To refuse more work

[jacobmib]

You know how the saying goes ‘hard workers are rewarded with more work’

So one of my colleagues (but from a different team) has apparently been having some health issues and his performance has declined (performance has never been great btw and he built a reputation of getting things wrong or not done)

So I share a two tasks with him on a rota basis. One of the tasks is a week rota and the other a monthly rota. There were 5 people on the rota at one point but 3 left and now is just the 2 of us. The other 3 people have not been replaced and they did not allocate the tasks to anyone else.

I was now asked to do both tasks os my own because of his health issue which I suspect is MH.

For the record, this colleague started a few months after me in the same role. Since then I’ve been promoted 2x but he is still at the same level. TBH I should not even been doing those tasks since my promotions as nobody else with similar role does these tasks so I’m already doing more than colleagues on my level.

AIBU to not want and refuse to them?
And how to go about it?

Posted here and not the work board for traffic.

Who is asking you to do them, explicitly? Or are you assuming you need to take it on?

Tbh in these situations you need to push it back upwards and out for solutions.

You need to raise that you're already stepping up by covering what 5 people used to do between 2.

And the handoff after your promotions is a long overdue conversation.

Frame it as you need a sustainable solution to be agreed. But make sure it's not more work for you. Example: Mr flake can train an underling to cover his work. You do the same and hand off to yours. Do a crossover month where you both supervise, then next month it's hands off.

Honestly either that or agree these tasks aren't a priority and just stop them.

Turn the conversation from "they have to be done and you must do it" into a priority call / succession plan conversion.

Running you into the ground isn't sustainable. Who'd do it while you're on leave anyway? Or ill?

Either there needs to be a sustainable business process in place for it, or it clearly doesn't matter that much so it can be dropped. Which is it?

You don't refuse, you ask which other tasks you should deprioritise to allow you to take on this extra work, as with your current workload you are already at capacity.

Yep. You ask what other tasks you can drop in order to cover the tasks you shouldn't actually be doing.

If you're a couple of levels above above the person who currently does the work, are you sure it's a case of you being told to do this task yourself, as opposed to getting someone in your reporting structure (either at the same level as the person with health problems, or someone at the level inbetween, or indeed giving it to someone at the inbetween level to then give to one of their reports at the same level as the guy with health problems)?