Work one AIBU

[Covidbegone]

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, you cannot control what your colleague does, nor should try to. It has nothing to do with you. You were on leave, someone else did it. You are far too defensive, and your are trying to control how your colleague chooses to deal with requests that come her way. Your posts don’t come across very well.

@Therewereroses

As for the public sector employee, yikes. I wouldn't be announcing that! Most of us have no such luxuries but it explains why you can't get through to a public service ever

You literally haven't a clue.

I work in 3rd level education in Ireland. Public sector spans a wide range of areas.

I don't always love the leave arrangements (as a manager) but it is what it is. I'm very fortunate to work in a challenging, creative environment with committed bright people with a great degree of autonomy. I work very hard, as most of my colleagues do. Having worked in private sector environments that were much more stifling, I find the environment produces great work, and certainly motivates most to give over & beyond.

I hate completely uniformed people who make incredibly generalised assumptions.

Once again, my point was: workplaces differ. Shock

I understand what you are saying OP, but I think you need to change the way you see it.

Instead of thinking she has made you look bad (probably not, and most probably not deliberately) I would look at it with the view that you have shown you have boundaries, whereas she does not. It makes you look like the senior person tbh.

I would just push it to the back of your mind. I found This man's books very useful with regards to perspective

@Therewereroses

Interestingly OP, can I ask whether you have a partner and if so, when you knew you had an important deadline, was it ever discussed that your partner would take the time off while you worked?

Why the hell does this matter?

@Therewereroses

What's not fun is having a colleague who won't pull their weight.

You have been deeply unpleasant on this thread.

[quote Covidbegone]@Therewereroses I think you need to reflect on a few of your posts to see who’s been nasty here[/quote]
I agree completely OP.

@MiddleParking

By the way, OP, I think the best thing you could do here is be gracious and thank your colleague for stepping in. Everyone likes someone who responds that way.

I agree with this advice too! At the outset, I didn't agree you were right to be miffed with your colleague.

I think thanking her & moving on is the right course of action.

I think, for me, I would be raising it with my manager as to why anyone needed to cancel their annual leave simply because people, who have been known to not respond to deadlines before, didn't respond once again. Their actions need to be looked at here, as currently they don't see any need to meet deadlines and now know others will alter their plans rather than them getting a kick in the arse from management about their lack of respect for other colleagues.

Having staff members cancel annual leave just because people can't be bothered to meet deadlines is a slippery slope and grossly unfair to staff.

At what point OP did you inform your manager that you wouldn't be able to complete your part of the work because it was due to arrive with you when you were on A/L. They were not in reality 'later as such because they had already changed their completion date by agreement with the liason. Surely you thought to let your manager know this rather than just say to the liason officer ask them to get it to me a few days before that date.

@Covidbegone

I did feel you were BU to react negatively to your colleague. But I think the nasty & aggressive responses you've got here (looking at you @thebillyotea & @Therewereroses ) are awful.

I hope you can filter those out & focus on the very good advice from others.

I think is fine to come on here & air your feelings, before deciding what you want to do next (which I hope will just be to thank colleague & move on).

As someone who has never worked in an office, this is a fascinating thread. My advice would be not to mention it to your colleague but to collect together all the e-mails into one document so the situation is clear. Whether you send that document to your line manager is up to you.

I think your real gripe should be with the lazy team who have not been held accountable for missing deadlines. If they have a manger they need to face a meeting and find out why their team can't meet specific deadlines, otherwise all of them should be held to account.

Secondly the other lady shouldn't have put it on someone else whilst on annual leave to meet the deadline. Working during your annual leave sets a precedent and whilst that might work for your colleague it is unacceptable to think that everyone will do so. I appreciate you are annoyed about that and I would be too.

What you could have done was escalate it earlier and ask who you could pass on your caseload too before you went on annual leave and do a handover.

Well for what it’s worth @Covidbegone I’m with you. I would have taken my leave. They were fully aware you were going, not your fault they weren’t organised enough to get you the work on time. But I wouldn’t be stressing about it now. Your colleague has made a rod for her own back now. She sounds like a suck up.

[quote EarringsandLipstick]@Covidbegone

I did feel you were BU to react negatively to your colleague. But I think the nasty & aggressive responses you've got here (looking at you @thebillyotea & @Therewereroses ) are awful.

I hope you can filter those out & focus on the very good advice from others.

I think is fine to come on here & air your feelings, before deciding what you want to do next (which I hope will just be to thank colleague & move on). [/quote]
I am sorry if my honest answers hurt your sensibility.

I work in a very competitive private sector. While I agree with you that all sectors are different, the OP would shoot herself in the foot big time if she was "raising" anything with colleague.

The ones who are awful are posters forgetting that in the real word, unprofessional attitude have real consequences and who are winding up the OP or giving completely ridiculous advice.

OP you would be very unreasonable to question your colleague about her leave in any way. It's literally none of your business. Sounds like you're flouncing about because the work got done without you.

I am sorry if my honest answers hurt your sensibility.

No. Your 'honest' answers didn't upset me at all.

I don't like the snide tone but not much I can do about that.

I think attacking & being aggressive to the OP is not helping her, and is deeply unpleasant.

While I agree with you that all sectors are different, the OP would shoot herself in the foot big time if she was "raising" anything with colleague.

You might want to read my posts then as I said this exact point at least twice. I don't think the OP should say anything to her colleague.

who are winding up the OP

Which would be you. Name calling & making derogatory comments - that's fairly likely to wind anyone off, probably before driving them off their own thread.

EarringsandLipstick

oh, I see, you are on a wind up!

@thebillyotea OP isn’t being unprofessional though.
Why didn’t they ring her up and ask if it was that important?
Also they may have asked colleague without knowing that she was going on A/L and colleague said yes. Manager blames OP for not doing job / praises colleague ... when they could’ve rang OP up if they’d known.

Competitiveness aside only a genuine emergency should constitue giving up A/L - not a dependency on a team that’s known for being late...that’s just taking the piss

You posted in AIBU but won't accept anybody's point of view that says YABU .
What do you want? You got your way . You said you couldn't do the work and the company got someone else to do it so you didn't feel forced to give up yours . You are feeling miffed that someone else chose to work their AL but that's their choice , as is yours to refuse . Whatever the reason was that the work wasn't ready on time to suit your AL is irrelevant . You are not going to come across well if you choose to say anything

@Sceptre86

I think your real gripe should be with the lazy team who have not been held accountable for missing deadlines. If they have a manger they need to face a meeting and find out why their team can't meet specific deadlines, otherwise all of them should be held to account.

Secondly the other lady shouldn't have put it on someone else whilst on annual leave to meet the deadline. Working during your annual leave sets a precedent and whilst that might work for your colleague it is unacceptable to think that everyone will do so. I appreciate you are annoyed about that and I would be too.

What you could have done was escalate it earlier and ask who you could pass on your caseload too before you went on annual leave and do a handover.

This is excellent and balanced advice. I don’t think your colleague is in the wrong. You don’t know her reasons for doing the work and as long as it got done I’d be grateful. I would be pissed at another team who repeatedly didn’t deliver on time and this negatively impacted on me and other colleagues. Also @Therewereroses you were very confrontational, arrogant and rude to OP. I’m grateful I don’t with with you, although I’m in the unreal world with the other public sector unicorns so I’m probably safe from that

@EarringsandLipstick thank you. I do appreciate your words. In terms of confronting my colleague I would never do that in a nasty way, I have been bullied myself and know how horrible that can be

Op.
Just remember as well that if the higher ups got wind of the fact that you approached your colleague about this issue than it would like really really bad for you. I think it's a bigger deal in your head than it really is in work.
I'd just let it go .

[quote TheLastLotus]@thebillyotea OP isn’t being unprofessional though.
Why didn’t they ring her up and ask if it was that important?
Also they may have asked colleague without knowing that she was going on A/L and colleague said yes. Manager blames OP for not doing job / praises colleague ... when they could’ve rang OP up if they’d known.

Competitiveness aside only a genuine emergency should constitue giving up A/L - not a dependency on a team that’s known for being late...that’s just taking the piss[/quote]
I disagree, the attitude towards the colleague really is not professional, and the way the OP was worded, not professional either.

Why didn’t they ring her up and ask if it was that important?
why did they disturb her annual leave and try to get it cancelled? Is that really what you mean?

You don't do that! And imagine the reaction of the OP if they had done that!

only a genuine emergency should constitute giving up A/L
exactly...

I will of course bare that in mind @Crazycrazylady I do keep a good relationship going with my colleagues and count many of them as friends. I’m surprised at how quickly a few people have mentioned calling up HR on this thread. I always thought HR was for major issues such as harassment and pay and work disputes. To me that would be asking a question, not causing a major dispute. Maybe I’m out of touch and need to step back from thinking of colleagues as friends which is a shame as I’ve worked with many of the same people for years.

@thebillyotea

EarringsandLipstick

oh, I see, you are on a wind up!

Not sure what you're on about. I've answered clearly & you are posting goady shite.

Fine, I'll leave you to it. Bit of a pathetic way to get your kicks, IMO