Working Two Jobs Rather Than One?!?!

by Alex T.

(Hollywood, Florida)

I was first hired as a medical assistant. The doctor had a front desk girl when I first started working in the office. About 2 months later he fired her and had me doing the front desk work (for a little over a month). I asked him for more pay since I was doing “two jobs” and he explained that I wasnt doing 100% of either job so ‘no’. He hired someone new and for a week or two I was ‘training’ the new front desk person. She was fired after her 3rd week of work and without asking, he put me back to doing front desk work.
I am going to ask him again for more money seeing as how I am doing a job which i wasnt hired to do and also doing the work of two people for one salary. If i ask him again and he says no again, do i have good cause to quit and still get unemployment as i look for another job?

Can anyone help before I talk to him please?
Thank you!!!

Hi Alex,

I’m going to refer you to this page.

There seems to be a rash of bosses trying to get double duty of of there employees…..Two jobs for the price of one employee….what a concept!!

Chris

Comments for Working Two Jobs Rather Than One?!?!

Feb 14, 2009

another question please…

by: Alex Tucker

That was very helpful…thank you. It sounds like a “gray” area sadly. But I will go into work and ask for more money now that I am doing two jobs.
Does it matter if he says “okay” then you no longer have to do the 1st job”. Meaning, that I am helping both at the front desk and assisting him with the medical side of it all….what if he says (since I’m only getting paid one wage) that I only have to work up front (the job that I was not hired for). do I have the right to say no? that I’ll do what i was hired for, but not the other portion?!?!

And does it matter if i never signed any sort of ‘job description’ ….clearly he didn’t want me at the front desk if he went through two girls in the 5-6 months I was working there—but did I need to sign something when I first started working to argue this point?

Thanks again for all your help!!!!!!

Hi Alex,

Again, all very good valid questions.

And a bit more revealing. One of the things the state will ask you is if you were “qualified” to do that front desk job. You may want to extend your research to the statutes on “suitable work” and what constitutes good cause for “refusal”. I don’t really know much about the required training required for the two jobs you are doing, but a broad example might be….a CPA that was turned into an accounting clerk. There might be good cause…but if the employer still paid CPA wages for a position with less responsibility, it would probably be wise…to look for another reason as to why the job wasn’t suitable…maybe the job no longer enabled you to use the skills that you were hired for in the first place. If we educate ourselves we should be able to make use of it…and not let our skills get rusty…

The state will probably be interested (depending on how thorough they are being considering how overwhelmed they are with claims:) is if the additional duties require additional hours…are you being compensated for the additional time…but I think it’s always best to be proactive and determine what the strongest argument is for your particular circumstances and try to fulfill the conditions that need to exist before you quit…failure to do so is the very reason people don’t get unemployment when they quit…even if they should or could have.

Was there ever a written job description?? Or were the duties of the job you were to perform “discussed”.

Gray area…that’s an understatement. Sometimes the conditions are just so obvious there’s little question, but I don’t think this is the case for you. There is really no clear cut thing to point at. And so far you have acquiesced to all the changes….this is a considered factor.

There are so many factors that can affect how things come out. But that’s a different subject and probably more suited to a section called “Speculations, Rants and Rages 🙂