Multi Tasking: A Modern DAY Slavery

Multi tasking is rampant in almost all companies in this present world. Shrewd employers and management do save a lot in payroll  expenses if their employees perform several roles in the organization. Worse is, they don’t give you the suitable designation and remuneration for what you are actually doing. They would say that you still lack the skills but you are actually playing the role itself and they have no complaints at all.

Below are some scenarios of what I call the modern day slavery:

• You were hired as the Executive Secretary for the  President of the company. The company has also a Chairman but he doesn’t come regularly to the office, so hiring of a secretary for him is not practical, hence you perform secretarial jobs to both executives.  The company is dealing with importation and distribution. There is no existing import department and since the President is the one negotiating with supply contract from vendors abroad, being the secretary you were tasked to handle the importation which require different processes i.e. applying for an import permit, import entry declaration to the Bureau of Customs (this can be done through a customs broker), opening  of a letter of credit (LC) to your bank and push the accounts people to process the LC payment on the same day as the next day would be a different forex rate. Once the LC is opened, you need to declare your importation to your insurer  and afterwards keep track of the cargo’s arrival. Another set of documents and processes to be done upon the vessel’s arrival and a limited number of days is given to unload the cargo, otherwise the company will be penalized.  Being the secretary, your boss has a lot of business correspondence and since you are dealing internationally, you have to stay late in the office to adjust with the timing of your correspondents on the other side of the globe. The company saves the salary of an Import Clerk and an Import Manager, at the end of the month you get the salary of a secretary. 

• In a manufacturing  firm, you are the secretary for the GM and you were tasked to handle materials procurement. How many items do you think a manufacturing firm has that you are responsible to procure?  Also, manufactured items are for export and a shipment date is committed to the buyer abroad. The packing materials which are customized should be in the plant at a certain date to give time to the packing department to pack the goods to be shipped.  Worse scenario, an equipment in the production line has gone out of order and the parts required are not on stock in the warehouse, whew! Again at the end of the month, you get the salary of a secretary.

• In a hotel, you are the administrative assistant in the sales department and since the boss is handling a certain segment of the industry, you are tasked to handle all enquiries, annual rate contracts, send the quotes, confirm room reservation, do show rounds, invite your client for entertainment in the hotel, make client visits from time to time and coordinate with all the department  pertaining to the guests’ arrivals . At the same time, the admin work should not be neglected and the secretarial job for the head of the department should be delivered satisfactorily.  Your actual role is that of an administrator,  in-house sales person,  account manager and secretary . At the end of the month you are paid as an admin assistant. 

• In another hotel, your job title is a buyer or procurement officer/executive or purchasing officer/executive. Operations in hotels are critical, you need to bring the items just at the right time at the right price, otherwise, if requirement is not met operations is badly affected which could lead to guest complaints. Your actual job is not limited to procurement only which includes meeting with vendors,get quotations, finalize the transaction and delivery as your designation denotes, but you are also tasked to do the receiving of the items, generate receiving report, manage the stores and function as a storekeeper, produce the inventories, do the issuance of stocks and make summary of invoices so that the accounts people could easily see the amount of the purchases. In addition, the top management would like you to do the costing which is the job of a Cost Accountant or a Cost Controller. They didn’t even realize that  “materials control” and “cost control” are far too different from each other.  Since all the phases of materials control are integrated in the system software, the management thinks that it is done by one person. They never had the sense to check the organizational structure of other hotels if they don’t have the knowledge in this area, and since there was no training provided for the system software hence everything needs to be done manually.  Use your imagination, how many items to be procured in a hotel and to be monitored in the stores.  How many reports you are required to produce on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. You will struggle to complete the task in a suicidal manner and at the end of the month you are paid as buyer, worse is, if something went  wrong, you get all the blame.

The above are just few scenarios how the corporate organizations enslave its employees to maximize their profits. Slavery is happening in our modern society, only in a different setting and environment. The labor law declared only 8 hours of work plus one hour lunch break. But if you are overloaded with work and you are the type of person who has the sense of responsibility, you will give extra hours to cope up with the demands of the work. You are sacrificing your personal time with your family, your are forfeited of relaxation and leisure, you are like a slave, a slave of your job.

My recommendation to anybody not to fall into this trap, whenever applying for a job, make sure that at the time of signing of the contract, a job description is included stipulating all the job’s duties and responsibilities in a detailed manner, signed by the management representative. By doing so, you would know what is the scope of your job and it’s limitations. The enslaving management could not just give you more and more work  on top of your head otherwise you will find yourself sinking slowly in a deep ocean of papers and headache.