Woman shows how she refuses to do 'office housework' at her job and firmly holds her boundaries

There are times when we have to return a favor to a co-worker or run an unexpected errand at the office. Sometimes, it's alright, but in other instances, these extra obligations that are tossed on an employee go unpaid and unnoticed. A working professional, Alex Schudy–who goes by @alexschudy on TikTok–shared her personal experience of being a woman working in an office where she is often asked to do things she did not sign up for.

Moreover, she does not even get paid for doing those office chores, which she has dubbed "office housework." In one of her recent videos, which has garnered over two million views so far, Schudy recorded herself working on her computer and demonstrated how she puts her foot down and draws a boundary when she is asked to do certain "non-promotable works." "POV: You have to set a boundary at work because they keep asking you to do office housework," the overlay text on her video reads.

An individual on what appears to be a conference call can be heard asking Schudy if she could organize the breakfast for the manager team onsite. "I know he's not asking me to do this with no advance notice," another text overlay notes. Schudy then asked the other person about the time and date of the breakfast she was asked to organize. "It's this week," the person on the call states. "Ok," she replies and then begins to explain why she wouldn't be able to organize the breakfast.

"Given that it's this week, I don't think I'm the best person to handle it just because of my current priorities and workload," Schudy replies. "What do you have going on?" the other person on the call enquires. "I can definitely send you more about my current to-do list and I'm sure Shannon could also shed some insight if you have more questions, but I just don't have the bandwidth to take something like that on right now," she firmly states to the person, as the text overlay reads that she was "holding firm on her boundary."

"Maybe you could do something like DoorDash delivery or maybe make it a team outing," she suggests, still offering to help conveniently. The person on the call says that "they will be looking into those options." Schudy stops recording as soon as the conversation ends and grimaces into the camera. "Non-promotable work (like office housework) is something I try very hard to avoid!! Too bad it's so hard to say no. How do you think I did?" she added in the caption of her video. The TikTok community shared similar experiences of getting burdened with "office housework," especially if they are women.

@askelelnbeauty wrote, "I used to point out directly that they did seem to only ask women to do these tasks. They stopped asking me." @schrimptempura noted, "I love the term office housework. Using this!! I am not the admin. I am not the assistant. I am not the team event planner. I am a manager with an endless to-do list!" @victoria_richmond shared, "This is my biggest pet peeve about being a female in the workplace!! We are not the mothers!" @kellelucas remarked, "Unless you're the office manager/coordinator - it's not your job. If you are, it's time to stress the importance of proper notice." @samthedog added, "I learned my first week as a big corporate person not to do women's work. I started clearing my plate after lunch, but none of the men did."

You can follow Alex Schudy (@alexschudy) on TikTok for more videos on career and lifestyle.