As I've mentioned on previous occasions 95% of the time I work nights as the closing cashier. The other 5% of the time I work weekends and lately I have been working until 10:00 on Friday nights. The closing cashier is supposed to clean all the registers, collect the loose hand baskets, empty the trash cans at the front end and pretty much just make sure that the front end is cleaned up and organized for the morning. Normally there's a bit of a rush around 10:00 or 10:30 but for the most part it's pretty slow for the last 2 hours so there's plenty of time to get all that stuff done (with time to spare to read People and Us Weekly).
There are a few other people who are closing cashiers but the guy who does it most nights of the week is Ben. Ben is a nice guy ( alitttle creppy, but nice) but more then that he is extremely hardworking. He never stands still for a minute--if he's not with customers he's cleaning or stocking shelves or making sure that each register has a stock of plastic bags. There's a part or me that really admires this work ethic and the fact that he takes his job so seriously--there's another part of me that's like calm down, dude! This isn't working at NASA! Most of the time Ben and I don't work together because the nights I work until 12:00 are his nights off but I do work with him when I'm there until 10:00 on Friday night. One night a while ago it was Friday night and I was getting ready to leave pretty soon when Ben asked if I would mind cleaning my register before I left. Well (as I mentioned) Ben is a nice guy and he had really been busting his ass most of the night, cleaning all of the other registers and emptying the trash so I didn't mind helping him out a little by cleaning my register before I left--plus I'm normally there until midnight so I'm used to cleaning the registers anyway. So for the next few weeks every time I worked with him he would ask if I would clean my register before I left and I would say sure. Then recently he started asking if I would clean some of the other registers. He would say something like, "I didn't get register 5 yet would you do that one after you get yours?"
Now, I'm happy to help out a co-worker and I do get paid to work--but there's a small part of me that thinks, 'Hey when you are the closing cashier part of the gig is cleaning the registers. It's what I have to do every time I am the closing cashier. If he was the one leaving at 10:00 I would definitely appreciate it if cleaned his register before he left but I certainly wouldn't expect it. In fact, Ben used to work in the morning but he specifically asked to be moved to the night shift--he says he prefers the night shift. Well, buddy part of night shift is doing the work that goes along with being there until close. Plus (and he has acknowledged this) there's plenty of time for him to get all of his work done from the time the 10:00 cashier leaves until the store closes at midnight.
And what started out as doing this kid a small favor by cleaning gradually becomes more and more. It's a bit like if you give a mouse a cookie, he'll ask for a glass of milk to wash it down. If you give him the glass of milk to wash down the cookie he'll ask for a straw to drink the milk and it just goes on and on...
I don't mind helping Ben out but he also needs to recognize that some of that stuff is just part of the job when you work at night. So I'm trying to balance helping him out and doing my job with not getting stuck with all of his responsibilities. Am I just being petty? Should I just shut help and help this kid by cleaning some of the registers before I leave?
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