I work in small family general contracting business as an assistant project manager – 5 employees.
During my first few months of employment, the boss (and even the wife of the boss) would ask me to do misc services for them, i.e. pick them up at the airport and even small projects around their personal house. They told me to do it on company time. I didn’t think a lot about it in the beginning because I wanted to be in good favor with the boss.
Well 7 months into the job, I got a text from the boss’s wife. She said they are going on vacation and want to ask if I can take care of a few things around their house. I stop by and they ask me to mow their lawn. The wife says “just put it in work time.”
I reply to her that I’d love to help but I would like to bill it to them thru my new property management LLC I’m opening for side work (I opened that LLC because I started to get more and more requests in my neighborhood to do property management/home care).
The wife is confused and gets the boss to join the conversation. I reiterate what I said to the boss and his facial expressions was like “you gotta be kidding me.”
He doesn’t want to talk about it right there so we bookmark it for another time.
A few days later I have a 6 month review with the boss. We go over responsibilities and pay. (I asked for a raise which obviously I didn’t get. When I mentioned 9% inflation as one of the reasons I’m asking for a raise, he scoffed at me and told me that’s not a reason to get a raise. He said if I need more money that I should just work more/a.k.a. overtime.)
After being denied a raise, the boss starts to stand up and say “alright are we done?”
I replied “One last thing, [boss name]… respectfully… respectfully I did not accept this job to do personal services for you-“
He cut me off and started yelling at me. In short he said:
– He’s had employees do work for him for years.
– He’s always paid them.
– He’s never had any problems with it before
– He told me that I “really pissed” him off the other day.
– He gets up from the table walks behind me to his desk. He continues to yell and bitterly say “but fine I won’t ask you to do anymore work for me!”
I replied with one word “Okay.”
With no other words after, I got up and left the meeting.
Even worse is I know if I were to mow his lawn on company time, he would not bill it as “company overhead.” He’d bill it to a client and technically make a client pay for me to mow his grass, and then consequently make money on me mowing his grass. (Not that billing it as “company overhead” is okay too.)
It was after that meeting I decided to start applying to other jobs. Fudge that greedy entitled old man.