to be fed up with colleague working on her days off

[Ceci03]

So my colleague works 3 days a week, but she's started checking her emails, and ending up working on the other 2 days as well. It's just starting to really piss me off. I'm full time, and here, wanting work to do, but she wont put an 'out of office' on her email, or email forwarding, and won't let me pick up any of "her" work when she's off-time, she deals with it herself. I'm not sure if she doesnt trust me, or she is just a bit of a control freak. It's annoying cos I am full-time, and was brought in originally as there was too much work for 1 part-timer. I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs and she's just put a message on teams that she is online this morning as she has a lot of urgent things to deal with (she doesnt work on Fridays). I replied to her to just forward stuff over to me, but she said it's no problem. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

We had one of these at my old work. Total martyr. She once took her work laptop to Spain and replied to emails while sitting by the pool. Might be understandable if this was some big important role in the city, but we were graduate level and did some minor grunt work that I could easily cover for the week. And even if I struggled, it wouldn’t matter if stuff were a little slow, we were always ahead! Unfortunately I just think some people are like this. I’d comment every time she contacts you when she’s supposed to be off ‘don’t be silly, it’s your day off, we’ll be fine etc’ and also go to your manager and discuss workload.

In theory a do nothing job is fun but there’s only so much online shopping you can do and the time goes so slowly.

Yep I’ve known this before , she’s threatened by you op . You need to raise this with you line manager.

Maybe she feels like she's not managing to complete what she sees as "her" work in those three days and finds it easier to spread it out over 5 days?

Maybe she feels threatened by a new person coming in and doing what she sees as "her" job. Can you talk to her about it?

Having been in her position I can understand how she feels.

Can I give a part time person's perspective, often you feel there's an unstated expectation that you should still be available for urgent or unexpected things and it's hard to push back on that. I feel I do almost as much as full-time colleagues, just in a very compressed way, and I keep an eye on email when I'm not in because otherwise things can go in the wrong direction and then it's more work for me to sort out what's happened than if I'd quickly intervened on my day off. I suggest you speak to your manager and get get clear responsibilities agreed so that you have your own areas and you aren't reliant on your colleague "letting" you do things.

I am also contracted to work 3 days a week but I do bits and bobs on my days off, including weekends. This is because I prefer to work when I'm in the mood and have brain power (early mornings) so would prefer to crack on with things and get them done when I'm feeling productive. I don't mind that I'm not paid for it because if you even it out it's just a few hours here and there.

I suppose the difference is no one else covers my job so it's just me and I'm therefore not doing anyone else out of work.

Oh I worked with someone like this . “Did you see Eastenders last night?” “Oh no I was still here because x needed done…”. Used to drive me nuts until someone pointed out that everyone else had managed to finish their work by 5 so was there a problem…? They carried on doing it but I had no guilt about it after that.

So, some people are just like this. However, probably a good idea to have a word with your boss to say she’s doing this, you’ve told her you are available but she won’t hand over the work. You can position it as “caring and sharing”, that you feel bad that she feels like she has to work on her non-working days. Then you’ve covered your back in case she is up to something.

Another angle, is she making mistakes/preparing poor quality work and worried this will be uncovered if she hands things over on days off?

cya.speak to manager,get screenshots,evidence all you can because you could find yourself literally redundant.

I think you should raise it with your manager when you don't have enough work, but don't bring the colleague working on her off days into the discussion.

She sounds insecure. The workload was too much for her so they brought in someone else. But you are FT and she is PT and she is probably panicking that if push comes to shove you will be seen as more "valuable" .. so she has to prove how indispensible and loyal she is.

@thedevilinablackdress

This is a really good point. At my place, all (except me) of the full timers claim to do an extra 2 hours a day, logging on at 7am. I can believe that because it's just not possible to keep on top of all the work doing 37 hours a week as we are paid to . But because they do ten hours each of unpaid overtime every week, my performance and the amount of work I do is compared to them - the reason my work takes longer is because I don't work 10 hours for free every week. I will do overtime in an emergency or if I have spend too long on something but that's all.

You’re being sidelined by someone who wants to go full-time.

Speak to your manager.

Can you suggest a joint mailbox (like [email protected] or whatever) that you can both access, so she can't hoard tasks?

I also agree that people doing extra hours outside of their contracted times (unless in a crises management situation, more a regular arrangement) really do a disservice to themselves and other colleagues who work PT. It gives a totally false impression of what is realistically achievable in PT hours. And it means you are giving a lot of your own time free to the organisation which is not sustainable long term.

She's a control freak. Where I worked before, I was one of 3 senior PAs. Two of us used to hand over stuff and put an OOO message on when on holiday, the third one took her laptop on holiday and worked from there. She was a 100% control freak.

I feel for you. Im in a slightly different situation where work goes to my colleague more than me so im often left without work. So I've raised and raised it in all my 121 etc but after a year of it I'm kinda done. How much more can I ask so I use my time to apply for new jobs now.

I'm sure ppl would say they would love to be paid to do nothing but it really isn't that great.

Why can’t you talk to your manager about it? Just ask your manager why your colleague is working on her days off and refuses to hand over work despite you requesting.

She’s not doing this out of the kindness of her heart. My bet is that she’s trying to push you out of your job and you need to deal with this, quickly.

First of all, document every attempt to get some of her work load. Make sure you’re professional and friendly but clear that you’re expecting her to direct some of her tasks to you. Copy emails, take screenshots. Also, try to find work or other tasks to do if possible so you look like a pro active and hard working employee. Anyway, after you have gathered evidence, go to your manager and tell him about your issue. Make sure you don’t make the impression of wanting to complain about your colleague but you’re bored and you’re worried about your output blablablabla. Just make sure you have your evidence readily available if they ask for it.
Also, did you make any mistakes or do you think she’s capable of blaming you for mistakes? Prepare for this scenario, she might try to blame you and tell the manager she can’t trust you with her tasks just to paint you in a bad light.

Can she claim for the extra hours? Either financially or banking the time?

@NoBetterthanSheShouldBe

Speak to your manager. This is a giant red flag for fraud, if that’s possible in your work.

My first thoughts exactly.

YANBU. It used to really annoy me when colleagues did this at my old place. I also used to think that they were real saddos full of self importance that no-one could do without them. What put it into perspective was when one lovely really hard working guy passed away. He’d always been very proactive but his job was re-advertised within a month with his colleagues picking up the slack in the meantime. Goes to show that no-one is irreplaceable.

So her contract is up in dec and shes been there years

You need to speak to your line manager. If you don't want to raise it directly you could ask your manager for additional work which may cause them to notice that your colleague is working when they should be off.

Do this.
It doesn't matter what the colleague's reasons are.
The fact is, you are being made to look as if you don't do much and that could result in you being let go well before your contact ends.

OP YANBU. Lack of autonomy, appreciation and meaningful work are all correlated with unhappiness. I wish I'd been more familiar with the research when I was in your position. Unfortunately, I listened to too many people telling me that I was mad to complain.

Speak to your line manager. What she is doing is a huge red flag for fraud - working days off, not delegating. Add on wfh and it’s very possible she’s doing stuff she shouldn’t be. Your manager needs to handle it