It’s Not My Job

NEVER say “It’s not my job” to your boss, teachers, or kids. If someone asks you to do something that you can’t do, you have two acceptable responses:

1. I don’t know how to do this. I need to find someone who does or find out how to do it.
2. I have other tasks I have to do first, but I will get to it when I can. (And you enumerate those other tasks.)

As you know, whenever there is a new technology implementation, there are new jobs in training, trouble-shooting, and support. And not a one of them comes labeled saying, “The librarian should do this” or “The technician should do this” or “The district technology guru should do this.”

I have always advised folks to take on the nasty, specialized jobs that are vitally important. If you have some of those and your job or hours are ever threatened, they are wonderful things to put on the table. Your boss will quickly realize that if you aren’t there do some of these things, s/he will have to find someone else to do them - and may find someone else (with few nastier jobs that need to be reassigned) to cut.

If my job ever is axed, I want the person who wielded the instrument to be really, really, really sorry s/he did - because they miss me.

Strike “It’s not my job” from your vocabulary!

Any nasty little jobs that have saved your big job?
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2 Comments »
Ironic that I should choose now to check out your blog . . . hours after I very nearly lost “it” and went storming into the office screaming “this is NOT my job!” I didn’t. I surely wanted to.

I find more and more and more of my time spent in technology/network troubleshooting. This leaves less and less time to devote to the library program, collaborating with teachers and just helping kids find a book they will love.

I am relatively new to the profession. This is my second year at the school. Where is the balance? As a librarian I expected to help out with technology. Graduate classes covered all sorts of multimedia productions and how to create rubrics for assessment, teaching kids and teachers effective search strategies, promoting higher level thinking assessments and information evaluation. No one mentioned that few teachers are willing to give you the time of day and try these activities. What they want is someone who will run AR for them. And someone who can IMMEDIATELY fix network printing problems.

It’s also especially funny when I call the district help desk and am told “we aren’t trained in trouble-shooting like you are.” HA! When did that happen? Almost everything I know about computers I learned by playing around with it.

I know I need to learn to say “I have other tasks I have to do first, but I will get to it when I can.” So how do you get the people who are standing there waiting while you are trying to teach a class to LEAVE and let you get to it when you can? Which may be in quite a while? There is no way I can go to each and every computer on campus and input the proxy server numbers or change email account names. Is that my job? Can teachers not follow written directions? I know they have a lot to do. So do I.

Vent over. Thanks, cyberspace readers, for listening.

Comment by Angie — September 24, 2005 @ 6:55 pm

I am in my 28th year of teaching-the last 10 in a high school media center. I love everything about being a media specialist including tech support-one reason I was lured to this position. But I am extremely frustrated that I, like Doug suggests, did not say no when asked to add to my responsibilities. One of the secretaries at our school was doing asset inventory which includes labeling and tracking everything purchased in our school with 100 teachers and almost 1900 students. She didn’t want to do it and the principal asked me to take it on. Of course I said, “yes”. I would never think of telling an administrator I could not handle something he or she needed done. But, besides being burned out I am no longer enjoying the perfect job. I feel I no longer have the time to discuss books with students or spend time helping them find answers to things they just “were wondering about”. I am constantly stressed because teachers don’t get information back to me in a timely manner so that I can complete endless reports which includes a video inventory of the entire school-something that took two weeks to get done with a school this size and a schedule like mine. I can retire after next year and will because I am no longer doing the job I loved.
Debi

Comment by Debi Tebeau — September 29, 2005 @ 3:05 pm