady stream of Work Ex through the doors in an über competitive industry. Good ones volunteer themselves for everything and if they've nothing else to do, they stick the kettle on.

I'm currently working with someone who was once my work ex (I didn't employ them at current company) & I remembered her from 5 years ago because she did all required tasks with a smile on her face. And remembered how I like my tea.

So, if you are also giving them interesting work to do before you expect a brew (and also make them one regularly) then no, UANBU.

I went for one interview and it was mentioned that it would be great to have a woman and someone to make the tea. I am fierce in some ways and I immediately said 'No I will NOT be making tea.'

I got the job and I never made tea.

I think it could be politely pointed out to them, it's the kind of thing young people today don't notice.

When I worked in a professional services firm in the City it was always our first years jobs to organise lunch/dinner if we were working to a tight deadline and under pressure, and we were always incredibly grateful. We also had the 'but I'm far too good for this', not realising what a huge help it was to the rest of us.

When I left, I went to a much smaller company and quite regularly organised lunches/drinks if the PA's were out of the office or really busy with something - no biggie at all.

I always think it's good to help out people who are busier than you.

I think they should take a turn, certainly. Become the office tea-maker? No.

I echo those who ask who has time to drink that much tea. If I was a seventeen year old on work experience I'd think it was massively presumptuous to march in and offer tea. And I'd be worried about getting it wrong. I wouldn't feel it was beneath me but I'd feel like 'making the tea' was a massive skive.

YABU. "Manners and team spirit" my hole. Make your own fuckin tea if you want it.

I hate this sort of "let's see if they work it out for themselves and show initiative" attitude, when the work experience person is NOT to know how it all works, and every office is different. Please just let them know what is expected of them and let them show initiative in other, more useful, ways. After all, everyone can make a cup of tea (shit or good) FFS.

You can't assume that because the newbie sees others doing rounds that they think they are supposed to do the same or even be allowed to do so. After all pretty much everything about being a work experience person vs. permanent employee is different. They might not be allowed to do other things that permanen employees do (e.g. they might not have a desk of their own or a locker, also they could be excluded from department days out and meetings with coffee and donuts because they don't need to be there and they should just get on with their filing so that they can complete it before they leave because nobody really gives a shit about them and WE is not supposed to be a fun bonding exercise )

Well, work ex at our place tend to be graduates (paid). And when people are at their desks from 8am and often, often, don't leave till gone 9pm, we are eternally grateful to the Runners who get our breakfast, lunch & dinner as well as making us tea. They also get to learn on the job and good ones get responsible tasks. They become an invaluable member of the team.

And sometimes, when your under pressure, flat out and exhausted, it's good to take a 5 min breather (and I encourage it in my team) to have a cup of tea, a laugh and to gather ones self.

The fact this is approved of in my industry makes me love it even more.

Where I work, each office makes a pot of tea/coffee for themselves. I drink neither so all of this is irrelvant to me. However I think you'd need to be monumentally slow on the uptake to happily accept tea after tea from other people and then not offer to make a round yourself.

It's really not about whether you think tea making is a waste of time or not, it's about adjusting to the culture of the office you're working in.

Yabu, make your own tea.
They're there for the experience and early 20's, they're not 15 year olds at school.

I'm not asking for on the hour, every hour - we only drink two or three rounds a day, so no one makes tea every day. No one needs to be a tea skivvy and not have the chance to have a rounded experience of the company - one round a week would do it.

YANBU. It's not about the tea really, is it?

If you've managed to secure work experience in an industry that's difficult to get into and you have no experience of, then I'd have thought you'd take every single opportunity to show off your can-do attitude.

It's about willingness, not about being a skivvy. If you have a 'make your own fucking tea bitch, I'm not your slave' thing going on, then don't expect to get noticed (apart from in a bad way) and don't expect to get a job or a decent reference. The you can go home and cry to your mum about how you can't catch a break. Boo hoo.

YABU for thinking they should make tea BECAUSE they are on work experience. I agree that it's friendly and polite for anyone to make their fair share of tea for the team, but I think it's old fashioned and exploitative to want work experience people to do it.

You also don't say whether they're making tea for themselves? Maybe they don't drink tea, in which case, why should they make any for anyone else unless they're asked?

Your statement about not letting people senior to you make tea I find fairly odd, nd if you still had that attitude in a position of seniority, I'd think you were pretty pompous.

Oddly this attitude is v familiar to me from my years spent in work experience and junior positions in media. In the city I haven't encountered it at all. I'd never have predicted it would be that way round.

I remember doing 'work experience' in an office 30 years ago and once I had 'experienced' the amount of bitching and pettiness that went on it put me off any kind of office work. We were more mature at school Ffs. Make your own fecking tea, are they expected to make your butties too? Grow up.

SAHParenting or self-employment is the way to go. Copious amounts of Diet Coke (not crappy tea) and nobody else to impress but your customer. Jesus, office politics suck.

I did WE pretty much every summer from 14 onwards in solicitors offices/barristers chambers and I always offered to make tea. If fact if I was on WE I'd pretty much offer to do anything in the office in the hope of making a good impression. Funnily enough I got my trainee solicitor post in one of the forms I'd done WE in because they knew that.

When I was a trainee solicitor, I made tea for people and now as a senior lawyer, I still do it. It's not a status thing - it's a practical thing and it's just a nice thing to do for someone isn't it?

I've seen quite a lot of WE people over the years and recently I have refused to have them because we had several who just didn't seem to be interested in the opportunity that it gives them. And it is an opportunity for them primarily. We plan their week(s) to be interesting and they spend time with people who can explain the work to them - it's an investment we make in them, not the other way around. We don't pay them - in fact probably our lost chargeable time is in £1000's. We do it as a way of encouraging young people into the profession. I can't remember the last time anyone on WE offered to make the tea, it would show a bit of thought and a desire to muck in which has been lacking in my WE candidates.

This year someone applied who is really keen and motivated and I'll make sure that they have a good and useful experience with us. Maybe he'll surprise us and make the tea

Miss: Tell him that you all take turns making tea, or whatever you do (also show him the procedure), and when would be a good time to offer to do it - then you won't have to be surprised. But I'm ignoring the fact that you might actually enjoy him failing this "test" he didn't know he was taking. Unless he is no good in other ways, I don't think that offering to make tea is necessarily a mark of a good employee (could be the mark of laziness or ass-licking.. but, again, you might not mind that kind of thing, of course). But I tend to value other things higher than tea-making anyway (rightly or wrongly).

Where i work (not in an office) tea will be made for those who drink tea (usually 3 or 4) when there is a minute to spare and usually everyone is very busy so that tea will more often than not be drank over a 2 hour period luke warm/cold or heated in the microwave. Those who don't drink tea don't make it for everyone because well.. why would they?

It's a very quick someone will put the kettle on, 10 minutes later when there is a minute someone will fill the tea pot and put the milk in the cups, another 5 minutes someone will go back and pour the tea. It astonishes me in some offices where someone will go and make 5 cups of tea and stand there until the kettle is boiled, the tea is brewed and poured/sugared etc. What a waste of time.