Usually, when I do my job or something else which is off my duties at the time, I don't naturally care if this will be seen or noticed by anybody. The reason I am doing it is because as a result things just flow easier and future problems are cut from the roots. But later, I sometimes get accused that I'm doing less than the others. I guess some of you have had similar situations. Or, actually, have you?

I will try give a couple of examples to portray exactly what I mean:

1) Once I lived with a few room-mates in the same flat. Everybody had different schedules during the week. Everybody used to clean the apartment whenever it was convenient with their time. The time I was cleaning was in work days when everybody was at their job-places as I was a university-student at the time and was running on a different schedule. One of the room-mates was doing his cleaning on early Saturday mornings when everybody was still asleep or just waking up and trying to have a peaceful cup of coffee on a lazy weekend morning. I had the sick feeling that he was doing it on purpose. He was constantly blaming us that we're not cleaning the house well or regularly enough and he used the fact that he was cleaning as a solid arguement for doing it exactly when it was everybody's leisure time - this way he made sure he was seen by everybody and nobody was supposed to complain it was a Saturday morning because he was doing something that was for "the good of all people living in this flat". Not long after that, we just really stopped bothering about cleaning regularly and let him do the dirty job and fully play the "martyr" role he had chosen for himself. We knew the floors would be cleaned each Saturday and it was worth one spoiled morning. But this was an easy one, unlike the next example:

2) At my current position as a hotel receptionist I also live in the same hotel where I work. I often go fix hotel-issues when it's not my working time. The reason: I'm helping my younger colleagues having less problems (something they can't fix themselves) and also because this would ease my job the next day (or night) when my shift is on, plus - I gain more experience and knowledge in hotel matters. This said, I believe, I am not complaining about something I needed not subject myself to but it's just the fact that recently my boss accused me of "not giving a fuck about this hotel when your shift is over!" whilen, in reality, it's exactly the oposite.

So: Do you think that in such cases it's better to just stop bothering and start doing less (because it's not appreciated at all) or when doing this extra job, one should make big fuss about it and make sure that everybody from the dark roots in the earth to the birds in the sky won't miss noticing it?

Better idea: change your policy.
Tell your colleagues that before you will help them, that you require an email stating the nature of the problem (or keep a journal). After approximately one month, your records of "off-duty" maintenance should be quite full. When and if the boss begins to "troubleshoot" you or criticize you concerning your time spent out of the office, do the following. Calmly say, "I don't mean to be rude, but I have been keeping a journal / email account which reflects my business 'after business hours;' if you would like to see it, please let me know." If he asks to see it, then hopefully you will have each event documented showing the "5 Ws:" who, what, when, where, and why. Hope this helps. I've run into some similar situations and these awkward business relationships really "irk" me.

Alonocus Blight, that is a great idea and one I will start to apply myself. If you don't mind.

I'm glad I could be of some help. Please use this strategy, and don't forget to say the following, "I don't meant to be rude, but," and then BE RUDE!

Yep! And batter my pretty long eyelashes as I do so. Yay!

The phrase in English would be "bat my long, pretty, eyelashes".



In (American) English, "to batter" means to take some food that is to be fried in fats or oils, and coat them with a flour mixture before frying whatever it is. Like fried chicken. "Batter" is the coating of flour itself.

So your phrase is very amusing and a bit disturbing, image-wise.

What you said is true, but the inquisitive trouble maker may feel as if he or she has been BATTERED after receiving this form of tactful rudeness.

(As)sa(u)lt and battery?

This made me laugh so much I choked!
I ran it through wiki and apparently, "batter" also means "to hit or strike violently and repeatedly", amongst other things.

I have five languages spooking in my brain all the time and sometimes one gets mixed with the other, in this case the german word "schlagen" got mixed up with "beat, beaten, bat and batter".

I am going to try not to cook my eyelashes and not to hit anyone with them either. But I will blow a little kiss your way Quaark.

Fish Batter

Thank you, Alonocus Blight for your idea and everybody else for the fun conversation!
I may apply this and keep a journal. I'll refrain from the e-mail concept - it's good but 70% of my colleagues are sneaky envious small-minded people who are even not computer-literate (believe it or not), they have been working here for many summers and if I make them send those e-mails or have them sign my journals, they might report some "behind the curtains activity" to the boss, them little weasels.

However, when I started, the agreement was that if I perform well on my job, this will be appreciated by a small sallary raise each month. I just got my 2nd sallary today, there was no raise compared to the 1st. So, I will definitelly rethink the idea of doing any extra work at all... I think when I'm off my shifts I will just rather "batter" my eyelashes and do nothing (for the hotel)