IT = Maintenance/Contrstruction now?

Tackle

I’m not one to complain, and I despise people that complain about a job that people would give an arm and a leg for.

Had a talk with my Boss today that left me very aggravated. I work in a small company, ~60 employees. In the IT dept, it’s just my boss and myself maintaining the internal network, a handful of IT clients, and 50 or so clients running our software. We’ve got our plates full. Today the VP had a meeting with him and the maintenance guy, who we’ll call Ted. Apparently this has been in the workings for a couple months. The plan is to get all employees on the same floor. That means moving all 15 of their computer’s, phones and cabling upstairs. Not a problem – nothing I can’t accomplish, it should be fun.

Then he dropped the bombshell. I have been tasked with working under Ted’s instruction to move not only the electronics, but also the 15 cubes from the basement to the main floor, and move 10 picnic sized tables downstairs. Also, there is a 20 foot row of hardwood cabinets in the current tech room I have to help Ted cut out and remove. WTF? I don’t look like I was raised on a farm throwing hay bales all my life. I’m a stereotypical White, overweight, video game playing, IT guy.

Definitely not what I signed up for. Nothing remotely close to that in the job description (I’ve been here almost 2 years doing ONLY “IT” stuff). Feels like a kick in the balls, being “demoted” to cubical mover. The only time I want to sweat at work is when I’m stressing about something, not from lugging cubes and cabinets.

It’s a “my way or the highway” deal. Something I have to suck up and do. It’s not that I can’t do it – I’ve remodeled entire rooms before. It’s just the idea that they picked ME (the IT guy) out of 60 employees. Kind of like saying “You’re the lowest guy on the totem pole, go move some cubes”. Maybe it has to do with me being the youngest employee at 21? Who knows. I’ve got 2 cubes disassembled already, just waiting for Ted to get back from lunch to help me carry them upstairs.

If I'm off my rocker and this is typical IT work, please tell me so I can feel better.

WafflesAndRootbeer

I worked a job where the "client" demanded that I move their stuff (furniture and all) and I had to tell them that I was not able to because it's not in my job description nor am I authorized to move anything that isn't a piece of computer equipment or associated peripheral and that they are supposed to contact a moving service to do it. If you're moving a massive amount of stuff, you should just call in some labor as they can do it faster and quicker and re-assemble stuff as needed so you can focus on your job.

N2IT

LucasMN wrote: »

I’m not one to complain, and I despise people that complain about a job that people would give an arm and a leg for.

Had a talk with my Boss today that left me very aggravated. I work in a small company, ~60 employees. In the IT dept, it’s just my boss and myself maintaining the internal network, a handful of IT clients, and 50 or so clients running our software. We’ve got our plates full. Today the VP had a meeting with him and the maintenance guy, who we’ll call Ted. Apparently this has been in the workings for a couple months. The plan is to get all employees on the same floor. That means moving all 15 of their computer’s, phones and cabling upstairs. Not a problem – nothing I can’t accomplish, it should be fun.

Then he dropped the bombshell. I have been tasked with working under Ted’s instruction to move not only the electronics, but also the 15 cubes from the basement to the main floor, and move 10 picnic sized tables downstairs. Also, there is a 20 foot row of hardwood cabinets in the current tech room I have to help Ted cut out and remove. WTF? I don’t look like I was raised on a farm throwing hay bales all my life. I’m a stereotypical White, overweight, video game playing, IT guy.

Definitely not what I signed up for. Nothing remotely close to that in the job description (I’ve been here almost 2 years doing ONLY “IT” stuff). Feels like a kick in the balls, being “demoted” to cubical mover. The only time I want to sweat at work is when I’m stressing about something, not from lugging cubes and cabinets.

It’s a “my way or the highway” deal. Something I have to suck up and do. It’s not that I can’t do it – I’ve remodeled entire rooms before. It’s just the idea that they picked ME (the IT guy) out of 60 employees. Kind of like saying “You’re the lowest guy on the totem pole, go move some cubes”. Maybe it has to do with me being the youngest employee at 21? Who knows. I’ve got 2 cubes disassembled already, just waiting for Ted to get back from lunch to help me carry them upstairs.

If I'm off my rocker and this is typical IT work, please tell me so I can feel better.

I've seen this I was told to have my guys do this type of work. They would go out to a site to set up someone's computer and then next thing you know you have to move a huge printer and do all sorts of all physical labor. With the emergence of IT aligning with the business you are going to start seeing some crossover.

The term you are looking for is collerateral duties and you seem to have been task with some of those.

Everyone

LucasMN wrote: »

I work in a small company, ~60 employees.

That's the reason it happened right there. Small company mentality "We pay you, so you do whatever we need you to do."

You'd be highly unlikely to run into a scenario like this in a larger company.

Anonymouse

I would be annoyed too but this seems about normal to expect from a smaller company of only 60 employees as you stated.

I hit reply too slow! Looks like the guy above me got it!

kriscamaro68

The first corporate IT job I had I was considered helpdesk/maintenance I had to setup, take down, and move more cubicles than you have employees. The best part of it all is the stupid CEO wanted to re-arrange the damn company floor about every 6 months or less. Stupid F---ER. I hated him with all the fiber in my being. But that was long ago and I wanted a way into IT and it has helped get me to where I am today because of that job. So yes I know exactly what you are talking about and yes it sucks but suck it up my friend you have it better than I did.

This was a company of 230 people so it was considered small potatoes.

P.S. the company went out of business after they laid me off and now they are bankrupt and being audited by the IRS for 16 million in back taxes because the stupid F---ERs didnt want to pay taxes and pocketed the money instead. F---ERs!

cyberguypr

Agree with the small company mentality. At my old place they had an almost 60 year old accounting lady in charge of swapping light bulbs. Sad.

Everyone

This is also common in the Military. In my early days I had to do a lot of non-IT stuff even though I was in IT. I'm not talking just normal extra Military duties either (like filing sand bags or something)... I'm talking build/move furniture/cubes like you had to do here. I had to do it 'cause I was one of the lowest ranking in the shop at the time.

Be happy you don't have to do some of the things I did at that age. They sent me to Kuwait to be a glorified babysitter for 90 days. I had to escort a bunch of people from various different middle eastern countries around so they could do things like clean toilets and construction. Awesome use of my IT skills right? :P

ccnxjr

I'm almost inclined to agree with the other viewpoints.
I work for an even smaller company and there are a lot of miscellaneous things that I do, but so does everyone else depending on their comfort level.
Usually volunteers are asked for before it comes down to drawing straws (or delegating).
Depending on the task, if volunteers are not found , the management team picks up the slack (they're cool like that) .

However, the following things do set off red flags in my mind,
1) Did they ask for volunteers first?
2) Will you be the only one assisting "Ted" ?
3) Did your boss indicate any willingness to help you & "Ted"?

If your helping Ted alone, end of story, then maybe your gut instinct of being "marginalized" maybe on target even if your not sure why.

As mentioned before, in a small company everyone pitches in to do stuff outside of their job description (and yes, everyone is supposed to mean EVERYONE ).

It might also be possible that your boss is getting the impression that you have a lot of free time on your hands and is finding tasks for you to seem useful.
That could be his impression, which might indicate some communication problems there.
I've known people that do nothing all day but seem to communicate to others that they're somehow important.
Conversely there are some people that do the work of 10 employee, but whose value to the company somehow goes un-noticed, either through politics or simply a disconnect between themselves and their immediate supervisors.

Just some things to mull over, your situation may be different.

edit:
Are they concerned about liability issues if your hurt or injured while performing duties that are outside of your job description?

Tackle

The kicker to this is that yesterday my boss said that he thinks I'm doing a good job and will push for me to get a "better" raise than normal at my next review (in a couple months).

My boss did offer to lend a hand. He said "If you guys need help let me know, I could stand to get a little work out". He will be needed when it comes time to wire up the phones, and he acknowledged it.

He knows pretty much exatcly how busy I am, as we often ask for help when the other has down time.

They are not concened about liability.

I guess all the posts about "small company" could be true, but I have never seen any of the other guys doing anything "pysical" besides lifting the coffee mugs.

Turgon

LucasMN wrote: »

I’m not one to complain, and I despise people that complain about a job that people would give an arm and a leg for.

Had a talk with my Boss today that left me very aggravated. I work in a small company, ~60 employees. In the IT dept, it’s just my boss and myself maintaining the internal network, a handful of IT clients, and 50 or so clients running our software. We’ve got our plates full. Today the VP had a meeting with him and the maintenance guy, who we’ll call Ted. Apparently this has been in the workings for a couple months. The plan is to get all employees on the same floor. That means moving all 15 of their computer’s, phones and cabling upstairs. Not a problem – nothing I can’t accomplish, it should be fun.

Then he dropped the bombshell. I have been tasked with working under Ted’s instruction to move not only the electronics, but also the 15 cubes from the basement to the main floor, and move 10 picnic sized tables downstairs. Also, there is a 20 foot row of hardwood cabinets in the current tech room I have to help Ted cut out and remove. WTF? I don’t look like I was raised on a farm throwing hay bales all my life. I’m a stereotypical White, overweight, video game playing, IT guy.

Definitely not what I signed up for. Nothing remotely close to that in the job description (I’ve been here almost 2 years doing ONLY “IT” stuff). Feels like a kick in the balls, being “demoted” to cubical mover. The only time I want to sweat at work is when I’m stressing about something, not from lugging cubes and cabinets.

It’s a “my way or the highway” deal. Something I have to suck up and do. It’s not that I can’t do it – I’ve remodeled entire rooms before. It’s just the idea that they picked ME (the IT guy) out of 60 employees. Kind of like saying “You’re the lowest guy on the totem pole, go move some cubes”. Maybe it has to do with me being the youngest employee at 21? Who knows. I’ve got 2 cubes disassembled already, just waiting for Ted to get back from lunch to help me carry them upstairs.

If I'm off my rocker and this is typical IT work, please tell me so I can feel better.

Get stuck in. I've done some grunt work in my time. You will be well thought of. Im sure poor old Ted needs a hand.

spicy ahi

Something similar happened to me working in a LAN shop once. We were the tiniest IT department (6 vs. the 20 guys in the Systems shop and 14 in the helpdesk shop) but were asked to move all the furniture and crap from one warehouse where our offices were to the warehouse next door we were moving to. It was logical though because we were the "fittest" shop seeing as how we usually did infrastructure installs and so we were a bit more familiar with power tools and such. Of course, it still sucks that 6 guys had to do all the work while there were two bigger shops that could afford to lend guys to the effort.

Well, turned out that upper management had the same idea and originally tasked a group consisting of guys from both of the other shops to move the stuff. Unfortunately, one of the database guys threw out his back (and went on TDI for a month/month and a half) and another guy from the helpdesk shop ripped out a cubicle wall that was screwed into the wall and took a good chunk of drywall out with it (how he didn't see the big anchor screws in the cube wall is stil beyond me) so that's why they were calling on us to do the job. So you can either do the work and get the kudos , recognition and high fives (that my shop got) or you can get hurt and go on TDI or worse screw something up royally so they don't ask you again.

Tackle

I'm not going to injure myself on purpose, lol. Though some of those panels are pretty heavy. We moved 2 cubes up that were empty. Disassembly and moving them took there better part of 3 hours. Assembly will probably be 2 hours or so. We marked labeled every part.

I'm still expected to do my normal work on top as moving all this stuff.

RobertKaucher

Everyone wrote: »

That's the reason it happened right there. Small company mentality "We pay you, so you do whatever we need you to do."

You'd be highly unlikely to run into a scenario like this in a larger company.

One company I was the sys/net admin for (about 100 people, 60 client PCs) I sometimes was asked to help in the shipping dept at the end of the month. Sucked, but I did it and never complained...

dustinmurphy

In a small company, this is a normal thing. The way I see it... as long as they're paying me... I'll do whatever they ask of me, even if it's outside of my job description. The one thing that DID piss me off, however is one time I was asked to come in on a Sunday to help move an entire office out so that they could get their carpets redone. That's outside of my normal working hours.. and I was not very pleased. I was asked by the CEO one time to hang a picture for him... I was like "Do you realize how much you pay me?" LOL.

For me, I do whatever I'm asked... why? Because it adds perceived value, in my opinion. If you are just the guy who fixes computers... but isn't willing to help out the team, your value may not be as high to the company as someone who fixes computers and is willing to move some furniture around, ya know? I would say that if it takes you away from making sure your job gets done, I would have a talk with your boss to make sure he understands that this new "project" is hindering your ability to do your job correctly.

paul78

Ive run technologyfunctions at several small companies in the past. And typically the facilities function is handled by IT. Everyone pitches in and its not a big deal. Im surprised you think of it as a demotion. BTW - at those companies, IT always had the best furniture because we bought in and set it up.

Roguetadhg

There's a couple ways to look at this:
A Glorified Janitorial position. I wish I still had pictures of my office, the server room, backrooms when I came in here. I'll give you a small taste of it though: Cupcakes inside a drawer. Surprisingly still without mold... which i'm not sure if I should be worried or not. And a skittles bag from 2 years prior to me moving in. Still reaching in unknown dressers and grabbing a handful of soft cake was the frosting on the cake. Pun intended.

Took me 1 year of constantly dumping out stuff already crammed into the Dock to even make room for anything that was in any of the offices I needed to get to.

The previous IT Guy here also painted rooms... Let me grab a picture. I'll even Adobe-Panoramic for everyone!

Honestly Though. Help ted out. If **** happens, you're not the one to blame. Make sure you get it written in documentation that you're to be doing the hard labor. Yes, it seems stupid. But trust me, cover your ass. Anyways, a little bit of exercise will do you good. I was a sterotypical video game playing kid, make sure you get the mechanical gloves though. It helps to heavy lift.