To deliberately inconvenience my colleagues?

[MistletoeMoments]

I spent a big chunk of last year covering a colleagues sick leave. I was going to be the least inconvenienced by it, so agreed to do it. It was supposed to only be for a couple of weeks, but he ended up being off for 7 months!

I was exhausted by the end of it, as I was juggling my own work, and it also involved a change in hours (earlier start).

Anyway, he came back and things went back to normal.

He's now scheduled to be off for a long weekend tomorrow, and I'm 99% certain nobody has arranged cover for it. I suspect it's just assumed I'll be doing it.

WIBU to just go in at my normal time tomorrow ready for my working day? It means my nightshift colleague will need to stay behind for 1hr until I come in. He'll get paid for it, but I feel a bit bad because I used to work nights too and I know how tired he will be!

You need to talk to your line manager- don't just assume, be proactive, and make your disquiet known.
You seem to be martyring yourself, it's not up to you alone to provide cover-if there is a situation and you realise, tell your manager, help them to do their job rather than trying to do everyone's job yourself.

When you find out someone has used your milk for cereal, send them an invoice for £2. Every time. Also CC your manager and let them know that this is theft.

Wrong thread?

@MistletoeMoments I just want to add my voice to those saying think of yourself and stop rescuing the situation. Take your leave, don't cover others any more.

OP, do you work in Care by any chance ?

Op I don’t have any advice but you sound like a truly selfless person and a gem of a work employee with how you think of others when you nowadays don’t always get this in a sometimes ‘dog eat dog’ world.

OP - are you simply worried about not being your usual overly helping self to others? If so try not to be! If the person you’re worried about being tired if they’ve gone out of their way for you then I understand why you would want to go in earlier but do they reciprocate back to you?

I covered for four colleages for months, two long-term sick (one was simply malingering), one had left and one had actually died. The policy was not to recruit immediately to save money and it tended to take at least three months to replace people who were definitely not coming back.
After six months I was given a bonus (£1200 taxable) for my trouble, not even a push up the pay scale which would have helped my pension. I left shortly afterwards and my replacement stayed about six months, worn out by the constant dreary expectations of management.

Ah yes - I’m sorry. Totally wrong thread.

Something like this has happened to me twice in my work life. The first time I went to my manager and asked them what, of my usual duties, they wanted me to drop so that I could cover the extra duties. I politely but firmly kept reiterating that it was not possible to do everything asked and I needed their direction, or I would be making my own choices about what did not get done.

The second time, i was assigned to cover an extra geographic patch. I kept pointing out that this was supposed to be temporary but no move was made to recruit to it. A lateral move came up which they could not really refuse me, as part of trying to keep me in my original job they offered to sort the patch issue. I told them they had had 2 years to sort it, had kept ignoring my requests and that I was no longer confident in their promises.

You sound vile

How dare a man's illness inconvenience you and how dare his annual leave make your life hard It's not him or the night shift worker who needs to cover leave it's the managers and if you are eagerly waiting for the fall out then you are clearly not a very nice person. This could have been resolved if you just asked prior to the event

As you haven’t been asked by your line manager to do anything different surely you just continue on. Covering a long term sickness is very different to covering a short holiday.

I’d have to say you sound vile. It’s a line manager’s responsibility to sort this out, not a colleague, unless they have a reciprocal agreement. Even then that shouldn’t involve the OP changing their hours unless paid more. The OP only received a bonus. This is unacceptable actually.

Just do your regular hours. If management haven't spoken to you maybe they have already arranged cover with someone else if not, that is their fault. No one should assume you can just come in earlier just because you have before, what if your circumstances have changed?

Really hope you didn't go in early. Please let us know how it played out.

OP updated on the 17th at 8.14am.