What you consider to be “above and beyond” is what others consider to be a standard part of any role. Other comments on other posts you’ve made have said the same thing: a general “additional duties as assigned” clause is very normal, and nothing you’ve said has given the impression that what you’re being asked to do is atypical.

Your manager considers helping out your coworkers to be part of your base responsibilities. This is a normal expectation. If it’s one that you have no desire to meet, then your best bet is to find a new job. The problem there - as both I and others have pointed out - is that any other job you find will likely have this same expectation.

I was in your shoes about five years ago. I felt it was completely unfair, I tried other roles in an attempt to find a job where it wasn’t expected, I asked coworkers how it was possible that such a thing was normal… I get it. It’s not fun. But living at this time and in this place under these conditions - it’s normal. I personally chose to suck it up and deal with it, and ultimately I came around to understanding that it wasn’t as bad as I was making it out to be. It’s not perfect - I’m not saying that - but part of having a job is working with other people, and that includes the give-and-take of what you’re experiencing right now.

If you honestly, truly can’t bring yourself to work under these circumstances, you might want to change careers. Contract and gig work could potentially give you the strict adherence to tasks that you’re looking for, but it may come at the cost of pay, benefits, or difficulty in finding work. Starting your own business will at least mean all the work you do directly benefits you, but that again comes with its own set of risks.

Final thought:

Going extra miles don’t mean more money for me, so what’s my motivation?

Being employed so you don’t end up homeless. Nothing grander or more meaningful than that. You need a job, so you’re doing what it takes to keep your job. Same as the rest of us.

I see you’ve chosen to go with Option 3, at least for now. (Previous comment for reference.)

To be perfectly frank, it sounds like you’re already half-assing your job and maliciously complying. Think about it: you do only the exact amount and type of work as specified in your job description, you actively resist being given additional work even when you aren’t currently doing anything, you don’t offer help to coworkers when you have the ability and they have a need, and you openly flaunt these facts by using your downtime (even when not officially on a pause) to write poetry or otherwise not do work in locations where your coworkers and manager can see you doing it.

If malicious compliance and the bare minimum are your goal, then congratulations! You’ve accomplished your objective.

Thank you for finding the link! I’ve no doubt Google will fight for as long as they can, but hopefully the German courts will hold their ground.

I’m far from an expert, but I feel like this is one of the limiting factors of LLMs - they have no sense of broader context. Truth vs. lie, outdated info vs. something that’s old but still correct… I’m not sure there’s ever going to be an LLM (at least one built in the way they are now) that will be good at actually producing correct responses. Maybe one day we’ll find a new way of achieving that goal, but I suspect what we’re seeing now isn’t going to be it.

As funny as this is (and I do find it funny), it’s also concerning on a wider level. A good number of people trust these AI summaries; they shouldn’t, but they do. And if it’s this easy to poison the AIs, imagine how easy it is for someone with an actual agenda to mislead people in ways that aren’t as fantastical and quickly spotted.

I seem to recall reading recently that a court in Germany wanted to hold Google accountable for the content of its AI summaries. (Someone correct me if I’m wrong, please.) If companies are going to shove these models in people’s faces they should absolutely be responsible for the results. If your model can’t tell fact from fiction, stop publishing - and promoting - it as fact.

I’d be careful looking for jobs while at work, especially on a work computer. That’s a great way to get let go if they notice you doing it.

As far as the search itself, you currently have more leeway because you’ve got a job - you don’t need something tomorrow, so you can take more time. Start by talking to any friends or friendly acquaintances you have in the same field you’re looking to work in. Ask about their current workplaces, their former workplaces, etc. to see if any stand out as places you’d also like to work.

Once you’ve spoken to any people you know, consider companies you’ve heard good things about. Check sites that share employee reviews like Glassdoor, look them up on LinkedIn, etc. Your goal should be to get a sense of average employee tenure as well as potential pain points. Two big things to keep in mind as you do this:

1. No workplace is perfect. Every job is going to have its flaws, so you’re looking for one with flaws you’re okay dealing with in the mid- to long-term. If you’re looking for perfection, you’ll never find it.
2. Employees who post reviews tend to feel very strongly about their employer, and those feelings trend negative. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t trust the reviews, but it does mean you should take them with a large pinch of salt and look for trends rather than specifics.

Once you’ve found companies that you think might be a good fit, try reaching out to employees at those companies via LinkedIn (or some other site where they congregate) and asking for a brief chat. You don’t want to take up a lot of their time, but a quick “I’m thinking of applying to X and would like to hear what working there is like before I do” should hopefully get you some firsthand information. It may also get you a referral, which is a big bonus when applying.

Even after all of this, it’s important to remember that you still probably won’t have all of the information you’d like to be able to make a confident decision. That’s unfortunately just not how it works most of the time, which is why so many people choose the devil they know and stay instead of risking going elsewhere.

This has been surprisingly useful. I went in expecting “LinkedIn but better formatted” and actually found a site that does what I need it to do (unlike LI). And with fewer scams and third party recruiters too.

I will say that anyone using it should check the current list of companies first. Because they’re scraping individual company pages, they may not have a company on their list that you’d like them to check - if so, there’s a form linked at the top of the page where you can drop the company’s URL to get them added.

I remember seeing your earlier post about escalating your situation, so I’m referencing both when I speak here. Also, please keep in mind that I live in the US and don’t work in healthcare, so my experiences are all from that angle.

That clause in your contract is totally normal.

I’ve had a version of that same clause for every role I’ve worked - it’s a catch-all for “we might ask you to do a thing not listed, and when we do you need to do it.” Some places are more reasonable in their requests than others, but basically all of them (that I know of) have it just in case.

Your previous post mentioned that you would receive requests to help out other nurses when you had downtime between patients. That too is normal. Every workplace has its own norms and social standards, but a fairly common one is “if you have time to help others who are busy when you aren’t, do it.” That support is meant to swing both ways, but if a person routinely has a lot of downtime while others don’t, they may feel they’ve been unfairly targeted for extra work while others may simply see it as evening out the workload.

At the end of the day, your workplace is unlikely to change. It’s unfortunately going to come down to what you want to deal with:

1. Accept the norms at your current role and work within them, even if personally don’t like them. (Otherwise known as “suck it up and deal.”)
2. Find a role with norms that fit your working style better. (Knowing that this attitude is common, so you may be looking for a while.)
3. Do the bare minimum until you’re grudgingly accepted or forced out. (Leaving you either ostracized and with little chance of future promotion or fired with a reason that may make finding another role difficult.)

I share your dislike of having more work assigned to you despite it not really being yours to do, but I’ve also chosen to just accept that this is part of working. An annoying part, but one I’ve learned to deal with.

One last thing from a fellow “please just leave me alone to do my work” person: I’ve found that if I occasionally volunteer to help someone in my downtime, they’re more likely to leave me in peace when they either see I’m actually busy or when I tell them I’ve been working all day and just need a few minutes to chill. That bit of proactive busyness on occasion has gotten me more downtime in the long run than trying to hide it ever did. (Just my experience, though. You do you.)