DEAR BRIDEE:  I currently work as a medical secretary within a five-partner general practice. I have held this post for seven years. My workload is demanding and ongoing and although I love what I do, I am concerned that my employers are now giving me their personal work to deal with. This can be anything from purchasing cars, typing complaint letters regarding floodlights that keep them awake at night or typing out a Valentine's Day invitation for the wife of another doctor.

Of the five partners, only one GP has paid for the personal work I have produced for him. My job description states "Any other duties appropriate to the post" and my contract of employment doesn't mention my duties at all. I decided to put a formal complaint forward as the work I was dealing with was getting too much but I was told I had to do the work presented to me.

I'm desperate to know what my rights are on this matter. Do I put up with the emotional abuse, which is now affecting my health, or do I put this behind me as a bad experience and simply look for another job?

BRIDEE:  Your  contract of employment doesn't specify duties and your job description seems to be all-embracing, I doubt you can rely on your rights to resolve your problem. However, I'm not convinced you should even be trying.

It seems to me that you've got a strong sense of being put-upon. From what you tell me, that's perfectly understandable - but if you let it get to you you'll become more and more resentful, which in turn will make sorting things out more and more difficult.

Hang on to the fact that you love what you do. Already, that makes you a member of a fortunate minority. Don't chuck it away needlessly.

Then try and sort out in your own mind just exactly what it is that's making you so unhappy. You strongly imply that it's an intolerable workload; but you also complain that only one of your GPs has paid you for the personal work you've done for him. So my guess, inevitably under-informed, is that the real cause of your distress is not so much that you've been given too much work to do but rather that you're being systematically taken for granted. To you, these other partners expect you to take on their personal correspondence as a matter of right - and are probably as miserly with their gratitude as they are with their money. So your head gets filled with all sorts of corrosive thoughts: "What do they take me for?" "That's not what I came here to do!" And then when you lodge a formal complaint, no one shows you any sympathy and so your resentment begins to affect your health.

You probably find this analysis fairly unsympathetic as well. But it seems to me that you have three choices.

The first is to clear your mind of all indignation, accept that helping your partners with their private matters is a legitimate role for a practice secretary and carry on. This won't be easy for you but it's possible. Second, you could very reasonably make it clear that the increasing amount of private work is beginning to affect your efficiency as a medical secretary. You're happy to continue helping your GPs out - but it will have to be done outside office hours and therefore for a certain agreed hourly rate (the one GP who pays you has set a useful precedent for this). And the third option, as you already recognise, is to look for another job. However, I can't help feeling it would be a shame.