Would you find this insulting?

[April Dawn 12207]

Here is the situation:

A close friend of mine is a welder who works in a shop building stuff for the military. They got a ton of work finished early and didn't have anything to do so their boss asked them to do basic cleaning tasks such as clean their bays, wash floors, wipe down their eating area. My friend was so insulted by this he told his boss he was going home early.

 

In any job that I've had all of which general cleaning tasks were not my primary duties I've always just done them and not thought about it... When I was managing a restaurant wearing dress shirts I've cleaned light covers, scraped down fryer ect and never felt something like that was beneath me... If I didn't have something that I had to do I always cleaned. It just made sense.

 

 

I guess what I'm asking is without a written job description what should be "normal" duties, and what would you find insulting?

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[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Just about any written job description ends with "and other duties as assigned". Cleaning and maintaining one's workstation or area is a normal sort of task anywhere I've been, but I know some unionized places are very sensitive as to who is permitted to do what.

 

If there's a regular separate cleaning crew at your friend's workplace, then there'd no doubt be grumbling that the welders were being asked to do the cleaning crew's job for them.

 

Humans being what they are, if previously-enjoyed privileges (such as being paid for sitting around doing nothing after your primary tasks have been completed) are suddenly withdrawn, folks won't like it.

[April Dawn 12207]

This is an non unionized place oddly enough.

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[Andee 220524]

Deleted my comments

[Mutau 2516]

WIT hit it on the head.

 

Most work descriptions have a catch all clause about "other related duties". This means almost anything except for something which could possibly endanger you or cause you injury. At that point you have the legal right to refuse the work under the federal Labour Code.

 

Common sense just tells you that if your regular work is complete, then there is certainly something that you can be doing. In these tough economic times having a job and earning wages is a good thing: why spoil it? No manager wants to see their staff sitting around not doing anything.

[April Dawn 12207]

Nope he's not in the military he just works for a company that makes things for the military, its a non union job.

I was more just confused about how or why somebody would complain about

doing any form of general work not directly related to their "normal job"?

Like 6 men all age ranges left with him and I had to sit at denny's and listen to them complain.

I just don't get it??

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[Surf_Nazis_Must_Die 8958]

Here comes a half-drunk, knee jerk reaction...

 

Your buddy needs to mop up his fuckin' tears and get back to work (and imo, he needs to do that mopping off the clock, IE on his own time).

 

As a welder, your buddy gets paid a pretty decent wage. In other words, the average wage for a welder is at least a few bucks over minimum, and anything over minimum is pretty decent in regards to Saskatchewan's overall cheap cost of living.

 

If he happens to be paid hourly, instead of a salaried position, he should be happy his employers gave him the chance to earn his full eight hours on the clock instead of sending him home early. He gets paid the same amount to do braindead, menial tasks like wiping up a lunch area for the same amount he would have earned for doing a specialised, and educated task like welding. In the paid by the hour scenario, he just made easy money instead of being sent home early and making squat.

 

Now lets say he is in a salaried position.

This could go either way. If he and his co-workers have been working their butts off, and logging some serious unpaid OT (gotta love salary for that), and they happened to finish their latest project early, then hells yeah he should be insulted by what management proposed!

But honestly, how often is that the case? If he and the rest of his coworkers are salaried and finished well below the regular forty hour work week, then management has every right to ask their employees to do a bit of side work. The employees are earning a guaranteed forty hour a week paycheck, regardless of the real amount of hours put in, of course the company wants to get their money's worth out of the salaried employees!

[qwertyaccount 15793]

I couldn't have said it better that WIT.

 

Getting paid $30+ an hour to do an $8/hr job isn't so bad, especially since it is their working and eating area, and not someone elses.

 

Perhaps if he makes too big a stink of such a reasonable request, and since the work is complete ahead of time, they might do some number crunching and figure out that the welders are scheduled for too many hours or that they don't need as many welders as before, and the whiney ones tend to be the first to go.

 

Maybe this was middle management's way of keeping the excess labour info from upper management and doing the crew a big favour.

[Megan'sTouch 23875]

Suck it up, Princess.

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[Kubrickfan 12836]

Of course it's reasonable. If this guy did this more than once (everyone has a right to blow off some steam, no matter how misguided), it would be "career-limiting" decision! And maybe even a career-ending one..

[JuliasUndies 7288]

Well wasn't that nice to leave his coworkers behind to clean up his mess.

I know everyone here so far has decided what he should have done and it's true.

As his friend it's best to just support his decisions and try to see it his way, stay bias to his view. No matter how dumb our choices seem, a good friend has your back..unless it will seriously harm a friend I pretty much check my opinions at the door.

 

Some things I would find insulting, like doing the bosses job *shudders* I'm supposed to be happy to have been intrusted with this sacred job that is supposed to be the bosses/owners..Then the boss might not have been sexed enough the night before, come in and yell at me for a poor job done when really I did it awesome. The insulting part to me is that I feel I am being taken advantage of- they leave early and give me their job and try to act like it's sacred n shit-such a privileged, people really suck that one up to me it's insulting. Do your own fucking job! Bah!

[qwertyaccount 15793]

As his friend it's best to just support his decisions and try to see it his way, stay bias to his view. No matter how dumb our choices seem, a good friend has your back..unless it will seriously harm a friend I pretty much check my opinions at the door.

 

When dealing with others, I think you're bang on!

 

It's probably just me, but unless I'm really off in left field I would like my friends to stick up for me against others, but to me I want them to be true.

 

I want to have the rose colour glasses ripped off my head, be called out on my BS, and made to realize it when I'm wrong, otherwise how would I ever know I was wrong, learn and grow.

[Guest E*******h S******s]

Suck it up' date=' Princess.

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What she said.

[antlerman 17064]

I work in the trades.....and cleaning up around you and keeping the shop clean belongs to every one in the shop. Is by chance this person a union person.......spoiled.......?

 

A clean shop is a safe shop and anyone who does not have safety first in their job is not proud of the work or workplace.

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[spud271 47779]

Suck it up' date=' Princess.

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I'm with Megan! I think floggings should be brought back for this exact scenario!!!! LOL

 

Does this moron realize how bad things are around this planet right now? Millions are out of work, and there are few countries with any solutions to fix it! It's people like him who deserve to be fired!

[Boomer 33202]

I'm with Megan on this one, but just maybe he'd rather be sitting at home on pogie.

[Reddog01 30280]

So much for team work and a congenial environment.

 

Cleaning your workspace and lunch/lounge area should be common dog....

 

Maybe a lay off until more work comes in is a better approach.

[Kubrickfan 12836]

When dealing with others, I think you're bang on!

 

It's probably just me, but unless I'm really off in left field I would like my friends to stick up for me against others, but to me I want them to be true.

 

I want to have the rose colour glasses ripped off my head, be called out on my BS, and made to realize it when I'm wrong, otherwise how would I ever know I was wrong, learn and grow.

 

Absolutely. Being his friend requires you to tell him the truth when you think he's wrong, but that does't mean not standing up for him vis-a-vis other people.

[April Dawn 12207]

Ok good, I wasn't off in some weird parallel universe where cleaning up your area seemed like a normal request. Thanks everybody!

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[roamingguy 300291]

Horrible, just horrible...having a job and being expected to work

Hope if he left early he got docked pay, there's lots of people out there looking for work

RG

[NotchJohnson 214069]

I'm with everyone here, this guy must be married to a good wife who does all the cleaning for him. Being a boss and having to deal with this day in and day out just makes my skin crawl.

[JuliasUndies 7288]

Absolutely. Being his friend requires you to tell him the truth when you think he's wrong, but that does't mean not standing up for him vis-a-vis other people.

 

The way I see it sometimes is like this.. If they are too stupid to see their mistake, then they aren't worth your breath since they won't listen or follow the guidance(Unless they asked for it). If my friend decided that she/he was going to jump off a building or do life threatening crap then I might tie them to a chair until they came around, out of love, of course. Unless that happens, my conversation would go something like this..

Friend

"Hi Julia, today my boss came up with this idea to clean to pass time, can you believe it? Me clean, who does he think he is..so I took the afternoon off!"

Me

"That bastard how could he? You clean? geeze doesn't he know you have a maid for those things?, so how was your afternoon off"?

 

Tada- end of story and potential bitch fest from my friend, I've been married too long to bother to argue

[KaceyKatzegeist 152]

If someone else is designated to do the cleaning, I would be a bit upset that I was being asked to do their job. After all, what are they being paid for if I'm doing it?

 

But if they're standing around, doing nothing ... I don't see what the problem is with a little clean up.

[Ethernaut 100]

That person is just being selfish.

 

Considering the bigger picture when a person needs their job description written in a way that we need to refer to the job description for all aspects of the work then you need to rethink that person's contribution. Clearly this person is not a team player. Everyone should clean up after themselves. Perhaps his boss could have shown some leadership and started the clean up and all of the staff might have followed the example.