Working for a micro size company and being tasked with setting up a personal laptop

Good Morning,

One of my managers bought a laptop at BestBuy yesterday and left a note to migrate data from his old personal laptop to a new personal laptop.

I view this as being outside the bounds of what an employee can be asked. Setting up a work laptop is par for the course, but setting up a personal laptop is outside the bounds. To top it off, Friday is his last day.

How do you suggest handling this request? For the record I like the company and the job...

TIA

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scaredoftests

Go to your manager (that isn't leaving)and tell him what is going on. You should say to that guy, that isn't your highest priority.

shochan

NavyMooseCCNA wrote: »

Good Morning,

One of my managers bought a laptop at BestBuy yesterday and left a note to migrate data from his old personal laptop to a new personal laptop.

I view this as being outside the bounds of what an employee can be asked. Setting up a work laptop is par for the course, but setting up a personal laptop is outside the bounds. To top it off, Friday is his last day.

How do you suggest handling this request? For the record I like the company and the job...

TIA

Bill him after hours rate for the time you spent on it. Tell him you cannot work on personal laptops during business hours.

yoba222

This is a great opportunity to practice the skill of saying no. It's great because if it doesn't go the way you thought it would, the manager is leaving in a few days anyway. It's a freebee!

The answer involves:
1. Acknowledging that this is a personal favor
2. You providing reasons why it isn't a good idea to do this personal favor
3. Providing an alternative solution

Point one should have happened in the conversation when he asked you initially. But this manager, Mr. Peter Principle, communicated this favor request in a sticky note. You'll have to speak with him.

Point two can vary. You might go down the workload/priority route. You could also go down the legally risky route. For instance, to set it up right you'd need passwords and therefore his presence, you'd need to put it on the network without antivirus, etc.

What if there's ****/gambling evidence? It didn't happen on company equipment so it wasn't quite a violation of acceptable use policy. What if you find a folder of weird, creepy explicit images--stuff like dead animals and Ajit Pai's face or something? What if you happen upon evidence of criminal activity? Not on company equipment--no agreement was signed here--you're really working out of your jurisdiction . . .

Point three is where you'd suggest to Mr. Peter some reference material/software he could use to do it himself or where to take the laptop for the migration.

Or you could just keep quiet and do the work. Though the next time this situation comes up later in life, the stakes in practicing how to say no will probably be higher.

NetworkNewb

You can go to another one of your managers if you really want to be formal. But I'm assuming that manager who brought you the laptop knows what he asked you to do is wrong and just trying to take advantage of you.

If you don't want to be confrontational about it I probably wouldn't even touch the thing and if they ask about it I'd tell him I've been busy with work.

networker050184

His last day is tomorrow? Put it at the bottom of your priorities list and tomorrow say sorry didn't get around to it!

636-555-3226

It's copy and paste, just do it and keep up good relationships.

NetworkNewb

636-555-3226 wrote: »

It's copy and paste, just do it and keep up good relationships.

Or "accidentally" bump it off your desk onto the floor for him trying to take advantage of him. Either way...

Queue

If you don't have to install the programs they had on the last laptop, it should be less than a couple minutes. I'm assuming you would transfer them to a USB, or external HDD, crossover cable (more effort). If he's asking you to add two personal laptops to the network to transfer I would say that's not possible sorry.

scaredoftests

Say because of security reasons, it can't be done...

NavyMooseCCNA

636-555-3226 wrote: »

It's copy and paste, just do it and keep up good relationships.

That is what I did. This firm, though small, has heavy hitters working here. He is better to keep on the friend list than any other list...especially since his daughter is also our marketing person...

thomas_

“I’ll get to it on Monday.”

TechGromit

Transfer the data, then encrypt it.

mikey88

I worked for a small company and these kind of personal requests were very common and fair game. I'd rather help a fellow employee out then hearing a story of how they got scammed by "microsoft support"

This is of course dependent on your work load and what is expected from the IT Dept by your company.

EANx

Back when I was new and worked in a small firm, I wouldn't have objected to doing this for the owner or any of the executives. Whether I would have done it for anyone else would depend on the workload and relationship I had with them. I feel that a knee-jerk "no" is short-sighted, there's a reason why people who do favors for each other tend to get further ahead than those who don't.

dhay13

I did this a few times at my last job. My manager would do it too but we did it on spare time when we had everything caught up. I never charged anybody extra for it because I felt that may cross lines or create issues.