I try to be a positive person and try to create a win-win in every tough situation I face. I can get along with anyone, and I'm not a prissy or snooty person. Coming from a large family, I learned to just let most anything roll off my back, EXCEPT: "Mildred". I have tried to put up with this, but it's just not a fair game.
I work for a small but extremely wealthy parent company (of a major cruise line) and I'm the assistant to the CEO. She travels a great deal and we've always had a good code of respectful conduct in our office. We all like each other, get along great, it's basically a nice place, I am lucky.......up until this past year. A year ago, my boss' brother sold his own company and "moved in temporarily" with us until he could build up another company. He brought his secretary of 20+ years w/him: Mildred. She is well over 60 (and kudos to her for still working) but I swear this woman is from the 1950's. Do any of you remember the movie, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" - the school secretary? That's her! She has a very shrill voice and they put her adjacent to me in what is my open area, my area is like a hotel lobby. My job is very demanding and fast-paced. It's not necessarily advanced, but there's a lot of it, and when you're a personal assistant there's just no room for errors. Things take concentration as they must be executed right.
Mildred has nothing to do since her boss is as semi-retired as she is. She plays solitaire on the computer, reads romance novels, and talks on the phone to everyone in a very shrill voice. She never takes a day off, never takes lunch out, and there's never any privacy as she sits right beside me. If I hear her say, "son of a gunners!" one more time in that awful shrilly voice, I will slap her.
She also announces everything: she announces what the weather is doing, she announces the time, she announces that she is going to the restroom, to lunch, or if she has to do two things at once (heavens!). She also reads her email out loud, she has zero computer skills so she's always having issues and jamming stuff up, and she's always clucking like a chicken and talks to the back of my head all day long. I have tried to let her know that I need to really concentrate on deadlines and getting my work done properly. I've let her know that if she needs me to not talk to the back of my head, and I let her know that I don't have time to chat, I'm sorry. Moreover, she sprays! Not like a cat, but just as bad!! She has this awful perfume and she sprays at 8 am, 12 noon and 4 pm. I have spoken to my boss about this and she has, in fact, brought up these issues to her brother (but they hate each other) so nothing has been done. We asked to simply move her to another spot but her brother says, "I like her there." I have gently let her know that the spraying of all the perfume is more than just a cosmetic issue in that it leads to an environment that can really impair health functions (stuffy nose, massive headaches from this cheap perfume all day) and that we have rules in this state that prohibit one employee from totally dominating the workplace, etc etc etc.
Everyone at the company has been here a long time and do not rock the boat. The CEO I work for travels constantly and she pays us to keep her out of the daily operational stuff. Usually we just settle everything out ourselves. The rest of the support staff know the situation and comiserate with me, but we're all pretty helpless. It's better for them as they're in different areas on the floor than I am. I cannot move my own area because it's adjacent my boss and logistically impossible.
Seattle has the second highest unemployment rate in the country. There are not a lot of jobs like mine just floating around. I have to strike a balance of not losing my job if I really start pushing this and/or just be miserable. My work has also suffered (many more errors and shorter temper).
WHAT SHOULD I DO????????
I work for a small but extremely wealthy parent company (of a major cruise line) and I'm the assistant to the CEO. She travels a great deal and we've always had a good code of respectful conduct in our office. We all like each other, get along great, it's basically a nice place, I am lucky.......up until this past year. A year ago, my boss' brother sold his own company and "moved in temporarily" with us until he could build up another company. He brought his secretary of 20+ years w/him: Mildred. She is well over 60 (and kudos to her for still working) but I swear this woman is from the 1950's. Do any of you remember the movie, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" - the school secretary? That's her! She has a very shrill voice and they put her adjacent to me in what is my open area, my area is like a hotel lobby. My job is very demanding and fast-paced. It's not necessarily advanced, but there's a lot of it, and when you're a personal assistant there's just no room for errors. Things take concentration as they must be executed right.
Mildred has nothing to do since her boss is as semi-retired as she is. She plays solitaire on the computer, reads romance novels, and talks on the phone to everyone in a very shrill voice. She never takes a day off, never takes lunch out, and there's never any privacy as she sits right beside me. If I hear her say, "son of a gunners!" one more time in that awful shrilly voice, I will slap her.
She also announces everything: she announces what the weather is doing, she announces the time, she announces that she is going to the restroom, to lunch, or if she has to do two things at once (heavens!). She also reads her email out loud, she has zero computer skills so she's always having issues and jamming stuff up, and she's always clucking like a chicken and talks to the back of my head all day long. I have tried to let her know that I need to really concentrate on deadlines and getting my work done properly. I've let her know that if she needs me to not talk to the back of my head, and I let her know that I don't have time to chat, I'm sorry. Moreover, she sprays! Not like a cat, but just as bad!! She has this awful perfume and she sprays at 8 am, 12 noon and 4 pm. I have spoken to my boss about this and she has, in fact, brought up these issues to her brother (but they hate each other) so nothing has been done. We asked to simply move her to another spot but her brother says, "I like her there." I have gently let her know that the spraying of all the perfume is more than just a cosmetic issue in that it leads to an environment that can really impair health functions (stuffy nose, massive headaches from this cheap perfume all day) and that we have rules in this state that prohibit one employee from totally dominating the workplace, etc etc etc.
Everyone at the company has been here a long time and do not rock the boat. The CEO I work for travels constantly and she pays us to keep her out of the daily operational stuff. Usually we just settle everything out ourselves. The rest of the support staff know the situation and comiserate with me, but we're all pretty helpless. It's better for them as they're in different areas on the floor than I am. I cannot move my own area because it's adjacent my boss and logistically impossible.
Seattle has the second highest unemployment rate in the country. There are not a lot of jobs like mine just floating around. I have to strike a balance of not losing my job if I really start pushing this and/or just be miserable. My work has also suffered (many more errors and shorter temper).
WHAT SHOULD I DO????????
