To think I’m not the tea bitch?

[Ribrabrob]

Recently started a new job. Fairly basic administration job, although fairly well paid for the role. It’s just a temporary maternity cover role. Not really a job I enjoy or want to do but was rather desperate so took the job.

The job is okay and the people are fine, mostly quite nice. I work closely with the manger in a tiny office, the owner is based in an office nearby but regularly pops in. From the start it’s been made very clear that making tea/coffee for them both is very important in fact in my first interview I asked what was the most helpful thing the previous post holder did for the manager. The manager answered ‘oh it’s so helpful when she gets my drink for me’. I remember laughing thinking it was a joke but it wasn’t

Hints are regularly made about having a drink, at least twice before I get the hint and then I’ll offer. If I don’t offer she’ll then ask outright but always after hunting. It’s annoying, i would rather she just ask. Other people also make little remarks when they visit the office that she (manager) doesn’t seem to drink as much as when the other post holder was here! It’s so weird.

I don’t drink many hot drinks myself, usually just one in the morning and occasionally another later on so it doesn’t always enter my head to make one 🤷‍♀️ But of course I do offer when I am making.

The other day the owner was due in in about half an hour. Manager asked me to have a chat quickly and took ten minutes explaining to me how he’d like his tea and to try and have one ready for him.

Aibu to be annoyed by this or is it just a part of a basic admin role? Aibu to think I’m not the tea bitch?! Aibu to think how I make the tea really isn’t that important? I’ve worked in offices before and the CEO’s would always make drinks like everybody else!

@flaviaritt yes but is have earned the career that is based on intellect. The key word here is career.

IsurvivedbutdidI

Which is great, but the OP in this case took a basic temp admin job because she was (in her own words) desperate. Not sure it’s a great idea to convince her to play silly games with the boss in a job she needs, and am definitely sure in her case this isn’t a career decision; the job (including making the tea) is presumably how she’s eating and paying the bills.

I’d probably just get on with it on a temporary role.

Our workplace has ‘banned’ tea rounds- everyone has to make their own, due to Covid. It’s actually much more pleasant now that nobody is sniping about it, or dropping hints about being thirsty.

In one job, smalI company, I was never allowed to make tea. That was the admins job and as it was pointed out to me my pay grade per hour was too much to spend it making tea.

Larger companies we took turns. Just depends on the company and their overheads/bottom line.

If your boss asks its best to just do it every two three hours. Consider it a break to dander about.

Make the tea, get on with it and don’t complain!

Actually it was rather embarrassing. Especially when clients would ask me for drinks, basic requests assuming I was the PA and I had turn them down and to go tell her.

@IsurvivedbutdidI - it's not the making of the beverages, it's the attitude as if it's demeaning. I worked in an office as a student and did that, fetched lunches, dry cleaning, fed the meter etc. I preferred that to working in a bar or factory which were noisy and more demanding!

@flaviaritt that suggestion was tongue in cheek. I am pretty sure the OP is smart enough to work that out.

@Maireas it depends on your own personal view. I did those sorts of tasks with a (fake) smile on my face because I had to when I was more junior. My point of view is that I would never ask a junior person to do this for me. I think making tea is not a work place task for an admin role. It's not administration is it. It's clearly putting someone in their place in quite a demeaning way in my view. Perhaps we should avoid each other in a work environment

@IsurvivedbutdidI - (you have a tricky name!) I agree with you. I'd never ask anyone else to do it for me, and hate all these silly workplace hierarchies. However, she's in a temp job, the pay is ok, I'd just get on with it (and use it as a break!)

I actually agree. In her circumstance I would just do it and not say anything. I just hate the fact that she had to even deal with this sort of thing in the workplace - very frustrating in this day and age.

I had a similar experience when moving from a middle management position (due to team being disbanded) into an equally well paid position were my job was 'Bidding Assistant to the Sales Director'. Despite having 'Assistant' in my title, I was on £35k with commission on top as was the only bid exec in that sub division and was often managing bids pretty much singlehandedly with a bit of strategic input from the directors. I wasn't really an asst in the traditional sense in that my job was 99% the same as that of the bid mangers in the team I'd just left.

To my surprise, my boss had me ordering sandwiches for the meetings and making drinks. When I raised this she told me in no uncertain terms that this came under the bit in my contract that said '...and support the key account directors in other various tasks.

“that suggestion was tongue in cheek. I am pretty sure the OP is smart enough to work that out.”

Hopefully she can get on to that once she’s worked out how to put the kettle on without having a strop about it.

But yeah if you don't want fired don't fuck up the tea or avoid making it. You wouldn't believe how seriously some offices take that shit 😂😂😂

Worst was when my old team members were in the meetings and going 'yes, one sugar for me, please, and not too milky'. 😐

Fuck half the admins/PAs I know walked the bosses dogs, fed there cats, picked up dog shit, did shopping, booked holidays, anniversary presents, phoned the wife, picked up lunch. You name it.

Yes, I’m thinking about my husband’s best PA. She took our children to their exams, dropped him to the garage, brought us her honey, reminded him of birthdays and bought presents for his mother etc.

@CherryPavlova

Yes, I’m thinking about my husband’s best PA. She took our children to their exams, dropped him to the garage, brought us her honey, reminded him of birthdays and bought presents for his mother etc.

This.

If you want paid for a few months then leave act how you want but a good PA who will act before asked is really indespencible.

I’m an absolute tea bag, probably drink 10 cups a day, usually made by me, and I run my own company. If a temp came to work for us and made great tea multiple times a day, no one in the office would want to let them go when their temp contract was up. Even if they weren’t great at the actual job, someone who makes great tea spreads joy, and their very presence in the office would make everyone happier, they’d very quickly be the most important person on the staff. Don’t make bad tea, it’s too distressing to contemplate, make no tea, or great tea, just not bad tea!!

It’s a difficult one though, no one wants to feel like a skivvy, and the hinting is infuriating, it sounds like you’ve taken over from someone who made the tea and so it’s expected of you and everyone assumed you’d step into that. Also you’re not a huge tea drinker, and their constant need for tea may seem overwhelming. If I was you, and I liked lots of things about the job, I’d start by making the best tea in the world, more often than seems reasonable, with joy in my heart and slowly make myself indispensable.

“It’s a difficult one though, no one wants to feel like a skivvy...”

Making tea isn’t skivvying. It’s a perfectly reasonable part of a support role, and she’s being well paid for it.

@flaviaritt

“It’s a difficult one though, no one wants to feel like a skivvy...”

Making tea isn’t skivvying. It’s a perfectly reasonable part of a support role, and she’s being well paid for it.

It's skivvying. Like I said, I've done it in the past and would again if it was part of the job, but let's not be honest about what it is.

As a PA, I played mediator with the racehorse trainer, dealt with the kids, laughed and cried with the wife, scolded the dude when he was too rough with the next tier down, bought and traded lunches, made the tea, made sure we had a more reliable supply of bog roll by shamelessly sucking up to the cleaners, and made sure that one secretary who was utterly bloody racist didn't create a walk out by the cleaners.

I also went out and schmoozed with the dudes, and drank them under the table.

@Imworthit

Fuck half the admins/PAs I know walked the bosses dogs, fed there cats, picked up dog shit, did shopping, booked holidays, anniversary presents, phoned the wife, picked up lunch. You name it.

These were presumably very, very big bosses though. Not two other people in an office with OP.

Many job descriptions include 'and any other reasonable tasks as requested by manager' but domestic chores in the manager's home are not reasonable tasks for an office worker.

Gwenhwyfar

I’m being entirely honest - I don’t think it’s skivvying, any more than I think setting up a meeting room or buying masks in or sending a letter is skivvying. They’re junior jobs that someone is being paid fair wages to do.

It’s very demeaning and old fashioned. When I start a job I make it known I don’t want to join a tea round as I’m self sufficient in getting my own brews. It’s only ever caused a raised eyebrow once and that was from someone who had a brew every hour on the hour. Fuck that.
In your position I would cut right back and maybe only drink water or if you really have to make the worst weakest tea ever.