How should I push back against my job assigning "homework"?

Question

I was placed on a personal improvement program a few weeks ago for making too much conversation at work. I had to move my desk to my manager's office and we started a much more intensive training program to get me up to speed, since for 8 months no one would assign me any work except for easy scripts or stupid impossible tasks like "Make a program that lets me speak to Microsoft Word". The job is bioinformatics by the way, and yes I'm actively applying for new jobs.

The project manager who's doing this training is assigning me homework, and I've already said that I'll only do it if I have time at work. I didn't for this last assignment, and he got mad and said this looks bad for me on a PIP, and I should be doing it at home to prove that I "want to stay here".

I'm paid hourly, not a salary, so this really would be working for free. What's a good way to push back against this?

Answer 1

The direct answer to your question is: If, as you say, you are paid hourly, then you could say that you expect to be paid for any extra time that you have to put in and that you will record this time on your timesheet. (Or however hours are kept.) You could soften it by saying, "hey, I just can't keep up with this workload", i.e. make it your problem instead of a complaint about the company.

That said, how much "homework" are you being asked to do? If it's 8 hours a day, then yeah, I'd push back. If it's a few hours a week, I'd just do it.

You say that you're being given this work because you were reprimanded for an earlier infraction. I don't know if that complaint about your work was justified or not, or reasonable or not. But in general I'd advise you to suck it up and do what you're asked. Unless it is really over the top unreasonable. Even then, I'd say if at all possible, do it while you are looking for another job.

I've had jobs where I didn't like something the company asked me to do for one reason or another. My response has always been to do what I was asked while looking for another job. That way you can leave on good terms. You never know what will happen in the future. Maybe some day you'll want to come back to this company. Maybe someday you'll get another job and your old boss from this company will be there. I've had several times that I found myself working with people that I had known from a previous job.

Sure, I've seen those scenes in movies where someone curses the boss out and storms out in righteous indignation. I don't doubt that it feels good. But aside from the emotional surge, it does you zero good, and may do you active harm. That might be appropriate if the company demanded you do something illegal or that violates your morals, but not for a routine complaint.

Answer 2

I had to move my desk to my manager's office and we started a much more intensive training program to get me up to speed, since for 8 months no one would assign me any work except for easy scripts or stupid impossible tasks like "Make a program that lets me speak to Microsoft Word". The job is bioinformatics by the way, and yes I'm actively applying for new jobs.

The project manager who's doing this training is assigning me homework, and I've already said that I'll only do it if I have time at work. I didn't for this last assignment, and he got mad and said this looks bad for me on a PIP, and I should be doing it at home to prove that I "want to stay here".

I'm paid hourly, not a salary, so this really would be working for free. What's a good way to push back against this?

Since you don't want to stay there and you have already decided you don't want to do the work for free, simply say that you won't do unpaid work from home. Then don't do it.

Clearly you are on a path to be gone soon anyway, and this will make them angry again. Being on a Performance Improvement Plan pretty much always assures that you will either quit or be fired at the end no matter what you do but it doesn't appear that you care. So no use doing any free work.

You could offer to stay and work extra hours in the office (i.e., not for free) if you so choose.

Answer 3

If you're interested in remaining employed there, and the number of hours of this "homework" isn't excessive, then maybe you should consider doing it, seeing as you've spent some number of hours for which you were paid doing personal things like posting on Workplace.

That seems like a fair and equitable way of dealing with this.

They pay you to work. You've been paid for time that you were at work but were doing personal things. If you want them to respect your time and money then you must respect theirs. If you want to get paid for the time that you work then you must work for the time that you get paid for.

It's a two way street.

Answer 4

Define homework.

If you're being asked to do workplace tasks in your own time, that clearly isn't acceptable. If the homework is directly linked to a project, consider complaining.

However, you say you're on a PIP. This implies that you are lacking key skills to do your job - and not just that, but that you were probably lacking those skills when you started. An employer can use a PIP to give you the chance to acquire and practice those skills, but it would be a stretch to assume that they had to let you do it all on work time. If the homework is more like working through maths exercises, then absolutely you can be expected to do that kind of studying in your own time.

Of course you can choose not to. But if you're on a PIP, you're being given a last chance to prove you want to stay at the company and do that job. At any point, if it doesn't look like you're taking that opportunity, they can fire you. So that's your call really.

Answer 5

Instead of spending work-time on stack exchange, do you work.

Then do stack exchange at home.

This eliminates the need for homework and will serve you well should you stay at this job or go to another. If you do the work well, it will effectively make the PIP successful, and you will be too.

Answer 6

Get an email from your manager instructing you that it should be done at home, outside regular hours.

Do it, put in the hours for it on your time-sheet, like you would for any other work. If they don't pay you, file an unpaid wage claim with your state DoL (or federal DoL if you're in Florida).

If they terminate you after the unpaid wage claim, file a wrongful termination complaint with the DoL.

They then have a fun time of proving it wasn't retaliation regarding your unpaid wage claim, especially once the PIP and 'homework' comes up during the investigation, which you will make sure it does.

After the unpaid wage claim, they will know that any termination will result in the DoL coming a-knockin', and don't want that headache, so they likely won't fire you. Employers are exceedingly labor lawsuit averse, oddly enough.

If they do fire you, you're not really any worse off as now you likely have unemployment (which they likely won't fight due to the unpaid wage claim) and your unpaid wage payout to buoy you while you job search.

Your state DoL website is a good resource to reference regarding your legal protections RE: unpaid wages, claims, and retaliation.

EDIT: I want to add - this isn't bulletproof. Legal processes take a while, you could lose your claims, it's all down to 'what will the other people involved in this process decide.', but I offer it as an alternative to 'grin and bear it', and I personally think it's a reasonable course.

Answer 7

Let's look at the big picture, here. It may not be your fault, but it sounds like you do not match their expectations of you. If that's true, then the only thing worse than staying would be to get another job which has the similar expectations.

"Since for 8 months no one would assign me any work..."

For whatever reason, you have not been able to meet the company's needs for 8 months. Perhaps your hiring manager misunderstood your level of experience. Perhaps you misunderstood their expectations. Interviewing is hard, and we all get it wrong.

It sounds like they were hoping you would show more initiative, since they did not prepare someone to train you 8 months ago. In fact, it may be that all of the people who are qualified to train you are already stretched thin within their own roles.

"... except for easy scripts or stupid impossible tasks like "Make a program that lets me speak to Microsoft Word".

The folks assigning work to you may not be qualified to do your job. They may not even be qualified to know exactly what your job is, or what the difference is between a small script and voice recognition software.

If that is the case, they were hoping that you were fully equipped to carry out that role on your own, without support from a more senior developer; or perhaps that you would seek and find your own mentorship within the company. In other words, these people view your professional development as your problem to solve; they need you to be ready to meet their needs right away.

"... we started a much more intensive training program to get me up to speed..."

So now, you have been assigned a PM, who is likely working extra hours to get his/her primary job done. That person is covering for your mistakes. He does not care if it was your fault or not. He does not care if you must do homework, because your job is now his homework. His success in his role is now tied (at least partially) to you. His priority is to make sure he does nothing wrong so that he will not be blamed if you fail.

This PM could look bad by giving you leniency, because (ostensibly) the PM's job is to get you ready to meet the company's expectations. In reality, I've heard that a PIP is often a formality, to make sure they do not get sued when they fire you.

Be careful how much you push back. Charging the company for the hours you spend outside of work sounds reasonable to me. However, know that if you push back too much, you are already very close to being fired. That will give you more time to focus on your job search. Do you have enough in savings to survive for a few weeks or months?

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I would look for a job which has more opportunity to train you. A recruiter can help you find a good fit. My first employer did not emphasize experience, and would take anyone who said they were willing to learn to program. My boss was also a software developer (the position I was hired for), and he would feed me any task in three or four pieces if I could not grasp the big picture myself. Also, because he was a developer, he knew exactly how much I should be able to accomplish in my first week, and did not overwhelm me. He spent time finding the perfect tasks for me to get started on, so I could train by developing code to go into the product.

That was a lot of extra work for my boss! He was willing to do all that because he could not afford to reward someone for experience. He had a limited budget, and the company had a policy of hiring on one-year contracts: no full-time employees. Before hiring me, he had just lost or let go everyone in my role, and I was the first of three replacements he had hired. I had no future there, but it was a great place to start out.

My second job required me to display a lot more initiative. I was not ready for it, and nearly got fired in the first year. Someone else covered my mistakes, and I adapted. This experience is part of your adaptation. I'm sorry that the job is not working out, but it will be an important step to build your future. Hang in there!