Doing Someone Else's Job

Judging from the mess of paper completely obscuring my desk (none of it mine), I am indispensable at work. That means they can't fire me because then they'd have to work themselves.

Every month, I process the solid waste contractor's invoice, so they can be paid, and so we can bill the individual departments. This is actually Ob's job.

Take Two: I am assisting Worker Bee (my new name for the office manager) with a presentation that Boss will be making next week. The topic is green building, sustainability, and LEED. If you don't know what that is, that's okay; I don't know either. The person who does know is Ob, but I'm doing his job here, as well.

Take Three: Although Worker Bee is taking the lead on this presentation, one of my primary duties is to write memos, send e-mails, write reports, create presentations, etc. for Boss. Sometimes, I even accompany Boss to these presentations so I can click the button on the computer that advances the presentation, all the while listening to Boss speak off the cuff, totally disregarding the material I carefully crafted for him. (On this particular presentation, Worker Bee and I aren't even sure it is to be a presentation because of an e-mail Boss replied to without reading. We're also not sure about the topic, because Boss's e-mail reply stated one topic, the "presentation" we're creating is on a parallel topic, but the input which Boss inflicts on us before flitting away ("drive-by management") is different than either of those.)

Take Four: Ob's constant companion told me to print a document, found online, which he was told about in a meeting. He didn't know what the URL was, and it was a simple enough task to do himself, but since he's busy driving around campus all day, and all I do is sit in the office picking my nose, I must do it for him.

I know that there's far more I do for my coworkers, but that's all I can see right now. Everything else must be in a lower strata of my desk.