I’m currently an executive assistant at a pretty small company. I work for the CEO of the company, and he’s actually the only person who has an assistant. The day I started, one of the VPs (who was totally made fun of as a kid, I can tell from his attitude now that he’s a “big shot”) immediately started treating me like I was his assistant. He left piles of papers on my desk with little notes on them asking me to fax them or file them. He even sent emails to people telling them I was in charge of his schedule, even though I didn’t even have access to it! I tried to be as polite as I could when I rejected doing work for him, i.e. “Actually, I’m really busy with stuff for [insert real boss' name here] today, sorry.” But VP didn’t get the hint. Finally, one day I snapped. I took a pile of papers off my desk and marched into VP’s office and said, “I know I’m an executive assistant, but I’m not your executive assistant!”
Obviously, VP was pissed, so he went to my boss and told him what happened. Turns out my boss is pretty awesome, because he totally gave VP a lecture about how I don’t work for him. It was great, and VP hasn’t been able to look me in the eye ever since. And he still doesn’t have an assistant.–Cate, New York City
i have a guy at my work that it exactly like this, its so funny!!! hes actually starting to try and dump stuff on me now that is entirely his job!!!! some people need to get the hint that they are NOT the most important person in the office and that they ARE allowed to do work for themselves