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Original poster

Do you think it is unreasonable for a boss to ask his Secretary to make a cup of tea?

234 replies

Pepperypig · 06/05/2018 12:42

My boss asked his Secretary to do this for him and a client the other day. It used to be commonplace but I would have thought that it wasn't part of her duties?

OP posts:
bananafish81 · 08/05/2018 18:25

I would not want to work in a culture where fully grown adults are considered too busy and too important to feed themselves.

So, if you're a PA, and you've arranged all those meetings in your boss' diary and know that they are back to back all day and won't have any time to get something to eat, they literally are too busy to feed themselves!

You can offer to get them something when you go out at lunchtime

Or you can just let them wilt without them having anything to eat all day because you thought that picking up your boss a sandwich was beneath your station

evilharpy · 08/05/2018 18:27

Our boss has a PA (I'll call her Mary) who also kind of acts as a secretary to the rest of the team when we need travel booking/meetings booked/meeting packs printed off etc. We all take it in turns to do a drinks round for whoever wants one, apart from the boss who doesn't drink tea or coffee anyway. If we have a meeting we just grab a coffee on the way if we want one. If someone external is coming in, one of us would usually ask if anyone wanted a coffee and go and make it quickly. I don't think it would ever occur to any of us, including the boss, to ask Mary to do it.

BackforGood · 08/05/2018 19:46

I would not want to work in a culture where fully grown adults are considered too busy and too important to feed themselves.

As OliviaStabler says, though, this isn't about how you perceive yourself, or perceive the role of anyone else in the company. The actual reason a company employs a secretary (or it might be an admin person or a PA) is literally to remove tasks that clog up the time of someone they are paying £££ per hour. You don't pay someone £70k a year, to spend an hour a day standing by the photocopier, or filing, or answering queries on the phone, or making cups of tea. You pay someone £70K because they have a level of a skill or area of expertise that warrants it, and then, if you are paying them that, you want them to spend all their time doing that. It makes sense to pay someone £15 -£20K a year, do do things that - yes, the "boss" could do, but that don't warrant them being paid £70k a year to do. It's nothing to do with some MNers seeing making a brew as being demeaning in some way Hmm, it's basic maths.

SenecaFalls · 08/05/2018 20:15

I understand your points BackforGood. I'm a lawyer so I understand the concept of the monetary value of time. I just don't think that feeding myself is one of the things that I need to delegate to support staff in order to get my job done. Happily, I have always worked in environments where it has not been the norm for support staff to serve coffee, tea, and lunch for the individuals they support except in situations where clients are present for meetings.

TroubledLichen · 08/05/2018 20:26

Big difference between offering to get your boss lunch because you know he’s busy and the boss demanding you drop everything and go get it for him even if he’s not that busy. For me that would show a total lack of respect and I wouldn’t want to work for a someone like that.

In my last job the catering staff whose sole job it was to deliver refreshments to meeting rooms, got paid around £20k. The admin staff got at least double that. We weren’t being paid twice as much as the catering staff to make tea and if a boss was using his/her assistant for personal stuff (including regular tea making) then it would be considered a misuse of an expensive resource and since the boss obviously didn’t have enough actual work to need an assistant they would change the allocation so that they shared a team assistant instead.

BigPinkBall · 08/05/2018 21:00

In my previous job I often had to go to suppliers offices for meetings and usually the person I was meeting with made me a drink, to be honest it would have lowered my opinion of them if they’d asked a subordinate to make it, I don’t believe many people are so busy or important they can’t spare 3 minutes to make a hot drink and it definitely feels like a power play.

Plus it’s good to have a short break during the day to step away from your work and take a breather.

Magmatic80 · 08/05/2018 21:06

My job is to make my Director’s job easier, by doing the little things so she can concentrate on the big ones. So yes, making her tea, fetching her lunch etc is part of my job. Weirdly she gets uncomfortable when I take her dirty plate away though!

SenecaFalls · 08/05/2018 21:27

The main reason for me to expect support staff to bring a drink to a visitor is so I would not be leaving said visitor in my office alone. But if it's just me needing a drink, I get it myself as does everyone else.

expatinscotland · 08/05/2018 21:33

I think, too, Seneca, a lot of it is the UK obsession with hot drinks throughout the day, not just a big coffee in the morning or perhaps at a meeting with sandwiches and cookies/biscuits and muffins. I'm surprised more places don't have those machines like in hotels where you just tap what you want on a screen, stick a cup under it and it does the job.

Asdf12345 · 08/05/2018 21:37

Most secretaries I have been given seem to know when a cup of tea is just the thing required and somehow slide one under my nose before I know they have gone to make it. I suspect it buys them a few extra minutes to raise any queries whilst i drink it. (I rarely visit the departmental secretaries so when I do appear my one has usually built up a big pile of stuff). I remember one who used to hunt me down and I suspect use a mug of tea made as hot as the laws of physics make possible as a way to keep me captive a little longer.

SenecaFalls · 08/05/2018 21:53

I think, too, Seneca, a lot of it is the UK obsession with hot drinks throughout the day

Possibly, expat. Most people nowadays in US work places just seem to swill water all day long. Smile

And few folks drink tea, and there are pod coffee brewers everywhere, which take about 10 seconds to brew.

Grilledaubergines · 08/05/2018 22:04

The main reason for me to expect support staff to bring a drink to a visitor

Having previously said I’d make anyone a tea or coffee, this here is where I’d draw the line. Expecting me to do it. No no no. Don’t expect people, it’s incredibly disrespectful. Secretaries/PAs are just that. Not slaves. A few bosses would do well to remember that without the support of a good secretary/PA, they can’t do their job well.

SenecaFalls · 08/05/2018 22:12

Change "expect" to "ask" then. There are several reasons that, as a lawyer, I should not leave a client in my office alone. So if they want something to drink, I have to ask someone to bring it or else take the client with me to the break room. Usually nowadays they just bring their own water bottle with them so problem solved.

Grilledaubergines · 08/05/2018 22:17

I absolutely agree Seneca. My issue is expectation. Ask, of course. Working for lawyers as legal secretaries is a busy, involved role, as you will be aware. We just ask for respect.

SenecaFalls · 08/05/2018 22:22

I agree Grille. It's a very symbiotic relationship, at least in my experience.

ScaredPAD · 08/05/2018 22:31

I've missed a few pages but admin staff can get 40 grand? Outside London? I only got 30 grand as a teacher (and pretty sure school admin weren't well paid.)

I'm looking for a career change...

BackforGood · 08/05/2018 22:33

Issue on this thread and I suspect most threads if you think about it is that people are projecting their own situations here.

So TroubledLichen said they have 'catering staff' - well, of course if you have catering staff, then you wouldn't expect someone who has another role in the company to make drinks for meetings. Most people don't have specialist 'catering staff' in their offices though. She also said that admin staff got paid at least £40K. In my world, £40K is a boss's pay. Admin staff get well under £20K. It shows what a different type of job you can be talking about using the same title.
So this all comes down to the particular set up, within that company. As a potential customer, quite frankly I would not be happy to pay high hourly fees (lawyers, architects, private consultant, etc), to then only get 50mins of their time if I'm paying them for an hour. That's a lot of ££ for most people.
In my job, then I make a cuppa for anyone visiting me, and when I am out and about, the person I am visiting makes the cuppa for me - we just aren't in an industry where people have 'assistants', whatever they are called.

Grilledaubergines · 08/05/2018 22:33

Absolutely they can scared, and the rest. Secretaries/PAs can earn around £50,000 if very experienced in central London and not too far off outside, depending on the firm.

bananafish81 · 08/05/2018 22:49

I've missed a few pages but admin staff can get 40 grand? Outside London? I only got 30 grand as a teacher (and pretty sure school admin weren't well paid.)

Glassdoor salary listings for executive assistant roless* - average salary is listed as £33,290. That's an average so there's some roles which pay more (and some less)

Same for personal assistantss* - average is listed as £28,059

Payscale average pay for executive assistantss* is listed as £30,814 (with pay range listed £20,880 - £44,859)

Plenty of EA jobs in London advertised for £50k heree*

bananafish81 · 08/05/2018 22:51

Here's one exec EA role advertised for £50-70k

Ariela · 08/05/2018 23:23

When I was the boss in a male dominated environment, (all the rest were men) they made a lot more tea for me than I did for them!

Newyorkhereicome · 08/05/2018 23:52

I got my bonus today which brings my annual salary up to £68,000 plus benefits bupa , pension etc and as mentioned below I don't make tea or coffee never have, never will

TroubledLichen · 09/05/2018 00:44

BackforGood raises an excellent point. The role of a secretary/PA/EA/whatever you want to call it does vary as much as the companies that employee them and there’s not an awful lot of point in comparing the duties of a £50k EA in a London based investment bank to that of small company where the boss might not earn that. Interesting to hear different perspectives though!

OliviaStabler · 09/05/2018 06:55

usually the person I was meeting with made me a drink, to be honest it would have lowered my opinion of them if they’d asked a subordinate to make it,

It would have lowered my opinion of them if they clearly had admin / secretary / PA staff there but the boss was making the tea. They can't be that good at business if they can't use recourses effectively.

I don’t believe many people are so busy or important they can’t spare 3 minutes to make a hot drink and it definitely feels like a power play.

Last place I worked it would have been 7 minutes at least to get refreshments. No tea / coffee making facilities allowed on our floor so you have to go to another floor, then queue up (usually) to use one of the machines.

I don't make tea or coffee never have, never will

In the companies I have worked in, you would not be hired with an attitude like that. Places I have worked, you need a 'can do' attitude and we all help each other. If that means making the occasional cup of tea then I am not above that to help others out. They help me out when I need it.

Furano · 09/05/2018 07:11

In my last job the catering staff whose sole job it was to deliver refreshments to meeting rooms, got paid around £20k. The admin staff got at least double that. We weren’t being paid twice as much as the catering staff to make tea and if a boss was using his/her assistant for personal stuff (including regular tea making) then it would be considered a misuse of an expensive resource and since the boss obviously didn’t have enough actual work to need an assistant they would change the allocation so that they shared a team assistant instead.

But it would have been your job to have organised the refreshments order with the catering team.

In smaller organisations there usually isn’t a dedicated catering team.

I’m day to day office life PAs don’t make tea and coffee for the senior people they support. However it’s totaly expect a PA to support a client meeting in whatever way was needed.