Colleague taking the piss….

[Laughingteacakes]

I work in a team alongside a colleague, we do the same job, we are on a small team in a public services workplace - don’t want to be too outing. We are able to work from home but also have an office base and we do work in the community, around the area of our office base.
This colleague has small children, she doesn’t have childcare in place consistently, she seems to be working her job around her childcare needs rather than pay for the right amount of childcare (money isn’t an issue, think expensive car, large house etc). She also travels from home to work in her work time so that she can be at home at the times she needs for her childcare, without making up the 1.5ish hours this takes her each day. The rest of the team are working really hard, extra hours, lots of stress about getting through the workload, she is breezing along with a much lighter workload and therefore managing to continue to be at home whenever she needs to for her children. It is driving me crazy, I am so pissed off that the rest of the team including myself are working so hard and she is taking the absolute piss. I know different people have different work ethics but I feel this is really out of order. It’s also causing lots of negativity in the team with people feeling so cross.
This has been going on about a year, but is getting worse. I need advice, how would you deal with this, our manager doesn’t seem to be interested as the teams work is getting done.
YABU - you should just get on with it and not get involved.
YANBU - this is a piss take and you should do something to try and get the workload more even. Thanks for any views…I’m that worked up about it I can’t think straight….😊

Actually, I’ve just spoken to my builder company’s director as part f a different conversation about just this.

I’ve had his trades in for last 13 weeks and I’m shocked how much time they waste standing around doing nowt or chatting or on the on phone. No wonder my job is now running 4-weeks late. I’m retired and first time I’ve had significant building works since I retired and in the house a lot of the time .

For instance they were trying to put in a new patio door. After just starting they found a problem. Queue all 3 standing around for 45 mins while senior one on phone to try to solve. Lots of talking, swearing, laughing and gesticulating but no actual work. There is a ton of stuff the senior one could have set up junior ones to get on with in meantime, even if just tidying up the site. But no- they all stood around incapable of taking an initiative to actually look at what needed doing . Then they found they were missing pieces so one went off to get them , and others stood around for next hour just chatting to other trades which meant they weren’t working either 🤦‍♀️🤯. Another guy was on the phone almost constantly for last 2 days. By day 2 I started totting up hours he was chatting (I can hear as in room with interior door to me and it’s Echo at moment as bare walls still). Over that day he was chatting on his phone about kids, holidays, football etc for over 2.5 hours on phone. He can’t do his trade with one hand and a phone to his ear. Jeez I was appalled. Add to that he didn’t start till 9:45 as drinking his tea and faffing and downed his tools and left by 3;50pm . That a days work 😱

my builders response, when I mentioned this as a bit of a jokey comment in passing , was that it was “Bain of his life”, he knewit was an issue, and “if I had a solution to that I’d be a rich man”…🤦‍♀️Why the hell is he not going round his sites more often and checking up on progress ? Why the hell doesn’t he have the hours needed for a particular task set down so he can raise with his trades why it is longer and what the heck have they been doing all day. When I managed teams I knew how to do each task and how long it should take. If it took people longer I checked in about training, issues etc and if that didn’t work started to talk about productivity to them and what the obstacles were. It’s not rocket science.

this is about management or supervisory over sight. As a manager/supervisor you are responsible for productivity. If you as manager are too polite, scared or conflict adverse to monitor and pick up on people taking the piss with putting in the hours of actual work as per their contract, you don’t deserve to be a manager or be in business.

the builder then said to me that I could tell them to get on with it, as it would help him 🤯🙄🤦‍♀️

no wonder there aren’t enough trades to go round right now…a significant proportion on my sample size are doing nowt for hours per day, and being paid for it,

I would add that, as a boss, I was less concerned hours present then hours of productivity. I had people who worked damned hard and efficiently ..I was happy for them to bunk off an hour early here or there, or agree to the, going to their kids assembly for special occasion, or staying in for delivery …it is give and take

sorry missed earlier post admitting NHS - I had 15 years off to get the youngest to secondary school (lucky me best time of my life) but I have been self employed, worked in the private sector and work for the NHS - never ever ever known such a piss take! Agree with you whole heartedly OP - some managers are so weak! Everyone else suffers or moves on.

This is why there are less women in workplace and less women at the top. DEI always fall short and leaky pipeline exists. If her manager does not have issue why do you?

Performance at work is no longer measured by how many hours you are chained to the desk. I work FT, do school drops, pick-ups sometimes, attend school match fixtures. I’m a high earner. Most ppl are where I work, no one keeps tabs on people’s lives.

Performance is managed by results we produce not hours we worked.

How does managing her family and worklife impact you?
Absolutely sickening attitude. If you are so concerned about managing others, get a job as a manager.

I am a working mother myself, I have been for 15 years, I have worked/studied for a varying number of hours at different times over the years so that I could look after my children, I just never expected to be paid a full time wage when I worked part time hours. Why are you so quick to presume that I am not also a working mum. I’m not going to explain my full personal situation but I can assure you I am very aware of the challenges mothers have when trying to juggle work and life. I fully support people having a healthy work-life balance, I strive for the same myself, one of the reasons for this post.

If you’re a probation employment specialist this is standard behaviour.

I dont want to control what she does on her own free time, where on earth have you read that?! It’s not her free time, she’s being paid for hours she’s not doing.

I had a colleague like this. It was constantly something usually childcare that meant she never did her hours, walked out of meetings because she had to leave, late in, early out, did as little as possible, dropped people in it with management. Her manager and the managers manager refused to see it. She was eventually moved on but not before 2 of the team were signed off with stress.

I understand how you feel. You are doing the work and the hours and she is not.

I would say your issue is with your line manager if you have more work then you can do, it's got nothing to do with her. You'll be much happier if you focus on your job and try not to get distracted by others unless something she is actively doing affects what you're doing. Her making a good work life balance for herself is something to be admired 😊 I've felt resentful in the past for a similar situation, but realised I was actually just envious that I wasn't managing to create that balance for myself - that's only my issue and noone else's.

Only on MN would you be told to be happy for, and proud of, someone who is not doing the work they’re paid to do and causing you and others to feel the need to work additional unpaid hours, cos it’s feminist to support a mum innit. This site is preposterous sometimes.

It seems as though you think you would be complaining about your colleague but actually what you're doing is complaining about your manager.
You're saying that you have noticed colleague isn't putting in the correct hours. You have noticed and decided (despite the fact you don't have the information to do so) that your colleague isn't completing their workload. If you need to flag those issues to your manager then you're saying your manager is unaware and incompetent.
They might be. Or you might be unaware of the details of someone else's contract and workload. But what you need to be prepared for is that your manager might not appreciate your implication that they aren't managing properly.

@Laughingteacakes just work your hours, do your job, no more, no less. If the waiting list starts building up then eventually management will notice and start looking at what everyone is doing. Until then focus on yourself. Don’t do her work. Do yours.

Wrong thread? Or did you just not read it?

There’s every extreme on here!! On one hand I’m too nice and the other I'm displaying bullying behaviours, then there’s that I’ve to butt out of her personal life/stop being jealous because she has a good work/life balance vs she’s a skiver who makes their teams lives miserable. MN is such a head fuck at times….🤪
Anyway I have my plan, to speak with my manager and hand the issues and all the blatant evidence over to them and hope that they will do something about it. Failing that look for a new job….and that’ll be another vacancy in the NHS with patients being the ones to suffer. But that’s another thread…xx

Have you read my previous posts?! My issue is because her not doing her hours leaves the rest of the team with more work to do. I don't understand why this is so hard to understand, her missing a couple of hours in the day, each day, means she is less productive and dealing with far less than the rest of us.

f you think the patients will suffer, then don't leave. But you can't make a decision to leave and then pull some kind of emotional blackmail about the patients suffering ... because of a choice you made. Also, if part of your day is about checking your colleagues' hours and workloads then that's part of your day that you're not putting the patients first anyway.

Lots of shirkers on MN judging from the negative comment. Bizarre.

Or we're too busy working to check colleague's calendars and workload.

"But it is my business because when she’s being paid to work but not working, it prohibits her from taking on her fair share of the workload, this is impacting on me as my workload is higher .... when my workload is like 50% higher because she’s not able to get through her fair share then it becomes my business"

How is your workload higher? And why is it 50% higher? Why are you picking up her shortfall?

It sounds like you and your colleagues are enabling her behaviour. You take on her work, see yourselves as hard done by martyrs and then complain about a situation that sounds like it's almost entirely of your own making.

The team manager will immediately notice if you stop with the martyrdom. And the manager will take swift action - colleague not completing work impavts the manager directly.

Stop taking up the slack

I hate this when work colleagues take the mick!! I have colleagues who have children and always need to take emergency leave and work from home!
I think you need to speak to your manager, also don't do extra work to cover your colleague's work too.

I used to work with a lady who was employed part-time. She worked 3 or 4 days a week, school hours only. Lots of the other staff members used to get passed off that she "went home early", however, she did the hours she was actually employed for. Perhaps this colleague has a similar arrangement. Best to check before stressing out.

I'm a manager - once had a team where something similar was happening. One team member geting really agitated that the another was appearing to coast. The reality was that the coaster was ten times better than the slogger who had zero talent. I knew as a manager that allowing my coaster to coast a little meant I got much better productivity so I did. The slogger was always going to be pretty basic - she lacked the talent and intelligence and above all else the self awareness. The coaster eventually left and was replaced by an equally talented worker who also slogged. The original slogger remained bitter only this time it was jealousy over it being obvious she was just never going to be as good.

I voted YABU because her workload is not the issue. Your workload is the problem here. If you cannot get it done in your day you need to tell your line manager.
You could suggest the others do the same if they are struggling.
Let the line manager deal with fairness and you look after yourself.

Absolutely agree with you, if she can't d o a full time job due to child care she should go part time. And get paid for the hours she works.

I agree, that this situation seems unfair, however, things would be much easier if you just focused on your own work & not the work of others. I always advised staff to aspire to be the best that they can be and to measure themselves against the best and not the worst. Life in the workplace can often feel unfair & through the course of your career, this will not be the only time you experience this scenario, be the best that you can be and ignore the rest.