to resent covering constantly for a colleague's childcare absences?

Are you ok?

Fucking hell... do you regularly not bother reading the threads then chime in?

Whatever arrangements the colleague has or doesn't have.. is nothing to do with the OP. All we know is that the OP is having to do extra work of the colleague, resulting in extra hours and an unhappy workforce.

That's a management issue. End of.

She hasn't blamed anyone for poor performance and the personal life of the colleague is nobody else's business.

@catchingup1 i concur. Make your work cover the hours you work so no room to repeatedly, regularly pick up her work until managers need to deal with why work isn’t done. The managers sound like they won’t do anything as the work slack is being picked up and done by others. So it’s not an issue for management. Make it an issue.

I feel sorry for her but she knows what the job requires and is constantly unable to fulfil her role or make up for it.

Maybe there is nothing for management to sort. This is the perspective of one person who claims to be representing the whole team’s views. But we don’t know that do we. We also don’t know whether she herself is performing or not, or just blaming others for poor performance. We don’t know the circumstances of the worker who is also a carer and we don’t know what agreement they have for flexibility in place with their manager. As such OP needs to deal with the things they can manage such as working the required hours only, asking for support in prioritising tasks that are given as she can’t do everything and managing up cleverly to
make sure she isn’t feeling this way.

Wow, really! Shocking culture and values in your workplace too. No wonder we have such an issue these days and people don’t want to work.

What has that got to do with the price of bread? 🙄

If you've been managing teams for a long time (so have I FWIW), you'd know that it's up to management to sort this mess out and not put extra work on other staff.

The circumstances don't matter.

Why should she demonstrate compassion and understanding? Not her place - she just needs to do her work in her contracted hours and let management sort out any work that’s not being done.

Small companies that’s how it always works but the manager needs to manage. Her private life is no concern of yours. You may have to leave if this isn’t rectified.

Read the replies on the other posts. Unwilling to reflect that there could be information that they are not privy to, and demonstrating zero compassion and understanding. Some of us have been managing teams for a long time and can spot it a mile off.

What?

How?

Honestly that is a wiiiiiild accusation

I would add, that maybe you are just not privy to the arrangements that have been put in place by your manager. When my husband became suddenly disabled & my children couldn't be left overnight, I stopped be rotated onto night shifts with the input of my manager. No one else knew, as it was no ones business. Did colleagues moan & bitch about me? Yes they did. Did I nearly have a breakdown trying to deal with it all, yes I did. But thank God for my wonderful manager, who cut me some slack & kept a track of the hours I owed from starting/ finishing late. These were then made up as & when, again without anyone else being privy. Do your job & go home.

Crikey this is the 21st century, we can treat colleagues with compassion and respect. Surely the workload is manageable and she's having to take leave or make time up.

But " team players " aren't just one way. Nothing's been mentioned about this woman covering for others regularly

Ive had this problem too at work. I was asked by a Manager to completely alter my start time to fit in with a new colleagues problems with childcare. I didnt see why my own travel to work carefully worked out at a time to avoid busy traffic and get a parking space at work should be curtailed. Its very annoying to be expected to change everything for people who work but have perpetual childcare problems and sickness.

Yep, find your inner Veronika.

Yes just email your manager. “Apols x, I don’t think I’m going to be able to cover y task today due to my existing workload of abc. Maybe colleague can pick this up tomorrow instead”.

Keep pushing back. Make this your managers problem and then she will have to act. At the moment she won’t care- the works gets done, so her job is done. Get some other people on side too. Be consistent. “Unfortunately I already have xyz on my plate and I won’t have time to cover colleagues tasks”. Keep at it.

Op is she working her hours? As a lone parent I don't have a shit husband to blame things on but equally I still have to do the work of two people at home. My manager is very flexible in that if I needed to go do a pick up I'm able to use flexi time for that, or work across my lunch instead of taking a lunch break or I split my shift and continue working after ds is in bed or after pick up etc. In my case I don't have a team so if I don't do the work it just doesn't get done so I make sure I never let that happen. But my point is could she be working at other times you aren't seeing so she's still doing her contracted hours?

If you are sure she's not working her hours then you need to take it again to your manager in writing and ask for a review of everyone's workloads.

The one thing I would add in to this, is that I do feel that employers do have a duty of care to support employees impacted by situations like domestic abuse and let's be honest, that doesn't sound far off the mark here does it? While no it's not your problem, noone wants to see a vulnerable woman put out of work.

But then that's up to her manager to negotiate her working hours with her. I just think you can't expect people to work like they aren't parents and also parent like they don't work. Something somewhere has to give but your manager needs to identify the solution and in the meantime you need to hold boundaries with how much extra you're taking on. How urgent are the tasks you're doing for her? Are they things that realistically could be an email to her asking her to prioritise them first thing in the morning for example?

She sounds like one of these idiot women who thinks she's the only woman on the planet who has kids, so of course she expects everyone to run around after her and her brats. She's got the brazen nerve to see how far other workers will run around after her, even if they have children of their own. Cheeky c*w.

Start looking for a new job and once you get an offer then bring it up with your boss.

I think the rest of you all have to work together and decline to pick up the extra work. And you all need to raise it (the extra work) with your manager in one to one sessions.

I fully agree that it is a management issue within your workplace, but as an employer of many women it drove me mad that I was always making family friendly adjustments for women whose partners never ever picked up childcare emergencies. And no, they weren't all surgeons / firefighters / away at sea etc.