The problematic PA

Things are going slowly but surely with my new protegee. Donna is lapping up my supercool fashion and beauty advice and is now fully committed to becoming a beautician. She's wearing decent make-up, has splurged on the MAC and Benefit counters and is already dressing a bit better. She has yet to tell her mum of her plans but I'm priming her to tell all within the next few weeks. Jeannie's not been in the best of moods this week and has been stomping about the place like a pit bull with a twisted bollock, so Donna needs to tread carefully.

I got my first telling off the other day for connection a client through to a lawyer who is avoiding her calls. She's refusing to settle her bill but keeps calling for advice etc anyway. She sounded genuinely upset so I connected her to the guy's PA who went fucking nuts at me. She's the type that needs to dress you down in person so within two minutes of me connecting the call, she was in reception stinking of fags and Anais Anais with her eyes boring into me. "Which one of you stupid tarts put Mrs X through to Colin's office?" she screamed. Donna was halfway through a chicken sandwich and couldn't respond so I smiled and said "I think I'm the stupid tart you're looking for." She then railed at me for a few minutes about how Mrs X was never to be connected and what an idiot I was and best of all how she'd wasted 10 whole minutes of her time trying to get rid of the woman off the phone.

I didn't want to lose my job so I had to be calm but this PA's lawyer isn't that important and I reckon the bitch can't handle her job anyway so I hit her with a scale 4 glare and calmly smiled. Glancing at my monitor which tells me what calls have come in when and where they went, I said "That call came in at 14.50 and was transferred to you within a minute. As you appeared in front of me I had just ended a different call, this was at 14.53. It is now 14.59, so unless you have a Tardis or live in an alternate reality, you didn't spend 10 minutes on the phone to this enquirer. In fact, you seem to have spent the majority of this mythical 10 minutes shouting at me for doing something I hadn't been told not to do. I have to treat all enquirers to the company with respect and carry out their request unless otherwise instructed. I'll now note that Colin's PA doesn't have time to take Mrs X's calls. Now, if your time is as precious as you say it is, you'd better back to your desk in case any more calls come through for Colin that you're too busy to answer." Her mouth flapped up and down like a goldfish for a few seconds and then she turned on her heels and got in the lift. As a mark of respect, Donna put her sandwich down and said "Well done." She then finished the rest of it in one mouthful.

So far I've had no comeback and the PA has been scurrying past my desk so fast you'd think she'd been shot out of a canon. I sense it's not the end of the matter but I'll get Donna to lie and say she saw the PA threaten me if a stink arises.