Other Duties As Assigned

I worked in Human Resources, what feels like a lifetime ago, and I used to always laugh at the job descriptions that I wrote for literally every single job in our company. The last responsibility was always, "other duties as assigned," basically saying that your job is defined by these other 8 bullet points... but if we ask you to do something, your job is to do that, too. It's a "cover your ass" way of telling your staff that there ain't nothin' outside of your duties, so be ready to work.

I always laughed, because my "other duties" always seemed way out there and very frequent. I would be assigned anything from planning Christmas parties to helping my Director write a slide slow presentation at 10p on a Friday night to forging letters from our Commissioner to put in the annual report. My other duties sometimes seemed to outweigh and outnumber my real duties. But now that I am a stay home mom... I have found that my "other duties as assigned" category has gotten way out of hand.

Apparently one other duty is puke clean up. If one of our four legged family members loses their lunch, it is my duty to clean it up. I didn't know that. I figured whoever found it first should be the one to remedy the sitch asap. But, I learned this morning that if someone other than me stumbles upon the lovely gift (aka literally steps into it at 6:01am), they are to wake me.... begrudgingly clean up the large chunks when it becomes clear that I am not waking up for puke clean up.... and leave the ugly orange stain for me to take care of later.

My "other duties" also seem to include breakfast. Now I realize that I blogged about turning over a new leaf and providing a home cooked, healthy breakfast for Mark and Tabbi in the morning, but sometimes, that new leaf gets tired and it wants to sleep in. On Thursdays, when I drop Will off at school and don't have to get in the shower til 7:30.... my new leaf thinks that Mark and Tabbi can get their own food. And sometimes, on Mondays when I don't have the groceries for something fresh, my leaf decides that it should just sleep an extra 30 minutes because Mark and Tabbi can nuke their own food.... but, no. That leaf is wrong. I get huffy sighs and sarcasm if I don't provide the food. I thought I was being nice.... but apparently it's my job.

Other duties can also deal with bobby pins. I didn't know I was the bobby pin supervisor, but I must be, despite the fact that my hair is so short I can't use them. But, Tabbi had a fun up do on Saturday, and apparently asking our hair stylist to do something fun with her hair means that I have to then clean up the 47 pins when they come out and are spread all over the house by child and beast.

My other duties could go on forever, but I can't... because it is almost 7:50a and my real duties need to be done.