I’m a manager of a small team - me and two other people. We work in a small, busy office. We are a professionally trained team but don’t work in a corporate environment - we work in a school.
We are a support function and we get a lot of callers into the office. It’s busy.
We are all part-time with different patterns.
I am perfectly comfortable with the team saying ‘Sarah will be in at 10 and she deals with the petty cash - can you come back then?’ Or ‘Lisa can do that tomorrow morning no problem’ when there are non- urgent things. Most are non-urgent.
The only person who really has urgent stuff is me by dint of my role.
Lisa is becoming frustrated as she feels she’s picking stuff up she shouldn’t have to.
I’ve told her she doesn’t have to, there is zero expectation of that. She feels we aren’t offering the support the team should if she tells them to wait.
There are not three full time roles in the team.
This is a bone of contention. There is no solution that suits her.
I basically think that she wants to work in a corporate environment but doesn’t want the hassle of finding a new job with less flexibility.
Because we’re part time she can do things like message me the night before and ask if she can swap days to accommodate personal things. She loves very nearby etc - it’s very convenient.
One issue is she’s overqualified for the job she’s doing. I raised this at interview and she was clear it was about work life balance and suiting her family life etc. We all make choices like this from time to time so I don’t mind that. But I think she may be hoping I’d have left and she could have my job. Unfortunately for her this job suits me very well and I like it so I’m not going anywhere for a while.
AIBU to think I cannot solve this? She wants to turn our workplace into something it isn’t and that just isn’t going to happen.