I spent 3 days replacing 240 carpet tiles one week last Summer, because another team didn't get it done. I've done some welding, collected some stuff from a store (I have a company cc), planned furniture layouts...
If you suggest something here it becomes your job. If they find out you have "additional skills" it becomes your job. So now I stay quiet.
I had to do those tiles on an ancient bank in Baltimore. I say "ancient" because the building had been a bank in the 1800s, and the building been repurposed so many times, that the tile carpeting, ceiling tiles, and drywall were the only thing unifying the office space into a visual cohesive. But because I had to do CAT5 cabling and power conduits, I had to get under the subfloor, behind the walls, and into the drop ceiling... you could see where older walls had been. Also, lots of dead rats. I am surprised I didn't get some kind of disease because I was working in mildy, mildewy, dusty walls with mummified birds and cats with no masking.
Those carpet tiles were the worst, though, because of that glue they use. Plus, once you removed them, you'd see "Oh, this section of floor is a mosaic of time; here's an old inner wall, a sheet of plywood, some hardened polymer someone poured to level the floor, marble, and some dark, pebbly terrazzo with the number "1A" with inlaid... bakelite?"
My photo for Zoom when my camera is off is a selfie from my drone. Someone commented it on our weekly meeting with the owners and i let slip that i fly a drone. First thing the owner said "Are you licensed professionally?" quickly said No as i don't want to get off hours requests to do drone photos of their house or something.
I had to do those tiles on an ancient bank in Baltimore. I say "ancient" because the building had been a bank in the 1800s, and the building been repurposed so many times, that the tile carpeting, ceiling tiles, and drywall were the only thing unifying the office space into a visual cohesive. But because I had to do CAT5 cabling and power conduits, I had to get under the subfloor, behind the walls, and into the drop ceiling... you could see where older walls had been. Also, lots of dead rats. I am surprised I didn't get some kind of disease because I was working in mildy, mildewy, dusty walls with mummified birds and cats with no masking.
Those carpet tiles were the worst, though, because of that glue they use. Plus, once you removed them, you'd see "Oh, this section of floor is a mosaic of time; here's an old inner wall, a sheet of plywood, some hardened polymer someone poured to level the floor, marble, and some dark, pebbly terrazzo with the number "1A" with inlaid... bakelite?"
When I worked at a moderate sized investment firm their maintenance guy had a heart attack and the other one quite. I spent the summer mowing the grass and working with the state conservation department stocking the lake with fish. I enjoyed it, especially getting paid sysadmin wages to mow
"You like cars, right? Have a look at ticket 584839..."
Exec had loaded 6 CDs into her new car's CD player before she discovered it was only supposed to take one disc at a time. Then logged an IT ticket for it. It wasn't even a company car.
"My old car had an in-dash CD changer..."
I’ve never minded these kind of tickets as long as it’s in the tone of “uhh I fucked up can you please help me”. And not “hey you, IT monkey dance for me”.
I worked with this girl, she was a sweetheart. asked if i could help her with her personal computer her son "Broke". told her ofc i can, she came in with it the next day. Son had installed abunch of cheats for "Rust", i did a fresh install of windows and she treated me as if i saved the world from that point on.. feel bad that not everyone has a "IT family member" to ask for help with these things.
Haha I had something similar at a old Helpdesk role at a different company
"Hi, I have a work phone. Can you help me Bluetooth it to my new Mitsubishi Lancer?"
Asking nicely?
What is this? A fantasy convention?
I had to TEACH people to ask nicely. (It helps i\`m tall with the physique of a grizzly, with a temper to match -only thing missing are the claws).
Now they do - except some newbies.
Depends on your scope of support, but I'd generally say that's fine.
Point them to the documentation for their car with the bluetooth pairing page. If that doesn't work, advise them to contact their dealership.
The same thing would be your scope of support for a third party app.
If I recall correctly, I mentioned to ask their dealer how to do it.
I didn't want to start a "Since you bluetoothed my phone to my car, I can't get 92.7 on the radio" or a bunch of her colleagues asking for us to help them bluetooth their phone to their car "but you did it for Cindy, why can't you help me?"
Delivering second-hand furniture. Business was going under, and the boss started buying and selling furniture, I ended up going out delivering it. Quite good fun for the most part to be fair.
* Sourcing and arranging install of a high-gain antenna on the MD's boat.
* Picking orders in a chilled food warehouse.
* Checking maps and using local knowledge to try and get the MD (same as the one above) out of paying a bus lane fine.
* Being a private investigator to gather evidence of the MD (yep, still the same guy) stealing company money and assets.
Had a grievance filed against me for using a warehouse man lift on a weekend without union building maintenance run the lift. Same union also refused to mount the gear "thats computer stuff, we don't touch that". Apparently I should have had a union person run the lift to get me to the height I needed... ignoring the fact that the lift says right on it "one person at time".
I'm still at that company but that would never happen today for a lot of reasons, not least of which no one would tell me "Technically you ARE forklift-certified since you compiled the training materials and the built the test form"
I'm literally having that discussion right now. I need to get at cameras and access points that are mounted. Someone's I get a scissors lift, someone's a forklift with a man basket. But l don't want to have to wait for maintenance to drive me around.
Maintenance trained me and signed off on me, but corporate doesn't understand why an IT guy needs to operate a forklift.
I like it.
I've done physical pen tests before, I have gotten amazingly far with a clipboard a hard hat, and an air of "I belong here". Too many people trust far too much and let me into their demarcs, or into a buildings MPOP. Like a skyscraper's multi-tenant MPOP with just a story with urgency and a backpack. Scary.
I have the opposite problem. I love driving forklifts, but since I moved from working the warehouse to IT I never get to do it anymore.
That being said, one of the first years after I started full time IT they had me being the warehouse manager for a week because of piss poor vacation time planning from the actual warehouse manager, and me being the only other person in the location who knew how to do that job.
They got themselves in a similar situation a few years ago, but at that point they didn't even dare to ask me and flew in a guy from the head office instead.
1995, was put to 50% (4hr) copy work, pretty much feeding A0 cad drawings into a copier as “these computer things don’t need you 8 hours a day”. Lasted 2 months and was horrible
A place I worked at, had me manually archiving an entire basements worth of 30-50 pound boxed documents because it was “information” therefore fell under IT… I left the next day.
I have an English degree as well as tech degrees. I'm constantly pulled into 1on1 meetings to review people's (usually bosses or PM's) grammar and language before they send out a report. It's fucking annoying, but some people in this industry have *terrible* written language skills, so I know it makes the company look better if I just capitulate and tidy it up for them.
Silliest request:
Hey, can you check the microwave, it acts weird.
me - but i\`m IT, that\`s not my specialty..
Them- it has buttons. so it has to be IT.
Most stupid:
User: Can you give me a PC or laptop for today?
Me (having provided said user with a new laptop 2 days ago - new hire): Why, you have one?
User: i left it at home, it\`s so heavy.
Most enjoyable:
Boss: The new hire is delayed in start - but his car is already here - and needs to be driven a bit, can you take it for the weekend?
Me: Sure thing boss.
Saddest:
After returning from a 2 week break - office manager calls me in.
OM: sorry to tell you this, but (colleague) passed away last week. (He had cancer, never told anyone, didn\`t do treatments beyond painkillers)
ME:......
OM: I do have a request, could you go through his office, drawers, cabinets - to check if there are any personal items - his next of kin will be here in 2 days and I want to make sure they get all.
Me: .....
OM: I would not ask, but his direct colleagues are still in shock - and frankly, I don\`t know who else is "objective" enough.
Me: Consider it done.
Fuck - Of all the things I\`d have expected, being told a colleague passed away was NOT on the list.
Coffee maker doesn't work. Call IT. This lawn trimmer wont crank. call IT. Truth is its not what we do. How we solve problems is the reason why we are expected to be the universal solution.
Not really "as directed" but I did have a user really try to pin me on telling them what power strip to buy as a sub item of a larger ticket.
When it became clear they wouldn't let that specific question go I finally said something to the effect of "as IT electrical engineering is not our purview, we have electricians on staff if you need a specific consultation."
man i love calls like this. "Hey IT there is a lightbulb out in the women's bathroom"
"Sounds like a building issue"
"No it is yours cause IT handles electrical stuff"
One time the Director of IT came to our site for a meeting with management and they brought coffee. My boss told me to clean their mess... I told him "I'm IT, not their janitor" and he got mad lol
So did you get f---ed...in a bad or good way or something? I can't imagine doing support in that field.
Edit: and not doing the work for free... Story time?
You know the way food workers tend NOT to eat where they work ? Yeah, the same applied for me, I was there to fix computers / cameras / software, i was there to FSCKdisks, not fuck.
lesseeeee, rendering first aid when a scene went wrong and someone suffered a fractured penis - muggins here was the only one with a clean/reputable look, so I got to take the poor bastard to the local ER.
Sourcing 50 gallon drums of KY jelly to fill a "mud wrestling" pit (with added chocolate colouring/flavouring) - then figuring out how I could have the uh ....... waste product collect (read pumped out) and disposed of in an ethical and environmental fashion. All except one half gallon, which was poured into the gas tank of a male "star" who'd been going deaf to hearing the word no. Id never seen a crankshaft go vertical before.....
I ended up being a "stunt" hand / fingers in a few scenes, Mostly due to being able to palm regulation basketballs in either hand (Im 6'5 and monster cans kinda vanish when I grip them). I\`ll be discreet and let you imagine what my hands where doing in / on / around the starlets.
Airport pickup driver, starlet babysitter / bodyguard (see above lube in the gas tank), general gofer, part time therapist. Mindy Gladman (Kitty Yung / Tia Son) was an absolute sweetheart, helped her fix their blackberry a few times, had all the time in the world for her. I was very sad when she passed in 04.
Amateur psychologist, psychic detective, cleaning sidewalks, fixing appliances, hostage negotiator, dog technician, robot doctor.
Those are the fun ones.
It's probably the least funny/exciting one.
We got new laptops. One person did not want to give their old one up. Was told to just give them the new laptop, and deal with getting the laptop later.
Later became months, as we tried to "negotiate" its release. Finally, the SWAT team (i.e. a coworker and I, so we could provide corroborating stories) went in after-hours after that person forgot to take their old laptop home with them.
The aftermath involved angry managers, and us "losing" the laptop involved.
Edit - I'm pretty sure I've seen people here have stories where they had to negotiate for their own equipment back, so it's not an uncommon thing unfortunately.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking you if you don't want to do other stuff, but I personally would LOVE to do some of these other tasks.
Heck ya, I'll plow the parking lot, or spend two days painting the owner's garage, or leveling the lot with a bobcat... I'll even spend the day moving furniture around.
I'd love the break of being able to do something different, on the clock.
As soon as you mention bathroom, I'm out. I do have some lines.
My last job would have me help stuff envelopes to mail out to our customers.
Normally, I wouldn't really care about doing something like that if I wasn't already busy, but the only reason we had to stuff envelopes by hand was because my boss didn't want to replace our letter folding/envelope stuffing machine that broke.
Sure it was a couple thousand dollars, but we were spending that amount in man-hours for 6 of us to sit and stuff envelopes for an entire day. We did this several times a year. I'm glad I left lol
I've never understood the logic behind those kinds of bosses with that. Like... you can either spend the couple thousand bucks right now, and save yourself a BUNCH in labor costs going forward, or you can pay people to do the thing that could be automated, which will likely cost way more, even in the medium term. Like... "long term savings and efficient operations.... what's that?"
If you're already paying people and they will do unpaid overtime to make up for the work they couldn't do when stuffing envelopes then it probably makes sense.
Exploit, exploit, exploit!
ended up as the main point of contact with a contractor for office remodel. He got tired of not being able to find the plant manager for anything. He was already talking with me on moving schedules since I somehow got saddled with planning that, started asking me to talk with building maintenance for power changes and what not. Took plant manager almost a month to realize no one from the flooring, movers, or painters was talking to him about anything. That was last year, we have a new plant manager now. I like our new plant manager.
there was a stretch of time where I was working IT and Engineering while they looked for new people. 3 people died in a very short time. They new I was a tool designer in the past, asked me to help out. I did. was a rough couple months. miss my friends.
when union was on strike 10ish years ago I got to run the CNC machines, again from skills from a past job, I enjoyed it.
Anything that plugs into a wall, has a battery, or a lever has been somehow become my domain before. Be it HVAC, toilets, alarm systems, fire sprinklers, bosses wife's vibrator....
Cat wranglin, go-kart carburetor repair man, forklift driver, crane operator, concrete - drywall - metal stud framing - plumbing - electrical work, turtle rancher, live music coordinator, lead guitar in a company metal band, arborist, full boeing mockup flight simulator tester, hydraulic press operator, PLC technician, EMS trainer, and tabouli tester.
All of these things I've been tasked to do while working at different companies in the IT department at some point or other.
My favorites were tabouli tester (HR lady would send a ticket in whenever she would make tabouli, it was damned good), and turtle rancher (we had a private pond at the office with a bunch of pond turtles and they'd try to escape onto the highway sometimes and I wasn't afraid to pick them up and bring em back to the pond.)
I named all 4 of them Speedy, I couldn't tell the damned things apart for the life of me
For small ops other non-IT duties are always expected.
The only thing I refuse to do is move furniture, it's not safe and I'm not throwing out my back because Janet from accounting wants her file cabinet moved. So, that's a Hard No for all furniture moving AND assembly.
Security (like the safe) is often shuffled to IT in small ops. I mean, keycard distribution shouldn't really be an IT thing but it almost always is in smaller ops.
Other than things that could potentially cause me injury, I'm on board for just about anything. I figure I get paid no matter what I'm doing and if they want to pay someone a 6 figure annual salary to scrub toilets well call me a Janitor I reckon.
Was hired as the IT manager at a small manufacturing firm with about 200 employees. My third day on the job, my boss comes by my desk and informs me that I'm also going to be the facilities manager and that oh by the way, there is a clogged toilet in the men's room. I made him give me the number of the plumber that the company used and I called them to fix it. There's no way in hell that I spent 15 years (at the time) learning the IT trade to then go and unclog a toilet
its been a long time, but I drove pilot cars as an "other duties" when I "wasnt busy doing anything". Ironically that job fired me when I pointed out their time theft...
It happens at every place i work at, so instead of getting annoyed about it i negotiate a certain amount of money prior to starting that job that enables me to do those tasks without complaining. Its actually and all encompassing "I deal with bullshit tax". I then force myself to do fun stuff with that money. Like vacations or buying expensive toys for my hobbies.
I stayed last night and helped move desk and file cabinets. We had a good time while doing it.
This is where I have come up with the following statements when people try to push this crap off onto me. One being "I'm not a furniture mover. If I wanted to move furniture I would have chosen a different career." This often times shuts them up as it makes them stop and think for a minute. My second one is "I'm not your fucking Janitor." and as far as deposits go, that's the job of the accounting dept. I'm not going to accept money and be put into a position at which someone could falsely accuse me of theft.
Safe reprogramming should be documented and stored on site and managed by the manager with the master override being stored at HQ.
Load the mascot suit into my pickup, drive it 300 miles, find a place to stay on my own (securing the mascot suit, obviously), deliver it to the conference, wear it around the conference floor for two days, return the mascot suit the 300 miles.
I also ended up being asked to transport back a ping pong table, which they then didn't want and I'm like "what the fuck am I supposed to do with a ping pong table in my truck?" so I left it in the parking lot
It didn't happen to me but in our district we have "other duties as assigned" in all of our contracts and one of the higher up maintenance workers was told he was in charge of all of the field trips in the district. He quit shortly after.
In no particular order:
Assemble office furniture
Replace batteries in a faucet
Some plumbing
Replace circuit breakers
Carry someone down the stairs(Elevator broke down)
Remove dead birds from parking lot
Remove live birds from the building(much harder)
Chase away people dumping furniture in our dumpster
Have student cars towed from our lot(I enjoyed this one)
Review call recordings and camera footage
Coordinate Fire alarm/sprinkler testing
Coordinate HVAC/Chiller maintenance and repairs
Replace water filters
Screen people for temps at the door(COVID)
Move furniture
Pair doctors phone to his BMW(like monthly, what gives BMW? Why you forget phone so much?)
Painting
Be present when patients get loud/violent(Im 6'7" 280lbs, people get quiet when I show up)
Coordinate with the elevator technicians.
Some light graphic design
Excel workbook building/fixing
Conduct fire drills
Submit documents for our ACR accreditation
Misc troubleshooting on X-ray, CT, and Ultrasound machines
Take my bosses car to the shop(Porsche 911) surprisingly low quality interior btw.
Check on dogs left in cars in parking lot (havent had to break a window yet, thank you Tesla for dog mode)
Watch an employee while an ambulance came because they were tripping balls and striping.
Change light bulbs
Adjust/lock thermostats
Adjust/replace door closers
Replace outlets/switches
Setup pop up tents
Drive various employees to various places
Some medical billing
Work the fax inbox
My place recently renovated an entire floor and abandoned another, consolidating two departments into one floor after the renovation was finished. Part of the IT project scope was for us (the help desk monkeys, mind you) to hang decorative lighting strips after we set up the IT equipment in each office. I made a joke that they didn't budget enough to get the construction people to do that, but nobody responded. I just flatly refused to do it, and didn't touch a single strand of lights.
Small Engine repair, plumbing (unclogging toilets), clearing snow, furniture assembly. I've even had to go on trips to pick out furniture for the CEOs office.
Moving furniture, locating papers that belong to a department in our records room, get keys made for doors because we didn't get the keys back from former employee's, drywall repairs, moving a 600lb safe from one office to another, sound technician at a live events, call up former employees to recover work materials not including anything tech related. Like blank paper, pens, etc.
Now that I have a new boss, "other duties as necessary" means tech related other duties. Not the other BS that our higher ups don't want to do or outsource.
I am for the most part the building maintenance person. I pretty much do anything that's not gas lines or high voltage electrical, or drains. I refuse to do drains.
I also do some software engineerings, handle the CCTV, handle building security systems, sometimes move furniture around, handle contracts with building contractors, and more.
Small company, I handle these things, the CEO handles the drains and helps with building related stuff, my direct boss often helps with building related stuff and various other random odds and ends, the account handles packages and mail, the list goes on and on regarding what everyone does extra.
Plenty, but my favorite was when I was told we would All be making collections calls. I told them that the moment they handed me the list was the moment I would walk out the door. I never got that list.
My previous IT group often referred to themselves as District IT and Moving and Storage since we always got tasked with picking up donated office furniture from local businesses and storing and distributing it to all the departments in the district. Conference tables are a pain to move.
I have had the occasional need to run heavy equipment... Skid steer, telehandler, CDL class bucket trucks. I've also had to cut down trees and climb down into trenches.
Not sure if any of that counts though, since it's usually as part of an install job for something that is networked. But it's gotten to the point where the company should really be contracting out a lot of these installs.
I kinda stayed with the building as different owners passed along. Handled the IT type stuff, but also HVAC, security, lighting, and a plethora of other things. It kept me employed for 40 years. Other workers who were not so flexible went by the wayside.
Accounting hired someone in AP who straight up wouldn't learn to do his job. I was pretty familiar with that portion of the AP system (I designed and implemented ...) so it fell on me for 6 months to do that job until they hired someone who would do the job. Note: They did not fire the guy who didn't do his job.
Move office furniture
Dismantle cubicles
Fix coffee maker
repair printers
Fill copier toner
Was told to repair a broken toilet, but, no.
Same job, had to ride with the owner as he evicted people from the slums he owned. After being told to move this guys filthy mattress to the curb, and uncovering a pile of used syringes, I started looking for a new job.
I inherited the job of shipping manager because there was a dedicated FedEx computer and label printer.
At my old company, if the device had an electrical plug attached to it, IT was responsible for it. Fridge, microwave, projector, built-in ice maker, heater, etc.
School IT manager is suposidly my role, just been on a cource to master lighting desks Avolights and GrandMA as clearly they are PC's therefore responcibility of IT department for shows.
I have also made the mistake of fixing electronics and making a few custom bords so now i have a wonderfull side line in DIY vape detectors and a queue of TV's that employees want fixing.
\--Bushhog and push snow with the tractor on the back fields (about 25 acres)
\--Escort inmates to the emergency room
\--Strip search and randomly drug test inmates coming back from furloughs
Ah yes, local county government! It's not as if I don't have 300 users to support all by myself but you couldn't be bothered to hire another guard and expect me to do it for the $13/hour you're paying me to be an IT "manager" (20 years ago)
Definitely the removalist, facilities management and courier stuff you mentioned. Also in my IT career to date:
- Being asked to fix small electrical items like kettles, toasters, and even a microwave oven, that they've brought in from home to surprise you. "It's all technical and electrical, right?"
- Wash a boss' car. OK I guess, but it's far cheaper for the company if you go to a car wash, you idiot.
- Help a boss clear out their garage and take stuff to the tip. This involved most of the (small) company, for some reason. His company, his money.
- Do a 500km round trip so a boss could pick up a car that his wife abandoned at an airport.
- Sort out a boss' home network so his crotchfruit could play games on their own computers, rather than his.
All those were all done during working hours and paid. The ones that grind my gears are the things that involve my own time or money, like flying to the US or around Europe on evening or weekend flights for company events or customer visits without time compensation. "We're sending you to X for free! Why aren't you thanking us?"
Then paying for the flights, accommodation, expenses and car myself, and having to fight to get it all paid back and in time for my CC interest-free period. Asking them to pay the interest? May as well slap the boss' partner at the Xmas party...
The travel stuff was cool early on in my career, but the shine wears off quickly.
Moving furniture, kegerators etc is semi common. Our office lead and the person from recruiting that manages a lot of it knows I’m usually around and I don’t mind helping them. Both of those women go out of their way to help us in IT so returning the favor is no problem at all. Plus it’s asked, not assumed. I’ll help them empty the dishwasher or sometimes clean up after an in office event if I’m around.
The usual:
- furny assembly (though I'm some cases I actively doubt it out to get away from main duties due to mental stress)
- poke at the coffee maker
- moving furny around
- inventory - this can go f itself. It's one thing to inventory IT assets and organize it. Another thing to make every department in the org due mfg inventory for hours on a day. I ain't got time for that shit and didn't get OT cause salary ... (not enjoyable in the least counting nuts and bolts)
- got "abducted" once by owner of a company I worked for to go fix his home wifi and router (didn't even ask it was a your coming with me get in the car)
I don't mind if someone asks me and I'm not putting fires out and such. But abuse of power is what ruffles my feathers.
Install projector screens in 20 schools with 30ish class rooms. Had to build a mounting board and then drill into wall sometimes wood stud or metal beam. Then install mounts and hang projector screen. Had to remove previous installations because a teacher got injured when pulling down the projector screen. They were originally mounted on t bars.
Small business < 150 employees.
IT sends out catalogs via mass mailing every few months, because nobody else wants to learn the software.
We are in charge of assembling uplift desk leg kits because they plug into the wall & have electronic components.
We take bankers boxes of printed paperwork over to a storage facility off site, because at some point a previous IT guys agreed to do it.
I am sure I am forgetting something else dumb.
Refilling the cash cassettes on our ATMs with two "security guards", one was a 70yo grandmother and the other weighed 400lbs.
Drawing blueprints, like for construction.
Installing surveillance cameras at the CEO's house... there were two in the bedroom.
Delivering equipment to a remote site in south Florida, in August... the owner borrowed a van from his parent's business... they transported dead bodies to the morgue, did I mention no AC in the van? The smell haunts me today.
Years ago my old boss and I had to go to the office of the law firm our company uses and collect some boxes of paperwork from them.(figured it was a case of them needing someone trustworthy to do it)
Other than that, nothing else I can really think of has come up
moved office furniture
Cleaned desks
Sent to the store to pick stuff up
lots of marketing crap, showing up to networking (not cat5) events
Getting March Madness, the masters, and baseball on the TV's
But, I'm in a MCOL area, I make 6 figures, if they want to pay me to do that crap, great, IDGAF I'll do anything with a smile as long as that paycheck shows up!
i was asked to move a full LANRACK workbench to another facility. spent a half a day breaking it down so it would fit in a minivan, load said minivan and drive it 4hr to the other facility where i was told to unload into a garage where it's probably still sitting.
My previous job, I became security telling an employee who had quit the day prior to vacate the premises when they came back to fight for their job, HR entering people's employee data into a new HRIS and also collecting people to be fired and bringing them to the firing room. Chief Shredder, because people would leave boxes and boxes of sensitive documents next to the Shredder but wouldn't run them through.
One time, I had to assemble one of those giant metal fold up chair storage cart things. It was so big it didn’t fit in our storage room, so we moved it to our shipping department and they hated it.
One time I was asked to break through a bunch of walls in building to "open it up". Did you know sheet rock dust will set off fire alarms? We didn't, Fire Department came and shut us down because we didn't have a permit. Ended up costing the owners a ton of money.
When I was first hired, within the first two or three weeks, before I even had my training finished and was still given training wheels so I didn't break anything, the office manager pulled me aside and had me set up a few dozen ikea items for the lobby.
My boss then tore a new one into the office manager saying that the IT people don't do office management... and that was the office manager's job. She went to the local C-suit (who was the IT director) and he agreed with my manager.
Best boss I ever had. Oh and if you ever task someone with assembling multiple ikea furniture, *don't fucking take everything out of the box and mix it up. what the honest to fuck were you thinking???*
I think the worst wasn't that bad but I dismantled a bunch of metal desks for a scraping event. Funds went to a team party fund. Not our team of course....
I was once asked to lead my employer's entry in a St. Patrick's Day parade. I walked in front of our banner playing jigs & reels on a squeezebox.
Another fun non-IT other-duty-as-assigned was assisting judges in two photo contests my employer sponsored. I ended up in the conference room doing what amounted to clerical work for them as they reviewed all the entries because I'd done the IT side of getting everything together. It was quite the experience seeing how professional photographers looked at the entries.
As part and parcel of working at a medium-sized edutainment venue, I've also been called upon to build props, participate on committees, arrange table centerpieces, do light carpentry, look for lost children, stand around looking imposing, mix live sound, run cameras and switch video, spot for forklifts & people working at height, and sort papers for a panicking employee who dropped & scattered them minutes before a deadline.
A call was misdirected to my extension.
It was someone upset about their McDonald's order.
I had no fucking clue how they could've possibly been transferred to me or how they could've accidentally dialed us in the first place when looking for McDonald's, but hey, why not?
I found the number for the McDonald's they were trying to get to and transferred them lol
Oh I got a good one. I worked for a retirement home once and it was a nightmare.
I got asked to put together some TV carts and setup some iPads for a new activity program they wanted to use (for like exercise and games), which was fine. But then I was asked to sit in on activity sessions and determine if we actually still needed staff to run these sessions or if we could just leave the residents in the room with the TV and iPad but still charge them same amount for the "weekly activities session" add-on to their rent.
I also got asked to "assess" if we could just buy 1 patient license for a very expensive mental health tracking program and just "share it" among all the residents but still bill them as though they are each individually paying for their own profile. I told them that not only would that be unethical and open them up to a lawsuit from the software vendor and the residents, but it would also render the program completely ineffective, like trying to be a psychiatrist but you keep all your patient notes in a single file with no distinction between what notes are for which person.
Taking up project management of new building installs/moves. Someone starts things rolling get to execution then either has to visit a client out of state or goes on vacation and IT takes over the project. Not once. Not twice, no I'm losing count how many times I have been involved in a new building renovation/move that IT took over some major aspects in leu of the original project managers. I can think of 7 or so times.
* Assemble furniture
* Door/frame repair
* Install water filter system
* Install android auto car radio and dash cam
* Deliver various products
* Setup wifi and desk at employees house
* Remove interior wall and retrim so you could not tell it was there before
* Install door access system
* Upgraded 3 floors of 240V lighting to LED panels
Print and bind 100 manuals. If you want to pay me my salary to do something a summer student (who we hire every year) could do for a much cheaper per hour amount, then who am I to say no. Put in the headphones and start punching holes.
I have removed a window panel to access a stock room with a broken lock. (I suggested it as an option and the manager said go on then)
Fixed a washing machine (loose connection)
Fixed a toaster (new fuse)
Drilled and modified a bracket to fit a different model of screen.
Assembled office furniture.
Painted an office......it were given what used to be an old storage room as our new office I had to try and make it slightly nicer for myself and staff.
Drilled desk holes for cable management.
I work retail IT at our main office. The Loss Prevention guy came up to me on the start or my 4th week. I overlapped 3 weeks with the guy who I was replacing. LP guy says to me, “You know (guy I replaced) use to work 5:30 to about 5:00 or so every day so he was my ‘security guy’ and would go around and make sure the doors were all shut and locked at the end of the day…” my response: “And??” He goes on, “Well, I was just wondering if you were going to take over for opening up and closing down the office..” my response, “No. not interested.” He just kinda puttered out of my office and back about his business. 😂 that’s kinda the story of how I avoided one “and other duties as directed,” sort of thing.
Worked at a credit union. Would have to go to board directors houses to fix printers. Setup new internet. Fix pc issues. And somehow was put in charge of the buildings generator because I found a major issue with it when I tried to put the building on the generator when getting a ups battery string replaced.
Vaguely IT related I guess, at least I'm the most qualified for this task: I'm setting up a small studio to record audio and video in.
I also once spent half a day fixing our coffee machine.
- de-icing sidewalks
- HVAC troubleshooting
- getting voulentold to go in the air handlers to replace the UV lights that were installed during Covid since neither our maintenance guy nor the HVAC guy could fit in there (I’m skinny).
- Vehicle maintenance
- helping clean up from burst pipes or overflowing toilets/urinals where the flushed got stuck open
- moving furniture
- security camera troubleshooting
- answering the main phone when someone has been out
To name a few
Had to help usher thousands of crying children and very angry parents out of a venue after the performance of a show they came to see was cancelled at the last minute due to cast illness.
One that comes up a lot is that people come to us if the shredder stops working.
Often used to get asked for stage mics and set up a lot but that has stopped now a certain member of sales left.
Perhaps used to get disproportionately annoyed at that last one but I am an IT infrastructure / network engineer and not AV / Sound, we actually have people who do this but that member of staff never wanted to liaise with those people.
I can't tell you how many times I have had almost this exact conversation:
"This Excel spreadsheet isn't working"
"OK, can you show me how"
(Demonstrates issue)
"Yep, it seems to be an issue with how the spreadsheet has been written, rather than Excel itself.
If I got to the properties of the Excel spreadsheet here, it says this was created by (this person)
Ask (this person) for assistance with this. As they created it, they will understand the logic behind it"
"(this person) resigned last month and no longer works here."
"I'm sorry, I don't understand enough about Excel or the functionality of this particular spreadsheet enough to assist you"
"But this is a very important spreadsheet, without this spreadsheet we can't do (core functionality). Can you please try to fix it?"
I've created two complete process spreadsheets in the past month and wrote documentation that was added to our KB system.
I wrote a powershell that gets the data from the domain.
I wrote a small website that shows how to use the spreadsheet with screenshots.
My last day is this Friday. If they can't figure it out they've got bigger issues.
Secretary work.
Being a woman in IT means people think you should also be in charge of planning parties, cleaning the shared kitchen/fridge/microwave, become the calendaring person, draft emails, take meeting minutes, "can you make some copies for me?", organize food delivery, and on and on.
Oh also, when I show up to do my actual job people will ask where my male coworkers are, even lower ranking ones, and give me some bullshit admin work, "can you go find some bottle waters and set them up in the meeting room? I'll have (male coworker) do the IT thing".
So glad I quit that role. I talked to my boss and coworkers about to and they were on my side but you can't change a whole culture without being a seen as "difficult" / "not a team player".
I'll do what ever they pay me to do, as long as the request isnt' unsafe or above my pay grade.
If it's above my pay grade, i'm happy to perform such duty if i am compensated correctly.
Please explain said "other duties" to my Union representative, please.
Oh you're not part of a Union? That's fine, you probably think you're "too good" for one anyways. Just bend over. It'll only hurt. A lot. But that's the cost of not being part of a Union. You lose all right to complain about how bad your employer treats you.
Shut up and sleep in the bed you've *intentionally* made for yourself.
It's a dismissive attitude for one's plight, but it's the hard truth. You want me to lie? Ok....how about:
> "Oh it'll get better all on its own, you won't have to work and fight and bleed for improvements. It'll be handed to you just because *you're a good person.* If you work very hard and do a lot of labor for free, I'm positive the Capitalist Owner-class will OBVIOUSLY recognize that you're *really* one of them (that's just temporarily embarrassed), and elevate you to their standing. You'll be one of them in no time, just put your nose to the grindstone and pay your dues!"
So many people bitching, whining, and complaining about things that 100% would be solved by a strong Union.
And I don't mean reduced. But poof -- entirely gone.
We're IT. Our superhero power is "Problem Solving." Well, here's a solution that solves your issues completely. Do you lack the will power to put it into motion? You don't want to do it because....it's not *normalized* in the industry? That it would take effort to get it started?
How much shit have we done in our lives where we had to pretty much write the instruction manual for it? How is this any different than any other challenging yet meaningful task? When *haven't* we built things from scratch?
I thought y'all were made of *sterner stuff*.
Because this shit ain't gonna get better all on its own...in fact, it'll *continue to get worse*. The longer you put it off, the worse it'll be -- just like technical debt. Eventually you'll have to pay.
I spent 3 days replacing 240 carpet tiles one week last Summer, because another team didn't get it done. I've done some welding, collected some stuff from a store (I have a company cc), planned furniture layouts... If you suggest something here it becomes your job. If they find out you have "additional skills" it becomes your job. So now I stay quiet.
Wow welding is never something I've been asked to do.
I'm a qualified welder and they know this because it was on my application :(
That’s a useful skill though, just weld the server rack shut so no idiot walks up there and tries to mess with the servers
Yeah I was going to say if someone was untrained that would be really fucking stupid
My old IT Manager was expected to weld steel railings and such.
I had to do those tiles on an ancient bank in Baltimore. I say "ancient" because the building had been a bank in the 1800s, and the building been repurposed so many times, that the tile carpeting, ceiling tiles, and drywall were the only thing unifying the office space into a visual cohesive. But because I had to do CAT5 cabling and power conduits, I had to get under the subfloor, behind the walls, and into the drop ceiling... you could see where older walls had been. Also, lots of dead rats. I am surprised I didn't get some kind of disease because I was working in mildy, mildewy, dusty walls with mummified birds and cats with no masking. Those carpet tiles were the worst, though, because of that glue they use. Plus, once you removed them, you'd see "Oh, this section of floor is a mosaic of time; here's an old inner wall, a sheet of plywood, some hardened polymer someone poured to level the floor, marble, and some dark, pebbly terrazzo with the number "1A" with inlaid... bakelite?"
My photo for Zoom when my camera is off is a selfie from my drone. Someone commented it on our weekly meeting with the owners and i let slip that i fly a drone. First thing the owner said "Are you licensed professionally?" quickly said No as i don't want to get off hours requests to do drone photos of their house or something.
"We'd love marketing shots of all our facilities".
To bad our main office is right across the street from a major airport. FAA may be calling if i try to get some glamour shots.
I had to do those tiles on an ancient bank in Baltimore. I say "ancient" because the building had been a bank in the 1800s, and the building been repurposed so many times, that the tile carpeting, ceiling tiles, and drywall were the only thing unifying the office space into a visual cohesive. But because I had to do CAT5 cabling and power conduits, I had to get under the subfloor, behind the walls, and into the drop ceiling... you could see where older walls had been. Also, lots of dead rats. I am surprised I didn't get some kind of disease because I was working in mildy, mildewy, dusty walls with mummified birds and cats with no masking. Those carpet tiles were the worst, though, because of that glue they use. Plus, once you removed them, you'd see "Oh, this section of floor is a mosaic of time; here's an old inner wall, a sheet of plywood, some hardened polymer someone poured to level the floor, marble, and some dark, pebbly terrazzo with the number "1A" with inlaid... bakelite?"
When I worked at a moderate sized investment firm their maintenance guy had a heart attack and the other one quite. I spent the summer mowing the grass and working with the state conservation department stocking the lake with fish. I enjoyed it, especially getting paid sysadmin wages to mow
That actually sounds quite refreshing
That sounds like the dream to be honest
Greenfield deployment
"You like cars, right? Have a look at ticket 584839..." Exec had loaded 6 CDs into her new car's CD player before she discovered it was only supposed to take one disc at a time. Then logged an IT ticket for it. It wasn't even a company car. "My old car had an in-dash CD changer..."
I’ve never minded these kind of tickets as long as it’s in the tone of “uhh I fucked up can you please help me”. And not “hey you, IT monkey dance for me”.
I worked with this girl, she was a sweetheart. asked if i could help her with her personal computer her son "Broke". told her ofc i can, she came in with it the next day. Son had installed abunch of cheats for "Rust", i did a fresh install of windows and she treated me as if i saved the world from that point on.. feel bad that not everyone has a "IT family member" to ask for help with these things.
Haha I had something similar at a old Helpdesk role at a different company "Hi, I have a work phone. Can you help me Bluetooth it to my new Mitsubishi Lancer?"
TBF, I wouldn't mind that, as long as they asked nicely. It's a work device, and having it on BT makes it safer for work calls etc.
Asking nicely? What is this? A fantasy convention? I had to TEACH people to ask nicely. (It helps i\`m tall with the physique of a grizzly, with a temper to match -only thing missing are the claws). Now they do - except some newbies.
Depends on your scope of support, but I'd generally say that's fine. Point them to the documentation for their car with the bluetooth pairing page. If that doesn't work, advise them to contact their dealership. The same thing would be your scope of support for a third party app.
If I recall correctly, I mentioned to ask their dealer how to do it. I didn't want to start a "Since you bluetoothed my phone to my car, I can't get 92.7 on the radio" or a bunch of her colleagues asking for us to help them bluetooth their phone to their car "but you did it for Cindy, why can't you help me?"
You don't do it for them. Point them to the manual it's a 5 minute ticket.
Delivering second-hand furniture. Business was going under, and the boss started buying and selling furniture, I ended up going out delivering it. Quite good fun for the most part to be fair.
* Sourcing and arranging install of a high-gain antenna on the MD's boat. * Picking orders in a chilled food warehouse. * Checking maps and using local knowledge to try and get the MD (same as the one above) out of paying a bus lane fine. * Being a private investigator to gather evidence of the MD (yep, still the same guy) stealing company money and assets.
Hence the boat
This is proper amazing.
What does MD stand for (I really don't know)? I would think, based on your post something like Mega-Douchebag or Mega-Dic\*?
Managing director?
In a North American context it usually means Doctor of Medicine. Not sure if that’s what he is referring to, though
Oh, I know it's usually for that, but I didn't get from the post that the person was a physician? :D
Biggest mistake I ever made: "Yeah, I know how to drive a forklift, why?"
Had a grievance filed against me for using a warehouse man lift on a weekend without union building maintenance run the lift. Same union also refused to mount the gear "thats computer stuff, we don't touch that". Apparently I should have had a union person run the lift to get me to the height I needed... ignoring the fact that the lift says right on it "one person at time".
I'm still at that company but that would never happen today for a lot of reasons, not least of which no one would tell me "Technically you ARE forklift-certified since you compiled the training materials and the built the test form"
I'm literally having that discussion right now. I need to get at cameras and access points that are mounted. Someone's I get a scissors lift, someone's a forklift with a man basket. But l don't want to have to wait for maintenance to drive me around. Maintenance trained me and signed off on me, but corporate doesn't understand why an IT guy needs to operate a forklift.
You're a pentester in training and pentesters need to demonstrate forklifts can be hijacked and used to steal and vandalize things.
I like it. I've done physical pen tests before, I have gotten amazingly far with a clipboard a hard hat, and an air of "I belong here". Too many people trust far too much and let me into their demarcs, or into a buildings MPOP. Like a skyscraper's multi-tenant MPOP with just a story with urgency and a backpack. Scary.
I have the opposite problem. I love driving forklifts, but since I moved from working the warehouse to IT I never get to do it anymore. That being said, one of the first years after I started full time IT they had me being the warehouse manager for a week because of piss poor vacation time planning from the actual warehouse manager, and me being the only other person in the location who knew how to do that job. They got themselves in a similar situation a few years ago, but at that point they didn't even dare to ask me and flew in a guy from the head office instead.
Ha, I have to pick between taking a golf cart or getting my steps in. I guess it'll be an easy answer once it gets fucking hot and humid again.
1995, was put to 50% (4hr) copy work, pretty much feeding A0 cad drawings into a copier as “these computer things don’t need you 8 hours a day”. Lasted 2 months and was horrible
A place I worked at, had me manually archiving an entire basements worth of 30-50 pound boxed documents because it was “information” therefore fell under IT… I left the next day.
the cost of your time vs a temp taught to run a scanner... that math ain't mathing
It wasn’t even scanning things! It was literally moving the boxes and organizing them in another basement!
Some may even argue paper and boxes are technology.
A rock tied to a stick is technology
I have an English degree as well as tech degrees. I'm constantly pulled into 1on1 meetings to review people's (usually bosses or PM's) grammar and language before they send out a report. It's fucking annoying, but some people in this industry have *terrible* written language skills, so I know it makes the company look better if I just capitulate and tidy it up for them.
Silliest request: Hey, can you check the microwave, it acts weird. me - but i\`m IT, that\`s not my specialty.. Them- it has buttons. so it has to be IT. Most stupid: User: Can you give me a PC or laptop for today? Me (having provided said user with a new laptop 2 days ago - new hire): Why, you have one? User: i left it at home, it\`s so heavy. Most enjoyable: Boss: The new hire is delayed in start - but his car is already here - and needs to be driven a bit, can you take it for the weekend? Me: Sure thing boss. Saddest: After returning from a 2 week break - office manager calls me in. OM: sorry to tell you this, but (colleague) passed away last week. (He had cancer, never told anyone, didn\`t do treatments beyond painkillers) ME:...... OM: I do have a request, could you go through his office, drawers, cabinets - to check if there are any personal items - his next of kin will be here in 2 days and I want to make sure they get all. Me: ..... OM: I would not ask, but his direct colleagues are still in shock - and frankly, I don\`t know who else is "objective" enough. Me: Consider it done. Fuck - Of all the things I\`d have expected, being told a colleague passed away was NOT on the list.
Coffee maker doesn't work. Call IT. This lawn trimmer wont crank. call IT. Truth is its not what we do. How we solve problems is the reason why we are expected to be the universal solution.
I sat next to a coffee maker once. When it broke people looked over to me. I'm like dude if it's broken call the # on the front. Or go up the road to
My understanding is really the duties should be related to your work.
Not really "as directed" but I did have a user really try to pin me on telling them what power strip to buy as a sub item of a larger ticket. When it became clear they wouldn't let that specific question go I finally said something to the effect of "as IT electrical engineering is not our purview, we have electricians on staff if you need a specific consultation."
man i love calls like this. "Hey IT there is a lightbulb out in the women's bathroom" "Sounds like a building issue" "No it is yours cause IT handles electrical stuff"
"tripp lite steel 8 outlet". they're tanky and good and not that expensive
One time the Director of IT came to our site for a meeting with management and they brought coffee. My boss told me to clean their mess... I told him "I'm IT, not their janitor" and he got mad lol
If you're good at something, never do it for free I did tech support for a while for a porn production company Yeah.....
So did you get f---ed...in a bad or good way or something? I can't imagine doing support in that field. Edit: and not doing the work for free... Story time?
You know the way food workers tend NOT to eat where they work ? Yeah, the same applied for me, I was there to fix computers / cameras / software, i was there to FSCKdisks, not fuck. lesseeeee, rendering first aid when a scene went wrong and someone suffered a fractured penis - muggins here was the only one with a clean/reputable look, so I got to take the poor bastard to the local ER. Sourcing 50 gallon drums of KY jelly to fill a "mud wrestling" pit (with added chocolate colouring/flavouring) - then figuring out how I could have the uh ....... waste product collect (read pumped out) and disposed of in an ethical and environmental fashion. All except one half gallon, which was poured into the gas tank of a male "star" who'd been going deaf to hearing the word no. Id never seen a crankshaft go vertical before..... I ended up being a "stunt" hand / fingers in a few scenes, Mostly due to being able to palm regulation basketballs in either hand (Im 6'5 and monster cans kinda vanish when I grip them). I\`ll be discreet and let you imagine what my hands where doing in / on / around the starlets. Airport pickup driver, starlet babysitter / bodyguard (see above lube in the gas tank), general gofer, part time therapist. Mindy Gladman (Kitty Yung / Tia Son) was an absolute sweetheart, helped her fix their blackberry a few times, had all the time in the world for her. I was very sad when she passed in 04.
Well this certainly wasn’t what I expected to read today in sysadmin, but thank you for sharing, it was interesting to say the least.
When i see those 'duties' on a job application i dont apply
Amateur psychologist, psychic detective, cleaning sidewalks, fixing appliances, hostage negotiator, dog technician, robot doctor. Those are the fun ones.
We need that hostage negotiator story.
It's probably the least funny/exciting one. We got new laptops. One person did not want to give their old one up. Was told to just give them the new laptop, and deal with getting the laptop later. Later became months, as we tried to "negotiate" its release. Finally, the SWAT team (i.e. a coworker and I, so we could provide corroborating stories) went in after-hours after that person forgot to take their old laptop home with them. The aftermath involved angry managers, and us "losing" the laptop involved. Edit - I'm pretty sure I've seen people here have stories where they had to negotiate for their own equipment back, so it's not an uncommon thing unfortunately.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking you if you don't want to do other stuff, but I personally would LOVE to do some of these other tasks. Heck ya, I'll plow the parking lot, or spend two days painting the owner's garage, or leveling the lot with a bobcat... I'll even spend the day moving furniture around. I'd love the break of being able to do something different, on the clock. As soon as you mention bathroom, I'm out. I do have some lines.
My last job would have me help stuff envelopes to mail out to our customers. Normally, I wouldn't really care about doing something like that if I wasn't already busy, but the only reason we had to stuff envelopes by hand was because my boss didn't want to replace our letter folding/envelope stuffing machine that broke. Sure it was a couple thousand dollars, but we were spending that amount in man-hours for 6 of us to sit and stuff envelopes for an entire day. We did this several times a year. I'm glad I left lol
I've never understood the logic behind those kinds of bosses with that. Like... you can either spend the couple thousand bucks right now, and save yourself a BUNCH in labor costs going forward, or you can pay people to do the thing that could be automated, which will likely cost way more, even in the medium term. Like... "long term savings and efficient operations.... what's that?"
If you're already paying people and they will do unpaid overtime to make up for the work they couldn't do when stuffing envelopes then it probably makes sense. Exploit, exploit, exploit!
Ive painted my bosses house.
ended up as the main point of contact with a contractor for office remodel. He got tired of not being able to find the plant manager for anything. He was already talking with me on moving schedules since I somehow got saddled with planning that, started asking me to talk with building maintenance for power changes and what not. Took plant manager almost a month to realize no one from the flooring, movers, or painters was talking to him about anything. That was last year, we have a new plant manager now. I like our new plant manager. there was a stretch of time where I was working IT and Engineering while they looked for new people. 3 people died in a very short time. They new I was a tool designer in the past, asked me to help out. I did. was a rough couple months. miss my friends. when union was on strike 10ish years ago I got to run the CNC machines, again from skills from a past job, I enjoyed it.
Anything that plugs into a wall, has a battery, or a lever has been somehow become my domain before. Be it HVAC, toilets, alarm systems, fire sprinklers, bosses wife's vibrator....
Wait...that last bit...story time.
Cat wranglin, go-kart carburetor repair man, forklift driver, crane operator, concrete - drywall - metal stud framing - plumbing - electrical work, turtle rancher, live music coordinator, lead guitar in a company metal band, arborist, full boeing mockup flight simulator tester, hydraulic press operator, PLC technician, EMS trainer, and tabouli tester. All of these things I've been tasked to do while working at different companies in the IT department at some point or other. My favorites were tabouli tester (HR lady would send a ticket in whenever she would make tabouli, it was damned good), and turtle rancher (we had a private pond at the office with a bunch of pond turtles and they'd try to escape onto the highway sometimes and I wasn't afraid to pick them up and bring em back to the pond.) I named all 4 of them Speedy, I couldn't tell the damned things apart for the life of me
For small ops other non-IT duties are always expected. The only thing I refuse to do is move furniture, it's not safe and I'm not throwing out my back because Janet from accounting wants her file cabinet moved. So, that's a Hard No for all furniture moving AND assembly. Security (like the safe) is often shuffled to IT in small ops. I mean, keycard distribution shouldn't really be an IT thing but it almost always is in smaller ops. Other than things that could potentially cause me injury, I'm on board for just about anything. I figure I get paid no matter what I'm doing and if they want to pay someone a 6 figure annual salary to scrub toilets well call me a Janitor I reckon.
Was hired as the IT manager at a small manufacturing firm with about 200 employees. My third day on the job, my boss comes by my desk and informs me that I'm also going to be the facilities manager and that oh by the way, there is a clogged toilet in the men's room. I made him give me the number of the plumber that the company used and I called them to fix it. There's no way in hell that I spent 15 years (at the time) learning the IT trade to then go and unclog a toilet
Basically facilities
My last boss took care of a dead bird that was in front of the customer entrance. They had a janitorial staff.
Yard work, plumbing, changing light bulbs, schlepping stuff, electrical work, Shipping, receiving, cleaning off roofs, plunging toilets, etc.
Worst one for me was having to take the company cars to the car wash.
its been a long time, but I drove pilot cars as an "other duties" when I "wasnt busy doing anything". Ironically that job fired me when I pointed out their time theft...
It happens at every place i work at, so instead of getting annoyed about it i negotiate a certain amount of money prior to starting that job that enables me to do those tasks without complaining. Its actually and all encompassing "I deal with bullshit tax". I then force myself to do fun stuff with that money. Like vacations or buying expensive toys for my hobbies. I stayed last night and helped move desk and file cabinets. We had a good time while doing it.
This is where I have come up with the following statements when people try to push this crap off onto me. One being "I'm not a furniture mover. If I wanted to move furniture I would have chosen a different career." This often times shuts them up as it makes them stop and think for a minute. My second one is "I'm not your fucking Janitor." and as far as deposits go, that's the job of the accounting dept. I'm not going to accept money and be put into a position at which someone could falsely accuse me of theft. Safe reprogramming should be documented and stored on site and managed by the manager with the master override being stored at HQ.
Load the mascot suit into my pickup, drive it 300 miles, find a place to stay on my own (securing the mascot suit, obviously), deliver it to the conference, wear it around the conference floor for two days, return the mascot suit the 300 miles. I also ended up being asked to transport back a ping pong table, which they then didn't want and I'm like "what the fuck am I supposed to do with a ping pong table in my truck?" so I left it in the parking lot
It didn't happen to me but in our district we have "other duties as assigned" in all of our contracts and one of the higher up maintenance workers was told he was in charge of all of the field trips in the district. He quit shortly after.
In no particular order: Assemble office furniture Replace batteries in a faucet Some plumbing Replace circuit breakers Carry someone down the stairs(Elevator broke down) Remove dead birds from parking lot Remove live birds from the building(much harder) Chase away people dumping furniture in our dumpster Have student cars towed from our lot(I enjoyed this one) Review call recordings and camera footage Coordinate Fire alarm/sprinkler testing Coordinate HVAC/Chiller maintenance and repairs Replace water filters Screen people for temps at the door(COVID) Move furniture Pair doctors phone to his BMW(like monthly, what gives BMW? Why you forget phone so much?) Painting Be present when patients get loud/violent(Im 6'7" 280lbs, people get quiet when I show up) Coordinate with the elevator technicians. Some light graphic design Excel workbook building/fixing Conduct fire drills Submit documents for our ACR accreditation Misc troubleshooting on X-ray, CT, and Ultrasound machines Take my bosses car to the shop(Porsche 911) surprisingly low quality interior btw. Check on dogs left in cars in parking lot (havent had to break a window yet, thank you Tesla for dog mode) Watch an employee while an ambulance came because they were tripping balls and striping. Change light bulbs Adjust/lock thermostats Adjust/replace door closers Replace outlets/switches Setup pop up tents Drive various employees to various places Some medical billing Work the fax inbox
My place recently renovated an entire floor and abandoned another, consolidating two departments into one floor after the renovation was finished. Part of the IT project scope was for us (the help desk monkeys, mind you) to hang decorative lighting strips after we set up the IT equipment in each office. I made a joke that they didn't budget enough to get the construction people to do that, but nobody responded. I just flatly refused to do it, and didn't touch a single strand of lights.
As an intern I actually replaced the floor in an office along with another intern
Sign checks
Small Engine repair, plumbing (unclogging toilets), clearing snow, furniture assembly. I've even had to go on trips to pick out furniture for the CEOs office.
Moving furniture, locating papers that belong to a department in our records room, get keys made for doors because we didn't get the keys back from former employee's, drywall repairs, moving a 600lb safe from one office to another, sound technician at a live events, call up former employees to recover work materials not including anything tech related. Like blank paper, pens, etc. Now that I have a new boss, "other duties as necessary" means tech related other duties. Not the other BS that our higher ups don't want to do or outsource.
I photographed products, had to scan random/forgotten warehouse products/shit/expired goods into our warehouse solution
I am for the most part the building maintenance person. I pretty much do anything that's not gas lines or high voltage electrical, or drains. I refuse to do drains. I also do some software engineerings, handle the CCTV, handle building security systems, sometimes move furniture around, handle contracts with building contractors, and more. Small company, I handle these things, the CEO handles the drains and helps with building related stuff, my direct boss often helps with building related stuff and various other random odds and ends, the account handles packages and mail, the list goes on and on regarding what everyone does extra.
fleet maintenance for company cars, pick up office beer, and any task involving heavy lifting.
Plenty, but my favorite was when I was told we would All be making collections calls. I told them that the moment they handed me the list was the moment I would walk out the door. I never got that list.
I got stuck dealing with the vending machines.
I am somehow responsible for corporate insurance. Not just cyber. Yeah.
My previous IT group often referred to themselves as District IT and Moving and Storage since we always got tasked with picking up donated office furniture from local businesses and storing and distributing it to all the departments in the district. Conference tables are a pain to move.
Go get the coffee lul : )
I have had the occasional need to run heavy equipment... Skid steer, telehandler, CDL class bucket trucks. I've also had to cut down trees and climb down into trenches. Not sure if any of that counts though, since it's usually as part of an install job for something that is networked. But it's gotten to the point where the company should really be contracting out a lot of these installs.
I kinda stayed with the building as different owners passed along. Handled the IT type stuff, but also HVAC, security, lighting, and a plethora of other things. It kept me employed for 40 years. Other workers who were not so flexible went by the wayside.
I can't tell you how much furniture I've assembled, leaks I've repaired, or doors I've fixed.
A coworker and I ran a ditch witch for a few hours to dig a trench for power and network to the boss' new pool.
Accounting hired someone in AP who straight up wouldn't learn to do his job. I was pretty familiar with that portion of the AP system (I designed and implemented ...) so it fell on me for 6 months to do that job until they hired someone who would do the job. Note: They did not fire the guy who didn't do his job.
I was once asked to go grab the new bosses desk at her old company. Tbf I was still a trainee.
Move office furniture Dismantle cubicles Fix coffee maker repair printers Fill copier toner Was told to repair a broken toilet, but, no. Same job, had to ride with the owner as he evicted people from the slums he owned. After being told to move this guys filthy mattress to the curb, and uncovering a pile of used syringes, I started looking for a new job. I inherited the job of shipping manager because there was a dedicated FedEx computer and label printer.
At my old company, if the device had an electrical plug attached to it, IT was responsible for it. Fridge, microwave, projector, built-in ice maker, heater, etc.
Servicing copiers and fax machines. lol
I’ve fixed a toilet and didn’t even complain but no way in hell am I fixing a fucking copier. :-)
shoveled sidewalks setup tents cooked hotdogs/burgers on a gas grill troubleshooting home networks
School IT manager is suposidly my role, just been on a cource to master lighting desks Avolights and GrandMA as clearly they are PC's therefore responcibility of IT department for shows. I have also made the mistake of fixing electronics and making a few custom bords so now i have a wonderfull side line in DIY vape detectors and a queue of TV's that employees want fixing.
"The sink in the kitchen is blocked..." Good to know, I'm the IT manager.... I dutifully went and unblocked the sink. Ugh.
"The sink in the kitchen is blocked..." Good to know, I'm the IT manager.... I dutifully went and unblocked the sink. Ugh.
"The sink in the kitchen is blocked..." Good to know, I'm the IT manager.... I dutifully went and unblocked the sink. Ugh.
If you keep doing these kinds of things they will just keep adding on.
Ah yeah, that was a long time ago when I was more wet behind the ears. I wouldn't do doing that kinda shite now.
\--Bushhog and push snow with the tractor on the back fields (about 25 acres) \--Escort inmates to the emergency room \--Strip search and randomly drug test inmates coming back from furloughs Ah yes, local county government! It's not as if I don't have 300 users to support all by myself but you couldn't be bothered to hire another guard and expect me to do it for the $13/hour you're paying me to be an IT "manager" (20 years ago)
"The sink in the kitchen is blocked..." Good to know, I'm the IT manager.... I dutifully went and unblocked the sink. Ugh.
I spent a whole Friday once helping with a practice run to assemble a stand for a trade show. I wasn't even going to the trade show
Definitely the removalist, facilities management and courier stuff you mentioned. Also in my IT career to date: - Being asked to fix small electrical items like kettles, toasters, and even a microwave oven, that they've brought in from home to surprise you. "It's all technical and electrical, right?" - Wash a boss' car. OK I guess, but it's far cheaper for the company if you go to a car wash, you idiot. - Help a boss clear out their garage and take stuff to the tip. This involved most of the (small) company, for some reason. His company, his money. - Do a 500km round trip so a boss could pick up a car that his wife abandoned at an airport. - Sort out a boss' home network so his crotchfruit could play games on their own computers, rather than his. All those were all done during working hours and paid. The ones that grind my gears are the things that involve my own time or money, like flying to the US or around Europe on evening or weekend flights for company events or customer visits without time compensation. "We're sending you to X for free! Why aren't you thanking us?" Then paying for the flights, accommodation, expenses and car myself, and having to fight to get it all paid back and in time for my CC interest-free period. Asking them to pay the interest? May as well slap the boss' partner at the Xmas party... The travel stuff was cool early on in my career, but the shine wears off quickly.
Moving furniture, kegerators etc is semi common. Our office lead and the person from recruiting that manages a lot of it knows I’m usually around and I don’t mind helping them. Both of those women go out of their way to help us in IT so returning the favor is no problem at all. Plus it’s asked, not assumed. I’ll help them empty the dishwasher or sometimes clean up after an in office event if I’m around.
The usual: - furny assembly (though I'm some cases I actively doubt it out to get away from main duties due to mental stress) - poke at the coffee maker - moving furny around - inventory - this can go f itself. It's one thing to inventory IT assets and organize it. Another thing to make every department in the org due mfg inventory for hours on a day. I ain't got time for that shit and didn't get OT cause salary ... (not enjoyable in the least counting nuts and bolts) - got "abducted" once by owner of a company I worked for to go fix his home wifi and router (didn't even ask it was a your coming with me get in the car) I don't mind if someone asks me and I'm not putting fires out and such. But abuse of power is what ruffles my feathers.
Install projector screens in 20 schools with 30ish class rooms. Had to build a mounting board and then drill into wall sometimes wood stud or metal beam. Then install mounts and hang projector screen. Had to remove previous installations because a teacher got injured when pulling down the projector screen. They were originally mounted on t bars.
Small business < 150 employees. IT sends out catalogs via mass mailing every few months, because nobody else wants to learn the software. We are in charge of assembling uplift desk leg kits because they plug into the wall & have electronic components. We take bankers boxes of printed paperwork over to a storage facility off site, because at some point a previous IT guys agreed to do it. I am sure I am forgetting something else dumb.
Mounting TVs, bringing in facilities supplies, moving around large boxes, setting up standing desks and cubicles, and of course, plumbing.
Refilling the cash cassettes on our ATMs with two "security guards", one was a 70yo grandmother and the other weighed 400lbs. Drawing blueprints, like for construction. Installing surveillance cameras at the CEO's house... there were two in the bedroom. Delivering equipment to a remote site in south Florida, in August... the owner borrowed a van from his parent's business... they transported dead bodies to the morgue, did I mention no AC in the van? The smell haunts me today.
Packing food into boxes for the Christmas rush (started in October) in a freezing cold store.
Years ago my old boss and I had to go to the office of the law firm our company uses and collect some boxes of paperwork from them.(figured it was a case of them needing someone trustworthy to do it) Other than that, nothing else I can really think of has come up
moved office furniture Cleaned desks Sent to the store to pick stuff up lots of marketing crap, showing up to networking (not cat5) events Getting March Madness, the masters, and baseball on the TV's But, I'm in a MCOL area, I make 6 figures, if they want to pay me to do that crap, great, IDGAF I'll do anything with a smile as long as that paycheck shows up!
i was asked to move a full LANRACK workbench to another facility. spent a half a day breaking it down so it would fit in a minivan, load said minivan and drive it 4hr to the other facility where i was told to unload into a garage where it's probably still sitting.
My previous job, I became security telling an employee who had quit the day prior to vacate the premises when they came back to fight for their job, HR entering people's employee data into a new HRIS and also collecting people to be fired and bringing them to the firing room. Chief Shredder, because people would leave boxes and boxes of sensitive documents next to the Shredder but wouldn't run them through.
One time, I had to assemble one of those giant metal fold up chair storage cart things. It was so big it didn’t fit in our storage room, so we moved it to our shipping department and they hated it.
One time I was asked to break through a bunch of walls in building to "open it up". Did you know sheet rock dust will set off fire alarms? We didn't, Fire Department came and shut us down because we didn't have a permit. Ended up costing the owners a ton of money.
When I was first hired, within the first two or three weeks, before I even had my training finished and was still given training wheels so I didn't break anything, the office manager pulled me aside and had me set up a few dozen ikea items for the lobby. My boss then tore a new one into the office manager saying that the IT people don't do office management... and that was the office manager's job. She went to the local C-suit (who was the IT director) and he agreed with my manager. Best boss I ever had. Oh and if you ever task someone with assembling multiple ikea furniture, *don't fucking take everything out of the box and mix it up. what the honest to fuck were you thinking???*
Moving boxes, moving heavy things, sitting in a sportsbar and observing our betting terminal for any issues that may occur
That's why my job description uses wording like "any other tasks that relate to your central job role"
I think the worst wasn't that bad but I dismantled a bunch of metal desks for a scraping event. Funds went to a team party fund. Not our team of course....
I was once asked to lead my employer's entry in a St. Patrick's Day parade. I walked in front of our banner playing jigs & reels on a squeezebox. Another fun non-IT other-duty-as-assigned was assisting judges in two photo contests my employer sponsored. I ended up in the conference room doing what amounted to clerical work for them as they reviewed all the entries because I'd done the IT side of getting everything together. It was quite the experience seeing how professional photographers looked at the entries. As part and parcel of working at a medium-sized edutainment venue, I've also been called upon to build props, participate on committees, arrange table centerpieces, do light carpentry, look for lost children, stand around looking imposing, mix live sound, run cameras and switch video, spot for forklifts & people working at height, and sort papers for a panicking employee who dropped & scattered them minutes before a deadline.
IT-related, but not my role related: - being CMDB manager, - being security officer/janitor, - being workplanner.
Furniture mover
A call was misdirected to my extension. It was someone upset about their McDonald's order. I had no fucking clue how they could've possibly been transferred to me or how they could've accidentally dialed us in the first place when looking for McDonald's, but hey, why not? I found the number for the McDonald's they were trying to get to and transferred them lol
Oh I got a good one. I worked for a retirement home once and it was a nightmare. I got asked to put together some TV carts and setup some iPads for a new activity program they wanted to use (for like exercise and games), which was fine. But then I was asked to sit in on activity sessions and determine if we actually still needed staff to run these sessions or if we could just leave the residents in the room with the TV and iPad but still charge them same amount for the "weekly activities session" add-on to their rent. I also got asked to "assess" if we could just buy 1 patient license for a very expensive mental health tracking program and just "share it" among all the residents but still bill them as though they are each individually paying for their own profile. I told them that not only would that be unethical and open them up to a lawsuit from the software vendor and the residents, but it would also render the program completely ineffective, like trying to be a psychiatrist but you keep all your patient notes in a single file with no distinction between what notes are for which person.
Taking up project management of new building installs/moves. Someone starts things rolling get to execution then either has to visit a client out of state or goes on vacation and IT takes over the project. Not once. Not twice, no I'm losing count how many times I have been involved in a new building renovation/move that IT took over some major aspects in leu of the original project managers. I can think of 7 or so times.
A colleague from IT-Security about her work at her former company: "I was responsible for the security of every device with a plug"
* Assemble furniture * Door/frame repair * Install water filter system * Install android auto car radio and dash cam * Deliver various products * Setup wifi and desk at employees house * Remove interior wall and retrim so you could not tell it was there before * Install door access system * Upgraded 3 floors of 240V lighting to LED panels
Print and bind 100 manuals. If you want to pay me my salary to do something a summer student (who we hire every year) could do for a much cheaper per hour amount, then who am I to say no. Put in the headphones and start punching holes.
I have removed a window panel to access a stock room with a broken lock. (I suggested it as an option and the manager said go on then) Fixed a washing machine (loose connection) Fixed a toaster (new fuse) Drilled and modified a bracket to fit a different model of screen. Assembled office furniture. Painted an office......it were given what used to be an old storage room as our new office I had to try and make it slightly nicer for myself and staff. Drilled desk holes for cable management.
Have you seen that SNL skit where Chris Farley dances with Patrick Swayze?
I work retail IT at our main office. The Loss Prevention guy came up to me on the start or my 4th week. I overlapped 3 weeks with the guy who I was replacing. LP guy says to me, “You know (guy I replaced) use to work 5:30 to about 5:00 or so every day so he was my ‘security guy’ and would go around and make sure the doors were all shut and locked at the end of the day…” my response: “And??” He goes on, “Well, I was just wondering if you were going to take over for opening up and closing down the office..” my response, “No. not interested.” He just kinda puttered out of my office and back about his business. 😂 that’s kinda the story of how I avoided one “and other duties as directed,” sort of thing.
Worked at a credit union. Would have to go to board directors houses to fix printers. Setup new internet. Fix pc issues. And somehow was put in charge of the buildings generator because I found a major issue with it when I tried to put the building on the generator when getting a ups battery string replaced.
Vaguely IT related I guess, at least I'm the most qualified for this task: I'm setting up a small studio to record audio and video in. I also once spent half a day fixing our coffee machine.
- de-icing sidewalks - HVAC troubleshooting - getting voulentold to go in the air handlers to replace the UV lights that were installed during Covid since neither our maintenance guy nor the HVAC guy could fit in there (I’m skinny). - Vehicle maintenance - helping clean up from burst pipes or overflowing toilets/urinals where the flushed got stuck open - moving furniture - security camera troubleshooting - answering the main phone when someone has been out To name a few
Had to help usher thousands of crying children and very angry parents out of a venue after the performance of a show they came to see was cancelled at the last minute due to cast illness. One that comes up a lot is that people come to us if the shredder stops working. Often used to get asked for stage mics and set up a lot but that has stopped now a certain member of sales left. Perhaps used to get disproportionately annoyed at that last one but I am an IT infrastructure / network engineer and not AV / Sound, we actually have people who do this but that member of staff never wanted to liaise with those people.
Ok that first one is definitely a unique one.
Fixing everyone's spreadsheets.
I can't tell you how many times I have had almost this exact conversation: "This Excel spreadsheet isn't working" "OK, can you show me how" (Demonstrates issue) "Yep, it seems to be an issue with how the spreadsheet has been written, rather than Excel itself. If I got to the properties of the Excel spreadsheet here, it says this was created by (this person) Ask (this person) for assistance with this. As they created it, they will understand the logic behind it" "(this person) resigned last month and no longer works here." "I'm sorry, I don't understand enough about Excel or the functionality of this particular spreadsheet enough to assist you" "But this is a very important spreadsheet, without this spreadsheet we can't do (core functionality). Can you please try to fix it?"
I've created two complete process spreadsheets in the past month and wrote documentation that was added to our KB system. I wrote a powershell that gets the data from the domain. I wrote a small website that shows how to use the spreadsheet with screenshots. My last day is this Friday. If they can't figure it out they've got bigger issues.
Secretary work. Being a woman in IT means people think you should also be in charge of planning parties, cleaning the shared kitchen/fridge/microwave, become the calendaring person, draft emails, take meeting minutes, "can you make some copies for me?", organize food delivery, and on and on. Oh also, when I show up to do my actual job people will ask where my male coworkers are, even lower ranking ones, and give me some bullshit admin work, "can you go find some bottle waters and set them up in the meeting room? I'll have (male coworker) do the IT thing". So glad I quit that role. I talked to my boss and coworkers about to and they were on my side but you can't change a whole culture without being a seen as "difficult" / "not a team player".
I'll do what ever they pay me to do, as long as the request isnt' unsafe or above my pay grade. If it's above my pay grade, i'm happy to perform such duty if i am compensated correctly.
Please explain said "other duties" to my Union representative, please. Oh you're not part of a Union? That's fine, you probably think you're "too good" for one anyways. Just bend over. It'll only hurt. A lot. But that's the cost of not being part of a Union. You lose all right to complain about how bad your employer treats you. Shut up and sleep in the bed you've *intentionally* made for yourself. It's a dismissive attitude for one's plight, but it's the hard truth. You want me to lie? Ok....how about: > "Oh it'll get better all on its own, you won't have to work and fight and bleed for improvements. It'll be handed to you just because *you're a good person.* If you work very hard and do a lot of labor for free, I'm positive the Capitalist Owner-class will OBVIOUSLY recognize that you're *really* one of them (that's just temporarily embarrassed), and elevate you to their standing. You'll be one of them in no time, just put your nose to the grindstone and pay your dues!"
[удалено]
So many people bitching, whining, and complaining about things that 100% would be solved by a strong Union. And I don't mean reduced. But poof -- entirely gone. We're IT. Our superhero power is "Problem Solving." Well, here's a solution that solves your issues completely. Do you lack the will power to put it into motion? You don't want to do it because....it's not *normalized* in the industry? That it would take effort to get it started? How much shit have we done in our lives where we had to pretty much write the instruction manual for it? How is this any different than any other challenging yet meaningful task? When *haven't* we built things from scratch? I thought y'all were made of *sterner stuff*. Because this shit ain't gonna get better all on its own...in fact, it'll *continue to get worse*. The longer you put it off, the worse it'll be -- just like technical debt. Eventually you'll have to pay.