When to tell your boss NO

Finding a good job is hard. Finding one that allows you to do work that you enjoy is even more challenging. Finding a job that pays well, offers challenging opportunities for you to stretch and grow in a field that you love AND has a healthy atmosphere and environment; well, that’s the dream! When you’re first entering the job market, however, you will find you probably have a long road ahead to find a job like that and there will need to be some compromises made in this time between where you are and where you want to be. Today, we’ll be sharing our thoughts on what are the right compromises to make and what are the wrong ones as we discuss setting boundaries at work.

The first thing you need to figure out as you set healthy boundaries for you job is to decide if this is a job to get by, a stepping stone or a career. For the jobs that are just getting us by, these would be entry level positions that don’t necessarily require special skills, experience or schooling to be hired. As much as these jobs can be looked down on by some people, they can be very helpful as they typically offer the flexibility for you to continue to go to school and build towards something else. Many times, these jobs can be more physically taxing or intellectually repetitive so they can be very exhausting work. The pay is not often great, but in many places across the country the pay for these types of jobs does seem to be increasing. At this level, it is important to remember why you got this job, usually as a means of steady income while maintaining flexibility with the other areas of your life. When you and your boss understand that that is why you are there, it will help you to set clear boundaries and work well together. If you took this job so that you could go to school during the day and work nights, they will expect you to be available most nights. If you let them know in advance that you need every Thursday off for a specific function or that once a month you will be unavailable during the weekend, they will know exactly what they can ask of you. Sometimes, your boss might try to test these boundaries to see if you can budge. Once they know that you are willing to compromise here, they will probably try to do it again until eventually you no longer have the boundary at all. As long as you come in with clear boundaries established and you let them know well in advance if any of those boundaries need to be changed, you’ll find these jobs can be exactly what you need for the time you are there.

As you move on into a “stepping-stone” job, you will recognize a big shift in what you can expect and what is expected of you. In these jobs, you have probably found an entry-level position that requires some level of education and experience, but not at a career level just yet. Working here may be great for your resume’ and could potentially offer you the ability to advance into a career level job in the future. These jobs will probably be offering at least 2 of these 3 primary areas you’ll want long term – decent pay, working in your desired field and opportunity for personal and/or professional growth but you might have to compromise on one. It is important to remember that stepping-stone jobs are a great place to LEARN. You may have just graduated and be bursting with all sorts of dreams and ideas for your future with this company. That’s wonderful! … but that’s probably not why they hired you. It is important to be willing to be humble and learn from those ahead of you. If you have great ideas, find ways to apply them to the areas under your responsibility rather than trying to tell your bosses how they could improve their jobs. In a healthy work environment, a good boss will recognize where growth and productivity are coming from and your excellence with smaller tasks that others pass over will make you stand out from the rest. An important boundary here is respect, but maybe not in the way you are thinking of. You should be able to enter in on day one and expect your bosses and your coworkers to respect you as a person, that they will treat you with dignity and professional curtesy. You should NOT expect that they will automatically respect your opinions or ideas. That respect will have to be earned as you prove yourself in the company.

So, you’ve worked the jobs just to get you by, you’ve excelled in the stepping-stone positions and now you’ve finally landed your career. This can be a great time in your life as you are finally able to do what you want and get paid well to do it; however, just like in your first job you need to remember why you are here. At the end of the day, a job is a job. It can be rewarding, challenging and fulfilling, but your job should not be the most important thing. Your job should be a means of enhancing your life outside of work, not absorbing it. Especially during the stepping-stone positions, there were probably many sacrifices; early mornings, late nights and overtime on the weekends and they set you apart and helped you to succeed, but they were sacrifices. If all of those sacrifices only served to give you more money but less time with the people that you love, the ones you were actually working so hard for in the first place, then they weren’t worth it. For some of us, we need to remember that the boundaries we set for our work are there not just to protect us, but those we care about as well. You may find a rewarding job, in a field you love that challenges you and gives you room for personal and professional growth BUT doesn’t pay nearly as much as you could make somewhere else is just the right job for you because it allows you to prioritize what is really most important.