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#Post#: 13048--------------------------------------------------
Re: Other duties as assigned vs. That's not my job
By: NyaChan Date: September 5, 2018, 7:26 am
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[quote author=Bada link=topic=652.msg13037#msg13037
date=1536114153]
Your hourly rate is SO much lower than those with more
experience. So yes, you have to do admin work when there's no
other employee available. (My friend who worked in BigLaw said
they never actually billed clients for the work of first year
attorneys, even! Not sure if you're a first year, but still...)
But now that Tiffany is there, it should be off your plate. If
you're not keeping track of your hours, I agree with those who
say you should start and that you should point out how many
billable (presumably) hours the firm is losing by having an
incompetent employee.
Law jobs are hard to come by these days, but if you could do it
without sounding snarky, you could mention that if they don't
want to lose Tiffany to turnover, they might lose you instead
and that you're going to start to look for a firm where you can
actually practice law. But then again, if you're not working
overtime due to having to do this extra work (and if you're
making an attorney's salary), maybe it's better to stay quiet
and get paid for doing stuff that's beneath you.
[/quote]
First year attys getting assigned admin tasks isnt unusual to me
and also, in my experience you don’t really get to say no about
tasks unless there is someone with enough clout to back you up.
It can be very much a pay your dues type of situation. That
said, if your area’s market is good you may have more juice to
push back with. I’d probably work on developing a stronger
relationship with a couple people so you can ask for more
substantive work. When they see that you can make their lives
easier doing that type of work, they’ll be more likely to help
you push back on others interfering with the admin tasks.
#Post#: 13052--------------------------------------------------
Re: Other duties as assigned vs. That's not my job
By: Jem Date: September 5, 2018, 8:43 am
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[quote author=NyaChan link=topic=652.msg13048#msg13048
date=1536150386]
First year attys getting assigned admin tasks isnt unusual to me
and also, in my experience you don’t really get to say no about
tasks unless there is someone with enough clout to back you up.
[/quote]
It is horrible business sense to assign administrative tasks to
attorneys, especially if there is an administrative person on
the payroll! I find this extremely unusual (aside from very
small firms where each lawyer does his or her own administrative
work because there are no administrative people, only lawyers).
That said, I do agree that newer lawyers generally do have to do
the "less sexy" legal work, and unless the newer lawyer has a
book of business and is bringing clients into the firm, the
newer lawyer really does not have much say about it.
I am interested to hear how the OP's firm/company works. Do the
lawyers bill time or is the legal department on retainer? That
makes some difference, but still, it is a poor use of resources
to have attorneys doing administrative work. The administrative
people cannot do the work the lawyers do, and if the
administrative people are not supporting the lawyers, what is
their function in the company/firm?
#Post#: 13056--------------------------------------------------
Re: Other duties as assigned vs. That's not my job
By: bopper Date: September 5, 2018, 10:56 am
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Right now you are the path of least resistance. Stop being that.
"Oh, actually mailing packages is Tiffany's duty."
"But she screws it up."
"You need to talk to her boss about that then."
or
"I have alot on my plate..have you tried Tiffany? She is the one
who is supposed to be taking care of that."
"But she screws it up."
"I can get to it on Friday."
#Post#: 13057--------------------------------------------------
Re: Other duties as assigned vs. That's not my job
By: Victoria Date: September 5, 2018, 12:13 pm
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To answer some questions, we're all on salary and not billing to
specific projects. Additionally, everyone in the department is
"above" me in terms of the hierarchy. If it were simply
coworkers asking me to mail packages and schedule calls, I would
have no problem directing them to Tiffany more forcefully than
simply assigning Tiffany the task and copying the supervisor, or
saying "Okay, Tiffany will get this out today." (However, the
last time I said that Tiffany's supervisor said "I don't care
who does it, just get it done today.")
#Post#: 13064--------------------------------------------------
Re: Other duties as assigned vs. That's not my job
By: Jem Date: September 5, 2018, 1:19 pm
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[quote author=Victoria link=topic=652.msg13057#msg13057
date=1536167608]
To answer some questions, we're all on salary and not billing to
specific projects. Additionally, everyone in the department is
"above" me in terms of the hierarchy. If it were simply
coworkers asking me to mail packages and schedule calls, I would
have no problem directing them to Tiffany more forcefully than
simply assigning Tiffany the task and copying the supervisor, or
saying "Okay, Tiffany will get this out today." (However, the
last time I said that Tiffany's supervisor said "I don't care
who does it, just get it done today.")
[/quote]
I still am not really understanding the dynamic of your
department/company. How large is the department/company? Can you
escalate your concerns to HR? Is everyone in your department,
aside from Tiffany, a lawyer? Because it matters. There are
certain things that only lawyers can do, but not really vice
versa. Anyone can make coffee, but not anyone can sign a
pleading. And lawyers are responsible for the people they
supervise - a paralegal, or administrative assistant, or office
manager cannot be sued for malpractice, even if it was the
paralegal's/aa's/office manager's "fault."
I am also not really understanding this "hierarchy." Are you
saying people "above you" are not your co-workers? How is this
"ranking" determined?
At any rate, I think you need to be far less passive. As others
have pointed out, on some level you do need to do the work that
is assigned to you. But on some level, being assigned
inappropriate work is a problem. If you were asked to clean the
toilets, that would be completely unreasonable because your job
is not to be a janitor. If your job description as a lawyer in
fact requires you to clean toilets, I would think that would be
something that should be spelled out for you.
#Post#: 13065--------------------------------------------------
Re: Other duties as assigned vs. That's not my job
By: STiG Date: September 5, 2018, 1:41 pm
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If your plate is loaded with tasks and you are asked to do
something that Tiffany should do, forward the request email to
your supervisor and say, 'Here is my list of tasks, assigned to
me, to be done, in priority order. Please let me know what
priority I should assign to this task.'
Hopefully, it will trigger him to realize that you can't get
your own work done if you continue to do work that Tiffany
should be doing.
However, if you are still in your probationary period, I think
you need to suck it up and do whatever you are asked to do. But
as soon as you are off probation? I'd push back.
#Post#: 13066--------------------------------------------------
Re: Other duties as assigned vs. That's not my job
By: Contrarian Date: September 5, 2018, 1:43 pm
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I read through the thread, I promise, but maybe I missed some
points.
I think I read that Tiffany is under qualified but it would be
best for everyone to keep her.
Is she not trainable?
The tasks you outline are fairly simple, but people still need
to be trained on office procedure, so if Tiffany needs to be
taken through accepting packages and mailing out packages on a
step by step level, where she has a notebook where she can
outline the steps, and refer back too for the first little
while, that needs to be done. If she’s staying she needs and
deserves for someone to take the time to train her.
Since the OP has spoken to both her own boss and Tiffany’s
supervisor, I think another talk stating “she needs to be
trained by someone, who will do it and who will cover the
workload of the person who does? How can we make this work?”
May be helpful.
A week of attentive training with a designated person to ask for
assistance or advice when unusual things pop up would be very
helpful and her supervisor needs to be at least acknowledging
this.
#Post#: 13068--------------------------------------------------
Re: Other duties as assigned vs. That's not my job
By: Jem Date: September 5, 2018, 1:53 pm
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[quote author=STiG link=topic=652.msg13065#msg13065
date=1536172870]
Hopefully, it will trigger him to realize that you can't get
your own work done if you continue to do work that Tiffany
should be doing.
[/quote]
I think I need to better understand how this company works (or
doesn't, rather) but the problem isn't just that the OP cannot
get her own work done. It is that she is being asked or expected
to do work that she should not be asked or expected to do.
Regardless of whether she has time to do it, it is not
appropriate to be asked to do someone else's work.
#Post#: 13072--------------------------------------------------
Re: Other duties as assigned vs. That's not my job
By: Victoria Date: September 5, 2018, 2:43 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Jem link=topic=652.msg13068#msg13068
date=1536173602]
[quote author=STiG link=topic=652.msg13065#msg13065
date=1536172870]
Hopefully, it will trigger him to realize that you can't get
your own work done if you continue to do work that Tiffany
should be doing.
[/quote]
I think I need to better understand how this company works (or
doesn't, rather) but the problem isn't just that the OP cannot
get her own work done. It is that she is being asked or expected
to do work that she should not be asked or expected to do.
Regardless of whether she has time to do it, it is not
appropriate to be asked to do someone else's work.
[/quote]
I'm in a small department at a small company. There are eight
attorneys, including myself, all with more senior titles and who
have been attorneys for a longer period of time. There is no
one at my level. Tiffany is the only administrative assistant.
There was another admin assistant at the company when I started,
but she left without giving notice. At that point I was told
that they needed me to temporarily fill in (and I then helped
train Tiffany). It's also generally understood that this
department runs "lean" in the sense that we have never been told
there are too many of us or that they had to lay anyone off, but
we also don't have the luxury of having multiple paralegals,
junior-level lawyers, and multiple administrative assistants to
spread the work around, which is where my hesitation at taking a
hard line against doing different types of work comes in.
As for the question that Contrarian asked, at this point I
believe that it is worth keeping Tiffany around. Additionally,
she has been trained, and I took the time to write a five-page
guidebook for her to follow that involve some department
specifics and points of contact outside of our department.
However, she can't be trusted with much. If you ask her to do
something, even if she writes it down, she isn't able to handle
anything involving multiple steps. For instance, another
department sent over a spreadsheet, and I asked Tiffany to
delete all but those three columns and to do a couple of other
things (put a header on it and get rid of the color coding). I
explained that to Tiffany and watched her write it down. A week
later she had forgotten all of it and when I said "Tiffany, what
did you write down? We went through this together and I watched
you take notes." She just said "Oh, I circled a couple of things
but I forgot what you wanted exactly." I gave her my standard
"You need to be sure that you understand the assignment" speech
but I've told her that so many times that it feels empty.
She also has to be told to follow up on things that should be
intuitive. I will ask her certain things like "Who is our
outside counsel in the Smith case?" and she will send back "Just
Bob and Sue I think? But I'm not for sure." Once in person I
said "Tiffany, I see Jim's assistant asked you to put an
appointment on my calendar. Which case is that one about?" She
just looked at me and said "Oh, I don't know" and stared at me
until I prompted her to call Jim's assistant. The other day I
asked her to email Bob, copy me, and a) send him my spreadsheet;
and b) ask him when I could expect it back. She emailed him the
spreadsheet but didn't ask the question. Several days later I
walked into her office and said something like "Tiffany, I asked
you to email Bob about when we would get the sheet back, please
do so." her answer was "Oh, I called him that day. He said we'd
get it back this Friday."
#Post#: 13075--------------------------------------------------
Re: Other duties as assigned vs. That's not my job
By: BeagleMommy Date: September 5, 2018, 2:59 pm
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Victoria, I have spent my entire career as an administrative
assistant. Tiffany is doing poorly because she is being
permitted to do so. Any time she fails to follow through, does
the task wrong despite being instructed on the right way,
forgets to schedule, etc. her supervisor needs to be made aware.
Your coworkers are asking you to do administrative assistant
tasks because they know you will do it right the first time and
they are not willing to explain to Tiffany what they want done
(because I'm sure she gives them plenty of blank stares as
well).
P.S. to Jem - Administrative assistants do much more than make
coffee. That is an old stereotype. Any Admin worth her salt
can practically run the office.
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