Do you like being "put on the spot"? What about if it's at your job?

it happens all the time in any job with any responsibility. Roll with the tide, don’t make a scene.

Consider it is a compliment and a testament to your abilities. You wouldn’t be asked to do X or Y unless someone thought you had the capability of doing it. So being assigned to do it is actually vote of confidence in you.

No reason to interpret this negatively.

Make sure it is your boss that is assigning the “on the spot”; not a co-worker, push-off work they don’t like to do.

I’ve been put “on the spot” since grammar school, I did the silk screen posters in four colors in the fifth grade for school functions. The art teacher would come down to my classroom and take me out of class.
I had a manager that knew I could do things on short notice and at company meetings would “volunteer” me in front of the plant manager and his staff. Never missed a project deadline.

That sort of thing bothers me yes, because, it is passive aggressive in nature.
It feels like a test to see if you can be manipulated into something last minute.
Work is about delegation not relegation.
I am big on direct communication and asking.

Ask me, fine, just announce to me something I am to do with no prior discussion, not acceptable. I disagree that just because you are in a work environment you need to bow down and just accept what’s thrown at you. I would make it clear, that while I was more than happy to do whatever task at hand that in the future I would appreciate being consulted first and not just volunteered at the last minute. Nobody wants to be treated like a pushover. Feeling manipulated and pushed around leads to resentment and any good boss/manager should know this.

Of course everyone is annoyed by this sort of thing. It’s going to happen, so the real issue boils down to how adept you are at defending against those employing such measures. People who habitually lean on others through these methods quickly learn and remember who not to mess with.

That’s called Wednesday and I have come to expect it. My old company never had any solid attrition plans and only hire people in literal generations. Now that the boomers have retired or are walking out the door as we speak it seems like nobody has a clue wtf to do because the workforce basically arrived yesterday. People like me who were hired at odd times and have some experience became the elders by default. I did not put up with it and left. It’s no different here at my new job either. Same thing is going to happen here in a year or two only then I’ll be a little old to career change again.

I think it’s okay if whatever you’re being put on the spot about is clearly your job. For example, at Jelly we have 8 employees. One, Alex, is our designer. If we’re in a meeting about a feature, I might say, “Alex will handle that and then we’ll give it to Gabe to code.” Alex is the only designer so we all know he’s supposed to design whatever it is, even if I didn’t ask him first.

@biz, thanks for the answer.

Putting someone on “the spot” is rude, aggressive and unnecessary in daily life. I, personally, make sure the individual who tries this with me knows that I won’t tolerate it. I am not running for office or under arrest and therefore nobody has any reason to put me “on the spot”. I find this behaviour a challenge for dominance, and my reaction to these kinds of challenges have a definite, personal and unmistakable underlying violence to them. Think of a growling dog.