Discouraging supervisor from tangential assignment?

["Geoff Hart" <geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca>]

Probably the most effective way to discourage a supervisor from 
giving you tangential assignments is to screw up the assignments 
big-time. Trust me; they won't ask you again. Of course, that's not 
a good survival or promotion strategy, so you really want to use it 
judiciously. <g>

I also once looked a manager in the eye, reminded him that I'd 
been trying for several months to get him to spend 15 minutes 
doing something really simple for me, and that gee, I'd love to help 
him, but until he spent those 15 minutes on my behalf, I was going 
to be far too busy trying to resolve the problem myself to take time 
off for another project. He still didn't spend the 15 minutes, but 
neither did I get burdened with the assignment. See previous 
caveat; this guy was from an entirely different department and the 
request was entirely unrelated to anything that might be construed 
as my job. If it'd been my manager...

Facetiousness aside, I've also learned that whenever possible, it's 
worth trying to stretch myself to take on new tasks and learn new 
skills, even if it puts me a bit behind on other projects. I've earned 
lots of good kharma that way, accumulated favors that could be 
"called in" at a later date, acquired skills I'd never otherwise have 
acquired, and made me progressively more indispensable to my 
employer. I've also learned (slowly, painfully, and belatedly) to look 
someone in the eye and say a polite "no", along with an 
explanation of why (e.g., "I don't have those skills, and you don't 
have the time for me to acquire them; if I do the job now, it's going 
to be an amateur effort, and you really need something that works 
right the first time").

--Geoff Hart @8^{)}  geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca  (Pointe-Claire, Quebec)
"If you can't explain it to an 8-year-old, you don't understand it"--Albert Einstein