Dear Cindy – Menial Tasks

I've worked for several years as a medical secretary at a large, multi-physician practice. There used to be four secretaries, but about a year ago we lost the other three, and I'm the only one left of the old group.

Over the past year, we'd been trying to find replacements, but couldn't, and had lot of turnover. Because of the turnover, most of the general tasks, which used to be divided between all the secretaries, fell to me.

A few months ago, we finally managed to find some great people and they seem to be working out well. The problem is that I am still doing all the general office tasks. It's like the doctors got used to asking me to make coffee, tidy the waiting area, etc. At first, I didn't say anything, because I thought it was temporary while we waited to see if the staff worked out, but nothing has changed.

How do I change it back to the old system? I don't want to give the new people the impression that I think I am above doing these tasks (which I don't), but I do think we should all be doing them.

Sincerely,

Why Me?

This is not an unusual situation. To defend the newbies, they may have assumed that the menial tasks were yours since (to their knowledge), they have always been yours. But to defend you, why would they assume that you, the senior staff member, were responsible for the menial tasks, and why would they never show the common courtesy of offering to make coffee?

If you create a schedule that spreads tasks around evenly (and has your name first), no one should mind, unless one (or two) of these "great" people is in fact a princess. But regarding necessities like coffee – forget schedules, and establish reasonable rules! First one in in the morning puts on a pot, whoever finishes the pot makes the next pot, and so forth.