Question for all

[lexin]

I've also asked around the managers of my office about this, but this came up in my union work recently and I thought I'd find out what everyone thinks.

Poll #7675 Reasonable ad-hoc tasks

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 57

You employ a person whose normal job is to do post opening, stamping, preparation of papers, scanning - adminstrative tasks, in other words. Would you regard it as reasonable for them to be asked to do "sweeping out the filthy basement" as an ad-hoc task?

Yes
3 (5.3%)

No
9 (15.8%)

In the context of an office move or "tidy friday" when everyone's mucking in, but not otherwise
44 (77.2%)

Something else I will tell you about in comments
1 (1.8%)

Comments

[gnomad]

*puts on best Mrs Hudson voice* 'I'm your admin, not your housekeeper, dear.'

[lexin]

Oh, definitely!

[tazlet]

Is this a case of 'we riffed the custodian and you're low man on the totem pole'?

[lexin]

Not exactly. The office still had cleaners, but they weren't prepared to vary the contract with the cleaners sufficiently to get the job done.

[tazlet]

Sounds skeevy. Is someone is trying to get rid of that admin? The Great Satan has a clause in its contracts that says "And other duties as assigned" but those duties are supposed to be in line with the position--unless one is trying to send an un-subtle hint that your services are no longer appreciated.

[lexin]

Yes, someone was trying to get rid of him and inventing reasons for it. This was one of the attempts, but not the successful one.

[julesjones]

Someone needs to be introduced to the phrase "constructive dismissal", and the potential penalties thereof.

(I am only too aware that sometimes there is a legitimate reason for wanting to get rid of someone without having an actual legal reason to do so, but...)

[kaz]

PhD student with next to no work experience, but I am picturing our admin staff being asked to do that and... I really cannot see it, except in the office move exception you mention.

[lexin]

Our admin staff would raise two fingers in a rude sign if we asked them to do that except in the context of an office move. And possibly they wouldn't do it even then.

[carenejeans]

I checked "tidy Friday," but I wouldn't expect more than a cursory sweep, with the understanding the janitorial staff or building maintenance staff would finish the job...

Also, if the janitors or building staff are also unionized, they may take a dim view of this sort of poaching on their job.

[lexin]

That's pretty much my view as well.

[kutsuwamushi]

I voted for "when everyone's mucking in," but it has to include the boss as well.

Also, cleaning chores should not be handed to clerical staff regularly, and they shouldn't be too heavy. If the basement is filthy because it's dusty and full of old cobwebs, that's one thing; if it's filthy because it's full of mud and animal feces, that's another.

[lexin]

I was pretty shocked that they tried it on at all.

[kutsuwamushi]

I may have a knee-jerk reaction because some people consider this type of work "below" them, even when it is not at all demanding. They consider it only fit for people who are lower on the social ladder, and I despise that kind of classist thinking.

That's why it matters to me how physically demanding it is, and whether the boss is also pitching in.

[emrinalexander]

I've done admin work for most of my working life, and I would never consider sweeping out a filthy basement to be any part of the job responsibilities/requirements - the only exception being if the whole place moving somewhere else, and even then I would think a cleaning service should be called in.

[lexin]

Yes, that's pretty much what I thought.

[leela_cat]

Really? Really? Who could possibly think that would be part of the job description. I chose cleaning up for a move, but really, only if other people were mucking to clean up the basement as well and it was a tiny office that couldn't afford a cleaning service.

[lexin]

This office has a cleaning service, but didn't want to vary the contract sufficient to get them to undertake this work.

[leela_cat]

Not the admin's problem, IMNSHO.

[lexin]

Exactly.

[commodorified]

*changes votes*

No, on second thought, not even in the context of everybody mucking in. A space people work in daily, yes, in that context. A basement, no.

It's too physically demanding to dump on someone whose job description did not include it, and if you don't know what you're doing cleaning out a filthy space can be hazardous as Hell.

I'm not physically able to do that kind of heavy repetitive work *and* I am so allergic to mold that I developed an ugly chest infection from inability to clear my own lungs and then sprained a rib coughing earlier this year due to a nasty mold outbreak in my part of the world.

[lexin]

Interesting you should raise this. The admin person concerned has asthma, and I thought it was a particularly unsuitable task for them.

[watervole]

IF they're asthmatic, consider my vote a 'no'. (though in the general case, my vote would actually depend on whether there was plenty of admin work that needed doing. I'd regard it as fair to ask anyone - not just admin - to do it if they hadn't got enough other work to do)

[lexin]

He'd got plenty of work - more than enough, in fact. This was an extra task he was being set that the other admin wasn't.

[neotoma]

I chose "in the context of an office move".

Otherwise, it's really a job for the janitorial staff. Who will have the tools required, the experience to do it well, and access to things like *respirators* if the basement is sufficiently contaminated to require them.

An administrative assistant (or whatever they're called over there), really isn't qualified to clean properly, and would be up against Health and Safety regulations, wouldn't they?

[lexin]

We did raise the H&S issue, but the employer waved it aside.

[pocketmouse]

I work at a library, and I do largely admin-type stuff, plus the library usual of putting books away, shifting collections, and all that. And I've also been asked to put together a desk for a new scanner and dust the shelves. The cleaning crew isn't supposed to touch the shelves where the books are. So I guess I'd have to ask why the admin was asked to do it, and why the basement was being cleaned at this time. None of your answer options really fit.

[lexin]

There were two admin assistants, and my member was asked to clean out the basement. The other admin (also a man, similar age) wasn't.

I don't know why they decided that the basement had to be done right then, but the employer has been manufacturing reasons to get rid of him for some time. This particular try didn't succeed.

[lyorn]

I very much dislike spiders, I'm allergic to dust (makes my eyes swell shut for days, makes me unable to work or, actually, leave the house), and I wear my good clothes to work, so my first, second and third reactions are "the hell, no."

I've seen half the faculty of an elementary school ending up in hospital after someone had a bright idea of that kind (Having a bunch of mostly sedentary sexagenarians put in eight-hour days cleaning the school and re-doing the yard and the gardens in the summer heat -- what can possibly go wrong?)

[lexin]

I've seen staff get asthma attacks as a result of "tidy Fridays", let alone cleaning out basements.

[lydia_petze]

I can't see my employers ever asking us to do this. They've asked for help with various tasks, but they would call a cleaning service for something like this.

[lyorn]

I can't see my employers ever asking us to do this.

When my employer decided to skimp on the cleaning, it was the unspoken assumption that people could clean up after themselves. Of course they didn't beyond tidying their desks and washing their coffee mugs, until the health department had to have the coffee kitchen fumigated.

However, we never got *ordered* to clean. I suspect that it was felt that a bunch of geeks would have just too much fun mucking around with stuff and waste about 30 highly-paid geek man-days chasing each other around the very expensive workstations with wet mops.

[lexin]

I'm a reasonably high grade in my job, and it never ceases to surprise me that my employer regards it as cost-effective to have me photocopy documents.

[lyorn]

I think I have worked out that one. Cleaning services or admin assistance are items that costs money right on the accountants' balance sheets. While the drop in productivity that happens when staff getting paid well to do something else spend time on cleaning or admin work (one unfortunate day I spent six hours attempting to book a train ticket and a hotel for our intern...) just shows as a drop in productivity, which can conveniently be blamed on the staff, who will, one suspects management assumes, just have to work harder. I am quite grumpy about that.

[resonant]

Dunno if this is true of the admin in question, but when I took my current admin position, the job description actually included a description of the level of physical exertion that could reasonably be expected to be part of the job description. (Basically, in order to do my job competently, you have to be able to lift a ream of 11x17 paper. You certainly don't have to be able to muck out a basement.)

I suspect this is part of the Americans With Disabilities act, to prevent employers from saying, "Oh, well, naturally we'd be more than willing to hire someone who uses a wheelchair, but what if we needed her to carry file boxes up to the attic?"

[amberfox]

They've got a job posting up where I work that specifies the ability to crouch or stand for extended periods and the ability to lift (I think) 40 pounds unassisted. I don't know who their target audience is, but the job is usually held by middle-aged-or-older women; it's for decorating cakes. That doesn't really seem to call for athletics.

[doire]

I come from a background of 15 years collective working, where it was explicit that everyone took part in cleaning. So, yes.

Then the organisation went hierarchical and I was the service and facilities [and...] manger. If I asked someone to do something like that I would be doing it too unless they were happy to do it. My department, my responsibility.


I don't think it's reasonable to spring it on someone; not dressed appropriately, hot date just after wrok, appointment at the bank - there are many reasons to demur. But I don't think it's inappropriate.

[lexin]

That's fair enough.