Making lunch for boss is this normal??

Wanderer2010

Ok so my friend and I were chatting about work and she told me she is working in a small office with only a handful of workers and 2 bosses and she told me that from her first day a few years ago, she was told she "had to make the bosses lunch every day as well as make him 2 cups of tea and bring it up to his office", that was part of her duties! She thought it was a joke but they are dead serious.

Basically the 2 women who started at the company started the habit and its never been broken, when my friend said why cant he make it himself as she was busy the other women were disgusted and shocked that a woman in 21st Century wouldnt make their bosses lunch and were very surprised she should even say it!!! Bear in mind this man still expects staff to fit in their daily work around the tea/lunch making! Is this a normal practice in small practices? Certainly I think thats very stange and how can my friend stop a habit thats 20 yrs in the making??

The Big Red Button

What's her job title? If she's his PA or similar, it's understandable that this might be part of the role.

silja

Agree, it depends on what her title and job description is. Also, are there men with the same title who are not expected to do this?

smcgiff

If that's what they signed up to then it's within their normal duties. Made coffee and had to get buns for the partners each day in my first year of starting in practice.

amdublin

I had to bring coffee into the MD in my job about 13 years ago. It was outlined to me as part of the role.

I'd have an issue if it was suddenly introduced, but if it was something your friend was told from the start that she had to do it then I think I'd be okay with it.

Wanderer2010

Shes a secretary for the OTHER female boss but this boss is often out of office on business but yet she is still on the rota for making a grown man his lunch and fetching him tea twice a day every day! Im genuinely shocked if such a thing goes on in a modern workplace in 2013, I blame both the stupid women who started the habit years ago and the lazy man himself who wont walk down a flight of stairs and hit a start button on a kettle. Now my friend doesnt know how to change any of it because its so ingrained but she feels very aggreived at this being part of her job...and no, its only a few female staff in the office!

ebbsy

Its normal in any practice Ive worked in, in fact Id rather do it than some of the audits Ive had to do over the years !!!!!

smcgiff

The role of secretary is itself dying out. Most people just do their own work. The ones requiring a secretary these days are most likely helpless/old fashioned in other areas.

The Big Red Button

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Shes a secretary for the OTHER female boss but this boss is often out of office on business but yet she is still on the rota for making a grown man his lunch and fetching him tea twice a day every day! Im genuinely shocked if such a thing goes on in a modern workplace in 2013, I blame both the stupid women who started the habit years ago and the lazy man himself who wont walk down a flight of stairs and hit a start button on a kettle. Now my friend doesnt know how to change any of it because its so ingrained but she feels very aggreived at this being part of her job...and no, its only a few female staff in the office!

It would be sexist if the male boss was getting the other female boss to make his lunch and tea.

It would also be sexist if there were both male and female secretaries, but he only expected the female secretaries to do this work.

In your friend's case, it just seems part of her role, and I honestly don't see why it annoys her (or you!) so much.

Anywhere I've worked, it wouldn't be considered unusual for someone to ask their PA/secretary to organise their lunch or coffee if they were busy (now, this wouldn't be a routine daily task, and it would usually be a case of the secretary going out and buying it rather than making it - but same idea.)

michael999999

Id start skimping on the size of the lunches and the tea would start to get weaker, hell make he's own eventually!

Irish_Elect_Eng

Time is money.

And in every business some peoples time is work more to the business than others, it makes sense that a junior member of staff would handle any non-value add tasks. Whether this is making the lunch, filling paper into the printer, photocopying etc.

Personally I prefer to get away from my desk for lunch, if possible, but it would seem that in this case the bosses prefer to eat in-house. It is their money after all and if they chose to make this a part of one of their employees role then that is their choice, he who pays the piper.....

You seem to look down on food preparation as a job, well fair enough if you feel that you are over-qualified to have that as part of the role, then perhaps this is not the job for you.

Or is it just that you consider this a sexist thing to be asked to do, would this be a problem if you were a guy? You would need to give some more information to determine if that is the case?

monkeypants

I'm male and if my manager asked me to go and make tea and some lunch, I'd go do it. I'm there for 8 hours each day and if that's what he wants me spending some of that time on, that's his decision.

fasttalkerchat

monkeypants wrote: »

I'm male and if my manager asked me to go and make tea and some lunch, I'd go do it. I'm there for 8 hours each day and if that's what he wants me spending some of that time on, that's his decision.

But is that what you studied for/worked your way up to. Its fine if you're entry level on minimum wage but if this is a job you're proud of things are different. I know a retail consultant who was paid by a council to consult with a local business for a day. The owner asked him to help pack out stock before their meeting started because they were running late. He walked out.

Mrs OBumble

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

But is that what you studied for/worked your way up to. Its fine if you're entry level on minimum wage but if this is a job you're proud of things are different.

Plenty of PA's and secretaries are proud of their jobs - as are some minimum-wage workers too. It's all about career stage etc.

I spent a while temping, and when my role was receptionist or office-admin, I was very happy to make coffee, organise lunch, shred, file, etc. If it'd been called "Office Manager" I'd have expected to have someone to delegate jobs like that to - but I wasn't.

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

I know a retail consultant who was paid by a council to consult with a local business for a day. The owner asked him to help pack out stock before their meeting started because they were running late. He walked out.

Totally different scenario. Doing work other than consulting would have been wasting council money. That said, the consultant proved to the business owner that s/he isn't sympathetic to the operational needs to small business.

fasttalkerchat

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Plenty of PA's and secretaries are proud of their jobs - as are some minimum-wage workers too. It's all about career stage etc.

I spent a while temping, and when my role was receptionist or office-admin, I was very happy to make coffee, organise lunch, shred, file, etc. If it'd been called "Office Manager" I'd have expected to have someone to delegate jobs like that to - but I wasn't.
.

I didn't mean any disrespect to people who do this for a job. There are some elements of working in retail I hated. If they were in a job description now I wouldn't consider it because I worked too hard to have to do that again.

The Big Red Button

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

I didn't mean any disrespect to people who do this for a job. There are some elements of working in retail I hated. If they were in a job description now I wouldn't consider it because I worked too hard to have to do that again.

Fair enough.

This person is working in a role where part of her job description is doing this stuff.

She can't change the job description. If her manager wants a secretary who willl organise his lunch, that's his call (and hardly an unreasonable task.)

If she feels she's over-qualified for this, she can always look for another job.

amtc

I'd have a different view - why not look on it as what it gets you - I have senior management in a co. and my boss was stressed out preparing for a meeting for a whole week, barely sleeping eating. I couldn't help him in what he was doing, but I went and got lunch and teas and coffees - worked out at bonus time!

monkeypants

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

But is that what you studied for/worked your way up to. Its fine if you're entry level on minimum wage but if this is a job you're proud of things are different. I know a retail consultant who was paid by a council to consult with a local business for a day. The owner asked him to help pack out stock before their meeting started because they were running late. He walked out.

That's one way of looking at it. I have studied, I am still studying and I have plenty of experience at this stage. However, when you break it down, my manager is buying my labour and if he wants to pay me €X an hour to make tea, that's fine with me. It's his money.

tatli_lokma

I would say that in many ways it is quite unusual in this day and age as most employers want to get the most benefit out of their employees and paying them to make lunch generally is not seen as a good use of resources. In cases where a PA does have this task, it is more usual that they go to the shop or phone in a lunch order, not that they actually physically make the lunch themselves. That is a bit unusual. However, from day one it was outlined clearly that this was part of the role, so unusual or not, there is no point in complaining about it. It might seem sexist when you consider it's origin, but as others have said, unless the boss specifically only hires a woman to do this, then it's not sexist. Given that one of the bosses is female you can't really argue sexism.

This behaviour has become part of the corporate culture of this workplace, and often changing corporate culture - particularly in a small office - can be very difficult. Most times it will be a case that if you can't settle into the existing culture you will need to move on to somewhere more suited to your own preferred way of working.