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I wouldn't even give them an excuse. I would have said I don't know how to put furniture together and I don't want to learn. The End.
The convo after that would have went along these lines:
"Now, what did you do with the Old furniture? Oh, you got rid of it. That's okay. I'll take my laptop out to the reception area and do my work on there. What printer can I use?"
I refuse to be taken advantage of in ANY way just because some employers believe they can.
I hope, if you did that, they'd fire you. You sound like a princess.
I wouldn't even give them an excuse. I would have said I don't know how to put furniture together and I don't want to learn. The End.
The convo after that would have went along these lines:
"Now, what did you do with the Old furniture? Oh, you got rid of it. That's okay. I'll take my laptop out to the reception area and do my work on there. What printer can I use?"
I refuse to be taken advantage of in ANY way just because some employers believe they can.
Taken advantage of? Oh lord. I suppose you're the fantastic employee who pulls out your printed job description when asked to do something to check and see if the task aligns with your job role
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lowexpectations
Taken advantage of? Oh lord. I suppose you're the fantastic employee who pulls out your printed job description when asked to do something to check and see if the task aligns with your job role
2) What if you had injured or compromised yourself in some way? They must not be very diligent about workplace safety, OSHA, etc.
What, putting together particle board furniture with an allen wrench and rubber mallet is DANGEROUS?! When did that happen and do you have to sign a waiver now? Can I let my under 21 employees do this, or is it too risky? Maybe I should rethink those sharp pencils I keep in a mesh basket on my desk, or at the very least wear some safety goggles when I'm near them?
I vote for "status and safety issue", and this is is as a woman who DIYs almost all of her own home furniture. I've lost control of the side of a Sauder bookcase or similar as it fit into the top, and almost cracked the top or myself in the bargain.
I would be an extra pair of hands for, say, the mailroom clerk if they needed me to; but I'd think it was a bit of an odd sign that this furniture wasn't waiting for me assembled when I came in, considering people knew I'd be showing up. I'd be wary that this was signaling to me either "this company doesn't have enough warm bodies to essay the job responsibilities we have going begging, or the person whose job this logically would be, is so overworked they can't even think about office furniture", but I guess OP will have to monitor the situation and see which it seems like. I mean, it sounds like classic weasel-words on the part of OP's boss, "do you think this will be hard to put together?" It seems like he (?) was doing that thing where people expect you to fill in the blanks and answer the question they didn't actually ask, so they don't have to go the extra mile for you "in case" you happen to volunteer. He didn't say "will this be hard for you to put together". It's possible the answer dictated what he said, and if OP had said "holy carp yes, it looks hard to put together", he would've snapped his fingers and called for Jim in the mailroom to toodle on over and get to work.
the funny thing is if someone goes along with it and just assembles it, there's a high chance they'll ask the same person to put together furniture again, for someone else. This pattern will continue.Or they'll ask you to take a look at the boiler or some other thing. IF someone is desperate for a job or has no experience, maybe I can justify doing it. But others with plenty of serious white collar experience or medical issues aren't going to bother even debating this: the answer is going to be an excuse or a polite no. I've never seen attorneys, doctors or other such folks assemble anything. I've never seen their assistants either. Even in small places.
There are polite and nice ways of saying "no" and using excuses because you don't want to come off confrontational. There's no need to be rude or emotional about it. There are ways of letting people know from the beginning that there are areas you don't feel comfortable venturing into. The issue is not whether you know how to assemble things or not. Issue is whether doing this task benefits your career at that place or not?
I've had to put furniture together in my classroom. I also had to move all of the furniture to one side of the class and stack them at the end of the year. There's No one else to do it.
I also had to clean the desks and walls as well as bag the trash. Older teachers would get younger ones to do it or their spouses/children.
It happens.
The only thing we didn't have to do is clean up puke, poop, or pee because they had a special cleanser for that. ( yes, some kids in k-2 poop on the classroom floor)
Sounds delightful. You just keep doing all that. And we'll do what we need to do so we don't have to do ...."all that". - kids pooping on the floor - gotta love that.
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You just keep doing all that. And we'll do what we need to do so we don't have to do ...."all that". - kids pooping on the floor - gotta love that. 
