Threatened to be fired for refusing to perform a favor

I am an at will employee at a company in New York City, However the main office is located in California. Yesterday I received a call from my manager who was in California at the time, informing me that I would have to report to one of our clients site to answer phones. I refused under the grounds that what he was asking was out of the range of my job description. He then proceeded to threaten my job if I decided not to report to the site and that the company was my job title. In the past, the company has renigeded on compensation promises for performing duties outside of my job description. This time I refused to be the subject of teir broken promises. Can I be fired for refusing to perform favors? Would this be leagal? Please advise.

Assuming that New York at-will employment policies are the same as California's, the answer to your question is that you can certainly be terminated for the reason you stated. Whether the employer paid you or not, or didn't pay you as agreed upon, legally the pay issue is separate from your performing the requested duties of your boss.

Hey FOOL...its called being a TEAM PLAYER...and you are NOT...you should be fired!

Outside job description...oh please gimme a break...

You would have a nice lawsuit against them if they said answer the phones, and it was a BIG complex phone mail wireless paging system, and they reprimanded or fired you...

But..If it was a lousy 3 or 4 phone lines ..what you are not smart enough to figure it out...

BOY are YOU VASTLY OVERPAID!

[Edited by mary hartman on 03-22-2001 at 01:54 AM]