She is employed by him, he wants her to water, she should water. Perhaps there could be a pair of garden clogs to slip on when going out to do the watering if it's muddy? For me, it would be a nice break to get outside for a bit. It's a short growing season and it rains sometimes, so it wouldn't be a job she would have to do everyday. I don't really see the jobs increasing to mowing or pulling weeds, but I would certainly draw the line if that were to occur.

My personal thought is if it was not outlined as part of her job description when she was originally contracted and hired then it is a no go situation unless she is approached about adding a task to her job description which should have a monetary compensation to cover it.

Unless you live in the desert, watering daily is too much.

I agree with you!! Especially if she is required to wear appropriate office attire. I would be highly upset if I wearing a nice outfit and was forced to drag a dirty hose around a wet yard in heels.

When you go into tomorrow take a can of WD40 & hand it to him to use to pry his wallet open and spring for a sprinkler system....lol

Next is cleaning the bathroom! I say if HE wants to fiddle with the sprinklers and hose all day that's fine...I assume it's his property... but he should not be asking his employees to do yard work or any other household chores, no matter what level they are.

It's not even close to what she was hired for.
I find it presumptuous to ask her to take care
of the landscaping.
(It also sounds like a lot of watering....)

He does own the place. I was expected to shovel the sidewalk and walkway, stairs and landing up to the front door for years because "you get here first". After knee surgery I could no longer do it.
We used to pay his wife (!) or son to mow the yard. His wife got a job and son went to college and he asked me to do.
I have never mowed a lawn in my life, and I'm not going to start now. Believe me, it won't stop with watering ...
When he took over the mowing, his wife had to come down here and show him where to put gas in the mower and how to start it. Not kidding!

He sounds like a cheapskate. If lawn care wasn't part of the job description when she accepted the position, he should continue doing it himself or hire someone else.

I'm of two minds ... when I grew up on the farm, when there was work to be done, whoever is available does it.

As someone said on here a while ago, farm-raised kids know how to do a lot of stuff and are willing to do whatever's asked, whenever.

And ... were I a female working in an office, and my being unwilling to work in heels notwithstanding, I'd be unwilling to drag a dirty hose through the dirt, then go back to track up a clean office (and maybe be asked to clean it?).

Your boss just might be the one who's all wet, here, maybe?

o j

Sorry, this guy appears to be a cheapskate with an 16th century feudal attitude about being an employer. It's his property and his business. If he chooses not to hire the proper services or install the right equipment for the situation, the consequences should be his. I think you did right to call him on his exploitative attitude.

Office workers do office work, gardeners and landscapers do outside work.

Nope, not at all, should she be required to water the lawn, etc. If she noticed that some plants needed watering and took a watering can to them voluntarily that's one thing, but dragging a hose around? Not on your life.

I'm also surprised that he's watering it every day. The vast majority of municipalities have restricted watering where you can only water on certain days and at certain times of the day. He would get a hefty fine if he were caught watering every day here.

There's no way that a lawn or flower bed should be watered every day, unless newly installed. Enough water should be put down at any one time to last for days.

I do agree that your office staff appearance is important, and that kind of clothing is probably not appropriate for watering.
I do have a suggestion, for extra pay she might be willing to change into jeans at the end of the day and take care of the watering. Why not discuss extra pay with your boss and then ask the employee if she would like to do that, and give her a real choice? (If she doesn't want to do it, don't press it) An extra hour of pay every day comes to more than a half day's wages by the end of the week, she might welcome that.

This post was edited by lucille on Thu, May 22, 14 at 17:03

OJ stole my word right smak dab outta my mouth,,,,

Unless it was in her job description when she was hired then no. Unless he wants to amend her job description and add it to her list of duties and pay her accordingly and increase her hours if necessary then no. She shouldn't have to do it. I don't care if he is her employer and is paying her. That attitude is why there are unions and employee protection laws.

Why doesn't he look for a HS kid that would work for cheap. Me, I would leave a job before I would do yard work. I do not do it at home I am not doing it at work, esp when I was hired to do office work.

Dang, that guy is too much!

I can not believe you had to shovel snow, that is so crazy;(

I can't believe you still work for that guy.

Laura, I laughed out loud at the WD40 comment!

OJ & Country Sunshine - she wasn't hired to work on a farm.

According to Angelaid's description of the job, she was hired at minimum wage for clerical work.

Boss certainly expects her to dress appropriately, which is difficult enough on minimum wage - and now he expects her to drag around sprinklers in her good clothes and shoes?

I'm sure if she were hired for farm or landscaping work, she'd be dressed appropriately for THAT job, and her boss wouldn't expect her to drag her muddy self into the office to file things.

No, this guy is unreasonable, and cheap to boot.

Somebody needs to slap him like Cher did in Moonstruck & tell him to get over it. Is there not some governmental agency that you can file a complaint on him??? Being told you have to do things like shovel snow & dragging a hose around is unthinkable.

I can't write it better than what has already been written....not a reasonable job duty, in my opinion.

No way! I was a clerical worker for 30+ years and there's no way I would expect to do any kind of yardwork/landscaping. Ask him if he will pay the additional workers compensation premium that would surely be necessary. Outdoor work requires much higher premiums than indoor clerical work.

When I was in my early thirties, I went to work as a legal secretary/paralegal for a law firm that had two offices in New York (one in Manhattan, one on Long Island), and one in Southern California. I was in the California office. The senior partner (Mr. G) split his time between Manhattan and California. Mr. G's wife and two kids (one son, one daughter) had moved to California, but he just couldn't make a complete break from New York.

Well, one of the first assignments Mr. G gave me involved making all of the travel and lodging arrangements for a couple hundred folks coming from New York (and surrounding area) for his son's Bar Mitzvah. Mr. G was footing the bill for all of the airfare, hotel costs, etc., etc.

I thought, "this is crazy," but, what the heck -- it filled the days. I was invited to the event, but I told Mr. G that I had no idea what to wear, as I'd never been to a Bar Mitzvah before. He just said, "don't worry about it." A couple days later, UPS delivered a big box to me at the office. Mr. G's brother owned a clothing manufacturing firm in New York, and he'd sent five complete outfits for me to try on and choose from. And then he told me to keep all of them. He also owned a shoe store, so he gave me shoes and handbags to match each outfit.

Then one day he gave me another odd assignment -- he wanted me to type his daughter's term paper for school! I thought he'd really crossed the line with that one. I called my sister and vented to her. She said, "Hey, he's paying you to type, right? What difference does it make if you're typing Answers to Interrogatories or typing a term paper?" The difference, to me, was that one was law-related and the other wasn't. But, I had to agree that typing was typing, so what the heck.

But what Angelaid's boss is asking is not even remotely related to clerical work, and is totally out of line.

If he is too cheap to get sprinklers then tell him to get a bunch of soaker hoses and an automated system that hooks to the hoses and turns them on and off on the days you select for the time periods you select.

I have a system like that in my front flower bed. Here in North Houston we must water some daily in this heat or everything dies. Using the soaker hoses works great because it allows the water to soak in and not run off.

My husband set up the system we have but your boss sounds like he lacks much ability to do anything. He could hire someone. We got the valve system at Lowes and the soaker hoses too. You can set it up in zones to water at various times.

This is the one we have, it can control 4 hoses or zones. We have a short regular hose connected to each valve then the soaker hoses laid out where they need to be. If the mower is set high enough you c mow right over the soaker hoses, especially if you get the flat soaker hoses. Then no one has to worry about the watering.

Here is a link that might be useful: Control valve

What a tight wad!!!

And I agree with Ravencajun, if yard work was not included in original job description, never mind!

And if he wants to change her job description to add this chore, pay accordingly. I'm sure that would never happen since he's so cheap.

Tell him to ask the office helper himself.

We've never had any sort of water restrictions up here. He doesn't water the entire lawn every day, he'll do a side yard one day, the front one day, other side yard the next day, then start all over again. So each part of the yard is only getting watered every third or fourth day.
He was on his way to play golf when he stormed out of here yesterday, so I'm sure he was fuming about it on the golf course. I'm thinking one, or more, of his colleagues told him it was ridiculous to expect your office staff to do your yard work, because he hasn't said one more word about it.
The attorney next door drags his own hose around. I've never seen his secretary out there doing it, and she's his wife! LOL