There's no reason he couldn't do exactly the same if he was doing IT work in his work hours?
There's no reason to give his employer any benefit from it if his employer's investment in him stops barely above the minimum wage.
Would you say this is exploitation at work? Just want Thoughts
- Thread starter solado
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There's no reason to give his employer any benefit from it if his employer's investment in him stops barely above the minimum wage.
If the OP does nothing other than his admin job, he does his admin job. That's it. The OP doesn't want to be an office admin. He will learn very little useful. The job will be boring.
Instead, the OP could do some IT work. Some kind of IT work is what the OP wants to do. Who knows - he might learn something new, something might come of it. Maybe not. There are no situations where the outcome is worse than just doing the admin work.
I think you're massively overestimating the scope of what experience can be gained in the type of place the OP is working in. This isn't being offered an opportunity to get off a reception desk and hang out with the helpdesk team, or a helpdesk guy being given a chance to have a stab at infrastructure.
It's a little shop where the owner seems to keep hardware longer than is healthy. There's not going to be some big IT project coming along for the OP to get stuck into and manage, he's just a cheaper version of a local IT company doing menial tasks.
It's a little shop where the owner seems to keep hardware longer than is healthy. There's not going to be some big IT project coming along for the OP to get stuck into and manage, he's just a cheaper version of a local IT company doing menial tasks.
Surely menial IT tasks are better than menial admin tasks, if IT is what the OP is interested in? He could maybe spend his time in the office learning some new HTML, reading about new backup solutions, make recommendations about improving the use of IT around areas of the business etc. It seems the OP's boss isn't exactly a model CTO, so he can probably string him along a little bit to spend more time doing what he wants.
That all sounds a lot better than filling out NHS forms and cleaning a shop floor - the OPs alternative responsibilities?
I'm really struggling to understand why people are making this so complicated.
You're given the choice of doing a boring job or an interesting job for £6.91 per hour. Which do you choose?
It really is that simple.
It has nothing to do with "giving his employer more benefit than he's paid for", "devaluing the labour market", or any other nonsense people are posting.
Even for purely selfish reasons, the best course of action is for the OP to do the more interesting/enjoyable IT work rather than the shop work, unless for some bizarre reason he prefers mopping floors and serving customers to developing websites. The only reason not to do it is out of some misplaced sense of principle, in which case you're just cutting your nose off to spite your face.
You're given the choice of doing a boring job or an interesting job for £6.91 per hour. Which do you choose?
It really is that simple.
It has nothing to do with "giving his employer more benefit than he's paid for", "devaluing the labour market", or any other nonsense people are posting.
Even for purely selfish reasons, the best course of action is for the OP to do the more interesting/enjoyable IT work rather than the shop work, unless for some bizarre reason he prefers mopping floors and serving customers to developing websites. The only reason not to do it is out of some misplaced sense of principle, in which case you're just cutting your nose off to spite your face.
For me that is a given - he should (and seems to) be doing that along with one of the first two options.
Soldato
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There is no such thing as menial IT work
if you are rebuild pcs all the time, installing drivers, windows updates, fixing issues, this helps with say SCCM which is an enterprise level product
so what if the systems are old, many large corporates have old systems as well
think of the positives, not the negatives!
if you are rebuild pcs all the time, installing drivers, windows updates, fixing issues, this helps with say SCCM which is an enterprise level product
so what if the systems are old, many large corporates have old systems as well
think of the positives, not the negatives!
If you know how to install Windows and what a driver is then doing it multiple times doesn't gear you up to image PCs through System Center / WDS.
Many large corporates have legacy systems which are covered under support contracts or are running this software on newer IBM Power / System p machines. This is a world of difference from dusting off an old XP box and keeping it going with bits you found in a bin because your employer is too tight to replace it.
There is menial IT work in the same way there is menial work in every field.
Many large corporates have legacy systems which are covered under support contracts or are running this software on newer IBM Power / System p machines. This is a world of difference from dusting off an old XP box and keeping it going with bits you found in a bin because your employer is too tight to replace it.
There is menial IT work in the same way there is menial work in every field.
I work for a company with an IT/data company with 1000 employees and some of our hardware is over 20 years old. It's not uncommon.
Menial IT work > cleaning floors and filling in forms.
We run 20 year old systems because the thought of touching them sends shivers down our collective spines. The business is very complex, the issue is not so much the IT but the knowledge of what and why it does what it does, why it is configured the way it is etc.
Exactly, that's a world apart from keeping a 2002 Dell running because you work for someone who is obsessed with short-term costs at the expense of everything else.
Nobody is going to hire someone to work in IT (by work in IT I mean enterprise) because their boss made them merge two knackered PCs into one because they were too tight to buy another one. It's just not a particularly relevant skill, and at its worst you end up with someone who has to un-learn how to do everything with duct tape and string before teaching them how to do it properly. Would I rather do it than mop a floor? Yes, but that doesn't mean it's not a menial task.
Nobody is going to hire someone to work in IT (by work in IT I mean enterprise) because their boss made them merge two knackered PCs into one because they were too tight to buy another one. It's just not a particularly relevant skill, and at its worst you end up with someone who has to un-learn how to do everything with duct tape and string before teaching them how to do it properly. Would I rather do it than mop a floor? Yes, but that doesn't mean it's not a menial task.
I don't think anyone has argued it isn't a menial task?
Either way, your definition of the IT jobs as 'menial tasks' goes some way to suggesting that it's not exploitation. What is the value for someone who can keep an old Dell running - more than £6.91/hr?
We are simply arguing that a menial task that is remotely related to what you are interested in is better than a menial task that isn't.
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It's all relative I guess. I would say building some HTML templates, maintaining old PCs etc. is 'less menial' than filling in a form or cleaning a floor. I don't think there are very many people in the world who couldn't clean a floor, but probably quite a number who haven't the foggiest what HTML is.
Man of Honour
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Well you are going to be an easy person to exploit then.
@OP: What he is asking of you is well above your pay grade, say no and seek legal advice if he pushes any further.
I may have helped fix local computer issues in your situation (in fact I did in my local shop when I worked in retail between office jobs), but building a website and not getting paid extra for it is over-the-top.
Why? Doing some extra is more likely to result in a positive outcome than not. The OP has spent over a year working at the shop and hasn't taken any other roles that are in greater alignment with his career goals, or that pay more. The OP has no grounds for an unfair dismissal claim as he has not worked there for 2 years.
There are people out there who would kill to have their day jobs turned in to something even remotely in the direction of what they want to do in life.
Man of Honour
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There is a huge difference between doing something extra and building a full-blown website. Do you understand how much it would cost in reality to pay someone to do that job?
If the OP was happy doing it then that's fine, but the fact he is asking, shows he isn't.