Friend asked me to contact manager and let them know she will be off work.

[JackMummy12]

Basically, I made friends with a girl at a former job.

I moved on to a new role in a different organisation and a few months later, she started in a completely different department at the same organisation. Our roles do not cross over I do not know her colleagues at all. This is a very big public sector organisation where we mainly WFH.

Her life has been a bit of a rollercoaster for a while and I am trying to help her through this. Lots of issues with her partner. We speak most days but this weekend it was radio silence, I knew something was up.

Came home from school run to a note through the door saying she is fine and so are the children, however partner is not. Tomorrow can I contact her manager and tell her she won't be in for a couple days as she has family issues.

I understand this needs to be her focus but this makes me really awkward . I am not her next of kin or family, if her line manager has questions I would be unable to answer as I have no idea when she will be back or what has even happened - she started less than a month ago and has not even had a pay day yet. I am also in probation as a new starter (although further into mine) and whilst I don't think I'd get in trouble for it I don't like the impression it would give to my manager if she thought I thought this was an acceptable way to contact a manager.

My friend is terrible with her phone, rarely ever has credit so relies heavily on imessage/facetime audio, which is why I am assuming she has asked me to contact her manager.

Am I being unreasonable? I don't want to not message her LM and fall out but at the same time I think this is just not really fair to put me in this position. I haven't been able to contact her all weekend, so have no way of getting a message to her to say I don't want to do this as messages aren't going through to phone, have tried to call but as its FT audio there is no VM function.

I could go to her house (which is a 15-20 minute drive) however I've no idea what this situation is and what I'd be walking into, or if she is even there.

AIBU

Yes - yes you are, contact manager
No - stay out of it

She can make the effort to ask you to do something in a way that takes longer than her contacting them herself

She needs to be a grown up and do this herself you are not her secretary

I hope this isn’t something serious. There are worrying things in this. Internet getting cut off. Phone was so smashed her prior work place gave her one to use. You were concerned enough to give her a food parcel. The fact you can’t get through- her phone possibly being off.

this makes me nervous

hope it is nothing op.
pass the message on- tell them you know it’s not appropriate but you’re concerned. If it were me I’d call the police.

Hi HR,

Hope you're well. I know this isn't the normal policy for notifying absences, but I received the following note from Name through my letterbox yesterday.

I am not sure why Name contacted me about this rather than her line manager directly, but I wanted to pass this on.

I don't have any further details.

Thanks

Do you even know the note was actually from her?!

Her partner could've written it, then taken her and the children somewhere.

She could've been coerced into writing it and putting it through your door by her partner.

It doesn't sound like she has a good home life, if she's always running out of credit on her pay as you go phone.

Are there financial problems and other stressors on her life too?

HR will not want to know.

This information is for her line manager.

I'd happily pass the original message on with a note of my own saying I have no further information and am just doing this as a favour to X.

Can people not start turning this into a tragedy? Obviously she left the note herself and it wasn’t done by the husband or to cover up a kidnapping. It doesnt cover up anything, thats how you know. Also what kidnapper drives miles out of the way to leave a pointless note with a relative stranger.?

Yeah, Id pass on the message but I'd give all the details, that it was a note put through your door, you can't get in contact with her and do not know why she has asked you to do this in the way she has asked you to.

Ball is in their court then. If she didn't want her employer aware of chaos going on, she should have emailed them herself.

You'd be surprised what goes on.

Keep an open mind.

Yeah the walls have ears, maybe she is a MI6 operative I mean it can't any more dramatic than this

Was it definitely her that delivered the note? It sounds concerning.

There was a case locally to me, the Mochrie family, read up on the steps he took to throw people off for a few days.

I wouldn't hesitate to do this favour for a friend in need, especially since it wouldn't really affect me but would help her out.
What happens in her job as a result is on her but at least you did all you could.

I think this, and shell chuck you under the bus.
"But I did tell a manager!! @JackMummy12 didn't say it wasn't ok to do this!!"

In the end I rang her manager but not till later to explain as I couldn’t focus worrying about her and wondered whether an intervention maybe needed.

However her manager informed me she did email this morning. No response to any emails, texts anything. I understand she has an emergency but just a forwarding of the email or an ok back to a text would have been considerate.

Yes I'd be massively pissed off if she managed to email work, but didn't reply to you. How close a friend is she? I'd be tempted to keep my distance, high drama plus a lack of consideration for you is not a good combo in a friend. I think I'd only continue to support her if she was a really close friends and/or I thought she had noone else. If neither of those things apply, let her be someone else's problem.

Chaotic. In her mind everything is a crisis and she is entitled to flail about in a stormy ocean and pull at any nearby swimmer. In fact the work situation was not a crisis and did not require your help. But she didn’t see it that way. This person has real problems but she needs therapy and case management to learn to handle them on her own. Step way back. You are over functioning so she can under function.

This is the sort of thing that people do when they’re going to do something to themselves. Maybe ask for a police welfare check?

"I’ve just spent an hour driving round town with my children and husband trying to find her to let her know, I can not act on her behalf, as she has not responded to email. Only way to contact her as phone isn’t delivering messages and no answer from phone. No voicemail."

"I couldn’t focus worrying about her"

With respect, @JackMummy12, you are far too involved, too emotionally invested, and dragging your husband and children out to try and find her is completely inappropriate. It's commendable to want to be a good friend but you cannot allow yourself to get dragged into her chaos any more than you have already.

Contact her by email and it's up to her to access her emails or sort out her phone if she wants to contact you or be contactable. If you must, go to her house and put a note through her door. But that's it. No driving around looking for her.

If she needs food parcels she can call Help Through Hardship (helpline run by the Trussell Trust and Citizens Advice). If she needs advice and support they can help her. You can't save her and shouldn't try. All you can do is encourage her to seek advice from the appropriate channels.

If she asks you to contact her manager again, tell her to stop asking and to contact them herself. I think you should have taken a photo of her note and emailed it to HR and left it at that.

If I'd have got the note I would have simply passed the message along and said I had no further information and I would have told her LM that I did message her telling her she needs to contact the office herself.

I hope your friend is Ok. I feel like this had a really simple solution that you massively over complicated.

I would pass the message onto HR and say you have done as requested this time but have also asked her to not use that method in future. You might want to ask HR to reiterate the official policy to her in their communications.

Then I'd tell her I'd done it on this occasion but also mention that's not the way the company operate as there's a formal policy on contact in these circumstances and that HR will no doubt be in contact.

Back off OP.
You can't "save" this person and her chaotic lifestyle.

Honestly, do you think you're the only one to give her food, buy her sims etc .

I think you need to make it the last time you help and say so. For your own peace of mind.

Can't stand people like this. lurching from crisis to crisis, constantly some drama, living a live of chaos. Distance yourself.

I think in the situation you described, I would contact her manager, but I would make it very clear that I didn't know anything about the situation or indeed even if your friend was safe.

Where I work, there's a safeguarding policy that would kick in, in this situation. We did have an incident in my department when we got a call from someone's brother (he didn't live with her and couldn't actually tell us what the problem was because he didn't know) and because we couldn't get hold of her, or her named emergency contact, and we knew she had young children, the HR department eventually arranged a welfare check.

This, she's a dreadful person who only sees you as a commodity to her. Chaotic and doesn't care whoever she drags into her mess or the effect on them as long as she gets what she wants.