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You omitted an important qualifier. > assuming over course it doesn't cross legal or moral boundaries. If someone asks me to clean the bathroom, sure I do it

You omitted an important qualifier. > assuming over course it doesn't cross legal or moral boundaries. If someone asks me to clean the bathroom, sure I do it at home, much more rewarding to make $50 an hour, and probably less gross than the bathroom where a toddler is potty training. As for the rest of those items although they may not explicitly fall under legal violations by US federal law, given the relationship between myself and my boss they probably cross policy lines and could be excluded under illegal. Except for taste testing food I'd do that one for sure. But your framing this as a ruler and subject relationship is off the mark because every thing you listed has people that get paid to do exactly those things, that doesn't make them all serfs to a lordly managerial class. It seems you have concocted the most absurd extreme interpretation of my words and then used that to refute my argument. Ultimately I am willing to do pretty much whatever I am asked to as long as it is legal and moral, included in moral is my dignity as a human being. Ultimately I feel that trying to frame every interaction with an employer as adversarial and feeling that everything is workers vs managers is immature and reductionist. At the end of the day Initech or Introde or whatever as a company doesn't really exist it is a legal fiction we use in society. What does exist is my boss my coworkers my customers. I want to treat them well and with respect and make life easier for them not because they deserve it, or because I think I will get ahead. I do it because I want to be a good person and good people treat others well even regardless of who they are. It doesn't mean I need to be a door mat or allow myself to be exploited, but it means as an employee I try to behave like I would want my employees to behave if I were a manager, and if sometimes that means they ask me to do something for them that isn't inside of my regular job description I'll try and do that because I dont bave to come in and see Mr. Introde every day, I come in and see Dan my boss, or Carl the director and those are people. Most everyone you meet is another person just trying to get by in the world and most people can really use someone cutting them some slack once in a while.

braingenious 4y ago
>they probably cross policy lines and could be excluded under illegal. I’m confused by this part. What if your company does not have a policy against foot rubs or babysitting? For example there are big wellness companies like, for example Goop, that might reasonably have foot rubs, babysitting and software engineering in the same building. >every thing you listed has people that get paid to do exactly those things I agree. There are people whose job it is to babysit and provide massages. If you heard your babysitter say that it’s reasonable to demand that they engineer software because you pay them so much, would that make sense to you? edit: The job you describe yourself as doing seems akin to personal/executive assistant, which is a fine job! I worked as an EA for years. I wouldn’t call myself an SWE if I worked as an EA. edit 2: After re-reading, this makes even less sense. If your friendly boss “Dan” insists that you clean the bathroom, you’re happy to do it because it makes you a better person? It makes ole’ “Dan”’s life easier to insist that an engineer being paid engineering wages do minimum wage work? Couldn’t Dan make his life even easier by hiring a cleaner for an hour a week for a fraction of what your time is worth? It seems like Dan would both save money and have talented workers spending more time being productive. That’s a win-win! Unless of course Dan likes exerting power for the hell of it, then it’s a loss for him. If Dan liked to make sure his employees should be infinitely deferential and constantly reminded that they are lucky to work for him, it would make sense to insist (not ask, it’s insist according to you) that you do menial work that literally anyone could do. Friendly ole Dan, such a nice guy that he reminds you to polish the Sword of Damocles every Friday. It is such an inconvenience for him when it gets dusty.
michaelcampbell 4y ago
> probably less gross than the bathroom where a toddler is potty training. Nope. The dividing line between gross and just normal IME is public vs private. I've cleaned some bathrooms in my "career" (if you want to include high school part time jobs), and the worst ones were the womens bathrooms in public use; grocery stores etc.

braingenious 4y ago

>they probably cross policy lines and could be excluded under illegal. I’m confused by this part. What if your company does not have a policy against foot rubs or babysitting? For example there are big wellness companies like, for example Goop, that might reasonably have foot rubs, babysitting and software engineering in the same building. >every thing you listed has people that get paid to do exactly those things I agree. There are people whose job it is to babysit and provide massages. If you heard your babysitter say that it’s reasonable to demand that they engineer software because you pay them so much, would that make sense to you? edit: The job you describe yourself as doing seems akin to personal/executive assistant, which is a fine job! I worked as an EA for years. I wouldn’t call myself an SWE if I worked as an EA. edit 2: After re-reading, this makes even less sense. If your friendly boss “Dan” insists that you clean the bathroom, you’re happy to do it because it makes you a better person? It makes ole’ “Dan”’s life easier to insist that an engineer being paid engineering wages do minimum wage work? Couldn’t Dan make his life even easier by hiring a cleaner for an hour a week for a fraction of what your time is worth? It seems like Dan would both save money and have talented workers spending more time being productive. That’s a win-win! Unless of course Dan likes exerting power for the hell of it, then it’s a loss for him. If Dan liked to make sure his employees should be infinitely deferential and constantly reminded that they are lucky to work for him, it would make sense to insist (not ask, it’s insist according to you) that you do menial work that literally anyone could do. Friendly ole Dan, such a nice guy that he reminds you to polish the Sword of Damocles every Friday. It is such an inconvenience for him when it gets dusty.

michaelcampbell 4y ago

> probably less gross than the bathroom where a toddler is potty training. Nope. The dividing line between gross and just normal IME is public vs private. I've cleaned some bathrooms in my "career" (if you want to include high school part time jobs), and the worst ones were the womens bathrooms in public use; grocery stores etc.