Relatively new hire here. I am all for working my way up and I know my place, but my senior occasionally asks me to do some pretty degrading tasks. Is there any way to push back as a newbie?

Good. Keep at it and deal with the absurd tasks for now since they seem pretty quick and harmless. When you are new you want to avoid causing conflict for a bit. Depending on how new you are the mere mention of you pushing back on anything could be a warning sign. Once you have credibility with your team you can start pushing back on the senior. "I can help in 15 minutes, I have to finish something for the manager" is a nice subtle push.

Respect is not earned like this. Yes you have to work your way up but not doing crap like this. I am a wisdom 🐟 (lots older) and this is pretty common for new seniors, managers, MD's. There is a period of time until they get comfortable in their new "skins" that they act like assholes and then usually it calms down. However, if it is more than 3 months, I would have a meeting with the senior about efficient use of time or connect with your manager. Start documenting every task with date, time and response so you have a written record if it or needs to be escalated.

Example: manager asks senior to print her a deck for everyone on the team in the room. Senior turns to me and asks me to count the number of people in the room for her. There were 4.

No one is beyond doing work the client wants done. I make slides, I have hour long client chats and I order food for lunch. Who cares? When did people become too good to do what needs to be done?

Another example: manager asks senior to draft an email to the client. Senior has me fill in the To: with client emails (6 total). Seems faster for senior to do these things. Just seems lazy.

Yeah OP that's just absurd. That's like troll level.

Who else should do it?

Sounds above average for a Deloitte senior tbh

Some seniors get an inflated sense of themselves when all you have to do to become a senior is not fuck up as an associate for a few years. Find a way to do something for your manager and crush it and they will come directly to you.

OP that is actually pretty bad.. I mean it got a chuckle out of me but I feel for you

Please do the needful.

To clarify.. Is this senior handing you her computer to fill in the to: section then you hand it back? Cuz that would be something

I had someone ask me to hold the door for them the other day, the nerve!

Whenever she asks you stuff, repeat it loudly- hey X did you ask for 6 email ids?

@P2 I would hammer a senior if I found out they asked someone else to put six email addresses in the To field. Say what you want about the totem pole, that's absurdly lazy.

Big4 has this culture...I've never heard of analysts at Accenture getting coffee and making copies (wife is at Deloitte and she tells me this stuff all the time). Very weird. Sure, u get tedious tasks like anyone else, but they're not admin tasks.

Like what?

Same OP. Just today someone on my team asked me to book a conference room for the team #degraded #sexism

I remember this idiot white chick who would tell me i couldn't take phone calls on my first project at D - dont take no shit from anyone pal

PwC 3 - I've been here for 9 months. To be blunt, I'm outperforming the senior and it's her way of being petty about it. The manager delegates higher levels tasks to me, but the senior treats me as mentioned above 🙃

As someone who just got promoted to senior consultant, god dayum you should be getting those copies pal 🤣

I love getting lunch. It's a nice break