I have always considered any task I have been given as a challenge...until Ohio issued new state standards on graduation tests, along with a cumbersome amount of illogical and irrelevant paper work for us teachers. I refused to do it and retired.
Funny enough but there are days when I just want to waste the day away and I actually feel extremely annoyed when someone asks me to do something . Even if it's something I know I can knock out in a matter of minutes.
I have many days now when I have virtually nothing to do. However, I have come to the conclusion that the less you have to do, the less you want to do so when someone asks you to perform a task, you think to yourself, "What the he**? I'm leaving in three hours and now you want me to do something."
I believe the most unusual thing I've had to do for my boss was figure out how to get the father-in-law of a friend of his home to NY from FL. The father-in-law died unexpectedly and they wouldn't let him arrange for the body to come home without a death certificate. I managed to get the certificate issued and the friend was able to get him home the next morning.
One such instance I had was at a previous employer where the CFO had just had knee surgery and was trying to work from home. While on the way to his house to meet with him his wife called me and asked if I wouldn't mind picking a few things up at the store for them because it was raining. Was it that big of a deal? Not really..but hell I wasn't his errand boy, lol.
I might have been just as irritated, especially since he has a wife who could do that chore. But, in my case, I've been with my boss for 27 years, so if he asked something out of the ordinary, unless it was illegal or immoral, I'd probably acquiesce. :)
I tutored math and science at the community college here. I'd been working at a government agency where I was concerned with population dynamics and habitat carrying capacity. After I'd been there a short while, my supervisor said I had to take a refresher course in freshman biology. It was only part-time and that would have added three hours extra per week that I didn't get paid for. I quit shortly afterward.
"I picked up a trailer in the Bay Area and they told me to deliver it to the docks in Oakland." This meant a short trip across town with a trailer that was 19,000 lbs. overweight.
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at October 26, 2018 1:01 PM MDT