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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Unfair distribution of work

7 replies

Sodukuchess · 15/09/2025 21:06

I work directly with a colleague who is currently on MAT leave. She's back in a couple of weeks. She was full time and is moving to 2.5 days a week. We're both at senior level. I found out on Thursday that our work was being redistributed to suit her change of hours (understandable). However, I feel the distribution is entirely uneven and unfair. I've been left with all the accountability i.e. all the KPI work which accounts for about 85-90% of the work load and all the team management work.
I'll be working 5 days and calculate there's about 6.5 days of work in there in reality. She's doing 2.5 days and it's more like 0.8 days of work.

I want to be helpful to her circumstances and I can't speak to her about it until she's back so I've no idea how she'll feel about it. Either completely relieved she'll have very little to do or pissed off she's lost areas of work that might help her career development.

However, I can't help but be pissed off that we're on the same pay bracket but I'll be the only one doing the work that we're held accountable for. I've basically been left all the hard work that causes all the stress.

I tried to chat it through with my boss but she didn't see some of the tasks we discussed as being time consuming when they really are.

How do I tackle this while remaining sensitive to someone coming back from MAT leave to a changed role (allbeit because she's changed her number of days). I'm currently doing both our roles (which has already pissed me off as she should have had cover). I clearly couldn't do two jobs so stuff has had to get sidelined. I was looking forward to getting some normality back and not having to do two jobs when I was told she's not coming back full time and I'll be doing the lion's share.

OP posts:
CatHugger · 15/09/2025 21:09

YANBU, that's not on. Have you come up with a counter-proposal for your LM to consider?

Screamingabdabz · 15/09/2025 21:10

Are you in a union?

Sodukuchess · 15/09/2025 21:38

CatHugger · 15/09/2025 21:09

YANBU, that's not on. Have you come up with a counter-proposal for your LM to consider?

No. There seems little point as she doesn't see how long some tasks take.

OP posts:
Sodukuchess · 15/09/2025 21:39

Screamingabdabz · 15/09/2025 21:10

Are you in a union?

No, it's not a particularly unionised sector on the whole.

OP posts:
Damia · 15/09/2025 21:40

Your boss sounds rubbish. I would immediately start confirming with them the length of time every single task you do takes, make a task list if you don't have one, daily/ weekly/monthly etc tasks days they are due, and how long they take, and ask which you can drop as you don't have time

PlanetOtter · 15/09/2025 21:43

Don’t confuse things by talking about mat leave, focus on your work and timings.

“I won’t have time to do all of this, would you like me to focus on X or Y”

“The deadline for X is tomorrow, but as flagged I won’t have time to do it. Let me know how you’d like to proceed?”

They’ll get the message!

caffelattetogo · 15/09/2025 22:10

Go back with a counter proposal. If those tasks aren’t seen as being time consuming, they won’t take your colleague long.

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