Bosses who give you a hard time for taking the attitude that certain work is beneath you.
Look, some work is beneath me, ok?
And I don’t mind doing those things sporadically, but if you make it a regular practice . . .
Anyway, you think it’s beneath YOU - otherwise you would have done it yourself.
You can lecture me all day about team this and team that, but I don’t see YOU sacraficing for the team.
Sorry to interfere with your rant, but if someone is paying for my time (yes, I know what that sounds like - I’ve called myself an office whore many times), then I must do what they instruct me to do, barring illegal or immoral work. It must be nice to have a job where you feel you have enough power to second-guess the duties assigned you by your boss. There is a hierarchy in every job situation, and you, unfortunately, are lower down the food chain than your boss.
Featherlou,
It is this kind of attitude that causes Unions to be born. Yes, I am further down the food chain than my boss. But, there are some things that shouldn’t (and really aren’t my job.) We have maintenance people to take care of the phisical plant for instance. I don’t mind replacing a light bulb or fixing a minor problem on my desk, but I wouldn’t rewire the fixtures (even though I do have the skills) in our dept. It is not what I was hired for. I was hired to teach, not do maintenance. That’s what we have the physical plant guys for. I also don’t do toilets, but I do pick up after myself.
Respect goes both ways.
At some abstract level you are right that one must do what the boss says. BUT, as you point out, it’s a matter of power. Thus, for my boss to use moral suasion - to suggest that it’s somehow wrong to not want to do things well beneath my job description on a regular basis, is inappropriate.
Second, it’s inappropriate to give people work that is well beneath them on a regular basis. If you are hired for a certain position, the implication is that that is the work you will be doing. As another poster pointed out, you wouldn’t ask an office worker to do maintenance regularly.
You are right that I’m lower on the food chain than some folks. Therefore, as a practical matter, I must accept all kinds of abuse. This doesn’t make it right. Well, I gotta run - off to a job interview 
I was an intern this summer, nothing was beneath me. It was a small lab and only one other woman. She pulled me aside and talked to me about the boss.
He’s not the most forward of people, a nice guy, but had the idea that a highly trained lab tech was also his personal secretary because she was female. (She was hired because she is one of the few people who can run a specific machine. A very good piece of testing equipment. That needs to be watched closely by someone who has a clue.)
She eventually got to the point that while she wouldn’t ignore his requests for copies/mail/errands, but she would put them on her desk until she needed copies/mail/errands and she’d do them with hers. He’s not a very patient man. He will eventually do it himself, if he knows how.
Again, my job was to do anything he asked me to, so I didn’t mind much
True.
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Again, true. I had assumed that you were just talking about work that was within the limits of your job that you didn’t want to do in your OP, not about work that you shouldn’t have been asked to do in the first place.
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Unfortunately, (and this is were the discussion seems to be taking a female/male direction),Medea’s Child is right in saying (to paraphrase) that some people (read “men”) assume women will do jobs that men wouldn’t be asked to do. I guess it struck me as odd that you find it so distasteful to do what women have been doing since we were allowed in the workplace. But, you are correct - it isn’t right to do it to women, and it isn’t right to do it to men. A little more respect for all employees would go a long way.