You've Got to Be Kidding!: How to Keep Your Job Without Losing Your Integrity

Getting Off the Slippery Slope

You can stop the requests for personal service if you:

• Decide how you really feel about the requests. Are you a passive-aggressive people pleaser, eager to comply, but torturing yourself later for your inability or unwillingness to stand up to your boss and say “no!”? Or are you really and truly okay with the nature and frequency of these requests? (After all, some people enjoy the variety of getting out of the office every now and then to run errands for their boss.)
• If you decide to make an issue of personal service requests, get prepared. Document a few weeks of abuses and keep this “memo to yourself” in your personal files. Write down what you were asked to do and how much time it took. At the very least, this is proof of your concern for the problem. And such a file can protect your job and your professional credibility if your boss is ever discharged or disciplined.
• Examine your job description. A fair question for an admin to ask in a job interview is: “What kinds of personal service responsibilities are required in this job, if any?” While this is a good way to get everyone’s expectations laid out before you accept the position, it’s not foolproof. Requests for personal chores have a way of creeping into a boss-assistant relationship. To deal with a situation that is gradually getting excessive, rewrite your job description and include the personal tasks in which you are involved before your next performance review. Your discussion can then ...