CEO has tasked me with a personal item

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the task? Is it researching the best pre-school for his kid, the cheapest manscaping place nearby, something at all work-related? How much extra time will it take, and for how long?

The task is buying and putting together a 1,000 gallon fish tank with tropical fish. I am then responsible for all of the upkeep and feeding (buying food).

Hire someone to do it and charge it to the company?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, don't bite the hand that feeds you. Do it with a smile. Look at it as an opportunity to impress the boss.

I know it sucks but you either have to do it or get a new job. Which I'd look for anyway.

No. Do not do it "with a smile." State your boundaries, whatever those might be (e.g., ask the dude, "I'll add this as overtime"). If he pushes back, you say no.

Otherwise your job will become one long clusterf--k in which you're buying flowers for his grandma and walking his dog and picking up the lazy ass's drycleaning.

This. I once had a boss who asked me one very busy day to run get lunch for everyone (a bunch of men who were shooting the bull on a Friday afternoon). He hadn’t been my boss very long. I straight up said no, I was very busy with real work, and I wasn’t hired to worry about their meals. They could move their non-work conversation to a restaurant. We actually went back and forth a bit, as no way was I letting myself become a personal assistant...I was the second highest position in the office and it was bullshit. Not only did I not get lunch, the next day he brought me flowers ( ) and some nice pastries. It was my hill to die on. He was fired a year later for lack of performance. Best thing....I knew before he did and took the day he was fired off. Good luck OP.

[Anonymous]

flowers would have creeped me out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the task? Is it researching the best pre-school for his kid, the cheapest manscaping place nearby, something at all work-related? How much extra time will it take, and for how long?

The task is buying and putting together a 1,000 gallon fish tank with tropical fish. I am then responsible for all of the upkeep and feeding (buying food).

Don’t do it. We had one, and those fish are hard to keep alive and very expensive. Just say no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the task? Is it researching the best pre-school for his kid, the cheapest manscaping place nearby, something at all work-related? How much extra time will it take, and for how long?

She is a female CEO.

Are you the OP? Any reason you took time to post this correction but didn’t bother to answer any of the questions? They makes me think you are the one who is being a bit unreasonable, balky, and over-sensitive.

No, that was not me.

--OP

[Anonymous]

If it’s at the office, it’s an office job.

If it’s at home, it’s tax fraud. I can’t hire a nanny at my business then pay them pre income tax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:flowers would have creeped me out

So immature and unprofessional. He also made us call him by the nickname his family called him....not his real name. What a dimwit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the task? Is it researching the best pre-school for his kid, the cheapest manscaping place nearby, something at all work-related? How much extra time will it take, and for how long?

The task is buying and putting together a 1,000 gallon fish tank with tropical fish. I am then responsible for all of the upkeep and feeding (buying food).

Hire someone to do it and charge it to the company?

Yep. It gets the job done.

[Anonymous]

In most circumstances I’d say “of course I’d love to help you with (useless personal task). He are my current tasks, priorities and time estimates . Where would this (useless personal task) fall in regards to priority?”

If CEO pushes back and indicates that I have to just squeeze it in and do it all. Use business-speak and say something like “well I just want to clear understanding of what your needs are. And make sure we have a common understanding of the expectations. I currently have 50 hours of work that I need to do during my 40 hour work week. You’d like me to add another 20 hours of work, making this my top priority. If you’d like me to complete it all in the allotted time frame, quality expectations will need to be reduced. I just want to clarify that your expectation is all the work get done regardless of quality”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the task? Is it researching the best pre-school for his kid, the cheapest manscaping place nearby, something at all work-related? How much extra time will it take, and for how long?

The task is buying and putting together a 1,000 gallon fish tank with tropical fish. I am then responsible for all of the upkeep and feeding (buying food).

This is serious business. You (and she) needs a service, or you both will end up with dead fish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

In my world that's stealing from the company.

Yep, quite a few CEOs were sacked for this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I left my last job because of being assigned too many personal tasks by my CEO. I was the company graphic designer and the CEO was always asking me to design things for his wife's groups, family birthdays, kid's projects/activities, and things like that. The CEO once even gave my services as a donation to this kid's private school without asking me. Just gave me a heads up that so-and-so had won a project of their choice coupon that previous weekend.

It wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't come with little to no instructions and then after presenting the result, have to go back and forth making edit after edit on things that could have been done from the beginning.

An example, "Hey, Ella's birthday is coming up and she wants a ninja princess party. I'm going to need a banner and some table decorations." "Okay, how many table decorations?" "Eh, probably 5." "What colors should I work with?" "Just make it look cool. Great, thanks!" Submits the proofs before printing... first email "Deb said Ella's favorite color right now is lilac. Can we make the ninja princesses that color?" Submits again "looks great, but let's add some stars" Submits again "I meant throwing stars hahahaha" Submits again "Let me see it with white text" "can you make them more princess-y but still ninja-y?" etc etc

Oh my god! So glad you left that position. Anyone who doesn't know the difference between an employee in the corporate space and a personal household attendant should not supervise anyone, ever.

CEO's company, CEO's dime. Her job was graphic design for the company. It doesn't matter if it is an outside client or internal client, the job is still the same no matter who is paying. Getting huffy without understanding that shows a real lack of maturity and a failure to understand the business world.

Oh, go pee up a rope. Her job is graphic design FOR THE COMPANY. Not graphic design FOR THE BOSS. It shows a real lack of maturity and a failure to understand jack if you can't tell the difference.

If the CEO owns the company then the CEO -is- the company. How can you not understand this? It doesn't matter if it is an external or internal client. Her job is to perform all duties as assigned, not all duties she wants to perform. Sheesh, it is a wonder some of you manage to hold onto your jobs.

Who said the CEO owned the company? Newsflash: shareholders own a lot of companies.

[Anonymous]

I think you need to look for a new job OP. I think it is reasonable to ask you to do the fish thing but if you don't want to do it then you need to quit and move on before you're fired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I left my last job because of being assigned too many personal tasks by my CEO. I was the company graphic designer and the CEO was always asking me to design things for his wife's groups, family birthdays, kid's projects/activities, and things like that. The CEO once even gave my services as a donation to this kid's private school without asking me. Just gave me a heads up that so-and-so had won a project of their choice coupon that previous weekend.

It wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't come with little to no instructions and then after presenting the result, have to go back and forth making edit after edit on things that could have been done from the beginning.

An example, "Hey, Ella's birthday is coming up and she wants a ninja princess party. I'm going to need a banner and some table decorations." "Okay, how many table decorations?" "Eh, probably 5." "What colors should I work with?" "Just make it look cool. Great, thanks!" Submits the proofs before printing... first email "Deb said Ella's favorite color right now is lilac. Can we make the ninja princesses that color?" Submits again "looks great, but let's add some stars" Submits again "I meant throwing stars hahahaha" Submits again "Let me see it with white text" "can you make them more princess-y but still ninja-y?" etc etc

Oh my god! So glad you left that position. Anyone who doesn't know the difference between an employee in the corporate space and a personal household attendant should not supervise anyone, ever.

CEO's company, CEO's dime. Her job was graphic design for the company. It doesn't matter if it is an outside client or internal client, the job is still the same no matter who is paying. Getting huffy without understanding that shows a real lack of maturity and a failure to understand the business world.

Oh, go pee up a rope. Her job is graphic design FOR THE COMPANY. Not graphic design FOR THE BOSS. It shows a real lack of maturity and a failure to understand jack if you can't tell the difference.

If the CEO owns the company then the CEO -is- the company. How can you not understand this? It doesn't matter if it is an external or internal client. Her job is to perform all duties as assigned, not all duties she wants to perform. Sheesh, it is a wonder some of you manage to hold onto your jobs.

No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it’s at the office, it’s an office job.

If it’s at home, it’s tax fraud. I can’t hire a nanny at my business then pay them pre income tax.

If you are hired to be, say, a lawyer - and your boss tells you that now you are responsible for maintaining a fishtank, is that ok?

You don't know what OP's job is SUPPOSED to be. If it's gal friday - then ok, maybe that includes fish. If it's chief of staff, probably not.