Defining an employee's core responsibilities is a key and careful task that can backfire or protect you depending on the situation. Here, we have an employee who occasionally covered for two of his coworkers if they were off at the same time and had brought up to their boss that he was the only person at work who was capable of doing so simultaneously. This helped the employee when he was negotiating a raise, but after the raise, his boss told him that he should focus on his core responsibilities moving forward. This was likely a way to protect the boss from having to give the employee another raise down the road.
Well, unfortunately for the boss, the day would come when both of those coworkers were off and the employee was desperately needed to step in and cover for both of them. That's when the employee shared the email from his boss instructing him not to do so, thereby getting him out of doing extra work. Let this story serve as a friendly reminder to document everything because it really benefited the employee's argument in the end and left the boss with no choice but to find another solution.
For more stories like this, check out this post about a job candidate who rejected a recruiter's request to do unpaid work.
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