I sort-of have a secretary. :eek: Well, she’s not a secretary so much as someone who doesn’t have much to do, so our boss has told me to pawn off as much of my grunt work on her as possible.
I really feel like a jerk for pawning off my bitch work on someone else. I’m talking extremely mundane stuff, like file this, shred that, look this up, etc. Today I gave her an extremely tedious project that will take at least three hours, involve multiple phone calls, and involve digging through multiple charts. And she smiled cheerfully while I was explaining it to her. :smack:
This is new territory for me. Usually I’m the one getting grunt work assigned to me. Did any of you other Doper bosses feel a twinge of guilt when you pawn off work on subordinates?
Nope. That’s pretty much why I have subordinates. Lawyer time is much more valuable than secretary time, so she does anything that does not require a lawyer to accomplish…mailing stuff, office supply, telephone/reception, filing, routine correspondance, etc.
Remember your current guilt only as a prod for you to continue to say “please” and “thank you” regularly. These magic words will go a long way towards helping to keep the smile on her face.
Look, I’m an admin, and that sort of thing is my job. I don’t feel like I have a lesser or unimportant job. Everyone pulls together as a team. I feel like when I take those jobs off you it leaves you to do the more important stuff.
Filing and shredding is boring, granted, but again, it’s a teamwork job. If you treat me with respect and dignity I will always smile when you give me work.
Just make sure they are given credit for the jobs they do. I had a crappy boss that took credit for everything I did for 15 years. She would have me create a spread sheet or a database and then pass the work off as her own doing…
Yes she was my boss and yes she assigned me the task but at least give credit were credit is due.
(It’s usually their turn to speak next. Something along the lines of “No that’s fine. Give it here”)
I am a ‘middle manager’ so I give out work and I get given work. Often I get given things to scan because my boss doesn’t know how to work things with electricity inside them.
You must learn to delegate. She doesn’t have enough to do, and you would be doing both her a favor (by giving her something to do so her job can be justified) and you a favor (by freeing you up to handle more high-level stuff.)
As someone once mentioned, you cannot be promoted if you cannot be replaced. Fob off the grunt stuff to her and fret no more.
In all seriousness. Where I work I am fairly sure I’ve made people’s jobs much more secure by giving them work to do, while at the same time freeing myself up to do things that are a: more fun and b: more suited to my best abilities. I’ve had meetings with my own bosses where I’ve been able to say “Person X is in charge of Job A and he is doing a better job of it than anyone did previously”.
Keep in mind that if she’s new, these tasks may not be as boring/repetitive for her as they are for you. We have a bunch of tasks in my group that always go to the new person. The new person doesn’t know our data or systems. The boring, repetitive tasks are only boring because you’ve done them 5 zillion times and they don’t pose a challenge any more. (Well, copying and filing are always boring. But we have data-pulling tasks that we do that are dreadfully dull after the first 100 times you do them, but the first 5 times, they’re good at introducing the new person to the data and the systems that we use, and the new person isn’t bored by them at all, nor are they insulted that we’ve asked them to do them because they won’t discover for a few weeks how easy and boring these new tasks are.)
Plus, I’d far rather have something to do, even copying or filing than nothing to do.
Yes, please thank your admins. A simple bouquet of flowers and a small card on secretary’s day, and of course remember the things they do and don’t take credit for them.
You don’t even have to say I’d do it myself but…just try and be aware when she does have other projects, and try to accomodate if she is swamped in the future.
And maybe in time she can do more important things for you than just filing and shredding.
A good boss-admin team, wherein there is mutual respect and dignity, and the work is shared in the right way, adds a great deal to a company/office.
Yes, absolutely. My secretary is worth her weight in gold, cocaine, or any other valuable commodity. Her job is tough, and she does it well, plus she puts up with me. She deserves basic courtesy at a minimum. Please, thank you, all those social lubricants should become second nature to any “boss” in any business.
Remember Secretary’s Day, and do something for them. I usually take mine to lunch, but a gift card, or flowers, or whatever fits your style should become a priority purchase for bosses.
I do not want to even think about trying to run my office without my secretary. Doubt I could do it, do not want to try.
Getting other people’s grunt work was the only reason I had a job right out of college. I really liked it for a few reasons:
Gratitude- let him/her know when they have made your life easier
work experience- they would give me progressively harder assignments. This went on my resume
learning to do new things with applications like excel/word/access - if you need him/her to chart and graph stuff, show how and let him/her take off with it.
It is far worse when that doesn’t happen- you have people in higher paid positions doing the “grunt” work as it is easier or doesn’t require them to make decisions.
I’m a finance assistant, and whenever my supervisor gets compliments on a job well done, she always responds with “Well, lolagranola did all of the legwork on this one. I think she did a great job.”
For the last two years I’ve worked for a slew of temp agencies so I’m used to getting the “crap” jobs.
You get used to, and let’s face it, I don’t like it and I’d quit doing this if there was anyway not to, but I am not stupid, I know what my place is and I accept it
“I’d do it myself but then I realized I was your boss.”
That is what subordinates are for. Doing grunt work. If I could do everyting myself I wouldn’t need a team of people to work for me. And it is from doing the mudane and repetetive tedius work that underlings learn to understand the bigger picture so they can take on more responsibilities.
No, as a manager I do not feel guilt about that because that would be pathetic. What should I feel guilty about? Interupting their Internet grabass time with this whole “work” thing?
I don’t see it as “pawing off grunt work”. In fact employees who act like I am giving them “grunt work” that is beneath them often find themselves not doing any work. There is work that needs to get done and everyone has a job to do. Just because it may be tedious or unpleasent doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary.
