To think that my new assistant is behaving unprofessionally?

[ShabuShabu]

My firm has finally assigned me a new assistant so I no longer have to share, which is great. Her work thus far is okay, and I'm willing to wait till she's more familiar with the place when it comes to having initiative. There have been several hiccups in our relationship though.

1. I insist on most people calling me by my last name because in my culture first names are a bit "intimate" and tend to be reserved for close friends and family. I have never had a problem when making that request but she refuses to do this because in her words, "I love your name!"

1. She's in charge of my personal scheduling which does include snippets of my personal life, and she has taken it upon herself to gossip to her peers about it.

AIBU to think this is unacceptable behaviour? If I were of a higher rank I wouldn't have qualms about expressing my discontent, but at my level it feels like moving into a new neighbourhood and establishing yourself as the #1 complain queen.

"Gwen it's no different to you full name being Gwendoline and you saying 'Hi, I'm Gwen' "

I wouldn't expect everyone to remember if I'm sending 50 emails a day with Gwendoline on them. As I mentioned above, this does happen to me. Many people can't remember my nickname and use what they see on emails and lists instead. I completely understand that.

"Our senior receptionist at work is a Mrs... something, and she is far from the only one."

Wow. And is this in an office or in a big institution like a hospital? I would mind it less if it cuts across levels.

The thing about introductions is that it's not polite to give yourself a title anyway. You'd say I'm Jane Smith rather than I'm Mrs Smith, unless you're talking to small children.

going totally off topic - when I started work in the learly 80s all our receptionists and administrative staff were known as Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms Staffmember and all the medical staff were Dr/Mr/Mrs/Ms - I quite liked it.

Wow well i dont think the op was being unreasonable at all, some of the replies tho...

I used to work with a man who was from Pakistan, his first name was Muhammad and our boss was also from Pakistan and called Muhammad. They both asked to be called by their surnames and said that it was quite common to do this since Muhammad was a very popular name. I didn't have an issue with this and I would never have insisted on calling them any different thats just rude!

As for gossiping. Totally unacceptable! And unprofessional.

Crikey. Huge thread with lots of irrelevances from people with their knickers in a bunch.
OP - the name thing is very irritating. I'd just be very blunt. My preferred name is "Smith", please don't use "Jane" again.
As for the gossip, I'd let it go for now - it may simply have been a case of the receptionist mentioning to your assistant she was looking at that school and the assistant mentioned (without thinking too much) that your ex's child attends. Technically gossip I suppose but minor.
Ride it out for a while but if her performance does not improve, go through the proper procedures to give her a chance to improve. If you still can't get on, you'll have to consider talking to senior management about her performance.

Shabu thanks for clarifying! Makes sense now. I think people may have misconstrued point 1 as being a way of addressing people according to status (that's something that pretty much frowned on and considered crass in the U.K.). On point one keep it cool and breezy and insist that you are called what you want and show that all colleagues are also referring to that name.

Point 2 - cool, breezy but also firm, and if it happens again you report to HR. Your assistant needs to be professional.

I had two people working for me, one was an Indian national and insisted on calling me a title and calling me his 'superior' - he drove me freaking nuts. The other was from Bangladesh and when I explained why it was inappriate in the UK, she was delighted and felt more empowered as a colleague.

When I'm with my Asian family I do swallow some of this status stuff, but at work I have I have my work culture hat on.

In Southern Europe With xdh, I'm happy to go along with their ways of addressing me but here, if they use it to elavate my status (which I don't think I have), I just remind them to call me by my first name.

Finallythrough - how many times can you use the word xenophobic in one freaking thread?

I really can't see what the fuss is about using a different name. I'm British and have a common first name (there are four of us who work together with the same name) and we simply refer to each other by surname or a variation of that. So in the Jane Smith example OP uses id be simply Smith or Smithy and I'm quite ok with that. I know so many people who prefer being referred to by something other than their given name so not sure why this is such a big issue.

Point two I'd have more issue with but it sounds like it's more people knowing things about you and using that to their advantage (school example OP gave) rather than them saying "ooh OP did this - isn't it shocking!"

Sorry i wasnt aware there were word police on thread.

If peoope keep being it i will keep discussing it, especially if others do.

Hope thats Ok with you howrude.

Or actually i don't give a fuck

YANBU. Culture or not, it's your choice how you wish to be referred to!! As for point 2 - you need a serious word with her.

Finally but you're not discussing it - just insinuating xenophobia all over the place.

Carry on, carry on.

Good night

...

Better hand back my classics degree then.

Thank god for AndTakeYourHorse who sees through all the bullshit too.

Sorry for not reading the whole thread l. I was a PA. At the start I made a lot of mistakes (including all the things you state and more) but with guidance I became the most devoted and best PA around. Speak to your assistant but also encourage and motivate. I left my job you yeare ago and still carry lots of information to my grave and also devoted to my former boss.

Finally - why would you hand back (to whom) your degree? It's your degree and belongs to no one else.

But I now understand your love of the word xenophobia.

I worked with someone called (say) Robert Baxter*. He made it very clear that he was never to be called Rob or Bob but didn't mind being called RB. Everyone called him Robert or RB, but more usually RB.

When drunkenly googling random work people I found out on his fb that his family call him Bertie. (A very particular and rather posh, old fashioned sounding abbreviation of his first name). Having found this out, I would never in a million years have just decided to call him Bertie at work. but it made it clear why the other abbreviations of his first name felt wrong to him.

Not that any of the Bertie stuff is relevant. people get to decide what name people should use for them. The end.

ShabuShabu, are you a woman? I bet your assistant wouldn't treat you like this if you were a man.

*not actually his name but it worked in a similar way

Gwen you have very strong opinions knowledge. Are you Queen PA?

Your insistence that an assistant need to know calendar details to calculate distance is sheer nonsense, frankly. When 'people' - not you obviously - calendar private matters they may be smart enough to calculate and add the time for travel. In other words, leaving available time available. Maybe worth considering?

Sorry for not quoting your actual words. I find that quite insulting when people do that to correct my opinion.

As a former assistant, the name thing, I think she's trying to build a rapport and trying to be more familiar OR she's doing the "she let's me call her X because I know her so much better" thing. Only you would know what she's really meaning with it.

Speaking about your personal business could be as simple as her not realizing that other people didn't know about something and when someone asked where you were, she told them, thinking they would know who Y was (she is new you said so that's a pretty easy mistake).

Your structure at work would determine the method of dealing with it. At most of my assistant type jobs the big boss would be the one talking to the assistant. Though those disputes were usually between other assistants etc. The other types of jobs the boss would handle it themselves. As you're not sure what you're supposed to do, I'd ask your big boss. Let them know you've got a couple small issues you'd like to address with your assistant and you wanted to check whether it's something you should involve them in, a third-party witness, or if you are supposed to handle it yourself.

Either way, I'd address it like this:

"X, I thought we could have a little debrief now that you've been my assistant for weeks and see how it's all going. You're doing really well at and ___ so thank you. How are you finding things? [talk about her issues if any].

I do have 2 things I need to mention. First is I must insist you call me [last name]. I know you think of it as my "last name" but I don't think of it that way. In my culture it is more common to be called by a last name and, unintentionally, I find it very jarring to be called [first name] so I would appreciate it if you could remember. This is also important when meeting clients/customers. Please remember to ask them how they would like to be greeted.

The other thing is it's come to light that you've told some people about my personal business such as about ___. Can you explain how that came up in conversation? [depending on her response] I'm sure you're aware that having access to my personal calendar means that you're aware of things that other people are not. I do expect you to keep these things to yourself. Confidentiality is extremely important in this line of work (I'm assuming and projecting here), both with clients and also of course personal business.

What on earth does a classics degree have to do with anything? Would you perhaps have a better grasp of what everyone is saying and stop needlessly bleating about xenophobia if we all started posting in Latin?

Its a greek word. Yet i'm the ignorant one.

Maybe dont post smart ass memes unless you also know shit.

Yes I'm aware it's a Greek word, thanks Finally. I'll see your degree and raise you a Masters, if you wish to be a pedant. I deliberately made reference to Latin to avoid confusion I was implying the post should be in Greek when the source word is already Greek. I was not referring to the specific route of the individual word, merely your utter inability to take on board all the other, theoretically much simpler words people are using on this thread - you seem somewhat hard of understanding when it comes to anyone else's context, experience or opinion. I thought perhaps it might help you be less obtuse if we tried those in Latin since your classics degree apparently makes you the oracle on this thread, but I suspect you wouldn't get it then either.

You have accused many posters on this thread of xenophobia multiple times. Several of us have pointed out to you that this isn't our culture either, and that as expats we find it the norm to assimilate or at least make a nod to the host culture, particularly in the workplace for smooth working practices, and it is odd not to do so based on our experience of exactly the same thing, yet you continue to insist we are all xenophobic. You suggest that all other cultures should be mindlessly accepted and followed. As the term also covers: an "uncritical exaltation of another culture" in which a culture is ascribed "an unreal, stereotyped and exotic quality" you may want to consider who is the Xenophobe....

Also, I happen to know that the word 'don't' contains an apostrophe. Apostrophe is a Greek word too, so you think you'd know that shit.... You're welcome.

With regard to the last name. Keep correcting her.

With regard to school - do you know for sure and certain that the pa gossiped? Someone else might have known. Or seen you. Unless you dated in secret and never went anywhere?