My sister just got this new job, it’s been two months she started and every other day she comes back home she complains about how she doubles her boss’ personal errand girl. Her role isn’t even that of a personal assistant.
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My sister just got this new job, it’s been two months she started and every other day she comes back home she complains about how she doubles her boss’ personal errand girl. Her role isn’t even that of a personal assistant.
When you start work you don’t know what to expect and what is allowed, so you do the things you are asked to do because you don’t know better. No one told me I had a right to refuse.
What I know now, is that there are some people who will have you believe that this is all part of the job. I don’t believe this to be the case as not everyone is treated the same. Back then, I noticed it was always the women in the office who were put in this position of being asked to run personal errands.
Unless you are a personal assistant and these types of errands are in your job description, quite simply, the answer is no you shouldn’t be running personal errands for anyone in the office nor should you put someone in an awkward position by asking them to do your personal errands either.
If you offer your services then that is your business. For example, you are going to a department store and your boss asks you to get a birthday card if you have time — well fine. Or you can see they are rushed off their feet and would welcome a sandwich for lunch. That’s thoughtful and collegiate. Beyond that, you are there to deliver on your job. You gain nothing by being a lapdog, you may think you will be well-thought-of but what your colleagues actually think, is that you don’t have confidence to refuse these tasks. And, that lack of confidence may harm your career because you can’t set boundaries.
If you are being asked to do personal, non-business errands for your boss during or after business hours that is inappropriate and you should complain. Your boss is abusing the supervisor relationship to steal value from you. This is a trait common among bosses of a one-man business. I recently saw an article online, where a boss asked a lady employee to help get something to eat, something led to another, she couldn’t get the food and her employee slapped her twice, she returned the slap. It tuned to such a mess that she was dragged out of there office space by the security. The boss clearly used his power over her, as the duty of buying food was never in her job description. What makes a lot of people put up with this stinking attitude from bosses is due to the fact that they don’t have other options. They need every penny that comes from that job they have at hand. However, there will surely be a time when they would get tired and speak up, and you already know the end result isn’t alway to their Favour.