To be pissed off with people expecting you to do your job in your spare time for them. (For free!)

[user1484750550]

Not so much an AIBU, as I don't think I AM being unreasonable. Just wanted peoples views/opinions/advice etc...

Have people ever had this happen before? People expecting you to do your job in your own time, for free? And how did you deal with it?

Or are you actually experiencing something like this at the moment?

It has happened to my DH, my brother, my friend's husband, and now to me. I don't want to say too much, as it may identify me, but I have recently started a new job (say for example a hairdresser,) and I have had a couple of people asking me to do their hair for them (in my own time for free!)

DH is a mechanic and has been asked by 3 or 4 people in the past 3 months ALONE, to 'come and have a quick look at their car,' and deal with the problem they have, for free obviously.

My brother who is a carpenter, gets badgered too, to do random carpentry jobs for people, (for free!) and he's thinking of saying to the 5 or 6 people who keep asking him to do things for him, that his employer no longer allows it and he will get the sack if he is caught.

My friend's husband is a gardener, and keeps being asked (by extended family and neighbours) to come and do this and that for them in their gardens, and is never offered anything for it.

So has anyone else experienced this, and how did you deal with it? How did you deal with people expecting you to do your actual job for free for them in your spare time?

(The jobs I have said we all have are examples btw...)

On a dreadful afternoon, years ago, I ran to my NDN saying please look at my husband as I knew she was a GP. They had moved in a few months before, but we didn't know them. She came over, and told me to call the ambulance, and looked after my small child, then 7 until I could contact someone else. Thanks to her, my OH is still with us, and they are now very dear friends. I am forever grateful that she was so kind.

I think an exception in that kind of emergency no-one would object to.
Expecting her to look at the (hypothetical) boil in your armpit is another thing...

Gin, very accurately read, I was definitely panicked. A few minutes delay would have been decisive.

I've recently qualified in a holistic Therapy and am constantly getting people either expecting freebies or a reduced rate. I was swapping with one person last year, they know I'm now charging and qualified yet have sent 3 different people over with the expectation of discounted rates, one was going on in the initial consultation about possibly referring their clients to me when they finish their current studies, then looked horrified when I charged them at the end. I knew I'd never see them again!

StrangeParasite, thanks. We don't usually trespass on favours, I hope never. That was the exception, a one off we hope.

This happens to me All. The. Time. I genuinely love what I do so I have often ended up agreeing enthusiastically to do favours, then when I'm snowed under trying to get everything done, cursed myself. I've also found that friends getting freebies sometimes just don't value what I've done for them, which can be very disheartening.

Mostly now I tell friends that verbal advice is free; I'll cheerfully pop round and give them my thoughts in return for a cup of tea, and I'm always happy to answer quick text questions because I do usually know the answer straight away. I do find it quite amusing that I get one sentence texts from people I haven't seen or spoken to for years, asking me stuff.

I've also enjoyed some skill swapping e.g. an hour of my time in return for a home made cake, and once a lovely reflexology session. I think this is a great way of going about things.

Lately, when I really don't want to get involved I just tell people I'm up to capacity and I'll give them a shout 'next year', or I explain that I'm having to limit my work now as I've done my back in. Which is all quite true, actually.

My son is a trades man, we've been telling him for years you don't have friends in business. He does how ever swap certain jobs for things he wants doing outside of his expertise. If he does things for my hubby & I we pay him as we would have to pay another tradesman, but if hubby does anything for him, no money changes hands as my dad has always said " you kids didn't ask to come into this world, that was our decision. So we help both of our sons equally. ( -Our other son is also a tradesman)

DH is a neurosurgeon and this happens to him all the time!

He never minds people asking advice about general things- especially if they're just asking how the referral systems work etc, but he's sick of explaining that he can't just randomly "log in" to folk's medical records and dispense advice.

People want to show him their colicky babies and complex antihypertensive medication regimes, and don't ever seem to believe him when he explains that no- really- their GP will know FAR MORE.

The worst is the requests for prescriptions. He always explains that the GMC absolutely forbid prescribing for friends/family except in dire situations, but people get really sniffy about it. We have one ex-friend who made an awful fuss when he refused to prescribe her Diazepam for a flight. As though his professional registration isn't important!

Sorry- rant over

Dog
You have got to put a stop to this she is taking the puss. She knows she wouldn't get childcare for all day for a tenner. Just say "no i have time off for my family not to look after yours"over and over.

Not me, but my husband is always expected to do jobs relating to his job and also his hobby/occasional job and gets nothing for it. Best one was when he spent hours doing a freebie for someone who lives in our road (we had lived there 2 years max at the time) saw him in the pub not long after, not even an offer of a pint for my husband. He did kindly say that his friend was gonna add my husband on facebook as he has a similar problem that needs fixing!!! A person my husband has never even met! Thankfully I had already told him that I thought this guy we knew was taking the piss not even getting him a token gift for his time/effort so my husband said "oh thats fine, just let her know it will be £20 per hour". Surprisingly he never heard from her!!!

I was asked by a touring theatre company to supply enough chocolates for the whole audience to get one each. For an "exciting promotional opportunity" when they came to town.

Seems that I was right to tell them that I was paid for the chocs on previous occasions. Apparently, a "national supplier" was now doing chocs for the entire tour - did I know someone who'd make them free cakes?

Turns out that there were no chocolates provided when the show came to my town. But they did find someone to make free cakes.

I am a complementary therapist and I am expected to give treatments for free. The best of it is I would never expect a freebie or mates rates, I fully understand that someone need to put food on the table.

I work in school admissions - "Will you do this appeal for a mate?". Meet mum and mate

Read paperwork. Child

i) is non-religious (school is RC)
ii) lives 4 miles from the school concerned (this is London)
iii) school is 1FE on an estate reachable by a bus every 30 minutes.

Tell parent they don't stand a cat in hell's chance. After tears, tantrums and a meltdown, agree to advise parent at "appeal". "Appeal" consists of governors who ask where does the child live and is the child a Christian. I try and make the best. Mum interrupts me, insults the governors, and storms off.

Strangely enough, Mum's appeal is unsuccessful and she never speaks to me again. Hallefuckinglujah.

Gutted. I'm a lecturer, and nobody ever asks me for a quick seminar on statistics . My sister is a well known (locally) pharmacist though, and she can barely walk down the street without somebody coming up to her, showing her a seeping body part, and asking for advice.

I do see how people can take liberties in asking for favours. I would never expect a freebie from any of my skilled family/friends, and always offer to pay. Most of the time they absolutely refuse to take money off me, or charge me less. I do the same in return for them. Perhaps if you don't assume then people are more inclined to be grateful and reduce their fees?! My SIL makes assumptions like this, is rather entitled and thinks that if she knows someone with a trade useful to her, then she should get it for free. Cheek! Its people's businesses at the end of the day.
Seems I may be lucky reading some of the replies.
I would do free business favours for my closest friends and closest family without a question, but by close I mean I can count them on one hand and know that they would do the same for me in return.

DH and I give out professional advice to friends all the time for free. Half an hours look at some documents or a quick text reply is fine. If you expect me to put pen to paper and for it to end up in the public domain, then I'll charge. I recently did some work for a good friend. Charged her mates rates but enough to make a profit. She was happy with the work and she wouldn't have got any better for the same price elsewhere.

I hate it though when you just end up being someone's verbal punch bag (our profession can be the topic of local tittle tattle).

I never mind giving information or advice, as I'm in a job which has a public service element, and all the information I would give would be advisory rather than directive. (It's not a field where I could conceivably be sued for any advice in the same way a medical doctor, lawyer or accountant might be!) I do sometimes get cheeky requests though: emails or random approaches out of the blue which I either ignore or write a pleasant but firm "no" reply to, whichever is more appropriate.

I'm a teacher and when I was fairly new to the profession a friend of my mum asked me if I'd tutor her daughter in preparation for her GCSE exam. I knew and liked the daughter so I made room in my schedule to tutor her, I had a lot on with revision for my actual students and I was also tutoring two other people. I had a meeting with her and the daughter before hand to find out what she needed, I planned 5 hours of tutoring which I then delivered. I marked work, gave feedback etc etc. They didn't pay me after the first session so I thought (naively) that they'd probably pay me at the end since I'd suggested the 5 hrs in total. At the end of the last session she said thanks for my time and gave me a box of celebrations to 'thank' me. I was stunned and very shy so I just said 'no problem' and left. It certainly taught me to arrange payment at the beginning and to have a set, hourly rate. Funnily enough, I didn't hear much from them after that but the daughter did very well in her exam.

In my current profession my boss is constantly approached for favours, he works in a trade and so many people seem to think he'll work for free for them because it's their 'exciting project' that he'll love! We have one particular client who uses the worst method ever to try and get him to work for free; he says my boss probably doesn't have the knowledge or skills to complete the work he requires! As if my boss' response to that should be 'yes, bring it here and I'll prove I do' because he should care so much about what he thinks. It's awful to watch all of these people try to take the piss, especially as he's not a natural business man, he's someone with an exceptional skill that other people are desperate for.

Was a stylist (had my own salon) re-trained years ago but still get asked/told that it will only take 5 minutes and they will make me a coffee because apparently I need to keep 'my hand in'!
I retrained and have 2 very different jobs now and in both I get people ask me to do stuff for free!
The worse was being out and someone will say what I do and then having to listen to people's problems.
I don't tell people what I do and ask friends not to.

To be fair I am always happy to write formal letters for people in need and so on, but they are not the ones who usually ask.

I learned this lesson very early on.

My dad once worked at a soft drinks distribution warehouse - lots of top brand names. I had just started Brownies at age 7 and we were having a Brownie teddybears picnic. I was so excited, I rashly promised Brown Owl that my daddy would get us all free drinks. It never occurred to me that he would have to pay for them 😳

He never let me down: the drinks for the whole Brownie pack were brought to the picnic without a word. He did explain afterwards that it was something I must never do again 😳

RortyCrankle - some people do it freelance but most, like me, are employed by production companies. It is a wonderful and fascinating job, and you end up knowing a lot about very random people/ companies/ history strands, and I love it. But it's more difficult than everything thinks it is to come up with genuinely good ideas, so it does get rather tiring when your DH sends you 3 or 4 news articles every day in the hope that one of them will work, ad you have to read through all of them... on top of reading the stuff that could actually go somewhere... (I love him really)!

No one asks me to draw their blood on my days off But many years ago I was asked to fudge a mate of exh's drug test. He failed a post incident subway crash drug test and was entitled to a repeat and wanted me to do it and fudge it for him. I didnt.

Dh does architectural photography. He was asked if his pictures could be featured in a well known ( in the trades) magazine. He agreed as 1. it was a well known magazine 2. The other trades who had their names put on his pictures as the tradesman would pay him, according to the lady who was dealing with him from the magazine. He did hours and hours of work, magazine looked awesome. Almost every picture was one of his. Not a single bugger paid him, magazine lady was like Oh well such is life. They tried the same thing again couple years later and got pissed off when he refused, they couldnt understand why he wouldnt want the "exposure" of having his stuff in their magazine.

Its actually amazing how many big or well known magazine have no budget for photographers and expect them to do it for "exposure". Its happened to Dh a few times but hes wise now and refuses, no matter how much "exposure" the can offer

I'm sort of the other way on with this. A mate recently did a small diy job for me. I spoke to his girlfriend about what I should pay him because he wouldn't tell me, and insisted on paying him. He was a bit about it but it wouldn't have felt right to me not to pay him.

Not saying what I do professionally as it may 'out' me. But I frequently get approached with 'offers' of 'work' for 'exposure' My answer is very simple. If YOU approached ME, then I don't NEED exposure!!!

Fuck you, pay me!!!!!

Juno Exactly. If I approach or apply to a listng from a photographer or model, then I don't expect them to pay me. I pay models when I don't have a photographer of if they don't want TFP (time for prints). If someone approaches me or I apply to something which says 'expenses paid' but they mean ten quid, then I don't care for the 'exposure'. Usually the only exposure I would get from those gigs is to their cheapo mates who would also expect I'll do it for them for free 😂