Where should the line be drawn?
Those of you who have been following along for a while know that I'm a temporary-agency employee who's currently assigned to an international retailer. Specifically, I work in International Trade Compliance. My primary job is to prepare certain documentation as part of any transaction which involves exporting goods. I also help maintain databases of products, which record some particular export data for each product.
It's the second part of that which is starting to be interesting...and a bit worrisome.
The company is working with an external vendor to automate part of the database-maintenance process. Right now, we have to enter data into two separate systems. One of those systems requires that each record be completed manually, which is a royal pain when you're updating 300 records in one go. The other can be batch-updated, and in fact, I wrote a set of VBA macros for an Excel spreadsheet which automates the formatting of the file which performs the batch update. That set of macros has gained acceptance within the department, even though no one outside the department even knows it exists (which doesn't bother me at all). What's got me a bit nervous is that even though it increases my longevity on this assignment, I'm being given tasks which are increasingly falling outside the realm of the original job description, and instead shifting more and more into the sphere of "information technology". But my pay rate hasn't changed from the "general administrative/clerical" scale.
I understand that almost any position to which I'm assigned, either as a temp or as a permanent hire, has a line in the job description which says something along the lines of "other duties as assigned or implied". But even though I've studied some IT topics in the past, and have more than a "general knowledge" acumen in the field, I'm starting to feel like I'm being taken advantage of. The documentation I'm preparing for this project will wind up complying with IEEE Standard 829, "Software Testing Documentation Standards". Someone doing that job full-time as a permanent employee of any major company would be making three times my pay grade, as a bare minimum. Even someone who occasionally writes VBA macros would be making double my pay grade.
So at what point do I corner the Powers That Be and tell them, "you're wanting me to work well above my pay grade, and I can't afford that"?
If I don't time it exactly right, I'll find my "temporary" assignment at an abrupt end. If I remain silent, I continue to undercut myself, and it's not cheap to live here...in fact, I'm living in a city which was recently called "seventh most expensive nationwide".
I wish I could say these were all hypothetical musings, but alas, earwax, they aren't.
But meanwhile, I have to get ready to go to the office and continue to work for far less than I think I'm worth.
*poof*
It's the second part of that which is starting to be interesting...and a bit worrisome.
The company is working with an external vendor to automate part of the database-maintenance process. Right now, we have to enter data into two separate systems. One of those systems requires that each record be completed manually, which is a royal pain when you're updating 300 records in one go. The other can be batch-updated, and in fact, I wrote a set of VBA macros for an Excel spreadsheet which automates the formatting of the file which performs the batch update. That set of macros has gained acceptance within the department, even though no one outside the department even knows it exists (which doesn't bother me at all). What's got me a bit nervous is that even though it increases my longevity on this assignment, I'm being given tasks which are increasingly falling outside the realm of the original job description, and instead shifting more and more into the sphere of "information technology". But my pay rate hasn't changed from the "general administrative/clerical" scale.
I understand that almost any position to which I'm assigned, either as a temp or as a permanent hire, has a line in the job description which says something along the lines of "other duties as assigned or implied". But even though I've studied some IT topics in the past, and have more than a "general knowledge" acumen in the field, I'm starting to feel like I'm being taken advantage of. The documentation I'm preparing for this project will wind up complying with IEEE Standard 829, "Software Testing Documentation Standards". Someone doing that job full-time as a permanent employee of any major company would be making three times my pay grade, as a bare minimum. Even someone who occasionally writes VBA macros would be making double my pay grade.
So at what point do I corner the Powers That Be and tell them, "you're wanting me to work well above my pay grade, and I can't afford that"?
If I don't time it exactly right, I'll find my "temporary" assignment at an abrupt end. If I remain silent, I continue to undercut myself, and it's not cheap to live here...in fact, I'm living in a city which was recently called "seventh most expensive nationwide".
I wish I could say these were all hypothetical musings, but alas, earwax, they aren't.
But meanwhile, I have to get ready to go to the office and continue to work for far less than I think I'm worth.
*poof*