TurtlePower Posted May 21, 2013 Posted May 21, 2013 (edited) No pun intended. Lately, I have been feeling the crunch of being my boss's right hand man (Or at least i think thats how she sees me). My team consists of 5 people including my boss. My other 3 coworkers have varying levels of experience so it is a good mix. However, I am starting to feel as if I am doing more than my share of work and I don't quite understand why... Over the course of the past 3 months we have been working on a system upgrade for one of our regional offices. A lot of work for a lot of people. I was pretty current with my work when my boss approached me to help out a coworker of mine who was 'overwhelmed' and was lagging behind. I obliged for the betterment of the project and I was caught up so I was happy to help. That created a problem with the coworker i was trying to help. As soon as she realized I was helping, she slacked even more! Fast forward to when the project implementation week. Everyone knew how important it was to be around. Well, over the past 2 weeks she's been at work for a grand total of 3 days! Coming up with excuses, now I understand a lot of it was family issues, but when she is in, can she at least volunteer to help? Nope. She waits for myself or my boss to step in We have a four day weekend coming up and it appears that I might have to work although I am not sure why I have to when there are other capable teammates that can do so. I had a stretch where my boss and I worked 12 straight days or 12-14 hrs a day. Not sure why my boss only relies on me for this kind of thing. I guess I should be flattered, but when can I get a break?? Not sure if i should bring this to the boss's attention. Apologies for the disjointed rant. Long story short, I feel as if I have to perform the duties of my boss and have to pull 12 hr days when my coworkers who can/should help out aren't instructed to do so or aren't at least willing to do so... Edited May 21, 2013 by TurtlePower
tbf Posted May 22, 2013 Posted May 22, 2013 It's time to discuss this with your boss. Frame it in such a way that she understands how this coworker has upwardly delegated her work load. If your boss has any smarts, she will address this with the coworker and papering the results so that if the coworker doesn't step up, she will be asked to stepped out of the firm.
Author TurtlePower Posted May 23, 2013 Author Posted May 23, 2013 I agree. Another fine example happened this evening. My boss and I were working from a satellite office (That is 1.5 hrs away from my house btw) when there was an email saying one of our clients was having an issue and needed help ASAP. Said coworker was also on the email, was done for the day and did not respond. We have the ability to work from home remotely and she could have signed on, but chose not to. Ugh. My boss and I were stuck in traffic thus the client had to wait longer than necessary. I finally got home where he both logged on and resolved the issue in 45 minutes. What kills me is my coworker could have at least attempted to resolve it, but chose not to. Blech.
TaraMaiden Posted May 23, 2013 Posted May 23, 2013 Yup. No question. This is something you must discuss with your boss.
clia Posted May 23, 2013 Posted May 23, 2013 I agree that you need to discuss with your boss, but you also need to start asserting your own boundaries. You sound like a hard worker who wants to do things correctly and to impress your boss. As a result, you jump in agree to do things…when maybe you shouldn’t always do so. Why should you always work late when others aren’t? In other words, maybe you need to learn to start saying “no.” I’m not saying you should shirk your responsibilities or leave your boss in the lurch. Obviously your boss counts on you and depends on you. But…your life is no less important than your coworkers. It’s okay to say sometimes “I can’t work on Saturday because I have other plans” or “I can’t stay past 7 this evening” or “I don’t have time to do X; can you please do it?” If you don’t start doing this, you will continue to be taken advantage of by your coworkers. In fact, it may only get worse. If they know you will always be there to pick up the slack, they may start to slack off even worse. With respect to your recent post, you boss should have called your coworker and told them to deal with the client. I work with some of these types also. They will just sit back and let someone else do it. And why shouldn’t they? As a result, they enjoyed their evening at home while you and your boss were killing yourselves. When there are no consequences, people will continue to take advantage. Depending on your relationship with your coworkers (and how amenable to this idea your boss may be) when things like that happen in the future, you could send an e-mail to your coworker and say “Can you handle this? I’m tied up with something else.” You have to push it to them (and make sure it is clear you are not taking responsibility for it) to force them to do it, since you well know they will not step up and volunteer. Copy your boss on the e-mail.
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