Yes, but you would have had said it with much better formatting. 
Another option since I have worked for and dealt with some seriously evil managers.
Is he dragging you into these situations to try and blame you for the failures that they will eventually represent.
Take lots of notes, especially if there are major deadlines looming and boss is pulling you off for lower ROI tasks.
IIRC thats interpreted as “Fuck you, I’m on Salary” non office speak.
I have a pet peeve about the phrase “its not my job.” I’ve never had one where the job description encompassing everything that is needed to be done. In my experience, the phrase “its not my job” is often followed three months later with “why did Tom get the promotion, I’ve been here longer.” Because Tom was FLEXIBLE.
(I currently work with a guy who makes “I’m not my job” into an art form. But he isn’t my favorite. My favorite is a blast from the past - a guy management LOVED that spent most of his time telling our customers “its not my job and I don’t know how you’d get that done.” Eventually, we had a management change and he got fired.)
I spent two years as an executive secretary, btw. Being flexible is one of the reasons I was promoted out of it. Yes, I wrote out all two hundred of my exec’s Christmas cards. But that was what he was paying me to spend my time doing. Was it a good use of the company resources? Not my call - and I did it in two weeks while he was travelling and I just needed to answer phones - not like I had better things to do.
That’s great. I personally, don’t want a promotion. Anaamika may not want one either. It’s a fallacy that everyone wants to keep moving up that corporate ladder. I’ve found the rung I’m comfortable on and I plan on staying there. More work would mean that the work/family balance that I strive for would be upset. No thank you.
I get paid by the hour because I work part-time. I can do in 3 days a week what other assistants do in 5. So if I say I don’t have time to take on more work, then that’s exactly what it means.
This is the tack I would take as well. Lay out the responsibilities you have and ask him to react to the priority level as he sees it. Or if your managers are cooperative, have all of them communicate as to what they see as the priorities of the staff in your group, maybe not just your job only. That way it’s more of a review with a new boss, and not you being resistant to “other duties as assigned”.
I just got back from being with my brother in the hospital and was pretty out of it and unfocused. I had no problem asking my boss to help me prioritize things at our weekly meeting; it’s her job to tell me what she is looking for first.
I am not looking to get ahead either but I figure I should accommodate my boss’s requests and if there is an overload, let them know. I admit I am lucky to have a very collegial boss though.
It may not be about moving up. We had two admins in our department. We went through a layoff. We have one now. We let go the less flexible one.
But if your boss is happy with “its not my job” you’ve found a great job for you.
To a large extent I agree with** Dangerosa**- as long as I am getting paid, and not doing things that are too nasty, dangerous or difficult for my pay, I’ll do them excepting most illegal and unethical stuff, of course. Which 'washing the bosses car" is, because it’s the boss, not the owner, and the owner isn’t paying you to do personal stuff for the boss. Now, buying gifts for the bosses business contacts- that’s business related, so fine by me. Washing the bosses company car could even be business related, so hell, why not?
However, when I have been asked to do stuff that I consider "beneath my grade’ or outside my PD, all I do is ask “I am willing to do whatever is required. However, I don’t want duties that appear to be outside my PD to adversly effect my annual evaluation. Can we discuss how these assignments fit into what I will be reviewed on/for?”. The clerk was out on maternity leave, and we couldn’t get a replacement when I was rather new. The boss asked me to pitch in, as well as others. I said more or less that, and she was happy I had asked and assured me that my cooperation would reap me a better evaluation- which it did. I got to be known as “the can-do dude”, which isn’t a bad rep to have.
Everything listed in the OP is business related, so if I was the OP I’d do it, with a smile. I would ask the above question, certainly.
I’ve noticed that in the admin field, there is a big difference between executive assistants and general admins. If I were to take a job as an exec. assistant, I would expect to do everything I could to make that executive’s life easier at work, and I would do it with a smile on my face. That said, I would never take a job as an exec. assistant, because that’s not my nature (I don’t take jobs where I have to answer phones, either). As a general admin, you are not getting paid to run after a busy exec, and should not be expected to. (If you’re working as an EA and you’re not getting paid more than the general admins, in my opinion and experience, you’re being taken advantage of. It’s a more demanding job, and should pay more.)
If you can’t get any traction with the Monday-go-to-meetin’ boss, the other bosses might — if you start telling them, “I’m sorry, I’ve been ordered to go to meeting XYZ tomorrow and I won’t be able to take on any jobs for you until Friday.”
When the other bosses realize he’s co-opting you as his personal full-time assistant, they may be able to take steps which you can’t — and with less tact than you’d be required to use.
featherlou, your last post made some good points. There is a difference between an EA and an admin. In general I agree that an EA will get paid more, but sometimes an admin supports many people to a lesser extent, and that can also increase the pay. So it will come down to experience and skills in either case.
The one thing I recommend you watch out for is that the organization can require you to do EA work if that’s considered the best use of your time. If they want you to be admin to Jack, admin to Jill, and EA to Snagglepuss, that is their prerogative.
So if what this boss is asking is out of line for the organization, not just for you personally, I heartily agree with the suggestions to work with the other bosses on priorities, and hopefully they can help you escalate it to a common director if it comes to that.
There is also a huge difference between being an AA for a small company and one for a large one. When I did AA work for a small office (big company, branch office), I cleaned the fridge, managed the warehouse, ran errands, assisted on photoshoots, did dataentry and some minor programing, filled in for the receptionist and the exec admin when they were out, set up at trade shows, worked sales meetings, stuffed mailings, fixed computers and crawled through the ceiling to run network cable.
When I was an AA for a big company, I didn’t even make my own copies (unless it was a quick job), I’d call the copy center or put the copies in interoffice mail and they’d reappear on my desk magically.
That’s an excellent idea! When something really ISN’T in your job description, and it’s taking away from your general duties, the best thing to do is probably to at least go along with it in good faith (because you never know what’s hidden in ‘other duties as required’) but definitely be clear with your other bosses that if you’re doing X, you can’t physically also do Y.
The way **Fish **has phrased it is ideal.
<off-topic>
Featherlou, you’re right about the EA/PA and AA difference. Technically my job is an Personal Assistant role.
An odd quirk of my company, however, is that pretty much everyone in a support role is all classed as an ‘Administration Assistant’. As far as I understand it, it’s to stop a perceived ‘us and them’ mentality… though we’ve never had the slightest hint of that in our office. Still, there’s a lot of offices across the state, so I guess it was a problem somewhere. All I know is that in a single sweep everyone in a secretarial, reception, clerical, finance clerk or general assistant role was reclassified as ‘Administration Assistant’. shrug Far as I’m concerned, you can call me whatever you like as long as you leave my wage intact. I’m not precious about job titles. 
Still, *whatever *it’s called, my actual role is very much Personal Assistant, not Administration Assistant, meaning I have to be prepared to do all kinds of stuff that isn’t technically secretarial in nature. This may involve running non-work errands or anything else that saves the boss some time or makes them happy.
</off-topic>
Yup, all good points, guys. The admin world is so much more complex and multi-layered than those on the outside could ever imagine…
I’d argue that if you have mistaken a job description for an employment contract, maybe you aren’t all that great of an AA. A job description can be changed at the boss’s discretion. If you don’t like it, than arrange to have conversation about it, or seek the door. Now if you and your company have signed a contract… that is another matter.
I have an AA. I very, very infrequently ask her to attend meetings. When I do, it is not because I feel important when she is around; it is not because I’m hitting on her, and I’d be offended if anyone suggested it. It is because some meetings are like going into battle. The intrigue can be on par with the last days of the Roman Empire. The pace, the maneuvering, the verbal jousting are so fast that important facts and action items can be missed… particularly by slippery action item dodgers and the revisionist history from other joker’s notes. My AA has saved me, and the company, some real time and money by paying attention to the details while I try to do whatever the fuck it is that I do.
Anyway, that’s just me. If my AA came to me and said, “I don’t want to go because it isn’t part of my job,” I’d look at her like she was St. Peter’s ghost with three tits… and I’d be very disappointed in her lack initiative. On the other hand, if she said, “This meeting would require personal inconveniences or expenses,” or “This meeting will keep me from completing another task,” I’d thank her for bringing it to my attention and attempt to work it out.
In my dictionary, ‘that’s not my job’ means ‘I’m just here for the check, you’ll have to wring any effort out of me.’ I just wish it were legal to heave such people bodily out the door. Or window.
I’ve written a fair number of job descriptions over the past ten years. In every single one, I have left that phrase out. If prompted to put it in by HR, I refuse. I neither need nor want the explicit written permission to give you shit work.
I may have a rather different perspective – all of my job descriptions have been for salaried full-time employees, where I could safely assume some degree of professionalism and commitment to results. I also pride myself on not hiring people who are going to refuse to do work that’s been assigned to them, and on not assigning work that people will refuse.
[HIJACK]It is not necessary (or even typical) for a not-for-profit organization to pay less than market value for goods, services and labour. It simply means that in exchange for favourable tax considerations, the organization is bound to return all revenues in excess of expenses (what would be profit for owners or shareholders) back into capital for the business. It does not mean that the organization works under a vow of perpetual poverty.
If you’re being paid significantly less than comparatively skilled and experienced peers, I think that you’re selling yourself short and being had.[/hijack]
Depends on the non-profit. Large corporate-type ones might pay in the same range but not most. I would think that generally speaking, non-profits pay less. In my experience, they do but they make up for it with more flexibility and a different atmosphere. Plus, some who take jobs there believe in the cause and that is a benefit in itself.
Fair enough - it didn’t immediately occur to me that professionals may be so philanthropic as to be willing to forego potential earnings in support of a cause.