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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Work one AIBU

220 replies

Covidbegone · 13/04/2021 10:29

So I was asked to help out with a project months ago, but in the final stages, the editing down and smartening up stages. The people I’m helping have a reputation for being late to hand work in. The original lady who was liaising with them left her post before they got it to her. When she left she apologised to me and explained how long she’d been waiting and they were notorious for this.

Anyway new liaison lady comes on board. She gives them a deadline to work to. I go to her and explain that the deadline she has provided is in the middle of the Easter hols and I’ll be off as I have young kids. I ask if I can have the work a few days before as they will literally need the work on my return from A/L not leaving me any time to actually help out. This still leaves them a good few weeks to do the work. Anyway they complain they have not enough time. I advise them I can still help if they give me a day or 2 prior to leave.

A/L time arrives. I go on leave, no sign of the work. I return to work this week only to discover in the interim that the liaison lady has taken the job to my colleague who also has young children and is on A/L. My colleague however has done the work. I understand that that is her choice, however I feel completely undermined. It makes me look bad that I’m not willing to give up A/L for work, which tbf I’m not in this instance (they were given months and months to get something to me). I imagine that my colleague perhaps does not know the full story of repeated requests for work to be handed in by the original lady or myself. With all that in mind, would I be unreasonable to raise this with her? I just feel so undermined

OP posts:
GreenWillow · 13/04/2021 11:58

@Covidbegone

It makes me look difficult as I wasn’t prepared to give up my annual leave to fulfill the request, however my colleague is. Her position is the same as mine in that she has young children.
You were being difficult though, as you weren’t prepared to give up your annual leave.

You can’t be surprised that you came across that way, when that is exactly what you were being.

The labour market (even within an organisation) is competitive. She has shown herself to be more willing and flexible than you are which will probably have consequences for you should you wish to progress.

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 13/04/2021 11:58

You were being difficult though, as you weren’t prepared to give up your annual leave

I hope you arent a manager with that sort of attitude.

Smallfry79 · 13/04/2021 12:00

You are over thinking this. For all you know it might have suited your colleague to do the work at this time and she might have agreed to get the time back again when she needs it more. What the fact ye both have children has tk fo with it I dont know. That has nothing to do with work
You sound quite like a colleague of mine, over invested in what everyone else is doing and why and how it migh affect you or you might miss out in camparison. To be honest she is hard work.
You weren't available and told them so in advance. She could be available so did the work.
She shouldn't be expected not to just because you wouldn't/couldn't

TiggerTiggerBounce · 13/04/2021 12:01

I’m assuming that you and your colleague were the only ones that could do this (given that she gave up some annual leave to do it). If that is the case, why were you allowed to take leave at the same time? That seems the bigger issue here and good on your colleague to help out

Gizlotsmum · 13/04/2021 12:01

I think you are over thinking it. Maybe ask your colleague how she was approached, was it sold as urgent through no fault of theirs?

GreenWillow · 13/04/2021 12:04

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

You were being difficult though, as you weren’t prepared to give up your annual leave

I hope you arent a manager with that sort of attitude.

I run my own business, and have to have this attitude to stay competitive.

I accept that if I prioritise certain luxuries like set-in-stone annual leave etc, I will lose business to my competitors, which is exactly what has happened to OP.

Therewereroses · 13/04/2021 12:05

A lot of places these days won't allow you to take annual leave if there's a critical project ongoing. This is of course why women fail to progress. It's unfortunately a price you pay.

queserra2021 · 13/04/2021 12:08

What would your recommendation have been? Genuine question.

Seems other options could have been:

  • your manager insist no one else touches the work and so it waits til you're back (missing deadlines? Or not materially?)
  • it was assigned only to someone not on AL (where these expertise / resources available?)

I agree that this isn't your colleagues problem or mistake (I like the person's framing above that you each acted in accordance with your own values at the time) but speaks to something else going on for you regarding how you feel your work place assessed value and impact, and that you're not being as successful on those metrics as you hoped or believe is fair.

sweeneytoddsrazor · 13/04/2021 12:09

Surely being a team player is all about flexibility and being able to cover each other. This time she was able to be flexible you weren't. Next time it could be the other way around.

Therewereroses · 13/04/2021 12:11

In previous workplaces, certain time periods were blocked out for anyone taking AL at the weeks leading up to an external audit for e.g.

In one particular role it was preparation of Bids. All of these had strict deadlines and you would be working on multiple bids at any one time. When taking AL, you had to hand over your case load to a colleague prior to leaving.

What you should have ideally done was to have spoken to your manager and said, I'm on AL from next Monday, and I'm conscious of the deadline for XYZ project. Can I please hand over to someone else on the team, so that they can work on it once everything has been finally submitted? Instead, effectively you swanned off into the sunset not giving two fucks, with not a care in the world about the deadline. That's how they'll see it.

UserTwice · 13/04/2021 12:13

I think this is a case of it reflecting well on your colleague, rather than reflecting badly on you.

I don't know why it's relevant that either of you have young children.

Therewereroses · 13/04/2021 12:14

You've known the deadline for some time. You also know that you wouldn't have had time to work on it to meet the deadline. You should have gone to your manager with a solution rather than your manager suddenly realising, Fuck, where the hell is Covidbegone? Shit, she's on leave! What will we do now? You didn't really take enough initiative or demonstrate enough commitment to the project.

Therewereroses · 13/04/2021 12:16

@UserTwice

I think this is a case of it reflecting well on your colleague, rather than reflecting badly on you.

I don't know why it's relevant that either of you have young children.

Childcare issues presumably?
I guess the other colleague proposed working from home and didn't in fact work through her holidays.
blueluce85 · 13/04/2021 12:17

So you want to tell your colleague to not be so flexible so that you don't look bad??! Uhh 🤔
Might want to rethink that approach!

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 13/04/2021 12:19

GreenWillow

Do you have employees?

emilyfrost · 13/04/2021 12:22

YABU. You haven’t been undermined. You weren’t prepared to do the work, she was.

Your colleagues situation and the alternatives to you that your work find are absolutely nothing to do with you.

Therewereroses · 13/04/2021 12:24

A lot of contracts that I've come across in my career have a thing in annual leave like '22 days to be booked with at least 5 days notice, subject to business requirements'. As pretty much every contract has something like that in it, it must be legal. They could have refused to grant you the leave for the 2 days it would have taken you to work on it, so they are flexible to a degree. However, the work had to be done. Did you think that they were going to just not bother meeting the deadline when a whole team has been working on it for long time? No! Of course not. It had to be submitted, you weren't there, you hadn't arranged for someone else to do the work, so they had to arrange that as you were not there!

GreenWillow · 13/04/2021 12:26

Yep, just not ones with this kind of Work to Rule attitude.

I think a lot of people forget that employers can dictate the dates of all annual leave, and indeed cancel AL that has already been booked.

Pre-booked AL isn’t some form of right, it’s a perk offered by a lot of employers (including me). Sometimes though, the business needs mean that it cannot be taken as planned and that’s just life.

Op would prefer not to have to compete with those around her, however. In the real world, that is the way it is.

She got Nutmegged, plain and simple.

Therewereroses · 13/04/2021 12:28

Was it a tender for something? Or something requiring a strict deadline? Usually, if we're asked to submit something in an unrealistic timescale, we immediately requested an extension on the deadline. Sometimes it was granted, sometimes not. Depended on who/what you were tendering. It just demonstrates that you're not particularly committed to the business needs while your colleague was.

tanstaafl · 13/04/2021 12:31

How we’re both of you allowed annual leave at the same time?

Therewereroses · 13/04/2021 12:32

It's a tough old world out there and if family is your priority, fair enough, but don't complain about someone who puts work first on occasion.

thecatsthecats · 13/04/2021 12:33

@TiggerTiggerBounce

I’m assuming that you and your colleague were the only ones that could do this (given that she gave up some annual leave to do it). If that is the case, why were you allowed to take leave at the same time? That seems the bigger issue here and good on your colleague to help out
Sometimes work is unpredictable to be fair, or in this case, a straight cock up of planning.

We have four members in a particular team - sometimes all four could be off a couple of weeks with no consequences as they could be covered. Sometimes we can't allow anything but emergency leave.

Therewereroses · 13/04/2021 12:34

@tanstaafl

How we’re both of you allowed annual leave at the same time?
It was the OP's project/responsibility, she's the one who shouldn't have been granted leave at that time. I suspect we'd have a different thread if they had done that. AIBU to think that this is discrimination against mothers? You know how it goes.
LoudestCat14 · 13/04/2021 12:38

@Covidbegone

It makes me look difficult as I wasn’t prepared to give up my annual leave to fulfill the request, however my colleague is. Her position is the same as mine in that she has young children.
But she might have taken the view it was worth cancelling AL and taking it later when she might be able to go away. It has nothing to do with your choice to keep your AL. It wouldn't be fair to drag her into this.
ThatWouldBeEnough · 13/04/2021 12:38

I can see why you’re miffed and it depends on what the messaging is out there. It could be the you went on leave and left a job undone or it could be that they fucked up but it was such an important deadline they begged someone else to help. I’d be making sure everyone knew it was more the latter.

That said I would’ve given my colleague/manager the heads up so they were informed about the backstory before they were asked to help.

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