Is it completely inappropriate to ask your assistant to help with any personal tasks?
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Anonymous
Former assistant and this is exactly it. Op what you are wanting would make you the a*****e, as far as I'm concerned. She's your work assistant not your personal assistant. If you want both, you need to renegotiate job duties AND pay, if she's willing. |
Anonymous
| I work for a law firm as a legal secretary and there are very distinct rules about what lawyers are allowed to ask me to do. The ones I'm closer with occasionally ask me for personal things but they're minimal - putting personal travel in their work calendar, mailing something to one of their college kids, etc. |
Anonymous
|
Stop pilfering from work, and hire a personal assistant like a normal person.
Do you really want your office admin staff to know about the lump on your privates or whatever? |
Anonymous
| Yes completely inappropriate. You should not have risen to a position of authority, needing to even consider asking this question. |
Anonymous
| It is only appropriate if it is described as such BEFORE hiring. Don't hire someone for a desk job abd then tell them they will bascially be your pesonal servant. |
Anonymous
Weirdly aggressive |
Anonymous
| I work in a law firm where most of what the assistants do sits somewhere between. I think maybe in govt this is different? But private cos can do what they want. I don’t have an assistant but I am v familiar with what their remit it here |
Anonymous
I was an assistant in law firms for 10 years. I worked for people who asked for inappropriate personal tasks and other people who I never knew anything personal about. The ones with inappropriate boundaries worked in firms with inappropriate boundaries. Once I realized that I was working in a firm like that, I left and went to a firm with a really different company culture. I will say that Inappropriate Personal Task Boss was pretty excessive with cash bonuses and generous with his money on the day to day. It was understood that the bonuses were best seen as apologies for the previous year. I had a pretty expensive Starbucks habit paid for by my boss because sending me to pick up coffee was one of the inappropriate personal tasks I opted into because I got coffee out of it myself. Overall, it was a toxic culture and I was glad to leave it behind. I would strongly advise no one tasking their assistant with medical appointments. That's something you should be doing yourself. It doesn't even feel appropriate to task your partner with that. |
Anonymous
| just another career EA (15 years+, for high level gov officials) and NO. i help you with WORK tasks. not your PERSONAL life. nope nope nope |
Anonymous
Totally appropriate. The boss's time is far more valuable than the assistant's and the company is paying the assistant so that the boss can focus on work |
Anonymous
nope. you are confusing what the EA was hired to do. and you are TA. |
Anonymous
Um, TA does not, in fact, stand for totally appropriate here. |
Anonymous
| Nope, you should have her move the work meetings/travel to accommodate the personal things you placed on your calendar, not the other way around. |
Anonymous
The company is NOT paying the assistant to handle personal shit for the boss. You are very mistaken. |
Anonymous
| I've worked with a few assistants over the past 20 years. The only remotely "personal task" that I can recall an assistant ever doing for me is grabbing me a sandwich or a coffee on rare occasion when I am caught in meetings or something. And I don't think that was ever because I asked, but rather they offered or just did it... |