Page 14 | Being mistaken for the PA

BingBoings · 2023-02-10T21:11:00+00:00

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…!

WinterFoxes · 11/02/2023 14:19

VeronicaFranklin · 10/02/2023 21:39

I was once asked in a meeting if I could 'pop out to the shop' to get one of the male managers some Sudafed as he had a cold and was struggling and 'if it isn't too much trouble to grab everyone a Starbucks on the way back would be really helpful'

So I did as asked without question.

When I came back 20 mins later, the meeting hadn't started, everyone sat around looking awkward because as a senior manager, I was chairing it... and consequently everyone was kept an hour later. They assumption was I was a junior note taker, being the only female in the room.

Brilliant. I'd have done the same. Take your time doing menial work for executive salary and let them squirm.

WinterFoxes · 11/02/2023 14:26

Stravaig · 11/02/2023 11:00

Now I'm remembering all the times a skill like touch typing is misconstrued. I taught myself to touch type as a kid in the 80's, on the family ZX Spectrum, the better to play games and code. (I'd put my head round the door of the school secretarial classroom, got the heebie jeebies, and ran.) Sheer instinct told me it would be useful. And it was, years later, doing research, when I could immerse myself in a problem and emerge hours later with screenfuls of code and a solution, and no clear memory of how it got there. However this deftness of fingers does not magically make me well-qualified for general secretarial tasks, any more than it does for mechanics or surgery.

This is great but i have an opposite story:

I have a gorgeous friend who ended up running a global division of a multinational. She always claimed it was because she never learned to type, so when as a junior people tried to sideline her into secretarial roles, she couldn't do them. IN those days you had secretaries so she was allocated one which gave her status. And so she proceeded. She reckons if she'd been able to type she'd still be in a junior role.

TheSilveryPussycat · 11/02/2023 14:36

Mark19735 · 11/02/2023 11:40

Morning. Wow this thread has been busy.

Lots of interesting perspectives on this thread so far, but none that really change the fundamentals. Little-minded people seem obsessed with job titles, email signatures, and who makes who a coffee. They are easily outraged by every anecdotal instance where assumptions have been incorrectly made, and see everything as a systemic problem. The real rainmakers know that a person's value isn't defined by such trivialities. They are relaxed about it when it happens to them because they know their worth, and it doesn't change based on a job title or who makes the coffee.

Best illustration of this? The story about the Queen and her protection officer meeting American tourists out in Balmoral. They asked her if she'd ever met the Queen and she replied no, but Dick (her protection officer that day) saw her all the time. They then asked her to take a photograph of them with him. Do you think she spent that evening on MN furiously posting about misogyny? Of course not ... because she was an actual Queen! She found it hilarious, and that's exactly what that story is - a funny anecdote about mistaken identity. Real Queens don't care. Nor do Kings. Little people seethe and fume - but really it's a sign of their frustration about their own precarious insignificance - and everyone else in room knows it.

I bet she felt a bit differently when Trump broke protocol, though, and walked in front of her - it looked as if he did so because the Queen was a woman.

IhearyouClemFandango · 11/02/2023 15:03

I remember once attending a board meeting in my capacity as Head of Marketing. I was only young, around 25 so had progressed quite quickly. Another member of the board asked me to take minutes (after collecting the coffee and sandwiches). I said I might struggle as it is a special.skill and I would also be presenting. Was told to crack on.

I did so.

Was then picked up in my next appraisal and told my minute taking skills weren't up to par and I needed to work on them. They weren't in my job spec as I pointed out.

I was also asked to replace the paper in the printer.multiple times, call the engineer when it broke. Often by members of staff who were on a level or junior to me. Apart from the receptionist I was the only female staff member (shipping company) so it was very noticeable.

RhubarbRocks · 11/02/2023 15:06

@Mark19735 if you think senior people often won't care/feel assured in their position then perhaps read Mary Ann Siegharts’s excellent book ‘The Authority Gap - why women are still taken less seriously than men and what we can do about it’.

It it she interviews a huge number of women including Hillary Clinton, former Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the novelist Bernardine Evaristo, Mary Beard, Baroness Hale, Christine Lagarde, Mary McAleese and many others, who give first hand accounts of their own experience of the Authority gap. Are they ‘senior’ enough for you? She also includes a lot of evidence and data as well as setting out why it exists (and what we can do about it).

It opened my eyes and helped explain a lot about the world and my own professional experience to me - it really is worth a read (although it did make me furious).

MichaelFabricantWig · 11/02/2023 15:11

Ugh.

nothing as bad as that but years ago when I and a male colleague were more junior we were in a meeting with the senior partner and a client. The partner asked the client if he wanted a coffee and the client looked directly at me and said “milk no sugar thanks”. I mean wtf.

MichaelFabricantWig · 11/02/2023 15:14

Mark19735 · 11/02/2023 11:40

Morning. Wow this thread has been busy.

Lots of interesting perspectives on this thread so far, but none that really change the fundamentals. Little-minded people seem obsessed with job titles, email signatures, and who makes who a coffee. They are easily outraged by every anecdotal instance where assumptions have been incorrectly made, and see everything as a systemic problem. The real rainmakers know that a person's value isn't defined by such trivialities. They are relaxed about it when it happens to them because they know their worth, and it doesn't change based on a job title or who makes the coffee.

Best illustration of this? The story about the Queen and her protection officer meeting American tourists out in Balmoral. They asked her if she'd ever met the Queen and she replied no, but Dick (her protection officer that day) saw her all the time. They then asked her to take a photograph of them with him. Do you think she spent that evening on MN furiously posting about misogyny? Of course not ... because she was an actual Queen! She found it hilarious, and that's exactly what that story is - a funny anecdote about mistaken identity. Real Queens don't care. Nor do Kings. Little people seethe and fume - but really it's a sign of their frustration about their own precarious insignificance - and everyone else in room knows it.

Oh, step down ladies, a man (presumably) has come along to tell us we are wrong. As you were.

SamanthaCaine · 11/02/2023 15:14

RhubarbRocks · 11/02/2023 15:06

@Mark19735 if you think senior people often won't care/feel assured in their position then perhaps read Mary Ann Siegharts’s excellent book ‘The Authority Gap - why women are still taken less seriously than men and what we can do about it’.

It it she interviews a huge number of women including Hillary Clinton, former Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the novelist Bernardine Evaristo, Mary Beard, Baroness Hale, Christine Lagarde, Mary McAleese and many others, who give first hand accounts of their own experience of the Authority gap. Are they ‘senior’ enough for you? She also includes a lot of evidence and data as well as setting out why it exists (and what we can do about it).

It opened my eyes and helped explain a lot about the world and my own professional experience to me - it really is worth a read (although it did make me furious).

For the benefit of those who haven't read the book, can you advise what can be done about it?

I'm referring to the title of the book:

The Authority Gap: Why Women are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and what We Can Do about it.

RhubarbRocks · 11/02/2023 15:31

@SamanthaCaine There a a number of pages of actions (she groups them by what we can do as employers, parents, colleagues etc etc). It’s quite a lot!

This article is quite a good summary of the concepts in the book: www.bailliegifford.com/en/media-hub/insights/ic-article/2022-q4-author-interview-mary-ann-sieghart-10016229/

In this article the interviewer asks for two things we can all do and this is what Mary Ann replies:

“The first is to be aware that, however liberal, intelligent or even female we are, we almost certainly harbour unconscious bias against women, and we can’t get rid of it or put a lid on it – it’s called unconscious for a reason. But we can notice when it manifests itself and then correct it.

“The second is: don’t mistake confidence for competence, because they are not the same thing. Men are socialised to appear more confident than women, and more likely to overestimate their competence. So, if we take people at their word, we are almost always going to assume that a man is better than a woman, even when he’s not. That lies at the root of the authority gap and the better opportunities that men get.”

I would add talking about it to the above - if we all share our experiences and raise awareness then more people start to notice and take action.

I invited Mary Ann to speak at my workplace and now we have men as much as women talking about it and taking action. One senior man added it as a reflection point at the end of meetings to ask everyone to reflect on whether we had been mindful of the Authority gap during the meeting (eg if men have interrupted women, if everyone has had an equal opportunity to speak etc). Having men advocating for this as well as women is what will help to change things.

FawnFrenchieMum · 11/02/2023 15:38

Naunet · 11/02/2023 12:50

So what, women should just embrace these things and not challenge men because if we do, somehow that’s shitting on other women? Come off it, that’s not how job roles work, and it’s not slavery to expect the PA to do their own job rather than having it delegated to the nearest person with a vagina.

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As an EA no where in my job description does ur say make tea & coffee! So I’m not sure it would expecting to do my job.

LookItsMeAgain · 11/02/2023 15:50

@VikingsandDragons - would it have possible not to work with someone like that? Could you have refused to work with him?

SamanthaCaine · 11/02/2023 15:53

RhubarbRocks · 11/02/2023 15:31

@SamanthaCaine There a a number of pages of actions (she groups them by what we can do as employers, parents, colleagues etc etc). It’s quite a lot!

This article is quite a good summary of the concepts in the book: www.bailliegifford.com/en/media-hub/insights/ic-article/2022-q4-author-interview-mary-ann-sieghart-10016229/

In this article the interviewer asks for two things we can all do and this is what Mary Ann replies:

“The first is to be aware that, however liberal, intelligent or even female we are, we almost certainly harbour unconscious bias against women, and we can’t get rid of it or put a lid on it – it’s called unconscious for a reason. But we can notice when it manifests itself and then correct it.

“The second is: don’t mistake confidence for competence, because they are not the same thing. Men are socialised to appear more confident than women, and more likely to overestimate their competence. So, if we take people at their word, we are almost always going to assume that a man is better than a woman, even when he’s not. That lies at the root of the authority gap and the better opportunities that men get.”

I would add talking about it to the above - if we all share our experiences and raise awareness then more people start to notice and take action.

I invited Mary Ann to speak at my workplace and now we have men as much as women talking about it and taking action. One senior man added it as a reflection point at the end of meetings to ask everyone to reflect on whether we had been mindful of the Authority gap during the meeting (eg if men have interrupted women, if everyone has had an equal opportunity to speak etc). Having men advocating for this as well as women is what will help to change things.

Thank you for taking the time to post your reply and for the link. I'll have a read up.

Cordeliathecat · 11/02/2023 16:00

yellowtwo · 11/02/2023 02:52

Cordeliathecat

You haven't systematically experienced sexism but you are more than happy to play the useless female role and let DH have the headache!
That you think women have a "useless female role" is stereotyping and a result of sexism.

I haven’t experienced systemic sexism in the workplace is my point.

The plumber being sexist and wanting to discuss the issues with the Megaflow with my DH as I simply wouldn’t understand doesn’t bother me in the slightest and it actually works to my advantage. The truth is that I’m more likely to understand than my DH but I’d rather not deal with the issues and let my DH.

VikingsandDragons · 11/02/2023 16:07

LookItsMeAgain · 11/02/2023 15:50

@VikingsandDragons - would it have possible not to work with someone like that? Could you have refused to work with him?

Sadly not, we provided a statutory service, so we had to deal with everyone who came through the door.

nopeasplease · 11/02/2023 16:12

In the last company I worked at a few of the PAs made over £200k per year (mind you they worked for it - weekends / evenings / holidays on call, hugely long hours in the office and a manager. PA as a job has evolved massively from the stereotypical minute taker / meeting arranger that it used to be - it's just a shame most men haven't evolved as much!

UserNameSameGame · 11/02/2023 16:13

FawnFrenchieMum · 11/02/2023 15:38

As an EA no where in my job description does ur say make tea & coffee! So I’m not sure it would expecting to do my job.

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I think that is also a very good point.

And possibly it depends on people’s experiences and the type of industry they work in as to what’s common and what people expect from different times..

In my industry the Admin staff are graduates who are expected to perform administrative tasks like collating and editing content, organising people to come together for a bigger task, organising meetings including sending out invites, booking a room and yes, ordering the refreshments. They come in to the organisation at the bottom of the ladder, learn by doing these tasks for a period of time, and then move up the ladder.

My EA however has a very specialist skill set with years of experience and I wouldn’t dream of asking her to perform the same types of tasks. Completely different role.

Walkaround · 11/02/2023 17:28

There is a difference between being asked to order in refreshments in advance as part of your role and someone randomly turning to you in a meeting and telling you to go and make everyone coffee. The former is part of the proper organisation of the meeting and the fulfilment of a useful function, and the latter is childish power play. If you are the one who suddenly came up with the idea that everyone should have coffee, then you should make the coffee yourself, or if you are the visitor, ask the person responsible for chairing the meeting where you can obtain refreshments. You are, after all, the one who appears to be in need of it.

Basecampzero · 11/02/2023 18:56

RosesAndHellebores · 11/02/2023 07:00

No, I don't suffer from this. Perhaps because I'm in my 60s and still working in a very senior role. To be fair it didn't happen much in my 20s except when I was no longer the most junior member of the team in a male dominated environment and was asked to take a note I said "yes, of course, we can take turns, we need a little system". Final note: it was agreed the team would rotate as notetaker, at the next meeting John Smith will be note-taker.

Nowadays if it's a formal meeting, tea and coffee will be pre-ordered. If it's small and/or informal, I have no problem making tea for people with me, gives me a minute to have a wee usually ☺️

I've always felt so privileged and lucky to have been successful in the work place, I've either not noticed, not shown offence or provided a neutral solution. Being a woman didn't stop me being successful. Nobody ever assumed I was a secretary or admin.

Peak pulling up the ladder. I don't see the point of these posts that say that it didn't happen to me. What are you implying? That other women are making it up? They shouldn't be making a fuss? If only they handled better it wouldn't happen to them?

The point is that if they were a man it wouldn't happen to them at all. They wouldn't have to appear more confident or have strategies to deal with it. It's not that they shouldn't be making a fuss, it's that they shouldn't have to make a fuss.

Women like you are part of the problem.

Sodullincomparison · 11/02/2023 19:12

@piedbeauty sorry- I was the Head he was waiting for.

if he’d had basic manners walking then I would have been able to introduce myself.

SamanthaCaine · 11/02/2023 19:19

Basecampzero · 11/02/2023 18:56

Peak pulling up the ladder. I don't see the point of these posts that say that it didn't happen to me. What are you implying? That other women are making it up? They shouldn't be making a fuss? If only they handled better it wouldn't happen to them?

The point is that if they were a man it wouldn't happen to them at all. They wouldn't have to appear more confident or have strategies to deal with it. It's not that they shouldn't be making a fuss, it's that they shouldn't have to make a fuss.

Women like you are part of the problem.

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Are forums not for sharing experiences now?

RosesAndHellebores · 11/02/2023 19:27

@Basecampzero or perhaps it's the way I dealt with it, assertively rather than taking offence, that kept getting me promoted. Despite starting my career in 1981 I have never ever felt discriminated against at work. Not for being a woman. Not for not having a degree. Neither have I felt subordinated or inferior. Because I am not and my bearing demonstrates it. I stand straight, look hard, and keep smiling.

It wouldn't happen to other women if they had presence and confidence. Nobody claps a whinger.

TheOrigRights · 11/02/2023 19:47

*Peak pulling up the ladder. I don't see the point of these posts that say that it didn't happen to me. What are you implying? That other women are making it up? They shouldn't be making a fuss? If only they handled better it wouldn't happen to them?

The point is that if they were a man it wouldn't happen to them at all. They wouldn't have to appear more confident or have strategies to deal with it. It's not that they shouldn't be making a fuss, it's that they shouldn't have to make a fuss.

Women like you are part of the problem.*

For me, I have noticed the behaviour seems less prevalent in the tech industries (both in my own experience and from what I read).
So sharing this might be useful to some - what is it about that industry or the people it attracts?

MabelMoo23 · 11/02/2023 19:54

Tribollite · 11/02/2023 13:44

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?

Absolutely this. I get treated like shit because I’m the admin!!!

Walkaround · 11/02/2023 19:54

Basecampzero · 11/02/2023 18:56

Peak pulling up the ladder. I don't see the point of these posts that say that it didn't happen to me. What are you implying? That other women are making it up? They shouldn't be making a fuss? If only they handled better it wouldn't happen to them?

The point is that if they were a man it wouldn't happen to them at all. They wouldn't have to appear more confident or have strategies to deal with it. It's not that they shouldn't be making a fuss, it's that they shouldn't have to make a fuss.

Women like you are part of the problem.

Show quote history

Surely if there were only men in the meeting, it would happen to a man? Or do all male meetings not require minutes or refreshments?

G5000 · 11/02/2023 19:57

Surely if there were only men in the meeting, it would happen to a man? Or do all male meetings not require minutes or refreshments?

Sure they do, but then the men would figure out whose job it is, or discuss and agree how it should be handled. If there is one woman in the room, they just assume it's her job.