Even though it’s been a very, very long time since I’ve been an admin assistant and I’m more or less established as totally awesome at what I do, I still get all bristly and insulted when people ask me to do things I think are too “adminy”. It’s not that I think the work is beneath me; I’m just afraid of losing the ground I’ve worked hard for and turning into the office bitch. All the weird little things usually fall on my shoulders – and if you’ll excuse the unnecessary horn tooting, I am really good at the weird little things – but the instant I start cheerfully doing everything asked of me because “you’re so much better at it than I am!”, I find myself suddenly responsible for ordering office supplies and cleaning bathrooms and scripting donut routers for helpless people who refuse to learn.
Today, for example, I came into the office to an email asking me to order pizza for the department. My hackles immediately rose and I sent off a snarling IM to the requester’s boss, reminding him that we HAVE an office assistant and she does this sort of thing. He quickly mollified me – we only asked you because you’re so good at it! – and I had to grudgingly admit he was right: I know best what the team wants and how many to order and from where and who is allergic to what and that we have to order at least 1 cheese-only for the vegetarian who hates vegetables. I don’t actually have to do the ordering at all; they just want me to organize it and get someone else to deal with it. I apologized, because there was no reason for me to be so obnoxious about it. I AM good at that sort of thing, even if I don’t want to be – and hey, I get a free lunch out of it; one that is suspiciously free of olives and feta.
I’ve only ever been asked to serve coffee in a meeting ONCE, and I almost exploded. It was during the Dark Time, when the only job I could find in Calgary was as a receptionist for a horrible little train company. It wasn’t out of line that they asked me to do it – I was the friggin’ receptionist, after all – but I resented it so much I almost walked out the door in disgust. I still have nightmares about that place, and that time in my life – I’ve done a lot since then, and I don’t like to be reminded of it.
In the meantime, free pizza! Yay!
delicious juice dot com 
TOTALLY with you there. I’m the only girl in the office, and I get REALLY persnickety at the assumption that as The Girl, I can’t do Hard Things. And I never actually get it from my coworkers, but the customers? God, I am so tired of the “Oh, YOU can help me? Really? But … but … you have a VAGINA!”
I might be exaggerating a bit. Although I did once have a woman who very obviously had no idea what she was talking about suggest that maybe she should talk to “one of the guys” about her question. *headdesk* No. No you may not.
I’m a little sensitive. It’s probably because I have a vagina.
Vegetarian that hates vegetables? Sounds like an incredibly unhappy person…
One time I said casually to a coworker I was at a meeting with “Ten bucks says they ask one of the women to take minutes…” We were all qualified engineering technologists, so there was no reason to ask a woman to do it, right?
… aaand, I got asked to take minutes.
I gotta hand it to him, he was fill of WIN and said, “Why don’t I do it?”
I used to get mistaken for the secretary all the time and it drove me crazy. One vendor refused to believe me – he actually corrected me: “Let me speak to the technologist.” “I am the technologist, what can I do for you?” “No, let me speak to the TECHNOLOGIST.” “…(click)”
I *am* a secretary, and I fucking hate serving the coffee. I’m a secretary, not a servant – get the difference? And seriously, who goes into a meeting expecting coffee? If It’s a 3 hour meeting, yes, and then you’ll get it catered, at which point you’ll pour it yourself. If you’re in there for 30 minutes, I’m not getting you a coffee with cream and sugar – fuck off. (once had another bigwig in a meeting with my boss who had her secretary run down with a bagel and cream cheese – and the bitch didn’t even say thank you to her!)
I used to get it all the time in the “big” office I worked in – when I got to the Office Manager stage, working for a different boss, I never once offered to get coffee, and that got to be the norm. You need the latest briefing note? Copies of this? Call another person and get them the hell into this meeting asap? I can do that. You want coffee? Get thine own ass to starbucks. And I don’t do the office dishes, either.
Oh that fine line us “office wenches” walk. I love my current job, my boss is the most laid back, and it is me and 5 guys just hanging (it feels like) and no one asks anyone for a coffee. We joke about the coffee making, because whoever wants a cup has to make it. It’s a pretty much a fend for thy self office. After my maternity and parental leave I will happily come back to them, and they will miss me while I’m gone.
However, prior to this job, I was at my wits end in the market, and took a job I knew I might not fit into. Oh lord, when I got there the first day and actually met the man I was “working under” I knew I would not be long for the job.
Then when I got my first pay cheque and realized they’d started me out 3,000 under the agreed salary because it was “standard” to them, I quit the job a month later.
For reference I took the job at MY agreed salary because I needed a job badly at the time and the picking was slim. The salary I agreed to was 5,000 below what I make right now (and am worth it or more) and getting 3,000 less than what I agreed to !!! was not cool in the least.
On top of that, that boss was very condensing toward me, and treated me like a “girl”. Getting him coffee was a big bug for me. His desk was literally a few feet from the coffee station, but he would phone me and ask me to bring him some. In his special cup. Which he always left somewhere in the building, and I’d have to find that special cup, clean it and serve him his coffee. Ugh.
Then I found out the company was struggling financially and had previously asked other employees to wait an extra 2 or more weeks to get paid. I couldn’t afford to miss one cheque, specially since I was getting less than I agreed to be hired for to being with. So I jumped ship as soon as I found something else. I will never regret quitting on them the way I did.