Message #73195

[rose.winter1980]

Actually, I don't really take this individual's activities personally - she does this to everybody including our CEO (who happens to be my boss)!

No, she isn't "just doing her job".  Her "job" is to take care of her own sphere of work (which isn't being a PA by the way).  Just because a particular thing hasn't been done before does not mean that procedures cannot change.  It is, however, the way in which one goes about changing things that can make or break a working relationship.  There may be good operational reasons why something has "always been done this way" In a company, everyone is "in it together", but those working relationships have to be built up on effective communication, respect and simple good manners. 

The stupid thing is that this individual contacted me about including information about a part of HER work - something I knew nothing about because she had not bothered to tell either me or her own boss.  So how are we supposed to know this, particularly since her sphere of work is absolutely nothing to do with mine?  But she sends out an email highly critical of my office for something that we cannot be expected to know anything about. 

The root of the trouble, I have been told, lies in this person's background.  She used to be a very high-flying PA in a global organisation and 35 (yes, 35) admins reporting directly to her.  She jetted around the world quite a bit (mostly in Europe).  She also lives quite a high-profile life with her husband.  Her previous employers require their staff to resign from work at a certain age, and so she eventually found her way to my company.  She now has a relatively junior post, but one that is more or less autonomous.  She works independently from most people, except for requests for information and assistance from time to time from various departments.  Her immediate colleagues tell me that she feels very keenly the loss of "power" in her current post as compared with her previous post.  Her former post ended seven years ago, which is quite a long time to carry around that sort of "grief". 

Oh well.  Today is another day and diverted emails stay diverted. LOL.