for thinking people are very sexist towards secretaries

[AliGrylls]

The reason why I am posting is because I am continually frustrated about how sexist people are towards secretaries.

People assume that if you choose to do it as a job you are a bit thick (okay we are not going to get any awards for our intellect). Also, people have said to my face "yes, it is a perfectly good job for a woman". My usual response to this is that men did not think so before the first world war - in fact it was considered quite a respectable job for a man without a university education. Even many women have this attitude.

I think what really irks me is the stereotype of a seccie sitting filing her nails and can barely spell her own name. DH says in his experience the stereotype has been true - he has come across quite a few secretaries who are like this and are a bit hopeless. I just think they are the few that give the job a bad reputation and in most cases our bosses would not be able to survive without their seccie to sort out their clients and diaries.

I am curious to know what people on here think about their secretary or if they have had any experience of this.

Basically, AIBU for thinking the attitude towards being a secretary is a load of bollocks and that the problem is that people make far too many assumptions about it being a rubbish job.

My mum has made a career out of being a secretary - she's done it since she was 17; she's 50 now. She is very efficient, and excellent at the job. Her boss wonders how he coped before her! I hate the stereotype, and the fact that some people think you must be a bit "thick" because you're only a secretary
What my mum doesn't know about conveyancing is nobody's business!
So YADNBU, time people's attitudes changed, and more people appreciated the skill involved in being a good secretary.

(And FWIW "seccie" is an extremely cringeworthy term )

What I really hated about the secretarial/assistant role was the way that within some company cultures, it seemed to be perceived as a 'looking after' kind of relationship. In that the boss gets to be the demanding child and the assistant gets to be the one who gets to run around wiping their arse, dealing with their shit, and going 'oh I don't know WHAT I'm going to do with him'.

I suppose that's why more men aren't attracted to the role, and why they would be likely to be discriminated against if they did apply.

Isn't there a difference between a PA and a secretary though? I used to work for a huge firm that had both, they certainly had different responsibilities/level of respect/pay etc.

I suspect the OP is talking about what we would have called PA's as well, but either way YANBU.

Oh, and there weren't any male secretaries/PAs.

The thing is, the role of both secretary and PA can very so vastly from company to company and industry to industry, it's difficult to define either.

There aren't usually any specific qualifications apart from the typing / shorthand side of things, and you don't even really need formal qualifications there either as long as you're competent. Sadly many employers don't see PAs or secretaries as candidates for training and advancement, so you generally have to move companies to get a better deal.

But agree yes, if a company has both secretaries and PAs, the PA is perceived as the more senior of the roles.

I work closely with medical secretaries (I'm in NHS admin), it's a very skilled and demanding job, and they need the correct qualification (AMSPAR), so at least a year's training for the job.

'Sadly many employers don't see PAs or secretaries as candidates for training and advancement, so you generally have to move companies to get a better deal.'

Pretty much. That's why I don't do it anymore.

i think there are different 'levels' of secretarial work - there's the ones who are pretty much the modern day equivalent of the old 'typing pool' where they'll do typing, spreadsheets etc, but not much else,

there are ones who have more responsibility, may be assigned to one person/dept, where they also co-ordinate diaries, meetings etc,

and there are ones who are PAs, and basically allo w the boss to focus completely on their jobs by doing everything else, including getting the wife's (cos it's normally a male boss) birthday present & booking dinner.

dh has never worked somewhere with a secretary, he is expected to do his own paperwork. i think with computers, it is now quicker for most firms to do this, so the 'lowest' level of secretaries are a dying breed.

i agree, though, the assumption is that it's a woman, with lower status, caring for the needs of a man, who is practically her god, but strangely he cannot do without her.

I have worked as a legal secretary and/or PA over the years and have found considerable prejudice regarding my intellect. Oddly enough it was usually from the newly qualified and trainees, rather than older staff members. After a bit, I used to drop into conversation that, actually, I had 2 degrees and the equivalent of a PGSE, but that working as PA paid much, much more than a teacher (or their meagre trainee salary).

YANBU

ka is right that there are fewere because more office staff have their own computers and typing skills. I have never had a secretary who types as fast as I do for example but many years ago when I first started I didn't have access at work to a typewriter and indeed then - I started work in 1983 you were told as a woman professional not to let anyone know you could type otherwise you'd get shunted into doing that. This was only about 10 years after the Equal Pay Act which said women and men should have equal pay.

I always look at how people treat others. You can get a good idea of what they're really like. Some very senior people can be terribly lovely to everyone they come across at work. My daughter is working for someone at present who is awful and I am sure ultimately it will not benefit but working for awful people is part of life I suppose.

And I'm sure Mad Men is helping reinforce stereotypes about secretaries in its own inimitable way and huge numbers of women who would never have earned much or had much of a job are secretaries who marry a rich boss. Arguably it's a better investment than gaining your own position running the company some would say although that's not my own position as I could never live off male earnings on moral grounds.

I always used to have this conversation with my students when we were "preparing them for the workplace"

I really enjoyed being a legal secretary and I have worked for some really nice people. In fact, I had one boss who although was a complete prat in some ways, paid for me to do the legal executive course so that I could be more useful to him.

ShellingPeas - I completely agree. Some people don't see that choosing a less demanding job intellectually is a bit of a lifestyle choice. Yes, eventually you may end up earning more than a secretary but it is what you have to do to get there - it is a really hard toil and once you get there it is not always much better than being a trainee.

Also, the thing that was good for me, is that I am not one who enjoys working horrible hours and stressing over how much money I had made / not made the firm - I know I would hate that kind of stress. This is the reason why I chose to do it as a job.

I agree with Xenia about how people treat their secretaries. Someone who treats a secretary badly is usually a bad person to have around an organisation. I have known a fair few. On the other hand I knew a man who was not only extremely rich but powerful (in the way that having the President of several G20 nations on his speed dial is powerful) and yet he treated a young and inexperienced secretary in a charming and really very respectful way.

Like any job, I have seen outstanding secretaries. People who frankly should be paid more than a lot of so called managers. It can carry enormous responsibility. On the other hand I have seen a lot of younger secretaries who treat the work place as a place to stay warm between nights out.

Sexism is always there in the work place. I dont think it only applies to secretaries. I once got groped while bending over the fax machine by a female secretary.

I am a legal secretary in a large London law firm and in our firm we are all called "secretaries" regardless of whether we work for the most junior person or the most senior partner. I have a mixture of a senior partner, an off-counsel and a senior associate to work for and I know they appreciate me and my work. Generally in law firms (to my knowledge and I've been at 4) the term PA is very rarely used .. I'm very well paid and I work very hard for that salary, its certainly not an easy job by any measure. Its generally stressful, hectic, busy but rewarding too if you work for the right people (I'm lucky in that I have a good relationship with my 3).

A friend who is a partner in a much smaller provincial firm said they still have a typing pool, secretarial pool and about 2 PAs ... I'd hate that, I much prefer being considered an equal.

Forgot to mention that one of my old school friends (not seen him for 35+ years) became 'secretary' to the chief of some big international accountancy firm in Denmark.

My friend Clive, who had around 13 'O' levels, 4 'A' levels and studied at Oxford, then met a Danish girl (supermarket checkout at that time, in the UK) and married her over in Denmark where they now have a family.

It was because of his language skills (OK, no ancient Greek or Latin needed, but he enjoyed languages) and I suspect he was good on time management and scheduling things too!

Lost touch completely (unfortunately), but was given an update when I met his Mum on a train 20+ years ago.

Starting as a trainee Solicitor the first thing i ever did in any job was be nice to the secretary - they know everyone, know where everthing is kept andif you were nice to them and respected them they would help you in return.

Other trainees werent so nice and often got short responses.

My attitude was always that they knew their jobs inside out and without them i would have been stuffed - as a trainee they knew a damm site more than me!

Even on qualification i was nice to my secretary - she became a very good friend. I once took her to a Barristers do and remember a barrister being introduced to her and she turned around and said oh just a secretary and walked away from her because she was of no use - she never got work from me again

I used to be a secretary in the HQ of a very large dept store group. I found that it was the middle managers that weren't nice to the secretaries who would then, slightly on purpose, not go out of their way to help the managers. The upper eschelons of management (Directors and so on) were much kinder and polite and conseqently one felt more inclined to help them out (e.g. stay late to finish something) if they asked.

"remember a barrister being introduced to her and she turned around and said oh just a secretary and walked away from her because she was of no use - she never got work from me again"

Well done, racmac.

Sadly my first attempt at posting must have gone missing, but was to agree with OP that it is bad there are still some who don't appreciate the full set of skills most secretaries have (ignoring the "dotty, nail-filing, bimbo" cases that might be 1 in 500).

"Like any job, I have seen outstanding secretaries. People who frankly should be paid more than a lot of so called managers."

Absolutely - that is what used to really annoy me - organisations employing armies of competent, skilled, intelligent people who had very little chance of training, promotion and pay increases because they were labelled 'secretaries'.

Fair enough if being a secretary is what you want to be, and you are appreciated and paid what you are worth to the company, but this is so often not the case.

And it's not always an easy 9 to 5 option either, I regularly used to have to stay several hours late in the evenings in order to meet deadlines that the bosses (management consultants, ho ho ho) had over-promised on.