'They say some bosses are closer to their secretary than to their wife - and at times it really felt like that with John," says Claire Trattles, who worked for five years as PA to the finance director of a publishing company. "We spent so much time together; and if he was out, we'd speak on the phone three or four times a day. I knew his favourite places for lunch, what he thought of all his clients, what perfume to buy for his wife. He had a very happy marriage, as I did, but our relationship was so comfortable. He could be stroppy at times, but so could I. Everything was very equal."
The happy state of affairs came to an abrupt end when Trattles' boss announced he was taking early retirement. "I was horrified," she admits. "I guess I thought things would just continue the same way. The worst of it was that, because he wasn't going to another job, I couldn't move with him. I was really upset, and when the new candidate was appointed, I couldn't help comparing him constantly with John."
This, according to business psychologist Charles Kay, is a serious error. "It can be hard to lose someone with whom you've had a close working relationship, but once that person has left the company you have to move on," he says. "If you try to compare a person you don't know with someone you have worked with for years, they are invariably going to come off worse. It's imperative to give the new person time to settle in, and allow time for you to get to know them."
"It's getting easier, slowly," admits Trattles, "but it's a totally different sort of relationship. He's incredibly pernickety - he wants to see and sign everything and I feel almost as though I've been demoted. Logically, I know that he's new to the job and he just wants to ensure that everything is running smoothly, but I can't help resenting his manner - it's like he's constantly behind me, looking over my shoulder."
In many ways, it is inevitable that a new boss will bring his or her own ideas and methods of working, but if these seem to be changing the PA's role, it is important to try to address the problem.
"It's not uncommon for a secretary or PA to come to see me if they have a new boss," says Martine Morgan, human resources director for a large consulting firm. "They may feel that they have lost some of their areas of responsibility, or that the new manager doesn't have the same trust in their abilities. It can be quite an insulting feeling and it does make people resentful.
"We advise them to talk about it with their manager, to say that they feel they are capable of more. It may be that the new manager hasn't realised the PA's competency and is simply working the way they did with their previous secretary."
Sometimes, however, a new boss can be like a breath of fresh air. "When my boss left I was quite relieved," says Jeanne Wade, who works in a large IT firm. "David was a really nice guy but he was totally disorganised. He was always forgetting meetings or lunches, he'd lose memos or forget he'd sent letters out, and blame me. It was never meant nastily, but whatever structures or administrative systems I tried to put in place never worked."
When a new boss was appointed, Wade took the opportunity to change the way she worked. "I was determined to present it as if things had always been this way," she says. "I made up whereabouts sheets, got a second desk diary so that I could have my own for him, pencilled in a weekly time for him to have a meeting with me. I was determined to try to take control of how things would be done from an administrative perspective, and make it seem that this was how I'd always done things."
"Close relationships at work are very positive, but they also mean things can get stuck in a rut," says Kay. "If you get on well with someone, and work comfortably together, it can be very difficult to instigate change. But when a new person joins, it can be a fresh start - there is no history between the two of you and it's a chance to streamline your working methods.
"Think about your old manager and rather than just thinking about how wonderful he was, try to remember what annoyed you about him, what made your working life difficult. Then put in place structures to ensure that it doesn't happen with the new boss. Try to concentrate on what you may have gained, rather that what you have lost."
