On TV shows I always see secretaries doing personal things for the boss like getting him lunch, buying flowers for his wife, sending out his dry-cleaning, and the like. In my company, if you asked your secretary to get lunch for you, she would suggest that you seek mental health counseling or perhaps tell you to perform a certain physically impossible sexual act on yourself.
Does anyone work someplace where secretaries actually do personal errands for their bosses?
My dad’s secretary does. Coffee, box meals; she even picked up my sister from school once.
My secretary will if I ask her, so I try not to abuse the privilege. (I return the favor by being snooty to people who are rude to her, because I can get away with it where she can’t, and it always makes her feel better to hear me plow through someone who’s just yelled at her.)
By the way, I don’t consider getting me lunch a “personal errand,” because the only reason I would ask her to get me lunch is if I couldn’t get away to get my own lunch. It therefore is a “working lunch” and so she acknowledges that it is part of her job. Truthfully, if I’m busy, she’ll ask me if I want her to get me lunch. And if she’s busy and it looks like she can’t get away, I will bring her lunch.
Now, the more senior people where I am do have secretaries who are much more involved in their lives and do more personal errands for them. But, generally, everybody is the way I am: I’ll occasionally ask for a favor, and return it as I can.
I once worked as a secretary and my boss had me do all sorts of personal stuff. I picked up his dry cleaning, I went to his house to wait for the piano tuner, I went to his house to let the people who put the lights on his Christmas tree in (yes, he paid someone to put the lights on his Christmas tree). He owned an automated car wash and his change machine broke, so he had me go up there and hand out change to people who needed it (in the freezing cold). I hated all the crap he had me do and I hated him. I quit after about 6 months, as soon as I found another job.
I worked at another place where I was asked to do stuff like pick up food for a big meeting or go to a hotel to pick up a jacket someone had left while in town for a business meeting. It was all work-related and very occasional, so, even though it wouldn’t have normally been part of my job description, I was glad to help out.
Bosses can work almost anything into the job requirements of their secretaries as long as it’s on company time and company property and it’s not illegal. But driving to the cleaners would be a problem. Suppose the secretary gets into an auto accident - I don’t think workman’s comp is going to cover that, leaving the family no choice but to sue the company for medical expenses, et al. If other motorists were involved they could probably sue the company as well.
But yes, our secretary often does odd jobs such as call in the lunch order when we’re stuck in all-day staff meetings. In general I think any odd jobs that are needed to help the office function smoothly should be performed by the secretaries.
Oh, and, the whole car wash thing was a completely separate business than the company I worked for, so doing that wasn’t even vaguely something I should have had to do to keep my job.
That would be incorrect. Actually, not incorrect so much as imprecise. There are any number of jobs done in an office that people are putting under the broad umbrella of “secretary”, which isn’t used much anymore because it is mostly a non-existent job.
I’ve had jobs as office assistant, office administrator, word-processor, data entry clerk, general clerk, office clerk, file clerk and accounting clerk, and each different job has different connotations with regard to the duties expected. Executive assistants may also be expected to do stuff that for their executive (s). The only jobs where I would expect to get lunch and run errands would be office clerk or office assistant, and with nine years experience as an office administrator, it would be a waste of my skills to take an entry-level job like that.
We’re a small company, and my office manager (who also does the secretarial functions) will go out and get lunch for us if we ask. This happens when we’re hungry but can’t get away from our desks.
We never ask unless we buy her lunch as well. And there have been several times when I’ve gone and got lunch for the office, including her. Sometimes I just need to get out, and as long as I’m going I ask if anybody else wants anything. My partner does the same thing.
She’s not just a secretary, she’s one of the team and valuable to company. She’s goes above the strict job description, but so do we. I try to make sure she knows how much I appreciate it.
I’ve been doing the secretary/assistant thing for longer than I care to admit, so I probably know something about this.
For the most part, administrative assistants (that seems to be the curent collective term) do not run personal errands, get lunch, or get coffee for people.
I did have one job once where, in the interview process, it was made clear that part of my job was to make coffee for the office. Which I was OK with, since it was mentioned up front with all the other job duties and I could factor that into my decision whether or not to take the job. I mean, if you want to pay me to make coffee OK, I’ll do it.
These days, at least in Chicago, it would be seen a pretentious and arrogant to have someone get your coffee for you. The exception would be guests of our company, where I might offer to get them coffee. Even so, most people prefer simply to be shown where the coffee is and pour their own.
For people under the executive level, the only time I would get lunch is if the whole office was ordering out that day. However, that duty is not automatically mine - quite frequently, someone else does pickup duty. Folks will offer to get lunches for each other “Sally - I’m going to get my lunch, can I get you anything?” - but that has nothing to do with business.
Executives do, occassionally, have their assistant get their lunch. It’s very rare where I work, and it’s usually on a day where the executive is overwhelmed with work and meetings. (I have, no joke, had to schedule bathroom breaks into an executive’s day) Personally, I have no objection to ocassionally getting a salad or sandwhich for someone working a relentless 10 or 12 hour day. Corporate custom, at least where I work, is to then buy the assistant a small token of appreciation (Starbuck’s giftcards are currently the norm, or even taking the assistant out to lunch at a later date. Because I’m known to be quite the reader, I also get giftcards to Borders from time to time). So, it does occur, but it’s recognized as a little above and beyond the norm and there is compensation for it. Doing things like fetching the dry cleaning is less common because many such places will deliver if you ask them to, so the assistant can stay at her/his desk doing their job instead of running such errands. The higher up the hierarchy the boss, the more likely you’ll be doing this sort of thing, but then the higher up your boss the more likely you are to extremely well-paid. Upper end executive assistants can make $70,000 a year in my area, but boy howdy, you’re going to work for it!
If you were asked to get lunch, or the dry cleaning, or pick up the boss’s kid and got in an accident - yes, it could come under worker’s compensation which is why my current company has strict guidelines about such things. Getting lunch is one thing - we all have to eat - but the other two would be quite questionable according to our company’s lawyers. It ain’t gonna happen where I currently work.
Of course, there are also arrogant jackholes for whom yanking another human being around and treating them like a personal servant is a complete ego trip. I avoid working for such people.
Yes, although no one calls them secretaries anymore, there is a lot of differenece between a department administrative assistant (who probably won’t do any personal errands) and a Fortune 100 Executive Secretary. When I had the later role I:
Wrote out his Christmas cards
Wrote out his checks for his bills
Picked out gifts for his wife and friends
Scheduled his vacations
Called about all sorts of personal house things.
I only did the job a short time while they found someone else.
By the way, that “assistant” position had an “assistant” of her own. The man was so demanding he needed TWO secretaries.
I work as a Personal Assistant and yes, I
For my previous boss, who was absolutely fabulous, I additionally have:
Other regular duties for either boss include(d):
in addition to the expected secretarial duties. I don’t get why people would consider this stuff beneath them, seriously. I’m a Personal Assistant. It’s built right into the title, for goodness’ sake. I see my role as somewhere between secretary and butler. My job is to make her job easier - and believe me, they work their managers HARD where I work. They need all the help they can get.
Next week I’m going to spend a couple of hours hosting the Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea event at our workplace (it’s a fundraiser for Cancer research held any time in May or June) which involves me buying the tea, coffee and ‘nibbles’, and serving the same for an hour or so. It’s something my boss really wanted to support, but due to a staffing shortage in general admin nobody could be spared for it - so I get to do it.
I don’t mind; I like variety in my job and thrive on doing a little bit of everything. I hate the idea of doing nothing but secretarial stuff day in, day out…it’d send me nuts in short order.
I can understand why not every person would like the unpredictability of my role, but it suits me down to the ground. I love the fact that I get to jump in the car and head out on an errand - getting some fresh air and a change of location even briefly is a big mood improver for me.
I’ve also been asked to give assistance to other people in ‘emergencies’ - a notable example would be a local community event my boss held where the caterer was left unexpectedly short-handed and I got to leap into the kitchen with her and help make the food. Since I normally don’t cook, I had to learn really fast - but the night was fantastic and the food turned out great.
There aren’t many jobs that offer you that kind of variety in one package. 
Oh man, my former boss treated his secretary (who quit over this shit) like she was his slave. I was constantly aghast at the things he had her do, like taking his car to Sears to get the tires rotates, picking up his laundry, doing his banking. He once had her stay at the office til 1 am because people were rearranging the cubicles and someone had to be there to supervise it.
So, uh yeah, lunch. She definitely brought him lunch. That was the least of his requests.
One thing …
I’ve never picked out presents for anyone or been expected to write their cheques, do things for their house, mind their pets or anything of that nature.
My bosses have always been the sort to keep their private life private and only ever asked me to do clearly work-related things. I’m glad about that.
I’m happy to do anything work-related on company time, but I’d be distinctly unimpressed if my boss decided to get me to do her Christmas shopping or something. Not that it would enter her mind to ask me, thankfully!
Kyla, did he pay her for it or was this expected of her just for the love of the job? :dubious:
Either way, I can’t imagine I’d have put up with it. I’m a very flexible person and all, but I have no problems putting my foot down and saying ‘sorry, I’m not available’ for requests outside of 9-5 beyond what I consider reasonable. (I’d consider about 6pm a cut-off on a fairly regular basis, and about 7.30pm on rare occasions. 1am is right out though! I’m not a clock watcher, but 1am is ludicrous.)
Well, I don’t know exactly how well she was paid, but it was his ingratitude that led her to quit. When she gave notice, he said “okay.” And he didn’t say anything at all to her on her last day.
It’s possible my former boss isn’t the world’s greatest manager. Which may be why he’s my former boss. (He wasn’t fired from his position, he was demoted.)
When I was a secretary, I got plenty of lunches for the boss and almost everything else mentioned here. My job title was actually administrative assistant, and then later I think executive administrative assistant. I didn’t mind at all, and the job was presented very accurately in the interview, so I knew what to expect when I went in.
Like Bites When Provoked, I enjoyed most of it. I liked getting out of the office, and I was welcome to combine some of these little excursions with my own errands, which was great and very convenient. There were some crazy hours, but I always felt appropriately compensated and it was fine when I was a younger, single person with fewer demands on my personal time.
I was eventually promoted within, and I think that my experience as an assistant really helped me network and make connections. In my current job, I have a professional relationship with senior officers, board members, etc that few of my peers have. In some instances, it has been a challenge when I realize that someone still thinks of me as an assistant (sometimes without even realizing it, just out of habits that are difficult to break), but mostly it has been helpful to be able to pick up a phone and get quick access to the person I need. For me, the benefits outweigh the negatives.
My assistant does work related errands for me but never personal stuff. I’d never even consider asking her to do that. It’s just wrong. She orders and arranges lunches, helps arrange events, runs office errands and the like. When lunches need to be ordered she also gets one for herself. Around here somebody has to go get lunches cause few places deliver. I figure if she has to go get lunches she should also be able to get one for herself. Just a little office perk.
Of course I show appreciation often. I thank her for her work and I do little things to show appreciation. For instance, she loves those itty bitty powdered sugar covered doughnuts. They are her favorite junk food. Every once in a while when she comes in, there’ll be a bag of em sitting on her desk with a little note on it that says: “Have A Nice Day! Signed, The Donut Fairy.”
I do, although I am not exactly a secretary. (That word is antiquated, by the way.) My boss came of age in a time when it wasn’t even questioned that “secretaries” would do personal work. Some things I do for him are: get lunch once in a while (he usually buys mine then too); cash personal checks for him; get coffee; pick up his mail at his local home when he’s away at one of his other homes; arrange a large elaborate birthday party for his wife; pick out a new homeowners insurance policy; pick up items shipped from overseas at Customs; register his boats. Some things I have never done and I don’t think he’d ever ask: picking up dry cleaning, or buying gifts for wife or family, or doing anything for his children.
Hmm, I think it depends. Some errands I do for him such as picking up his home mail (which means I have his keys and alarm codes), or make cash withdrawals from his bank account, are, in my opinion, something that shouldn’t be entrusted to an entry-level employee. Not that it’s difficult work, but rather it takes a responsibility that perhaps lower-level inexperienced workers do not have.
I do my boss’s banking. I actually find it rather flattering that he trusts me enough that I have full signing authority on all his bank and brokerage accounts (we’re talking millions) and can withdraw any amount of cash I want at any time. I probably know more about his cash flow than he does. He would not trust a junior assistant, or a flighty employee, with this information. I also wouldn’t mind having his car fixed - if he wants to pay me to hang around a body shop and read magazines, that’s great.
I realize “personal” duties bother a lot of assistants, but in my case, I view it as: “If he wants to pay me my rather large salary to go pick up his mail, fine with me.” In my experience, it is extremely common for the assistants of CEOs or other very-top-tier executives to do some amount of personal work. In fact, it’s practically understood that you would. You are there to support him and if the support he needs is having his lunch picked up so that he can continue working on a billion-dollar merger, then you pick up his lunch. If you don’t like it, go back to supporting middle managers, with the corresponding reduction in salary and perks.
Getting her own lunch is an “office perk”? I’m assuming you folks are springing for her lunch, right?