My boss asked me to help in the warehouse tomorrow and I said "no way", was I right?

apatia77

apatia77

apatia77

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I work in IT together with my manager and to be honest there isn't much to do for me so sometimes I help CSA processing orders. However warehouse is short staffed atm as half of the staff went to branch in France to help out with stock counting and he asked me if I could help with unloading a lorry tomorrow which usually takes couple of hours and it involves lifting boxes weighting about 10kg each.

I told him I didn't want to do this over the telephone as this wasn't my job and he told me to think about it.

Am I right to refuse this request?

I am seriously getting tired working here due to lack of work and that this is a dead end job with no prospect of any kind of progression. I've been here for 1 year and 3 months now.
 
depends on what your contract says your role is. If he's asking as a favour you're within your rights to refuse it, if your contract covers it in some way then I'm not so sure
 
I'd say its' unlikely that your contract would cover this, so you're within your rights to refuse to do so.

Warehouse staff should have had appropriate training for regular, repeated lifting.

They'd be leaving themselves wide open to a compensation claim if you got injured during 'helping out'.
 
If you didn't want to do it and your contract doesn't say otherwise then no worries. However your boss asked for a favour and you said no, so no moaning next time you want something from him and he turns you down! :p
 
I work as a site/contracts manager but pitched in washing windows and sweeping up last night as our cleaner was off. Stop being difficult and help out. As long it doesn't happen too often what does it matter? If everyone ran around constantly waving contracts in people's face crying 'I aint doing this, I aint doing that' not everything will get done.
 
Yup you need formal instruction on unloading heavy items at work as well, which you clearly don't have. They can't touch you for it.
 
They're not asking you to do any extra hours or work on your day off... I don't see the problem.

I'd probably remember it for a good long while if I were him. He asked you a favour - not a huge one, just to lend a hand, do a different job for a couple of hours, and you said no.
 
Well, of course you can say "no" and unless your contract says otherwise there's nothing he can do about it. However, it's hardly going to impress him is it? You say there's no work - why not go down to the warehouse and have a laugh? Beneath you? Lazy? Helping out would give you points which might come in handy later on. If you don't care...well....then don't care and forget about it.
 
Have you been on a manual handling course? If not, then say NO. If you injure yourself the HSE will be all over him.
 
I would do it, my question would really be what sort of ass hole employee would say no to such a request...

I work in 3rd line IT support for a large company, however if requested I will do any box moving / carrying... assuming I was all fit and well and it was not a perminant thing...

Its a very union man / civil cervant thing to start flapping because your boss once asked you to help out someone for the day...

what possibly reason can you have to refuse? are you disabled or sick? did he say this was your new job?
 
regulus said:
I work as a site/contracts manager but pitched in washing windows and sweeping up last night as our cleaner was off. Stop being difficult and help out. As long it doesn't happen too often what does it matter? If everyone ran around constantly waving contracts in people's face crying 'I aint doing this, I aint doing that' not everything will get done.
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I am worried that once I help them I will be asked all the time to help in the warehouse as they are constantly short staffed and very busy. I didn't sign up for this ****, even though I don't mind helping others in the office with some admin work.
 
I know where your going with this. This is one of those times that if you said "no" and stuck to it will your manager get the arse with you from then on in.

But the other question you need to ask yourself is that if you said "yes" how much of these "other" work will he get you to do! :)

When I started my new job I was told I would be in the office most of the time (15 min's away)

But all because I pulled this company out of the crap a few times by travelling down to London for a few days i'm now spending a 2 week period having to commute into London for nothing extra regular.

It sucks but hey I said yes originally I guess.
 
Your contract probably says somthing about "any task which your manager asks you to carry out" - basically if it does you are stuffed. I've not seen a contract that doesnt.

As for your job going nowhere - it certainly isnt going anywhere now! A little give and take would go a long way to impress your boss.

As for manual handling - you dont have to go on a course, places like B&Q or Tesco either do no training or its a 5 min video.....
 
Of course you can't be forced to do it, and if you did do it and had an accident, you'd have a good claim, but I know if I had to make redundancies, your name would be on my list.
 
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