Jumped up secretaries give me the shits

I had a great argument with a secretary at another firm today. She likes to think she's not just a secretary though. She thinks she's one of the professional staff. I hate secretaries on power trips.

Anyway, we used to have a system where I would send all work we did for them through the post. They didn't like that, so they asked me to email it to them. So I began emailing all the documents through to the people I was told were handling the files. But no one ever tells me anything, so apparently I wasn't forwarding the right things to the right people. There were also various issues about the format of the files I was sending. "Send them in Word format", "No, send them in pdf", "No, send them in Word", "No, not that version of Word, we haven't upgraded yet", "We can't access your files because of the merge fields from your software". Argh!!! So I have now put my foot down and they get them in pdf. If they have to type them all out again, it's not my problem. And because I never knew who was handling what, a couple of months ago, they asked me to forward all correspondence to a central email account, and they would sort it out from there. Fine. The only problem with that is that they don't seem to sort it properly, and I still get emails from individual staff members asking me for documents I've emailed a month ago. Except they don't normally send them to me. They send the requests to my boss. I really don't appreciate this, because then it looks to my boss as if I haven't done my job properly, when the issue is just their own stupidity and inability to look through their emails.

The exception to the "everything" rule was that I was supposed to still send accounts when requested to the person who had requested them. I had tried to send these to the central email as well, but also still received requests from individual staff members. When I mentioned this, I was told to send them to a particular staff member who handled the accounts. So I just began to send them to her.

Today, the secretary I mentioned in the first paragraph wanted an invoice I had previously sent to the accounts girl last week. I told her I had sent it to that girl, expecting her to then ask that person to forward her the email and invoice. Instead, she asked me to send another copy. I didn't see why I should have to print out another copy and waste paper, so I just forwarded her the email I had sent the other girl with the message:

The best I can do is forward you the email I sent P, as I don’t keep copies of the invoices sent, nor the scanned files. To send you just that invoice would mean reprinting it again, which would waste more paper.

I thought this was a perfectly acceptable message. However, she seemed to have her cranky pants on today and sent the following message back:

Thanks – perhaps when sending emails you could send them to the info address as well as P as this way I can save them to the matter on the system.

That wouldn't have been an issue, except she had decided to copy my boss in on the email! I really do not know what is with these people and trying to get me in trouble with my boss! I think it's uncalled for. I was happy to deal with her about the issue, and had she suggested this without feeling the need to copy my boss in, I probably would have said, "fine, no worries. Will do from now on" or whatever. But since she had decided to copy my boss in, I decided to copy her boss in and sent back the following response:

No worries P. I was under the assumption that invoices went to P, and everything else went to the info address. Though it often appears that things sent to the info address don’t get forwarded to the correct people. D has sometimes not received advices, and when I have sent invoices to the info address, P hasn’t received them. Hence, I have sent invoices straight to her.

Confusingly, this secretary's name is P, as well as it being the name of the accounts girl. I simply felt the need to defend myself and give a reason as to why I had sent the invoices to where I had sent them, so that both my boss and hers would know I was not simply a moron who had no idea what was going on. Apparently, it was then "game on, bitches."

That’s fine but sometimes the invoices are not for P and in any event everything needs to be saved to the system to the appropriate file which does not always happen.

If things don’t get forwarded to the right people that is for us to sort out here so please ensure that all goes to info so that K is aware of what is going on.

(K is her boss)

I realise it’s for you to sort out, but when T is sent urgent requests for advices that were done and sent nearly a month ago, such as occurred in the case of ## on 16 September (the advice was sent on 26 August), then it appears to T that I haven’t done my job properly, which obviously doesn’t reflect well on me from T’s point of view. Hence I was just doing what I thought was required of me in sending invoices to the person I have previously been told handles the accounts, and who I knew would then receive those accounts.

In any event, I will from now on forward everything to the info address, but I would also ask in return that you liaise with each other in ascertaining whether an advice or invoice has previously been sent to you before you send a request to T.

(T is my boss)

All I asked is for you to send the invoices to info as well as P. P does post settlement work and sometimes the invoices are for files that are still with D and myself and are not for P. Similarly I need to ensure that everything is saved to the system.

If there is a problem at our end let me know and I will sort out with the person here.

(D is one of the professional staff. Note how she says the files are still with him and herself, as if she is one of the professional staff. Ha!)

I had the last word, however:

Yes, I understand that, and that’s fine. It has now been implemented. I was merely giving you the explanation as to why I was previously sending invoices to P and not to info. I was under the apparently erroneous assumption that was where they were to be sent when she requested them.

It is a non-issue now. I will forward everything to the info address from now on, including requests from individual staff members, which will save on any confusion in the future.

I really wouldn't have gotten so defensive about it had she not decided to include my boss in the emails, as if she was trying to point out to him that I was an idiot, when it was their own stupid system that was at fault the whole time. Seriously, I don't care where I send the emails to, as long as I then don't get a billion requests sent to my boss for work I have already done, which makes me look bad. If you want to implement a system, then do it, but don't then decide that since it doesn't work, you'll blame the other people and get them in trouble when you're simply too lazy to check if you've already received the work first.

Morons.

In other news, my assistant, Miss Flair, is going very well. I am actually excited on Wednesday afternoons because I know she is coming in the next day. And for any who know me in real life and know what a hassle I usually think it is for anyone to encroach on my space at work, that is a really big fucking compliment!