New job, expecting too much?

honeypop

Mrsedwards wrote: »

I am (what was advertised) a secretary/pa. but having now been in the job for two months, I am a receptionist, administrator and a secretary.

Coming from this background myself, I'd say that very often all these roles fall together so nothing strange about that in itself. I would fully expect a sec/PA role to encompass some reception work (if the workplace had one) and general admin.

Mrsedwards wrote: »

the main thing that drives me mad is I sit with the manager daily, to action any emails that he receives, and he dictates the response to me I go back type it up and send it. That I'm my eyes takes twice as long!!! It would be far more efficient if he just typed the response and I can get on with my work:

If there's a more efficient way for something to be done, I expect they'll welcome your suggestions. As someone already said, could you type the repsonses as he's dictating them? Or could you produce a summary of the emails, and he can simply fill in the bare bones of the response (without you) and you can spend a little time fleshing it out in the actual reply? (I did this for one of mine, happy to expand on it as was such a timesaver).


My advice is to arrange a 'check-in' with your boss for the 3 month mark to discuss how it's going and give/receive feedback, take a list of what you've identified are the priorities of the role and check if he agrees, then you have something to refer to when it's super busy and you can't fit everything in for a while.

If you don't speak up, they'll carry on assuming you're superwoman and can keep taking on more and more in your part time hours. They may well think you can handle it all, as generally these roles cover a bit of anything and everything that comes your way, and unless you say something it will continue as it is unfortunately.

TELLIT01

Mrsedwards wrote: »

the main thing that drives me mad is I sit with the manager daily, to action any emails that he receives, and he dictates the response to me I go back type it up and send it. That I'm my eyes takes twice as long!!! It would be far more efficient if he just typed the response and I can get on with my work: I don't know what to do!!!

Again, my wife had something similar, although the person in question used to print out their e-mail, hand write the reply on the e-mail and then pass it back to my wife to type up and send. His reasoning was that his typing was too slow. Possibly a perfectly valid explanation, and maybe the same for the OP's manager. That being the case it wouldn't be more efficient for him to type it himself.