How do I handle this?

[MonsterToy]

Long story short - I work on a small community project helping vulnerable people. I’ve disliked working there for a while solely due to my managers management style.

It’s a tiny team and already a few people have left and I’ve had to take over their duties. No effort has been made to replace these people.

Now my job share colleague has to decided to leave (same reason everyone leaves) and I’ve received an email outlining all of the extra responsibilities I’ll have to take on. It means I’ll be doing the role of almost 3 people.

I want to leave anyway and have been applying for jobs but no luck so far. How do I handle this in the meantime? Can I refuse to do it?

I would be very matter of fact about your current workload e.g. “a, b, c and d take up all of my time. I am fine to do x and y but which out of a, b, c and d do you want me to stop doing?” If you are contracted and paid for 37.5 hours a week then that’s all you can do

Stick to your contracted hours and do what you can do within those hours and everything else will just have to get left. If you do all the additional tasks then it will just enforce their belief that they don't need to recruit more staff. In the meantime keep looking for another job.

Is there anyone you can speak to - HR, or someone above your manager - to discuss the situation?

Where does the project's money come from? How come there was money for all those staff and now it's not being spent on them? Is there a mismanagement of funds?

Hi. You took me on to do a and b. Then you added c. And then d. And now e.

I can not physically do a, b, c, d and e.

That was 3 seperate people's roles when I first started so you need to let me know which persons role is the most important and which 2 you will be recruiting for as it is impossible to actually do the work of 3 separate humans.

I take it from having a job share partner that you are part time? I know it’s tricky (been in a similar situation), so it may be easier to send it in an email rather than face to face. Explain clearly that you’d love to help (even if you would), but that it isn’t possible to do all of this in the time you have. Ask them to clarify which tasks are top priority and then work through them.

Thanks for the replies all.

We are a commissioned service (coming up for renewal with a good chance it won’t be recommissioned) so this is part of it I think. One of the roles was to support a colleague with disabilities. Instead of rehiring for that role, those duties were passed to me and the extra money spent on more expensive offices.

This is very outing but essentially, with my colleague gone, it is just me (part time) and two people with disabilities working one day each with one colleague needing 1-2-1 support to get anything done. I lose a full day to a support role I don’t enjoy and never agreed to do - it was just expected. The project will collapse without me so u that don’t understand why they would like all this extra pressure rather than winding down the service we offer

I only work part time as it is and, as my manager is well aware, I have a very difficult home life at the moment. I’m just miserable there and this isn’t helping.

I could try HR actually although everyone is good friends with the manager

I should also mention I am a massive people pleaser and find it very difficult to say no or stand up for myself.

I could send an email - that would be more manageable I think.

One of the roles was to support a colleague with disabilities. Instead of rehiring for that role, those duties were passed to me and the extra money spent on more expensive offices

I just knew this was going to be yet another case of empire building on the back of the staff's efforts

If future funding's doubtful you might as well just refuse to do it and save the stress. Normally I'd suggest EL8888's kind of negotiation, but in this situation you can be sure the manager's lined up his next job already. Happily, you can now do the same

Apologies l didn’t notice the part time bit. That’s even more of a liberty if you aren’t full time

I think what’s upset me most is that there have been no discussions with me about this. I’ve only found out the plan because I was copied into an email to my departing colleague with instructions for handover of all her work areas. I’m on annual leave at the moment so I would have returned to work to discover this

Can I reasonably refuse the extra responsibility? Would it be a good idea to send an email before I go back just saying I’m surprised that this was not discussed with me first and that my workload will need consideration before handover occurs? I don’t want to make life more difficult for myself but I’m sick of being a pushover.