How do I tell someone that "it's not my job" without sounding lazy or rude?

Question

I am a freelance graphic/web designer. I am paid a flat fee to design and send the company's HTML enewsletter to their customers and wholesalers. At the onset of this deal, I was told by the company's owner that I would be supplied text and images by their PR person (or sometimes their marketing assistant), and then I would do my part. At first, I received everything that I was supposed to. The next newsletter, I had to hunt down some images. The one after that, they tried to add a few additional sections, which I had to negotiate more money for. This newsletter, the text is missing for a couple of sections. all that I received for it was the heading and a note to call so-and-so for text and images. How do I tell this PR person that I am not being paid to do this without sounding lazy or rude? I am hesitant to get the company's owner involved-I don't want to sound inept or unprofessional. Any ideas on how to handle this PR person?

Answer 1

Say it exactly as you just did.
It's not in the original scope of the job and to either do it right the way the first time or you'll be having a chat with the person who hired you to redefine both your responsibilities and your pay scale.

All they've got to do is their job. If they can't hack it, I think the owner has a right to know it.

Answer 2

I just hate it when people do what you have described. Don't let it be a problem for you, they obviously don't care if it is.

Write the PR person and tell them that you would love to be able to be flexible with your deadlines and work-flow, but that you have to maintain the agreement that you have with them, in order to be fair to all your clients. Restate the basics of your agreement specifically regarding the part that states the information will be provided to you. Next month, send out a reminder notice one week before the deadline stating that you need your text and images no late than XX-XX-XX.

I would bet that this issue is irritating to you, but not even a passing thought to them. They shouldn't get worked up about it, as long as you are polite.

Answer 3

The way you say it is very important. The way I do something like that is to talk to the pr guy in a very friendly way. People find it hard to act bossy when you do that. But at the same time what you say has to be firm. You can also say that you would do the extra work for an additional price, and make it reasonable. The best way you can act is to be honest with them, while letting them know that you are not going to back down.

Answer 4

Don't concern yourself with whether or not you're being lazy or rude. Obviously your coworker isn't concerned with being lazy or rude by giving you his/her work to do. Sometimes coworkers will test a new employee's boundaries to see how far they can go.

But more than likely that's not the case since you don't know what your coworker's duties are. It is a possibility that the employee before you handled those tasks and your coworker is just maintaining the status quo. Or it could be a lack of clarity in the job description between your coworker and the company owner. It would be helpful in a situation like that to be able to refer to some sort of performance plan which details your duties.

Treat your coworker as you would like to be treated and give him/her the benefit of the doubt. Simply inform your coworker of your understanding of your list of duties, and determine if a discrepancy exists. If you learn from that conversation that there appears to be some disagreement, then schedule a meeting with the company owner and your coworker to clear up those differences. You might be surprised to find out that your coworker was not aware of what was expected from him/her.

Answer 5

Try calling this person and saying something to the effect of "I know you must be terribly busy, but I can't get the work done on the page if I'm trying to find the information that you were supposed to have ready for me. I'd really appreciate it if we could stick to the original job description in which I am the designer/sender and you do the info collecting. That would include gathering it all yourself and then giving it to me, rather than telling me to call someone else and get the info. That isn't my job, it's yours. You get paid to do that, and I get paid to design the webpage. Let's keep it at that."

Hope this helps a little.

Answer 6

Just tell the PR person that it's just too much work for one person. It sounds like you're a hard-working person and I'm sure they see that (otherwise they wouldn't be taking advantage of you like this) but you're only ONE person. It doesn't even have to be more money, maybe even a decrease in workload, or the hiring of another employee to help out on the project. Try pitching those ideas to your PR person or whoever is above you and the thought of ineptness and unprofessionalism won't even come to their minds.

Answer 7

So ti sounds like you are a contractor for this company and not an actual employee (on payroll) for this company. If you have a contract of your work agreement (contract) of your responsibilities then I would suggest that you bring it to the attention of the PR person and let them know nicely and professionally and if they would still like you to do the work explain to them that you will need to contact the "hire up's" with an amendment to the contract and addiing more money before you do anything else. Lots of luck

Answer 8

As a professional it is important that you let whomever you made the contract with that you are unable to do your side because you are not getting what is needed. It need not be adversarial, just a simple statement of fact.

Along with the request, you can mention that you might be willing to expand your role provided that compensation can be arranged. It sounds like you already did this to some extent when they expanded content.

Once you start doing other peoples work, people will assume that that is part of what you are being paid to do unless you make it clear that you are only doing it temporarily as a stop gap.

Answer 9

You can always tell them that this is not in your job description. Or follow your chain of command and tell them the problems you are having. Let them know that the person(s) responsible for the other parts of the job are not doing what they are supposed to and that makes you do twice the work without the pay. I Hate when that happens, because when you do all the work, you don't get all the credit.

Answer 10

Don't do it my email first of all. This is always a bad way to work out a problem. If they are in your area, having a lunch or face to face meeting and talking to them about the issue is best. In the business world, breaking bread with someone is the best choice to work out problems. Or if this isn't possible, call them when you are in a good state of mind:), and talk to them, tell them you are a team player, but to do your job and help them also, you need to have them help the team with the information you need to be professional. Then send them a thank you card. You get more with sugar than vinergar. God Bless.

Answer 11

Next time ask the PR person for a "purchase order" to cover the extra time needed to contact and obtain the additional information.

Odds are he will need approval which will bring it to other people's attention.

Either it will stop or you will get paid for the additional time.