Being mistaken for the PA

[BingBoings]

Twice this week I have been in email chains, where I have been asked to supply dates for a meeting.

The reason for this has in both cases, I assume, is that I am the only female name in the thread.

Both situations have seen large numbers of clients and colleagues copied in on emails where… I am asked if I can help give times when my male colleagues are free. I am usually senior to them.

Am I the only person this happens to? I find it half hilarious, and half embarrassing… A few months ago I was asked in a meeting if I could do coffees when I walked in…

i have no issue with managing my own diary nor is there any issue with being a PA… it’s more that I don’t see men having this issue…!

So you did get the coffee? And you did get the sandwiches? When you could have just told them where they were.

This used to happen to me all the time when I was younger. My best experience was when I delivered some papers to my boss in construction. One of the other men asked me to make some tea and my boss stood up and said chillingly 'Jaxhog is my best site engineer, she has better thing to do than make drinks for you'. Another boss 'keeper'.

Now that I'm older, I've apparently become 'scary' so don't get asked anymore.

Yes Mark, I'm sure all non-white men telling similar stories are also just status-obsessed, because aren't all doctors routinely mistaken for nurses/janitors? Odd though that I haven't seen any white male doctors telling similar stories, but I'm sure the reason is that they are True Kings and not anything systemic.

I have come across some horrendous senior women. They are often bitter about how they were treated in the past and how much harder they have had to work to become so senior, in addition to some own ingrained sexism. Men tend to be just sexist. I have never seen the same bitterness.

Frightingly, I have spotted that bitterness in myself. Because I did have to push harder to get promoted etc. and still feel I have to be on the lookout so I don't get treated unfairly again.

That’s awful and is both racism and sexism, how dare your headteacher publicly humiliate you like that. Feeling rage on your behalf. No wonder you were gobsmacked.

@Mark19735 Take a taxi to 2023 Dear. I’ll pay.

When I arrange meetings I find a slot that appears to suit everyone. I don't expect everyone else to shuffle meetings around to suit the most senior person. There is nothing more annoying than having meetings moved around - I always think why can't they just tell the other person they are busy. Now I know!

I wonder if these sexist men ever do this to younger but senior women when there's an older woman in the room. If they did it in front of me, I would definitely say something!

There's actually a book on this that I read recently - not on sexism per se but on the fact that women tend to do the office wife work and less valuable work which is less promotable.

Everyone needs to do their share of the smaller tasks that make the office work, but it's usually women who do many more of them - and then don't get promoted. I can't remember the name of it now - something like The No Club. Well worth a read, though focused on the US.

No, women should not do as they are told if randomly asked to make coffee or take the minutes. Women as a group should stop looking down on these tasks and playing the same game as men of casting around for whoever is deemed the least important person to do them. As a group, women should question poor leadership and management skills more, rather than aping the inadequate behaviours. What idiot is responsible for not organising the meeting properly in the first place? Why the need to scrabble around at the last minute to find someone to take the minutes or make the coffee? Why was this not already thought of? Is it important or isn’t it? Is it important that it is done well? Why does nobody want to do it if it is actually an important function? If it isn’t, then why should anyone provide it? Can you do without it? Would what has been agreed be done properly if nobody recorded the meeting properly, or could misunderstandings arise? Would people remember what was said?

What is wrong with the leadership and management if they can’t organise a meeting properly? What are they being paid for if they can’t get that right?

I had a really horrid rep. come into the work place I own, all letchy & cock sure of himself, I was the only person in the shop over lunchtime. He asked if I wanted to go & get a bite, or more if willing....nod nod wink wink.... & fill him in on the owner, & any tips to get a sale...
I said no to lunch & he'd have to make aptmt.... with me.

“Can you make coffee/book next meeting/give oral?”

yes I can, because I’m a woman and can do more than just my job! Can you?

Wow, I saw the sexism but not the racism - maybe I've ben subjected to it for so long I am immune nowadays - my country is very racist too with its own people (lots of ethnicities mixed together)

What shocked me a lot also was other women not siding with me, laughing, minimising or being plain blind to what happened

So many crazy stories about that HT and school, the best thing I did was to leave

Not true. As I said above - women tend to do the non-promotable tasks and it has an adverse affect on their careers.

They volunteer to do them

They are expected to do them

And are thought badly of when they don't do them.

I completely agree. I was CEO of a large countywide charity, the male CEO’s of three neighbouring counties were so self-obsessed with their status they treated any females in the room with utter disdain.
It would have been amusing if it wasn’t so depressing.
They’re still as obnoxious from what I hear, 10 years after I left.

Women, Queen or otherwise, don't owe you NICE, Mark.

This is very true. I work for a forward thinking company - they have made conscious steps to make sure that men also do their share of setting up social events and other things that fall outside of anyone's role. Previous to this it was just the women doing it, and it was seen as affecting their promotion chances as the men were purely focused on promotable tasks.

It would have been majorly inappropriate to tell two external trainers to fetch it themselves - in context it is usual for coffee (and probably pastries!) to be provided for trainers and course attendees, and if he hadn't called in sick, someone whose job it is would have done it. So the problem wasn't that one of us had to make the coffee and collect the sandwiches, the problem was the trainers assumed it would be the women.

Four of us (two men, two women) got the coffee. The two of us being told we were finished on time to get the sarnies I was willing to put down to coincidence until the final remark made it clear they expected the women to take responsibility for refreshments. At that point the appropriate thing to do was complain, which we did. Which was in itself a risk, because the course providers were also the examiners the next day.

This has happened to me on a few occasions over the year my strats are:
Include your name and title in your email, then people are aware of your role.
Give your business cards to clients/people you meet at conferences etc then they are also clear.
If someone asks me to make drinks (smallish task) I'll do it with good grace or say "I'd actually like to talk to my clients, so if you wouldn't mind"
If it's a larger task I'll just say I'm sorry I don't have time but maybe contact administration for that.
I actually find it quite funny - someone once gave me their dirty plate at a conference because they mistook me for the waitress. Their face was a picture when I took took part in a specialist panel. I'm certainly not bitter about it.

It was bad that you asked but had I been in your position I would have gone purely to keep everyone waiting and to teach people not to assume. Then, never do it again. Actions speak louder than words. Also, had you been the minute taker, the meeting would have started late. Minute takers are very underrated.

I think my issue with this thread is not that men make assumptions about a woman's role based on her sex. That of course happens, is wrong and needs remedying.

It's the stories that go "X came in and thought I was the PA/ shop assistant and was horrendously rude. The last laugh was on him though when I turned out not to be!'. So no thought about the wider implications that women in these female-dominated roles get treated like shit on a regular basis. Just as long as it's not you, eh?

Well said.

You really are quite thick aren’t you? Your hilarious little anecdote about the Queen has nothing to do with the thread. We’re not talking about simple mistaken identity here. The Queen wasn’t asked if she’d ever met the Queen because she was a woman, they assumed she was a local in the same way they may have assumed a man was a local and asked him the same.

Men in business are not repeatedly asked/assumed if they’re the secretary. This whole thread is about assumptions based on your sex. Something you will not face. You have been so busy mansplaining everything to us you have totally missed the point. You literally don’t understand what we’re talking about and come and tell us a silly story which is nothing to do with this thread.

Is there any colleague on your team, preferably male, who is likely to understand the problem and could act as an ally?

We used to have the same problem at a previous workplace where two of us would walk into a meeting with an external party and they would consistently talk to me first, assuming I was the lead for that meeting, instead of to my 10-year younger and female colleague. However, we actually had the same role, and although I was overall more experienced, we divided up the external parties and she was meant to take the lead with half of them. At my initiative, we solved that one by having her greet them first, and then start to chitchat, while I offered them coffee or tea. It worked, and it also did not prevent me from participating as an equal peer in the meeting afterwards, whereas had she served the coffee, they probably would have continued to focus on me, which is what we both wanted to avoid.

An analogue approach for you could be to agree in advance with a colleague who is junior to you that whenever you get an email about scheduling, if it is copied to all they will proactively respond to it with "I am taking care of the scheduling for this, how about dates X,Y or Z?". Or if it needs to be made even clearer that you are delegating this, you could reply to all saying "hi John, would you please find a date that works for everyone." If you explain verbally in advance to John why you want to do this, and if he has half a brain, then he should not take offense, and if he is a decent guy then he should be pleased to help you out.

Just had a look at Mark’s posting history. An awful lot of denying women’s experiences going on (no gender pay gap apparently, among other things) and much men’s rights. Best ignored, I suspect.

if a man asked me that I'd be tempted to say, 'Ooh nice idea - be a sweetheart and pop along to ask the catering staff, there's a love.'