Colleague taking the piss….

f you think the patients will suffer, then don't leave. But you can't make a decision to leave and then pull some kind of emotional blackmail about the patients suffering ... because of a choice you made. Also, if part of your day is about checking your colleagues' hours and workloads then that's part of your day that you're not putting the patients first anyway.

Wrong thread? Or did you just not read it?

@Laughingteacakes just work your hours, do your job, no more, no less. If the waiting list starts building up then eventually management will notice and start looking at what everyone is doing. Until then focus on yourself. Don’t do her work. Do yours.

It seems as though you think you would be complaining about your colleague but actually what you're doing is complaining about your manager.
You're saying that you have noticed colleague isn't putting in the correct hours. You have noticed and decided (despite the fact you don't have the information to do so) that your colleague isn't completing their workload. If you need to flag those issues to your manager then you're saying your manager is unaware and incompetent.
They might be. Or you might be unaware of the details of someone else's contract and workload. But what you need to be prepared for is that your manager might not appreciate your implication that they aren't managing properly.

Only on MN would you be told to be happy for, and proud of, someone who is not doing the work they’re paid to do and causing you and others to feel the need to work additional unpaid hours, cos it’s feminist to support a mum innit. This site is preposterous sometimes.

I would say your issue is with your line manager if you have more work then you can do, it's got nothing to do with her. You'll be much happier if you focus on your job and try not to get distracted by others unless something she is actively doing affects what you're doing. Her making a good work life balance for herself is something to be admired 😊 I've felt resentful in the past for a similar situation, but realised I was actually just envious that I wasn't managing to create that balance for myself - that's only my issue and noone else's.

I had a colleague like this. It was constantly something usually childcare that meant she never did her hours, walked out of meetings because she had to leave, late in, early out, did as little as possible, dropped people in it with management. Her manager and the managers manager refused to see it. She was eventually moved on but not before 2 of the team were signed off with stress.

I understand how you feel. You are doing the work and the hours and she is not.

If you’re a probation employment specialist this is standard behaviour.

This is why there are less women in workplace and less women at the top. DEI always fall short and leaky pipeline exists. If her manager does not have issue why do you?

Performance at work is no longer measured by how many hours you are chained to the desk. I work FT, do school drops, pick-ups sometimes, attend school match fixtures. I’m a high earner. Most ppl are where I work, no one keeps tabs on people’s lives.

Performance is managed by results we produce not hours we worked.

How does managing her family and worklife impact you?
Absolutely sickening attitude. If you are so concerned about managing others, get a job as a manager.

sorry missed earlier post admitting NHS - I had 15 years off to get the youngest to secondary school (lucky me best time of my life) but I have been self employed, worked in the private sector and work for the NHS - never ever ever known such a piss take! Agree with you whole heartedly OP - some managers are so weak! Everyone else suffers or moves on.

I would add that, as a boss, I was less concerned hours present then hours of productivity. I had people who worked damned hard and efficiently ..I was happy for them to bunk off an hour early here or there, or agree to the, going to their kids assembly for special occasion, or staying in for delivery …it is give and take

Actually, I’ve just spoken to my builder company’s director as part f a different conversation about just this.

I’ve had his trades in for last 13 weeks and I’m shocked how much time they waste standing around doing nowt or chatting or on the on phone. No wonder my job is now running 4-weeks late. I’m retired and first time I’ve had significant building works since I retired and in the house a lot of the time .

For instance they were trying to put in a new patio door. After just starting they found a problem. Queue all 3 standing around for 45 mins while senior one on phone to try to solve. Lots of talking, swearing, laughing and gesticulating but no actual work. There is a ton of stuff the senior one could have set up junior ones to get on with in meantime, even if just tidying up the site. But no- they all stood around incapable of taking an initiative to actually look at what needed doing . Then they found they were missing pieces so one went off to get them , and others stood around for next hour just chatting to other trades which meant they weren’t working either 🤦‍♀️🤯. Another guy was on the phone almost constantly for last 2 days. By day 2 I started totting up hours he was chatting (I can hear as in room with interior door to me and it’s Echo at moment as bare walls still). Over that day he was chatting on his phone about kids, holidays, football etc for over 2.5 hours on phone. He can’t do his trade with one hand and a phone to his ear. Jeez I was appalled. Add to that he didn’t start till 9:45 as drinking his tea and faffing and downed his tools and left by 3;50pm . That a days work 😱

my builders response, when I mentioned this as a bit of a jokey comment in passing , was that it was “Bain of his life”, he knewit was an issue, and “if I had a solution to that I’d be a rich man”…🤦‍♀️Why the hell is he not going round his sites more often and checking up on progress ? Why the hell doesn’t he have the hours needed for a particular task set down so he can raise with his trades why it is longer and what the heck have they been doing all day. When I managed teams I knew how to do each task and how long it should take. If it took people longer I checked in about training, issues etc and if that didn’t work started to talk about productivity to them and what the obstacles were. It’s not rocket science.

this is about management or supervisory over sight. As a manager/supervisor you are responsible for productivity. If you as manager are too polite, scared or conflict adverse to monitor and pick up on people taking the piss with putting in the hours of actual work as per their contract, you don’t deserve to be a manager or be in business.

the builder then said to me that I could tell them to get on with it, as it would help him 🤯🙄🤦‍♀️

no wonder there aren’t enough trades to go round right now…a significant proportion on my sample size are doing nowt for hours per day, and being paid for it,

I think my answer will shock you:be happy for her and proud of her.Ask yourself,what does make you angry,do you want her to quit just becuase she care for her children and making her anympolyed,just becuase she try handle both work and children?If you going to talk about her negatively with your managers,you going to put her down becuase she care and maybe do not want strangers to look after her children.IF you really need she participate in some more work,ask her,what exactly is important,to work from home on that particular projetc,or maybe she can do saturday morning,when childs dad or relative is involved with kids,rather then talking behind her back negatively.Maybe she feel your preasure and she is feeling the stress from you,but she love her kids and she cant abandande her.Maybe she doesnt have so understanding man or relatives,who would do their part of babysitting or childcare or maybe she prearange her hours to be shorter,you dont know,her arrangements are not your business,but if you need a hand with particular project tell her so.Its you task to get along well with your cooworkers rather then be rediculously jelous if somebody rush to pick up her kids from school .Who knows,maybe one day you will end up looking after ill mother or will have operation and it will be you who will need to be out of office for while,you dont know what other people going throw.With your attituded you will make man always more succesfull then woman,becuase it is usually woman who are needed to care more and do more for family,while also needed to earn money.

Ok, what is your evidence of her using company time to travel and lack of childcare?

if you have evidence, then document it and send to manager without delay. ok, you’re snitching on her…but the manager needs to know.

also prepare some factual data about how it impacts you - get specific examples of what you’ve had to pick up, when , how long it took you and the impact it has on your life. You need this to be factual evidence based and not a general whinge and complaint. With evidence you can keep it relatively unemotional and just focus on you are not being paid fairly given same pay but you have to work longer hours (or whatever it is)

in a 1:1 with your manager follow this up to ask if they’ve reviewed the evidence collected on your colleagues productive hours and clearly state your concerns in terms of how it impacts you and provide that data too at that point stay calm, stay rational, avoid disparaging your colleague. . Ask them to review this and come back with a response. If they don’t agree, offer a solution, give assurances it’s been dealt with or not make a change ,take it to a grievance process. But you need your documented evidence to support this over say 1-2 months.

Bet you work for the NHS

Just do your hours, your job and don’t worry about others. Fair play to her for doing what works for her🤷🏼‍♀️.

You don’t “have” to pick up the slack. You feel like you should and are probably sacrificing your life for probably a billion pound multi-national… for what? Why do you think there are so many news articles about “quiet quitting?” If mugs workers didn’t act above their pay grade then maybe your manager would be inspired to change things around to make sure the work is done. That is their job.

I had a similar quandary in previous job. Although this was someone who was physically based in same office but not same team so had no impact on my workload. Came and went as she pleased started about an hour late and finished an hour early every day. If she had a delivery or something at home she just pretended she was somewhere else - eg at a meeting and went home. Boss had no clue. I struggled knowing that she was basically taking the piss but then decided it was none of my business. I would definitely have approached boss if she was part of same team though. Good luck OP hope it gets sorted out.

Do you have a "next in line" supervision with a more senior manager now and again, OP? If so, it might be an idea to raise the issue with them if your line manager hasn't addressed the slacker.

If not, why not ask to meet with them to discuss how unequal the distribution of work among the team is. It's very unfair and unreasonable of them not to address it.

My advice @Laughingteacakes is that you cover your work and your work only for 1 week. Same goes for the other colleagues. If you're asked where such-and-such is, reply "Oh that's Lazy Colleague's responsibility, you'd have to ask them". Just do it for 1 week.
Start at your starting time, finish at your finishing time. Don't pick up any of the slack for Lazy Colleague at all during that week. See if Lazy Colleague raises it as in "I've noticed that Laughing hasn't been doing X/Y/Z this week" then you can reply "But that's your responsibilty, not mine" and get the dialogue going.

Life is too short to be doing someone else's job for them and not geting compensated or recognised for doing it!

Personally I don’t see anything wrong with that. As long as she’s actually doing her job what does it matter ?
you can’t control what people do in their own free time