'PAs byte back', The Guardian

Monday, September 18, 2006

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PAs byte back: Fed up of being treated badly by your boss? Now you can vent your spleen online - and there's no need to hold back. James Silver meets the founder of a controversial website.

'Scum" - the PA to an advertising executive - is a secretary with a score to settle. "My boss is no 2 in command [at the agency] and he's absolutely clueless," she declares in a posting on a recently launched website on which PAs can anonymously dish the dirt on their employers. "He often asks me my opinion - and that opinion usually ends up being his official line. I'm fed up with people in this building stealing my ideas and passing them off as their own." She adds: "Nobody in my company seems to do any work. They all sit around reading magazines, go out for long lunches and sit in rooms brainstorming."

There are few things potentially more ruinous to a reputation than a PA with a grudge. Secretaries like "Scum" are privy to many of their employers' murkiest secrets. They know about the document-shredding, the expense account-fiddling and the backstabbing. They know what sort of flowers the boss buys his mistress and what he really keeps in the locked top drawer of his desk. Until very recently, however, they had to content themselves with gossiping by the photocopier or over a glass of wine after work. But now, thanks to PA Secrets ( www.pasecrets.com ), they have another outlet. Life for Britain's bosses may never be quite the same again.

Founded by "Kate", a 26-year-old PA in the City, PA Secrets claims to offer secretaries - whether they work for "the CEO of a leading record label or the regional manager of a dog-food company" - an "online retreat from the day-to-day grind and an opportunity to vent for those being told to make coffee, wax their bosses back or 'to do that dance again'."

Anxious to keep her identity secret, Kate, who says her boss "doesn't have a clue about the site and hopefully never will", proves an elusive and reluctant interviewee. In fact, opposition leaders in dictatorships have proved easier to pin down. Her caution is perhaps understandable if a little over-the-top. Just a few weeks ago, a Paris-based British secretary, Catherine Sanderson, was sacked for writing a personal blog, La Petite Anglaise. Kate, who has a degree and began working as a PA in 2003, declines to meet the Guardian face-to-face or even talk on the phone. However, she does eventually agree to be interviewed via email.

She launched PA Secrets, which she says gets 500,000 page impressions a month, after growing increasingly frustrated that she and many of her friends, despite having degrees, found themselves working as secretaries to rude, dishonest and condescending employers.

"I set up the site because I was a bit annoyed with my life generally," she says. "I started off temping but left one job almost immediately because my boss spoke down to me and made it clear I was expected to clear up his sandwich mess after lunch. I couldn't stand the way he spoke to people and I didn't get a degree just to be someone's skivvy. I went back to temping and then got offered another job where the same stuff started happening again - but this time, far worse. We are talking about contract-shredding, drugs in the top drawer, expense-fiddling and affairs. Anything you could think of was happening."

One day, while out drinking with university friends, Kate began talking about her boss's behaviour. It turned out that everyone present who worked as a PA had very similar tales to tell. A web-designer friend suggested creating a website where secretaries could gather to swap gossip about their employers. The result, PA Secrets, was launched six months ago but has only recently started to take off. "It was an idea that came from nothing more than the good old-fashioned British pastime of drinking," says Kate, simply.

When pressed further about her motivation for setting up the site, she explains: "I suppose the real reason is that although people do gossip about their jobs, they do it among a close-knit group of friends or colleagues, and I thought there was a gap in the market for a site where they could share their stories with a far bigger audience and therefore expose more bosses and what they get up to. But the site isn't an ego trip or some evil vendetta against capitalist corporations and their rules - just simply a place to gossip. Holy Moly! and Popbitch are much the same, only about celebrities instead of bosses."

While Kate concedes that with a full-time job it is impossible for her to verify all postings and that some of them "do appear a bit far-fetched", she adds that, judging from the gossip she hears from a PR friend, "it wouldn't surprise her" if even the more outlandish stories "turn out to be true". She also says, a touch naively, that she doesn't want anyone, PA or boss alike, to lose their job because of a posting on the site. "We don't use real names and we are careful not to leak vital clues or information. Insinuations and hinting who the person is, never got anybody the sack. It would take hard evidence."

Whether that's enough to keep sharp-eyed libel lawyers at bay, it's too soon to tell, but the site is certainly peppered with allegations of drug-taking and sexual misconduct. One posting even accuses a - unnamed of course - backbench Labour politician of sexual harassment. "I work as a PA for a local MP," it reads, "and he came on to me in the same way as Prescott did his secretary. The shame of the man! He's pushing 60. I would grass him but I can't afford to lose my job as Blair seems to protect his own."

PA Secrets has "in no way been designed to make a profit", says Kate, although she admits it could one day become a full-time job. "Right now it's just a hobby. I didn't even know what HTML was a year ago. I'm not sure I want adverts littering the site as they always get on my nerves. But I would really like it to become an online community for thousands of PAs. Eventually, if it really takes off, then I'm looking at maybe organising monthly parties and events where secretaries from different industries can come along to mingle and generally gossip. I couldn't be more excited at that prospect."
What does she think bosses will make of PA Secrets? "I haven't had a single complaint so far," she says, "and I think most bosses will find it hilarious anyway. Unless, of course, they recognise themselves."

All of which raises an important question. Will employers ever be able to trust their secretaries again?

The PA Secrets website allows secretaries to gossip about their bosses without being found out.

Secret Chick
"I worked at a bank a few years ago and at one of the team meetings the manager said that from now on, when we wanted to go to the toilet or for a drink, we had to walk at double the speed as this would speed up production"
AlexLiz
"My boss earns in excess of pounds 200k after his recent promotion . . . He still owes me pounds 18 for the last month's worth of tea from the coffee bar"
Melanie
"At work, we're provided with some basic foods and I always make myself a peanut butter sandwich. Last week, I saw my boss scoop out peanut butter from the jar with his hands, lick his fingers and stick them back in. Needless to say I have been bringing in my own lunch ever since"
Chatter
"I used to work for the CEO of a property company and my friend worked for the CFO. The two of them were so anal that they used to measure the gaps between full stops on press releases we typed up"
ShakenBake
"An ageing marketing director at a firm I worked for used to regularly come out of the gents with the middle flap of his suit-jacket tucked into his trousers"

© Copyright 2006. The Guardian. All rights reserved.

Posted by James Silver - On Monday, September 18, 2006

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