I know a lot of people in the IT field have been in a similiar situation, so I thought my current situation might help others here. What to do when your IT skills are blackmailed via a much lower job position.
Like a lot of people I do all types of IT contract work during the day, and part time work at night. Night job is a floor manager in the service/entertainment industry, but it's a family business and not a chain. One of the owners has set up a network/computer infrastructure well beyond his ability to support, and I'm constantly being nagged to help fix his messes. Stuff well beyond 'install a driver' stuff, and tasks I charge $50-100 per hour via typical IT contract work.If you've ever worked for a family business and had to fix IT messes the owner's kid created because daddy over-estimate their intelligence, you have a fair idea where I'm coming from.
I considered this annoyance at first, but given the bad economy I'm forced to stick with the night job given things are so slow during the day. However, when one of the owner's made a subtle threat to my job if didn't help with constantly reparing their SQL database (at my night Managers salary), I got a little nervous.
Friend of my mine who has some legal experience with labor laws (and also makes My Cousin Vinny look like Michael Clayton) gave me some advice.
Bad news: It' called At Will Termination if they choose to fire you for whatever.
Good news: IT skills are now a defined skill set like electrician, plumber, etc., and are well outside an assumed 'reasonable job expectation' of what you do. Threatening your job could fall under the definition of Extortion, and get an employer into a lot of trouble. Depends on far you're willing to take it and how savy your lawyer is, but it *is* Extortion.
Comments? Is Vinny full of it? What would you do?
Like a lot of people I do all types of IT contract work during the day, and part time work at night. Night job is a floor manager in the service/entertainment industry, but it's a family business and not a chain. One of the owners has set up a network/computer infrastructure well beyond his ability to support, and I'm constantly being nagged to help fix his messes. Stuff well beyond 'install a driver' stuff, and tasks I charge $50-100 per hour via typical IT contract work.If you've ever worked for a family business and had to fix IT messes the owner's kid created because daddy over-estimate their intelligence, you have a fair idea where I'm coming from.
I considered this annoyance at first, but given the bad economy I'm forced to stick with the night job given things are so slow during the day. However, when one of the owner's made a subtle threat to my job if didn't help with constantly reparing their SQL database (at my night Managers salary), I got a little nervous.
Friend of my mine who has some legal experience with labor laws (and also makes My Cousin Vinny look like Michael Clayton) gave me some advice.
Bad news: It' called At Will Termination if they choose to fire you for whatever.
Good news: IT skills are now a defined skill set like electrician, plumber, etc., and are well outside an assumed 'reasonable job expectation' of what you do. Threatening your job could fall under the definition of Extortion, and get an employer into a lot of trouble. Depends on far you're willing to take it and how savy your lawyer is, but it *is* Extortion.
Comments? Is Vinny full of it? What would you do?
..but the stuff I'm fixing tends to go past Geek Squad excuses.
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