Strange assisgnments...

[editorus]

In all your jobs, what has been the strangest assignment you have ever been given?


One out of my history, more years ago then I would like to admit I was on a temp position and typed a document, after completing it I was asked to go through the whole document and make each period, exclamation, hyphen, etc blue.  A dark blue you couldn't even tell wasn't black.  To this day I have no idea why I was asked to do that or the purpose.  

[JessW]

Could that be more to do with security that strange, ie if it were printed in colour for distribution but there were a security leak and the document got photocopied then the punctuation would not copy over (something to do with the same reason forms have to be filled out in black ink) and it would be obvious that somebody was either careless or selling the 'family' secrets?

[lucy123]

try this one.....

whilst working for an Arab bank in London, UK.  I was asked by the MD of the bank to provide "ladies of a certain skill" for all of the senior men coming over from Saudi.  I had to go around each of the posh hotels on Park Lane and speak with the concierges in each hotel so that something could be arranged.

Suffice to say, but I didn't last long in that job.

[spitfire78]

Don't know if this qualifies as "strange" but it was illegal (and is probably the only assignment I have ever just flat out refused to do, even though I thought I might lose my job).  My first full-time job out of high school was secretary in a nursing home.  All of the employees who worked in the kitchen were required by law to have a tuberculin test every year.  The state was due in for an inspection and all of the employees had not had the test.  So, they asked me to sign a form for each employee saying that they had passed the test.  When I refused, they had the administrator of the nursing home come to me about it.  She told me that it didn't really matter because of course all of the employees were going to get the test eventually anyway - so it was really just a technicality.  I still refused.  Thought I might get fired over it, but didn't.  They had one of the other department heads (physical therapy, if I remember correctly) do it.  

Incidentally, that's where my "spitfire" name came from - the administrator said to me "you are a little spitfire, aren't you" when I stood my ground about this issue.

[Jackie G]

Lucy

And you did it?  I certainly would not have!

Jackie, Peer Moderator
www.iqps.org

[msmarieh]

Over the years I have received a lot of strange requests, as I have had some pretty interesting bosses.

One of the assignments I declined was to get my (previous) boss's underage girlfriend a fake ID.

On the other hand, one of the fun strange assignments that he gave me was to set up a stock account with $150,000 in it and tell me to play, but make him money. I got paid a commission on gains, but I didn't get any repercussion for losses. That was fun! I had him up $70,000 at one point.

Marie

[joysmile60]

A few years back, while all my managers were in the office for a meeting, my boss asked me to find a place that would rent a judge's costume (robe, wig & gavel).  After I found one, quite a few miles away, I picked it up and brought it back.  In the time I was gone, he must have changed his mind and didn't want to wear it......I was not a happy camper.  I think when he saw the expression on my face, he decided it was a good idea to just put it on!

:)60
Joyce

[radaro]

I once had to buy a semi-truck (an 18 wheeler) for our company.  I've never even bought a car for myself without my dad or husband being there.  This was an example of when you learn to draw on your resources and I was able to pull it off with the help of a colleague and our legal department.

When my boss was new to the city (and the country for that matter), I had to help him out by finding a pool cleaner.  Once I had to call animal control because a family of stray cats was living under his porch!

[geminigirl]

I've had to source a particular type of rabbit poison, find someone to build a luxury treehouse and a tennis court, find a tailor to narrow in tied to a particular width, wait in for the Aga man ... the list is endless and these are just the choice ones!

My particular favourite, though, was trying to get hold of some *real* feather dusters.  If you ever need to do this, you can find absolutely everything feather-related at ostriches.com.  Honest ;-)

I often say that you couldn't make my job up - and that sometimes it doesn't seem like a job for a grown-up!

[lioness]

For one boss, I had to find him a new apartment after he and his wife separated, then wait for the cable guy after he'd moved in. For another, I had to go to his house and search the bedroom closet for a black belt--he had a board meeting to attend and had forgotten his belt, but his wife was out of town and the housekeeper didn't speak a word of English so she couldn't help me; take the car in for servicing, make haircut appointments, some of the usual stuff PAs do.

Lioness, Queen of the Jungle

[cmeknit]

That last post jogged my memory ... I had to buy a luxury car for someone I worked with about 10 years ago.  He told me what he wanted, but I did everything with the dealer.   Then when the car arrived, bossie was still overseas, so I picked up the car and got to drive it for about a week (bossie was sure I'd do a better job of "breaking in" the car than he would).  I'll never have a car that nice, and it was a real treat.

[Jackie G]

I worked in an advertising agency so was used to strange requests.

The most odd, and most challenging:

about 4.30/5 pm one night was asked to find a sofa - Chesterfield type - not leather, but not fabric, which was to be used the NEXT DAY in a tv commercial we were making, but we were going to dye it so it had to cost less than £100.

This was pre-lots of late night shopping, but I rang round loads of places and eventually got a well known furniture retailer who had a vinyl sofa just what I wanted.  I then had to arrange for it to come from near Stirling to Edinburgh (about 3/4 hour drive) by van, where it was sprayed and dried overnight to be used in the tv commercial.

The commercial, by the way, was for a bank and about bank loans.  It was a really surreal ad, the client didn't like it much and so it was hardly used.  But they coughed up the money for the sofa (and for making the commercial, obviouslyl!)

Jackie, Peer Moderator
www.iqps.org

[secretaryman]

Once when I was a personal assistant, my boss asked me to babysit his three small children. His wife was away on a business trip and he had to entertain business clients in town that evening.