Arduinna

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/the-shoe-dryer-the-wake-up-service-and-more-ridiculous-other-duties-as-assigned.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34176

Last month we talked about “other duties as assigned” — things you’ve been asked to do at work that were wildly outside of your job description. Here are 15 of my favorite stories that you shared.

1. The handmade crafts

I had a manager whose in-laws held a handmade-only Christmas exchange every year. They were all crafty and she was decidedly not, and they made some intimidatingly great things — the one memorable example she cited was that someone hand-carved a chess set for the exchange.

She made us figure out her craft and do her craft for her a team event every year. The one year I participated, we made a decent felt-flower wreath for her mother in law. It was fun, but in hindsight, wildly inappropriate.

2. The wake-up service

When our organization hosted a fancy pants conference, my psychotic ex-boss, Robin*, announced that she needed an intern to wake her up every day. I’m not kidding. She wanted to give one of us an extra key to her suite to wake her up in the morning at whatever time she stated the night before. An alarm clock wasn’t good enough. Robin wanted a human being to wake her with her fresh coffee order. (She was also obsessed with the British royal family so I wonder if that’s where she got the idea.) And, yes, she put it under “other duties as assigned.” I have no idea if anyone ever fulfilled her stupid request; all I know is it wasn’t me!

*Name not changed out of complete, sheer disrespect.

3. The weed

I was a day shift bartender, and my boss had a side business as a drug dealer. One morning I showed up to start my opening duties and there were massive amounts of weed hung up to dry all throughout the bar, clipped to strings like laundry drying in the sun. My boss hadn’t even left a note or anything asking me to take it down, and he wasn’t responding to my carefully worded texts asking that he help me or at least come pick it up.

This bar only had dim lighting, there were no bright overhead lights that I could turn on, so I had to run around in the dark looking for all the strings and collecting the weed in empty liquor bottle boxes while I was also stressing about getting more and more behind on all the usual things I needed to do before opening the bar. Even after I opened, I found some more that I had missed, and all day I was panicked that maybe this would be one of those days that the bar got chosen for a random inspection.

4. The missing knife

I had a summer job creating a database for the local university’s research farm. One morning my supervisor asked me if I had ever used a metal detector before. He’d dropped a 12-inch knife somewhere in a corn field, and it was cheaper to have me find it than puncture a tractor tire! I was given a metal detector and walked around for about 20 minutes before I found it.

5. The underwear order

First job out of college, I worked for a 90-year-old man in his third career. He was not at all senile, very fit, had all his faculties. Honestly, a very impressive human. He did, however, often call me his secretary and sometimes made comments that were a bit outdated. I brushed them off, it was annoying but didn’t offend me. What I could not brush off is when he walked into the office one morning with a clothing catalogue, dropped it in front of me with a page open to men’s underwear, and told me to order him three value-packs.

I was an office manager in a graduate program and he was the program chair.

6. The returned belt

This didn’t happen to me, but to my coworker and close friend.

Our boss went on a date and had the guy back to her house for the evening. She discovered the next morning that he’d left his belt behind. She told my coworker to take the belt and return it to him at his office at the state capitol, where he worked as a state representative.

That workplace was wild.

7. The artwork

I worked in fundraising for a nonprofit that cared for youth who were removed from their homes, as well as families in foster care or in need of parenting support, etc. Our donors loved receiving “gifts from the kids” but (1) the kids are in school all day and they’re not a craft factory and (2) most of our kids were tweens or teens and were uninterested in creating dorky “art” for rich people.

So my boss’s solution was for ME to make the kid art, including writing messages like “thank you for caring for us” written with my non-dominant hand to look like they were done by kids. I’m still embarrassed that I went along with it, but I was very young and nervous about losing my job.

8. The lost ear

I was a young woman – early 20s – and lived in a small country town that had an old pub with an attached store and petrol pump. On Sundays, all the city folk would come out for a drive and the owner did an outdoor BBQ lunch. I worked as a waitress and drinks server.

A group of bikies asked, quite politely, if they could use the BBQ after lunch was over, but the boss said no. Well, this did not go down well. Drinks were drunk, tempers flared, and it ended in a big fight during which one of the bikies literally bit off the owner’s ear. They retreated inside and I was sent out to look for the missing ear. Which I did, crawling on my hands and knees with beer cans flying over me. I found the ear, it was successfully reattached, and that was the end of it. I wasn’t particularly scared at the time, but when I look back!

9. The dandelion weeding

Back when I worked in fund raising for a Catholic girls high school, the very expansive front lawn of the school had a LOT of dandelions in it. The president of the school felt that it was my job, as the school’s chief fund raiser, to weed the lawn on a regular basis because the presence of weeds instead of perfectly manicured grass could affect the school’s fund raising goals.

I refused.

10. The ticket chase

I had to log onto a ticket purchase portal to wait in a virtual line to get BTS tickets on behalf of my manager. She had the whole team of us doing this and was running back and forth with her credit card in hand in hopes of getting the tickets.

I reported this to our confidential ombudsperson line.

11. The shake monitor

I once had an office-assistant-type job at a wedding and event venue. Turns out, my MOST ESSENTIAL duty, which was not listed in the job description and did not come up in the interviews, was to make the GM’s meal-replacement shake at lunch and then check on him every half hour to see if he finished it, remind him to finish it if he hadn’t yet, then wash the shake container and return it exactly to the correct spot in the cabinet. Other work needed doing? If it was in the afternoon, it wasn’t getting done.

His office was at the other end of the building, so I’d have to walk there (leaving early enough to arrive precisely at the 30-minute mark), then wait for him to be free, remind him to drink his shake, then walk back to my desk. And repeat, and repeat, and repeat…

12. The wet shoes

In my first job out of college, my boss asked me to dry his shoes, which got wet in the rain. He plunked them down on my desk and said he needed them dry for a meeting in 15 minutes. I’m still not sure what he expected me to do because at a certain point, only time can dry things. The hard -unabsorbent paper towels from the bathroom weren’t going to cut it.
I was a receptionist but in no way a personal assistant.

13. The bartender

I had to bartend. This was at a makeshift bar set up in a machine shop, at age 14. My actual job was working for my uncle during the summer helping with paperwork/filing. He decided to host an open house celebration to recognize the business receiving a prestigious quality certification so I was pressed into service. I did not know how to bartend. I assumed until corrected (after a few hours) that all mixed drinks were poured half and half. His customers had a fantastic time!

14. The trick-or-treating

Not sure if this counts because I created the duty myself. I work in a hospital with a small rehab wing, and it always saddens me when patients are stuck in the hospital during holidays. Especially my favorite one, Halloween. So, with the approval of the unit manager, I made signs and plastered them around the hospital for employees to bring their costumed kids trick or treating on the rehab unit on Halloween. I provide the candy myself and give it to the patients to give out to the trick or treaters. The patients adore this and take lots of photos to share with their friends and families. This is the third year now that I’ve done this.

15. The cat attentions

We had an office cat named Baconfingers. She belonged to an employee who passed away, so folks had a lot of affection for this her. When I was hired, I was told that if she wanted attention, I was allowed to stop working and give her scritches for up to 15 minutes, and to code that time under office management.

Most of the time, Baconfingers roosted on top of a filing cabinet, but occasionally she would just make her rounds around the office, going from desk to desk getting scritches from different people in 15 minute increments.

The post the shoe dryer, the wake-up service, and more ridiculous “other duties as assigned” appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/the-shoe-dryer-the-wake-up-service-and-more-ridiculous-other-duties-as-assigned.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34176

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/how-much-of-a-red-flag-is-it-if-a-job-candidate-was-fired-twice-previously.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=33246

A reader writes:

I am hiring for a position that is fairly entry-level office work. A candidate, who is fairly young, lists two positions in the past decade which they were fired from. They were post-college full-time positions, not high school summer jobs where turnover would be expected to be high and where the job may not be a huge priority for the employee. This seems like a lot. I would follow up with a reference check to get more details if I move this candidate forward, but I’m not sure if I should just disqualify them. If it matters, there are other candidates I’m leaning toward, but this candidate is currently in my top tier in terms of skills and experience.

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

• People keep booking “getting to know you” meetings with me
• Job candidate’s profile picture is heavily Photoshopped

The post how much of a red flag is it if a job candidate was fired twice previously? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/how-much-of-a-red-flag-is-it-if-a-job-candidate-was-fired-twice-previously.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=33246

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/i-was-written-up-for-having-a-visible-thong-outside-of-work.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34045

A reader writes:

In my free time, I love going to this nightclub by my apartment building. They have parties monthly based on different eras such as the 80s, 90s, and the 2000s. In the past year, I have gone to three 2000s parties, and the guests attending are supposed to wear things that represent fashion trends from that decade. All three times, I wore a pair of those ultra low-rise jeans that were so in back then and paired that with a visible thong (whale tail) as this was a trend back then as well. Well, all three times, the photographer at the club asked me to pose for a photo and I agreed. The photos were posted on their website.

I’m not sure how, but somehow HR at my work has found the photos. They called me into their office, showed me the photos, and wrote me up for “behavior that puts the company in a bad light,” as she said. I asked the director of HR if she was sure she was able to do this and she said that at the last management meeting it was discussed and the photos were shown to the management team before this action was taken. She also told me that the write-up and photos would go in my file and that I was not allowed to have a visible thong outside of work.

I have a huge problem with all of this and cannot believe that this has happened. I have had so many thoughts about this: (1) Why was the entire management team, including the men, shown photos of my underwear? (2) Why can I not show my thong at these parties if I want to? (3) Is a visible thong at a nightclub even a big deal or am I crazy? Have they seen what other women wear? (4) Can they write me up for this? (5) How do I get the photos removed from my file? I really don’t want future managers/directors and HR to see my underwear in my employee file for the rest of my time at this workplace!

You aren’t allowed to have a visible thong outside of work?

What?!

Your management has gone feral.

I don’t know where to begin, but I guess here: how do they think anyone who sees the photos — or the thong — are going to associate you with your company? Do you have a highly visible, public-facing job? If you do … well, I can imagine jobs where it wouldn’t be outrageous to say, “Hey, being photographed this way is at odds with the serious public image you need to project for this role” (like if you were an aide to a conservative politician or a spokesperson for, I don’t know, an anti-thong organization or something). But even then, the right response would be a conversation explaining that, not a “write-up,” which is juvenile at the best of times. And assuming nothing like that’s in play, this is ridiculous.

As for what you can do … a very small number states, including New York and California, do ban employers from interfering in your private, lawful activities outside of work, but in most states this would be legal (as long as your employer isn’t applying it unevenly to men and women; they’d need to also prohibit men’s underwear from showing in their off hours).

But you can certainly try pushing back. Frame it this way: “I understand you’re concerned that photos of me outside of work could be connected to the company and you don’t want photos on the internet that could reflect poorly on the organization. If that’s a policy that’s applied evenly in the organization and to others in similar roles, I will of course abide by it, but I’m not comfortable having photos of my underwear in my personnel file and am requesting that they be removed.” There’s a possibility they might say that if you aren’t comfortable with people seeing photos of your underwear, you should realize they’re available on the internet — to which you can respond, “That is different than actively storing them in my personnel file where future managers definitely will come across them. It’s inappropriate for the company to go out of its way to store photos of an employee in her underwear, so again I’m asking that they be removed.”

Frankly, I’d also like you to push back on the “not allowed to have a visible thong outside of work” part of this — photos aside — because it’s absurd, but unless you are solidly committed to building a long-term career at this place, it’s likely more trouble to take on than it will be worth. (Although if you want to take it on just on principle, I’d fully support that.)

The post I was written up for having a visible thong outside of work appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/i-was-written-up-for-having-a-visible-thong-outside-of-work.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34045

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/i-have-to-work-closely-with-an-ex-friend-who-broke-up-with-our-whole-friend-group.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34282

A reader writes:

I started at my company about five years ago after being laid off from my previous company due to Covid. Once I started here, I was shocked to discover that one of my old friends (Susan) who I was very close to in college (which I had graduated from 10 years prior) worked at the same company in a different building on the company’s campus.

I reached out to her briefly on Teams just to say, “Oh wow, I had no idea you worked here. If you’re ever near my building, pop by and say hey and maybe we could grab a coffee.” She responded warmly and we had one brief conversation in my office, and that was the last time I saw her for months. We were in different departments with very little crossover, so we never had reason to interact in a work setting and we weren’t the kind of friends who were in constant communication so I didn’t think much of it.

Cut to a while later — maybe six months to a year — and I met up with the friendship group that had survived from our college years. Susan was invited but unable to attend, and during this gathering our mutual friend Carla said that Susan had decided she no longer wanted to be friends with the rest of us, only wanted to keep her friendship with Carla, and our over-a-decade-long friendship was essentially over. It wasn’t only me who got cut off by Susan, but I must admit that I took it quite personally, given that we worked at the same place. I wondered if the formal break-up through our mutual friend wasn’t specifically aimed at me because none of the rest of our friends would have had reason to run into her, given that we were all very spread out geographically. I also felt like because the news was delivered via a mutual friend, I never got the chance to get closure or understanding of why the friendship ended.

For the past four years, this has been mostly a non-issue since we only run into each other maybe twice a year at work and none of our work crosses over. But recently a department that I work incredibly closely with was hiring. I was talking to my friend in that department and she told me that they had had an exciting internal applicant, and lo and behold it was Susan. I’m 100% sure that Susan will get this job; she is intelligent and hard-working, and I know they had been struggling with finding external candidates to fill this role.

I’m feeling anxious at the prospect of working closely with her. There was a time when we were really close friends and basically living in each other’s pockets. She was the first and only person at college who I told when my mother died and she helped me share that information with our other friends. Then we weren’t and I never got the chance to understand why. I just have no clue how to gauge my behaviour. Did we stop being friends because the friendship just fizzled over time? Did I do something to annoy her? Was the trigger me showing up at her place of work unexpectedly? Did she feel like I followed her there or was pressuring the relationship? I am autistic and social stuff can be very tough for me to navigate even at the best of times but this feels like a whole minefield. I am also having a lot of anxiety that if the friendship ended because she didn’t like me specifically or I unknowingly did something that upset her, that may still be true and may affect my working relationship with the people I am friends with in that department.

I know the first port of call is to behave professionally towards Susan and treat her like any other colleague, but should I be doing anything else proactively? It’s been a few years since the news that we were no longer friends was delivered, so bringing it up would be weird, I think. I did not say anything to my friend in the other department when she suggested that Susan might be getting the job, other than endorsing her candidacy because I truly feel like she would be a good fit for this role, and despite the awkward way our friendship ended I hold no ill will against her. We’re both still friends with Carla so I was considering reaching out to her to see if she had any sense of how Susan felt about me, but then indirect communication through Carla is also what spawned a lot of this anxiety in the first place.

Pay attention to that last sentence because I actually think Carla stirred up a lot of drama where there didn’t need to be any.

If Susan wanted to end her friendship with your friend group, she could have just … done that. Carla didn’t need to make a formal announcement. Susan could have talked to people herself or just done the natural fade/falling out of touch that happens frequently post-college. I’m side-eyeing Carla a bit for thinking it was her place to announce this to the rest of you (and I can’t tell if Susan asked her to, or if she took it upon herself — it sounds like maybe the latter). “She doesn’t want to be friends with any of you, only me” also makes me wonder if her announcement was self-serving in some way. Regardless, if Carla hadn’t said anything that day, you wouldn’t be feeling any of this anxiety now — so it’s worth noting that your fears right now are coming from Carla’s actions, not Susan’s.

As for what happened, I’d bet money that it’s not about anything you did at all, because she cut off your entire friend group. It’s far more likely that it’s something like feeling very different from her college self now, or even having bad memories of that time and avoiding people associated with it, or going through something now and not having the energy to keep up with older, more distant friendships, or … well, all sorts of other things that you wouldn’t know from the outside. I don’t think you need to wrack your brain trying to figure out if you caused this. (It’s also very unlikely that Susan felt like you deliberately followed her to her company. It’s a large company, people one knows might pop up, and it sounds like your approach to her was extremely normal and low-key.)

Your instincts to just treat Susan like any other colleague are absolutely right. You don’t need to do anything else proactively (like reaching out to her ahead of time), and actually I strongly think you shouldn’t. Just be low-key about the whole thing, which has the advantage of demonstrating for her that a low-key approach is perfectly workable and no one needs to feel tense or weird about the situation. Treat her the way you would someone else you didn’t have a history with — meaning pleasantly and with good will and with no real expectations beyond working together productively — and just assume that you and Susan will build a new relationship as colleagues that will be its own thing, rather than an extension of the old friendship.

The post I have to work closely with an ex-friend who “broke up” with our whole friend group appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/i-have-to-work-closely-with-an-ex-friend-who-broke-up-with-our-whole-friend-group.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34282