Work during maternity leave not been covered

[YellowPirate]

We have a big work deadline, which was due just after I intended to come back off maternity leave. It involved a lot of project work and as my role wasn't officially covered, they took on some consultants, who have completed the majority of the work, with the plan for me to do a small amount on my return.

However, I've now decided to take my full year and as the deadline fell before I would get back, when I wrote to give my new date of return, I also said that there was a small amount of extra work to be completed. I suggested asking the consultants and said that if my boss needed me to come and explain the work then I'd be happy to pop in for a KIT day.

Anyway, I know the consultants outside of work (it's a small profession) and they haven't been asked. I'm 100% sure that my boss has just ignored/ overlooked this bit of the letter and I don't know what to do. Not doing the work will cause problems when I get back and possibly quite large costs/fines. But if I point it out now, the only way to deal with it will be for me to do extra kit days, which I really don't want to do as I want to enjoy my last few weeks at home with my boy.

I'm so annoyed - this is just typical behaviour from him (general crap boss, no interest in my work or support but is often there to take the glory). Part of me just wants to leave it or get in touch with our higher boss, and get him into trouble, but I have to work with him afterwards so I can't. But I know that if I email and remind him, he won't have a clue what to do and I'll end up dealing with it anyway.

I suppose I'm just wondering what is the correct/ professional way of dealing with this (avoiding giving up some of my maternity leave if possible) and what would others do?

[flowery]

Emailing him and reminding him doesn't have to automatically equate with you having to do the work. You can remind him of the requirement, remind him that you are not available and remind him of the existence of the consultants.

[poocatcherchampion]

I'd do nothing and forget about work until you return.

It is the organisations problem and you are not indispensable. Leave them to it, even if it means picking up the pieces when you return. You have already highlighted the issue so done enough IMO.

[ColdCottage]

Email him and higher boss saying you hope they are well and you look forward to coming back in X number of week, thanking them for understanding your need for the extra time at work and for covering the end of the project.
Very passive aggressive but will help I think.

[ginmakesitallok]

The professional thing to do would be not to get involved in work stuff when you are on ml. Not your problem.

[hellobarbie4]

I agree with ginmakesitallok, the professional thing here is to remain at a distance, don't get roped in, it's not your problem. Leave them to it, you're on ML.

You're not getting paid to worry about this stuff, you will most likely regret letting their incompetence influence your peace on ML when you're back.

If it's a problem, you can help pick up the pieces once you're meant to be back in the office. Until then, you've told them enough that they should be dealing with it (they are after all, managers!), now step back!

[YellowPirate]

Thank you for the replies. You're right, I'm not getting paid to worry about this. I have a KIT day before the deadline, so I think I'll mention it when I'm in and put it out of my mind until then.

I sort of feel semi-responsible for changing my leave. Before I left I had to go through my entire workload, winding most of it down, passing some onto my assistants and getting consultants to do the rest. I left really detailed instructions so that they could deal with most things, but of course I didn't leave instructions for this part as I thought I'd be back.

X

[Skiptonlass]

Do nothing. Don't remind him.

It's taken me a while to realise this but there are times when you have to let it go and let things fail.

Sounds awful doesn't it? But I've been in a number of situations recently where untenable amounts of work have been piled on me and my team. At first we all just sucked it up and did it. Then more work got piled on. Management were obviously thinking , well, no problem here, the work is being done...

But we were running ourselves into the ground, 60plus hour weeks etc. unsustainable. So we let it fail. We notified management it wasn't a task we could complete and asked for more resource. None arrived of course....and the thing failed.

Suddenly, it was a big deal. We'd covered ourselves very well (nice email trail saying x is not possible to complete on time, need more resource etc.)

Magically, more resource then appeared. There are times you just have to sit back and watch things implode :)

You're out of the office. Let them deal with it. If they don't deal with it well then you've left detailed instructions and the fault is theirs.