I was in a decent mood this morning. Then I came into this message on my machine at work:
"Hey Kim, it's S. I was wondering if you could arrange a lunch order for tomorrow (today). BB (my boss), BL, BH (two former grad students in town visiting) and I are meeting over lunch (they are old colleagues getting together to catch up, not work) and we only have a short time. I'm worried about coralling everyone at the cafeteria, so maybe we could order from outside? I'm happy to chip in money. Thanks! Talk to you tomorrow!"
Um, why the eff would I order lunch? I'm not any of their secretary's. I'm a research program manager. Nowhere in my job description is arranging social meetings and meals. My boss has a secretary, and I'm sure even this isn't a real good use of her time. Order lunch your d*mn self.
Update: After I wrote this and vented, I sent an email to S & my boss (BB), telling them they can call Panera, gave them a number and menu link, told them they'd deliver and you can pay by credit card over the phone. Hope they get the hint this isn't my problem.
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8 comments:
Oooh, I started the day on a great note at Starbucks. The speaker guy was the absolute best I've ever heard. He made me really want to buy a piece of banana loaf, but I didn't.
I'm going to Panera for lunch today to meet with a client.
Dammit. Hit "publish" too soon.
I think your response was awesome.
Love your response.
Could you please call my house and ask someone to bring me my can of soup I forgot. *grin*
*runs*
*glare*
I think it bothers me most because I've worked very hard at earning respect of my colleagues while still being young and not having a set of degrees a mile long. Requests like this (the guests were told "I'll talk to Kim about arranging it.") really hurt my efforts. Here I am writing a plan for redesigning our research center, with my boss supporting my move to director...while being asked to order lunch for a social meeting. Sigh.
But Kim, you have such good taste! Who is better to ask!?!
*runs*
My eyes are starting to hurt from all the glaring.
Oh yeah, Tom orders the food and picks it up or has it delivered when his staff has to work through dinner. He figures it makes them work harder knowing that "the boss" is fetching their food. And he gets to take a nice walk through the skyways, and always gets exactly what HE wants for himself.
Stuff for lunch meetings is always delivered. There is a local company, who's name I forget, that specializes in delivering take-out orders from any combination of downtown restaurants. Maybe you need a larger city to support a freelance delivery service like this?
My boss sometimes "orders lunch" for us, but one of us has to do the legwork, she just gives us her credit card. I kind of roll my eyes. She's a good boss in most other ways.
We had a delivery service like that a few years ago, Swami, but I think it failed. Takeout Taxi I think it was called. And I wouldn't have to go GET the lunch, but I'd have to take orders call it in, see what time they coudl get her (since it was last minute) compared to when the meeting was...lots of legwork.
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