My sister's job is ruining my life.

[D0oinMeCleanin]

Dramatic I know, but that is how I feel. I just don't know what to do.

She begged me to help her get a job because she is skint but her partner works shifts and she has four children, making childcare difficult. She figured if she got a job in my place then I could do her shifts when her partner is working and she'd do some others of mine instead. Which is fair enough. I was happy to help. She's my sister and I adore her and hate seeing her struggle.

She has now got a job in my place. Her shifts are Wednesdays (split shift) and Thursday day. I am off Thursday night anyway.

She never fecking well does any of her shifts and I am fed up. I feel like she is taking the piss.

The boss is off this week and she hasn't picked up enough to be able to do her shifts unsupervised, so I have to work this week for her. He's back next week, but she can't do her shifts then either, because she is going on a holiday a-fucking-gain. For the second time since getting her job, so I'll have to do those shifts for her too.

When she gets back her partner will be on nights for two weeks so I'll have to do those shifts too.

So for four weeks I will see my kids only on thursday evening and a sunday while she swans about on holiday with all of hers, even though she's that fucking skint if I don't get her a job she can't afford to give her kids a birthday

I want to ask for her to be sacked so that someone who wants to work can take her job and I get some time off.

AIBU? I feel awful, but I cannot keep working every god damn night so she can work when it suits her. Dd1 now cannot join family judo with me because it's on one of my sister's nights, which I always have to do. I have had to cancel the dog's training class which is something I needed to do to help my future job prospects (I am starting a uni course in dog training and wanted to get first hand experience of group training classes) because it is on one of my sister's nights. Her confidence or lack of means she is not picking the job up quick enough to any weekends because she'd be too slow to pick it up, so I can't have any weekends off.

I would have a heart to heart with you boss.

Tell him/her the problem and that you don't want the business to suffer but you feel you cannot keep covering for DS as your DCs are suffering. What does he/she suggest as you want to stop covering for your sister.

The boss is the one who will have to sack her if that's what it comes to or could boss employ someone else on a part time basis to cover for DS or to give you more time off or could boss tell DS to shape up or she will be fired.

Wow, your sister has some nerve.

I think she only asked you to get her a job because she knew she could be really slack, whereas if she got a job in the normal way she would have to actually, y'know, work.

Tell her that after her DH's nights you can no longer cover her shifts - that way it gives her plenty of notice. I think you would be right to stop covering right now TBH, and not give her any notice (it's not like you're under contract with her is it!) but that really depends how you feel about fallout, reaction from family etc, as I'm willing to bet she would make you seem like the unreasonable one. Even though she's so far past unreasonable she's looking at it in the rear view mirror!

Um, your sister's job isn't ruining your life, your inability to say NO to your sister is ruining your life.

Seriously, JUST. SAY. NO.

Tell her you won't be able to do the shifts. She then has the choice to shape up or face losing the job. At least you will have given her the chance to make it work.

YANBU.

Definitely speak to your boss, explain that you need every other weekend off, and that you will only be covering for your sister one week a month.

Your boss is taking advantage of you too - over relying on you to pick up the slack of their poor grasp on your sister's attitude to work. Any other boss would have given her a written warning by now. Or more than one.

Why are you covering for her like this? If she had got a job under her own steam, it wouldn't have lasted this long without her being sacked, due to her lack of work ethic. IMO she asked you to get her a job as she KNEW she could do this and leave you to pick up the slack, where she would be unable to do that anywhere else.

And why is it so hard for her to get a job around her partner's shifts? Surely you just get some blooming childcare? Like all Lone Parents have to do, like all parents with partners who do shift work have to do?

If her and her partner don't earn enough to cover their childcare costs, then why don't they claim Tax Credits to help with this? Or, like I have had to, accept that in the short term it is not financially viable for her to go to work?

is this the sister that sponges on everyone and expects everyone else to pay for her and her kids? her kids are nightmares and destructive?

you really need some cojones op.

No. My sister's children are very well behaved and not at all destructive. No-one pays for them but her and her partner. My other sister is a liability but has no children. That must've been a different OP.

I'm going to speak to her tomorrow and then my boss when he gets back from his holiday.

I would work out exactly how many times you have covered her shifts since this arrangement began. That way you have clear facts to back you up when you meet with your boss (or your sis) and say "this isn't working for me".

'My family cannot keep suffering so she can work when she feels like it.'

Yeah!
Now repeat after me 'I am a vertebrate, I am a vertebrate'

I've taken the cowards way out and spoken to my mum

The reason being my sister and my mum have a different way of speaking to each other than I do and me speaking directly to her is more likely to cause her upset than my mum talking to her. I can very blunt in the way that I speak, whereas my mum and sister are not and so they often feel I am attacking them, when I am not.

My mum is going to talk to her but has revealed to me that my sister doesn't actually like her job, nor did she want it. Her partner wants her to work and pushed her into it. They don't need the money, either. It's also her partner and not her who is booking all the holidays, without considering me.

I have offered her a get out clause in the way of blaming me for her not keeping her job.

She's also letting my boss take the piss and has not been paid for weeks and is owed hundreds but daren't chase it up, so I am going to sort that out for her tonight when I go in. My boss is not going away until Monday, apparently. I often have to chase him for my wages. If you just wait for him to pay you as she has been doing you'll never get paid

I'll be having words with him too

Again, why is her childcare issues your problem????? It's not - if she was another colleague, you'd just say 'no' to these extra shifts and that would be that. How she gets childcare for her shifts if her problem, she could pay a babysitter for the evening shifts. Or if she doesn't earn enough to cover the childcare costs, she could quit. That she wants time off is your boss' problem, you have a right to your time off and not to do extra shifts.

" so I am going to sort that out for her tonight when I go in."
Again, why is it your job to sort her out? What is she, 12?

How old is your sister? Why can't she sort it our herself?

No, no - she can sort out her back pay, not you.

You need a grow a backbone OP.

Doin. I have read many of your posts on the dog boards, where I usually disagree with you, probably because I am mostly a lurker there and don't like dogs. However, what I have noticed is how tough talking and passionate you can be, how articulate and how determined to fight for animals. Now, imagine you are a Staffie / Alsatian / insert dog type here and your owner is overworking you and posts on here. What would your response be? You would fight for the rights of the dog to a decent life. You are worth no less (IMO far more) than an animal! Put yourself and your family first! I know you can do it.

I'm in work tonight anyway, so will be seeing my boss. It's no extra effort to tell him to pay me her wages.

I've now spoken to my sister. She didn't want the job but is happy now she has it. She does want to keep working there. She is going to talk to her partner about going away this week, when she cannot work because the boss is going away and then she can do her shifts next week.

I'm also going to talk to my boss about stopping her from working shifts she can do because he can't be there with her.

She is not yet trained to cash up or update the till where mistakes have been made and he won't train her to do it because he doesn't think she is ready. However I am trained to do those things and would much rather be sat at home with my children waiting for my sister to ring if she gets stuck or needs to correct something than be at work all night when she could be working. I live literally 30 seconds away from work, so could be there almost instantly and it takes me five minutes to cash up at the end of the night. I don't mind doing that for her.

OP, I don't think that solution sounds ideal. What if it ends up with you running back and forth to your work all the time? Are you really going to want to interrupt stuff to go and cash up? Why would you want to sit around waiting for her to call you?

I don't understand this, I really don't. She needs to learn how to do her job and she's not going to do that if she never needs to take responsibility.

OP stop babying her and grow a backbone FGS.

You are a helicopter parent in the making!

Oh god, just tell your boss you will do the hours you always have done and that's it. Tell your sister she's taking the piss and you won't do any more of her hours.

You are literally lying down, letting them walk all over you.

Tell your sister to come to the shop tonight to pick up her wages. Her wages are her business, not yours.

'Oh god, just tell your boss you will do the hours you always have done and that's it' It's not that simple. Other people have left and/or cut down shifts and I seem to have slowly collected them all, on a temporary basis I am told, but then the other staff never return or start up on their original shifts.

There is no-one else to step in and do these shifts.

My sister now knows that wed and thurs are her shifts and will make an effort to work them when my boss allows and her partner is not working, making sure her holidays are booked when she is not working.

I am going to have a word with my boss about allowing to her to do busier shifts that I work when he is in the shop (so Friday and Saturdays) and about training her to correct mistakes/cash up etc.

I think part of the problem is that he has also collected extra shifts as people have left and not been replaced so he doesn't want to come in on his days off to help my sister. He also has young children and works most shifts, coming in on his days off (which are few and far between) would leave him with no time off.

I think both my boss and my sister's partner see me as an easy touch and someone who will pick up their slack and my sister daren't stand up to either of them.

It is her job not yours. The owner should n't be discussing it with you, expecting you alone to cover her absences or letting you collect her money. It sounds as if she is not there often enough to really count it as a job anyway (does she declare it for wtc etc I wonder or to get DSS off her back for example ) and so isn't trained up to fulfil the job spec. Stop running around after her and suggest she finds something else. she is behaving liek a spoilt chidl and you are letting her !

She's not entitled to any Tax Credits with or without this job because of her partners wage. But yes, she pays tax on the wages. We get wage slips but it's cash in hand and pinning the boss down to collect your wage slips and get your wages is not always easy.

He pays me now, because I learnt the hard way and he knows I will bombard him with phone calls and texts until I get paid or just turn up at the shop and wait.

They see you as an easy touch because you ARE an easy touch.

I saw something similar at my job this year. We all had part time contracts with the possibilities of afternoon shifts if we wanted them. One week, they asked us all to work afternoons. I had another job, so I said no straight away.

Two other staff members didn't want to work them, but literally sat and apologised and made excuses and tried to fit it in even though they had other commitments. They were SO worried about it. As a result, they were cajoled into doing it. No-one said a word to me, because I'd just said no while the others sat there ringing their hands and feeling awful for the company. Why, I don't know, because it's not like the company was bothered that some of us were promised full time hours which were then reduced, thus halving our incomes.

You say it's not that simple OP, but it really is. If your boss needs more staff, he needs more staff. It is not your responsibility.

Well they're right, you are an easy touch.

Why are you taking the blame for her losing the job when really SHE should be having an honest talk with her husband if he wants her to work and she doesn't? That's not your place to sort out.

How do you even know that's the truth and not your mum covering for your sisters laziness, considering that's something you seem to do a lot in your family?

She doesn't need you to sort out her wages or talk to her boss for her. Stop treating her like a child!

Maybe your family feel that you are telling them what to do because you are taking on the role of mum all the time and sorting out everyone's problems for them.

I know you've tried to help her but you're starting to come across as controlling.