What's your unofficial role in work?

[MamaAndTheSofa]

Chatting to a couple of friends the other day, we were discussing how we all have unofficial roles in work - roles that are never in any job description, but which someone has to do.

Mine is "Attender of funerals". When we feel we ought to send someone from the office to a funeral (eg a colleagues mum has died or something), it always ends up being me.

Another friend is the unofficial knot un-tier; if anyone has a knot they can't undo (which seems to happen ridiculously often in his work, as far as I can tell), they come to him and he undoes it.

Another friend is the one who always has hand cream.

What are yours?

Provider of painkillers. Unblocker of toilets. Catcher of creepy crawlies. Fixer of broken things….

Changer of fire alarm batteries and fixer of printers.

"Have you checked about GDPR?" when someone is about to do something and you just know they haven't done the GDPR.

Tax advisor 🤣

Provider of anti bac wipes!

Provider of pain killers here too!

Checker of punctuation and spelling

Sender of cards

IT support can you convert this word doc to pdf? Can you show me how to download a file from SharePoint? How do I add something to my favourites? How do I send an internal doc to an external client? My camera wont work. How do I share my screen? Can you show me how to set up my new phone?

It's starting to grate a bit.

I’m most of my colleagues first port of call for IT problems even though our office is next to the IT department!

Fix the printer

Careful with the first one. I know someone who has been suspended for that.

Poo Monitor.

I work in care. I have a strong stomach. But I’m still not entirely sure how it happened.

The one that throws stuff away. Invoices that have been in the cupboard since 2007. Biscuits that went out of date in lockdown. Dusty handcream that belongs to the person that left before I joined.

Catering manager. I’m the only one who remembers to bring in milk.

Tea fund, emptier and un blocker of shredders, change cartridges for printers, unblock printers, fixer of everything.

Birthday card and flowers buyer

After-work drinks organizer...but at least this means i can organize drinks on days I can definitely attend.

Emptier of fridge grossness.

The Finder of lost things

I'm always asked by colleagues to provide them with alternative text in leaving cards, so everyone doesn't write exactly the same thing as the first person who wrote in it.

I'm retired now but I was chief tea towel washer. If I hadn't done it, the same towel would have been used for years 🤢

Person who says "no".
Emotional support person to a whole range of people it seems
Organiser of works drinks
Owner of the staple remover

Buyer of Easter Eggs and organiser of team activities. I had to take a day off sick after the last one, so will tone that down a bit.

Fixer of and refilling ink in the printer and IT support relating to printing anything other than a basic A4 sheet