As If God Gave Me a Little Present

The lawyer I'm temping for has a personal assistant. She's a little weird, and that's not only my opinion - the office manager and another person have also mentioned it. She seems to treat me as if I'm below her, as if I work for her. I actually did her job for a short time last year, and I hated it. Oh, not that I hated being a personal assistant, but the lawyer doesn't have a designated desk for whoever fills the role. So you sit in an empty office, until the billing guy comes in, and then you move to the conference room, until someone needs to meet with clients, etc.

I like to know where "my" stuff is, "my" place is, when I'm working. So to not have a specific desk throws me. This PA makes herself at home at my desk. She takes my pens, moves my mouse to the wrong side (I'm a lefty), opens drawers in my desk to get whatever she needs. Now, the last person who was sitting at this desk, who was fired, threatened bodily harm to the PA, so I've been really gentle with her, because when I first started it was clear she was very wary.

A couple of times though, she has gotten angry at me when I haven't dropped what I'm doing to do something for her. Which will not do. We're both working for the same person. My job is to do anything related to the business, anything on the legal side. The PA's job is to do anything related to the lawyer personally. She should not be filling out forms for the lawyer's taxes but then giving them to me to photocopy. I am not HER assistant. Unfortunately, since she is a permanent employee and I am a temp, I can't get away with saying anything. What will have to happen is that I will have to be unable to get something done for the lawyer when he wanted, because I was doing something for his PA, so that he can go to her and say, "Hey, you shouldn't be giving Green documents to copy that I told you to work on/things to file."

She wants a very specific pencil case for work, and asked me to find it for her. Um, no. I did a quick check online at two office-supply stores and three minutes later told her I didn't see it, but that she may want to go to the stores in person.

I know that for the dynamics of this office, I'm doing the right thing. But it's hard to keep my mouth shut. Even though I really hate the phrase and pride myself on never ever saying it, the reality is that "it's not my job" to do things for the PA. I look forward to the day when she gets told that. For now though, I will console myself of the memory of her falling down the stairs last week.