Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Are people like this in work really annoying

59 replies

MintyFreshBreath · 15/02/2022 13:05

Just a vent really. Part of my job is I have to book things for senior management and I’m fine with that. Not a problem. Only very occasionally, I have to ask so many questions I just think…Why the hell (on this ONE occasion) don’t you do it yourself? When I say it happens irregularly, I mean two or three times a year. Compared to me doing it two or three times a week. So not a massive thing but it’s frustrating for me and surely frustrating for them.
Rant over!!!

Any other work woes?!!

OP posts:
icannotbebothered · 15/02/2022 16:12

I'm a PA and this is the story of my life lol, about 50% of my job IMO is pointless, but they hire me so it must add value for them? My absolute least favourite ones are where my boss will ask me to phone so and so and transfer the call to her when they've answered, then whilst I'm on the phone.. my boss goes on the phone to someone else.. so by the time this person has answered the phone to me, my boss is speaking to somebody else! So then I just look like an idiot

Pedalpushers · 15/02/2022 16:17

In my experience senior people are often massively inefficient time wasters who delegate just to feel important.

I worked with a woman who would email you to ask you to email someone else, but to send them the email first to check, she would then correct the email and send it back asking you to redraft it and send it to her for final sign off, before you then send it on to the recipient. These weren't even important emails.

Pedalpushers · 15/02/2022 16:19

@madnessitellyou I once had a manager who said my emails got to the point too quickly and I should embellish them and turn them into more of a 'story'.

DilemmaDelilah · 15/02/2022 16:21

@amijustparanoidorjuststoned I had a boss who used to ask me to print things for her all the time.... But she openly admitted she didn't know how to do it and couldn't be arsed to learn. However we did have quite a complicated system whereby you not only had to know what settings to use before sending the document to the printer (colour, double-sided, paper size etc.) but you also had to go to the big multi-functional machine in a room on a different floor, punch in a code, double check the settings, tell it how many copies you wanted, give it extra instructions if you wanted it to be enlarged or reduced, made into a booklet, stapled etc, and finally press go - only to find it has run out of paper so you had either to change the paper source to another drawer or find some paper and full it up again.... By which time it has forgotten all your settings and password and you would have to start all over again!

ABitOfAShitShow · 15/02/2022 16:26

Ha! I remember an old boss (who was actually an absolute sweetheart) emailing me things to print with a long note about printing it...at the printer right beside him!

SpaceDetective · 15/02/2022 16:28

I got into trouble once in a temp job. I was meant to ask someone else to do my photocopying, but I just did it myself as to explain what needed doing would take longer than just doing the photocopying myself - NOT ALLOWED!

SexyLittleNosferatu · 15/02/2022 16:29

Years ago I was a junior at an accountants. One of my jobs was putting away files. No problem. I would go around at the end of the day and the finished-with files would be on the end of each desk and off I would go to the store room. Except for one woman who would take the file herself, to the store room, put it ON TOP of the cabinet and leave it there. She would even go to the trouble of putting it on top of the right cabinet i.e. Mr Apple on top of the A cabinet, but then leave it there!!

LemonSwan · 15/02/2022 16:37

I am currently in this situation;

Handing over work to my partner who has gone full time. It does take longer than doing it yourself but part of it is if you handover then they can take it forward from there and it gets removed from your 'mental load'.

Mental load is real and completely underestimated. As much as I could do a quick task - the chances of that task bouncing back and becoming 2 or 3 other very quick email errands is quite high. Thats OK when you dont have something else to do. But when you have numerous of these distracting you from larger tasks or piling up it all becomes too much and my brain implodes.

VivX · 15/02/2022 16:54

I used to work in an open plan office. I once observed a manager instruct one of his direct reports to call someone. He then spent a good few minutes explaining what he wanted her to say/ask.
Then, while she was making the call, he called out additional instructions and asked additional questions that she should ask the other person.

I'm still not sure why he didn't just make the call himself - he spent more time/effort micromanaging it. And I also don't know how she got through that call without telling him to be quiet.

Firstruleofsoupover · 15/02/2022 17:22

@icannotbebothered "my boss will ask me to phone so and so and transfer the call to her when they've answered, then whilst I'm on the phone.. my boss goes on the phone to someone else.. so by the time this person has answered the phone to me, my boss is speaking to somebody else!"

That is so effing rude. SO effing rude. Perhaps she is lovely in lots of ways... but somehow I doubt it.

I used to work in a big company as a PA, and it got dull and I was underutilised so I asked for more work. fine as I got to do some things for sales, things for marketing, things for finance. The marketing head, if I went to ask her something would routinely not even look up as I hovered next to her, kept typing, frowning, until the second I started to walk away. "Oh don't go away, I am ready for you now!" Just a power play. The Finance Manager in the same company was sort of okay but would ask me to set a meeting with the MD and then cancel it the day it was meant to happen - even though he just sat through the original meeting time tapping away at his desk. Then he would ask me to set it up again, and then cancel it again... we all worked within 25 feet of each other. In the end I said "no.... you arrange it for when it works for you." He just liked exercising his little power so I am pleased to think I took that tiny part away from him by just saying Nah.

Aldidl · 15/02/2022 17:27

Ooooh, I need this space today.

The moaning. Moan moan moan moan. Proper woe is me. Just about doing the job! GET A DIFFERENT JOB THEN. Absolute blind refusal to engage with multiple offers of help to try to improve things, just preferring to bleat on about what a martyr they are. Blurgh.

StColumbofNavron · 15/02/2022 17:29

Just checking in as another EA/PA.

Nothing to add.

LittleMissMoggy · 15/02/2022 17:32

I agree with the poster above who said sometimes these things are to upskill staff. I sometimes get staff to do small tasks for me (such as delegated phone call) because then they learn how to approach these tasks for themselves in the future. Things like booking complicated travel though I always do myself!

GreenTeaPingPong · 15/02/2022 17:44

I had a senior manager email me a word document of a letter, asking me to put it onto headed paper and email it back to her, saying, I'm sure it should be easy to do but I don't know how!!

I copied it and sent it back but also politely gave instructions for the future on where to find headed paper on the shared drive, and suggested that she open the word file, copy in her text, and do 'save as'. She is not 90, but about 40 years old! God knows how she got to her level without being able to do this.

Icequeen01 · 15/02/2022 17:57

I work in a school and it drives me mad when teaching staff send me something and ask me to forward it on to the recipient. I cannot work out why they don't just send it directly themselves? I'm not their PA and I am the only person in the school that isn't a member of teaching staff so to say I am busy is an understatement and they know this!

gettingolderandgrumpy · 15/02/2022 17:59

A colleague of mine will reply to a email that she is too busy to do this request and will get to it eventually. Fair enough but What she is being asked to do would take 5 minutes or if she delegated it to someone else but no needs to waste time emailing someone that she is too important and busy in the time she could of done this request.

Elsielouise13 · 15/02/2022 18:02

@TokyoSushi

I'm a PA, the joy of the old 'can you send X and email saying this' email 🙄
But sometimes I need to ask my PA to send something on my behalf quite deliberately. May be because I don’t want to engage with them directly for business decisions.

I rarely, if ever, email my pa to ask them to send something I can do unless there’s a reason. Sometimes it’s likely to involve a million backwards and forwards emails that it makes sense to have managed.

I’m sure I’m annoying to my PA when I ask for a resending of something I’ve been told, or interrupt a project they are working on to ask something urgently but, tbf the role of my PA is to assist.

My PA is amazing and I am sure I am irritating sometimes. I try to not be a pain and if I send her something that may seem pointless as a request I try and back up with a ‘I know this is annoying but there’s a reason I’m asking’ call.

Perhaps discuss with the person you are assisting if you are frustrated by requests? They may not realise.

Tho they could also be just an a I suppose

Firstruleofsoupover · 15/02/2022 18:09

@Elsielouise13 " Perhaps discuss with the person you are assisting if you are frustrated by requests? They may not realise."

This might work in some fantasy organisation where everyone had a clearly defined job description that specifically included the phrase "no stupid, time-wasting, willy-waving nonsense." In a real organisation, though, the affronted party will go straight to your boss and say "so and so got ansty with me today because I asked her to do something very simple. (That I could easily have done myself) She's unprofessional. Have a word." And then you will get a lecture about attitude.

Doidontimmm · 15/02/2022 18:10

My boss calls me to ask me to call whoever she has a meeting with if she is running late! She has all contacts saved on her phone, why can’t she just call them direct?!

Elsielouise13 · 15/02/2022 18:25

[quote Firstruleofsoupover]@Elsielouise13 " Perhaps discuss with the person you are assisting if you are frustrated by requests? They may not realise."

This might work in some fantasy organisation where everyone had a clearly defined job description that specifically included the phrase "no stupid, time-wasting, willy-waving nonsense." In a real organisation, though, the affronted party will go straight to your boss and say "so and so got ansty with me today because I asked her to do something very simple. (That I could easily have done myself) She's unprofessional. Have a word." And then you will get a lecture about attitude.[/quote]
Sorry? Are you telling me you know how my organisation works at senior level?

We are talking about PA and Executive Assistant roles here. A degree of professional respect is assumed. Sorry if your experience makes mine seem like fantasy.

I’ve worked with grievance focussed individuals as much as

Original poster
MintyFreshBreath · 15/02/2022 18:25

All of these sound so annoying. And yes to the bosses who spend so long explaining things, especially when you know it’s a one off aargh!!

OP posts:
balalake · 15/02/2022 18:27

Lateness.

Regardless of who it is. I think at least 90% is avoidable.

Original poster
MintyFreshBreath · 15/02/2022 18:32

@Pedalpushers

In my experience senior people are often massively inefficient time wasters who delegate just to feel important.

I worked with a woman who would email you to ask you to email someone else, but to send them the email first to check, she would then correct the email and send it back asking you to redraft it and send it to her for final sign off, before you then send it on to the recipient. These weren't even important emails.

My ex-boss did this. She would also do it with emails considered ‘urgent’ too and even if I knew the answer I literally couldn’t tell the person who had asked me because I hadn’t had approval. It was just so infuriating. Sometimes I’d go rogue and just answer and not mention anything. Spoilers, Mrs Important never actually noticed when I did that Hmm
OP posts:
sammylady37 · 15/02/2022 18:37

I’m a hospital consultant and I always ask my secretary to send emails on my behalf if it’s to patients, their families or outside organisations such as residential homes, pharmacies etc. The reason for this is I don’t want them having my email address and contacting me directly - I can guarantee a lot of the contacts would be inappropriate in that they could be better dealt with by someone else, or they wouldn’t need my attention, but there’s an expectation once an email is sent directly to someone that it’s read and actioned quite quickly.

For similar reasons, if I’m phoning someone I don’t do it directly from my office phone (which displays the number) I ask her to ring them and then put them through to me. If people were able to ring my direct line I would never get any work done, I would be fielding calls all day long.

suckingonchillidogs · 15/02/2022 18:50

Also a PA - I get a lot of "do me an email to that bloke I did that thing with about a year ago regarding that deal that didn't end up happening" Hmm