There’s an important lesson you have to learn at a certain point in your career: how and when to say no.
In your early years, it makes sense to be the guy who scoops up the side quests. It’s basically the best way to learn new skills and figure out what interests you.
When you reach a certain level of seniority, you’ll need to be much more selective about what you take on. You should be focusing on the highest value work that your skills allow.
So what do you do when these requests come up? Ideally you delegate them to a junior team member, but you can also just say no. Obviously you should be professional about this, but it’s perfectly reasonable to say that what you’re doing is higher priority and you can’t be distracted from it. If it’s important, they’ll ask someone else, and if it turns out you really are the only person who can do it, then you can pick it up when you, the expert, think it’s appropriate.
And since this advice only works for specific people, in specific elevated positions, who oversee someone else/another team, or who is actually invaluable, the original comment of “get fired” still applies to 99% of the planet.
There’s an important lesson you have to learn at a certain point in your career: how and when to say no.
In your early years, it makes sense to be the guy who scoops up the side quests. It’s basically the best way to learn new skills and figure out what interests you.
When you reach a certain level of seniority, you’ll need to be much more selective about what you take on. You should be focusing on the highest value work that your skills allow.
So what do you do when these requests come up? Ideally you delegate them to a junior team member, but you can also just say no. Obviously you should be professional about this, but it’s perfectly reasonable to say that what you’re doing is higher priority and you can’t be distracted from it. If it’s important, they’ll ask someone else, and if it turns out you really are the only person who can do it, then you can pick it up when you, the expert, think it’s appropriate.
And since this advice only works for specific people, in specific elevated positions, who oversee someone else/another team, or who is actually invaluable, the original comment of “get fired” still applies to 99% of the planet.
People in lower positions also need to assert boundaries in the workplace.