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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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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:

EarringsandLipstick · 13/04/2021 21:07

I’m in the unreal world with the other public sector unicorns so I’m probably safe from that

😂

EarringsandLipstick · 13/04/2021 21:10

[quote Covidbegone]@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[/quote]
Good luck OP. I hope you're able to sort it out in your own mind. And that if you do talk to your colleague, it goes well. 💐

Therewereroses · 13/04/2021 21:42

MsAnnFrope
It's ironic that the post you highlighted as excellent advice gives the exact same advice that I have given earlier in the thread. You find reason to attack me and praise them. Is it perhaps nothing to do with my comments towards the OP and everything to do with my comments about public sector employees? Earrings and Lipsticks has also taken serious issue with my lighthearted comment! A sensitive wee bunch you are. I'm also always amused how in accusing a poster of being a nasty assed bitche, people resort to being nasty assed bitches themselves. Amusing. Take a look at yourselves.

Mygardenisnotperfect · 13/04/2021 21:43

Yes good luck OP. I do concur with other PPs that I would leave off talking to your colleague and let it go. Only you know your workplace and this colleague, you seem to think this was a pushy competitive action by your colleague and if there is history there I can’t say that wasn’t an element of that, but if not it could well be she was just cajoled into doing it as you weren’t around. And it’s annoying because it weakens boundaries generally around annual leave at your workplace but may not have been intended as a shot at you at all.

As other PPs have said all workplaces are different (and yes the public sector is real life and I’d like to see some of the people who feel they are hard done by in the private sector try a day in the life of someone in the public sector, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be). Every workplace is different in their culture and the way that they work together.

I’d like to make clear I’m not saying the colleague who picked up the work is a mug or even that she necessarily has weak boundaries, as another pp pointed out she may well have had her own reasons for agreeing to work on annual leave which could be anything from rampant competitiveness to genuinely wanting to help out the team or indeed the client, to being bored at home etc etc. I am saying that poor boundaries around a healthy work life balance is one possibility. And often stems really from a toxic workplace colliding with a nice person who gives and gives until they collapse which doesn’t do anyone any favours long term. I see a lot of this among my patients and also in my workplace, I have been this person in the past because I do care about patients and colleagues and it did not work well for me. Nobody called her a mug I don’t think. I am saying though that in my workplace, the person’s actions who would ultimately be respected are OP’s not this colleagues. Which wouldn’t necessarily stop them asking someone to act like the colleague anyway!

I totally appreciate people who feel they are happy to work above and beyond on an infrequent basis at times of particular thigh pressure because they care deeply about patients/clients etc especially when it comes to health and social care. I have made the same decision many tines myself. However it can be perceived badly by employers and colleagues. I personally have had to draw some reasonable boundaries which definitely include not being disturbed on annual leave, because they get severely pushed every single day and it has caused my mental health to suffer in the past. If people see that as not being a team player or uncaring about the people we provide a service to, they should understand that it helps nobody ultimately for an employee to try so hard to be a team player that they have a nervous breakdown or die by suicide which has happened to a colleague of mine in the past. Then the team is temporarily or personally down a person and everything gets even more intense.

The comment about France is relevant only in that I think generally there is a healthier balance of employer and employee rights there than in the UK which I personally think has a very unhealthy balance of employer rights over employees, with a whole lot of toxic workplaces out there and getting worse all the time, but that is just my impression and I don’t know all the details about how things work in France. I just think they tend to not let the whole of life be about work in the way that it can be in the Uk in general.

EarringsandLipstick · 13/04/2021 22:00

I'm also always amused how in accusing a poster of being a nasty assed bitche, people resort to being nasty assed bitches themselves.

Who accused you of this? Roses

And your 'light-hearted' comment wasn't all that light-hearted, reposting to remind you:

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

More idiotic & ill-informed, I'd say.

LolaSmiles · 13/04/2021 22:14

Mygardenisnotperfect
Brilliant post. Very well put.

MsAnnFrope · 13/04/2021 22:14

@Therewereroses your post at 16.56 was rude and unpleasant.
And the only people calling others nasty bitches here is you.

Therewereroses · 13/04/2021 22:28

Well you're calling me rude and unpleasant which is the pot calling the kettle black arse!

EarringsandLipstick · 14/04/2021 09:03

@Therewereroses

Well you're calling me rude and unpleasant which is the pot calling the kettle black arse!

Actually Ann has described your posts as 'rude & unpleasant', not you.

I don't know where you are getting the 'pot & kettle' analogy. You've posted deeply unpleasant comments & are being called out on them. It's not comparable.

Therewereroses · 14/04/2021 09:06

Will you ever............

Therewereroses · 14/04/2021 09:07

Shouldn't you be at work at this point?

EarringsandLipstick · 14/04/2021 09:09

@Therewereroses

You're hilarious!

ThatOtherPoster · 14/04/2021 09:15

The only unreasonable thing I can see is that someone of your obvious high intelligence thinks lose is spelled loose.

Roszie · 14/04/2021 09:16

You've not been undermined you've been made to look bad.

I'm a teacher and work constantly through my holidays but I would still be pissed off if I were you.

EarringsandLipstick · 14/04/2021 09:19

@ThatOtherPoster

The only unreasonable thing I can see is that someone of your obvious high intelligence thinks lose is spelled loose.

What a nasty comment. Just why do people post stuff like this? It won't help the OP - does it make you feel good about yourself? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Ijustknowitstimetogo · 14/04/2021 09:19

OP I think you sound a touch soft and over sensitive. I’m exactly the same.

Lots (most?) people are quite hard and less squeamish about doing what they need to get something done without worrying about whether it’s offending someone.

They needed to get it done. You weren’t available. Someone else was. Simple as that.

No one cares how this makes you look or what you feel about someone else giving up their leave or whatever. They haven’t done anything rude or technically wrong or unprofessional. Maybe they’re not as nice or considerate as you would like them to be. But people often aren’t. It’s just the world of work and people can be a bit hard and harsh like that. It’s how they get things done.

bridgetreilly · 14/04/2021 09:27

If my boss came to me and said, “We’ve got this work that needs doing asap. X was lined up to do it but she’s on AL and has made it clear that she won’t do it until she gets back, but we need it sooner than that. I know you’re on AL too, but is there any way you could do it?” then of course I’d say yes, if I could. And it would not occur to me at all that it would reflect badly on X. She was asked and said she couldn’t. That’s fine. I don’t see why it should mean that everyone else has to refuse as well.

OP, you really do sound increasingly childish and self-absorbed. Just get over it. Raising this with anyone at work is going to make you look crazy.

winifredwells · 14/04/2021 09:31

exactly

and if my boss came to me with "this needs to be done asap" the day before I am due to go away, the answer would be "who can do it while I am gone!".

Never heard of anyone complaining about being allowed to go on annual leave in peace and the work place getting on with things.

ThatOtherPoster · 14/04/2021 10:13

It won't help the OP

It will if she learns to spell it properly. 👍🏻

TheLastLotus · 14/04/2021 12:07

@bridgetreilly

OP, you really do sound increasingly childish and self-absorbed. Just get over it. Raising this with anyone at work is going to make you look crazy.

She didn’t say she was not to be disturbed though did she?

Whether or not OP was being unreasonable really depends on her manager’s attitude and expectations.

If OP was told that this was important - OP said she still wasn’t going to do it and colleague did - fine she’s being U.

If OP was given to believe that it’s not important - mad rush team made colleague come off A/L to do it and manager makes a big fuss - the implication is that OP was the one who didn’t care.

I’ve had managers publicly call people out for things like this. You don’t know unless you’re in the exact situation and understand the workplace dynamics. The replies OP’s getting is her fault partly as she hasn’t explained what the rest of her team /manager think.

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