Although I’ve noted that my perspectives on graduate student pay have changed a bit since I received the promise of an actual salary, I hope that I never get to the point where I think that an administrative assistant should do whatever I ask without question. From the “Career Advice” section of Inside Higher Ed:
Dear Survival Guide
My secretary is not being helpful. She refuses to do the simple tasks I assign her and complains to my superior that I am bullying her both by asking her to do these things and by the way I ask her. I am a hard-working, mid-level administrator in an important department and I am in delicate health; that means that I need a little extra help. So, on occasion, I’ve asked her to carry and reach things for me, to shelve books, to pick up a sandwich at a local store, or to wait in a parking spot close to the building, so that I can park close to my office. I’m often on assignments out of the office, and prefer working at home anyway, so I ask her to unlock my office door and turn the lights on in the morning (and lock it and turn off the lights in the evening), so that people won’t question whether I am working. But she challenges everything I ask her and says that it’s inappropriate to ask her to do these things. Last week she refused outright, in front of the rest of the staff, to follow my direction that she rearrange the staff workroom to make room for my bicycle on the days I bike to work, citing some memo she’d seen about bicycles in buildings. This is ridiculous, as it’s too expensive to leave outside on a college campus. She’s clearly uncooperative and beyond. I am a very busy person. I want to be her friend and have a good working relationship but she must do her job. How can I make her understand what her duties are?
–Frustrated at BigStateU
I agree that somebody should be frustrated in this situation, but it isn’t the letter writer!
Memoirs of a SLACer 