to do my own work instead of a colleague's?

[RockbirdandHerSpork]

Short version. I manage a job share. I am also a job share but we are between people at the moment so it's just me, three days a week doing a full time job. I have been off sick all last week, added to that I have been training a new staff member and cmy own work is piling up to astronomical levels.

The job share I manage mans a phone line. My Monday person is off sick today. What I 'should' do is man the phone line. What I am going to do is risk the wrath of senior management, leave the phone on voicemail and get on with my own, increasingly huge and urgent work.

Yeah yeah, I know I'm on here but I won't be in a minute. Am i doing the right thing? No one else of any use in the office but I am getting grief from another colleague who thinks I should drop everything and answer the phone. Plus I know the job holder will be pissed off at the amount of messages when she gets back. Just so this isn't a stealth, I have been in this situation countless times over the years and am sick of being behind on my own work.

So, AIBU?

Hard to say without knowing the office culture. In most places I have worked you would be expected to pick up the slack for your team, for the sake of the company, these things happen especially when sometimes it isn't feasible to get a temp or whathaveyou. Would it piss you off if you came back from being off sick and the roles were reversed?

Not to say you're BU to be hacked off though!

I constantly pick up the slack, and it has been almost daily since August. When I'm off sick no one does my work, that's just the way the office runs. No one else has the knowledge (not super high powered just a bit complicated!). But I'm sick of doing everyone else's work and then getting grief because mine isn't done.

Ignore me, I'm having a moan. Am fed up, best get on with it. Thanks

I guess it depends what your manager thinks the priorities are. The fact that the role you manage is a job share doesn't seem to be that relevant tbh. People do have sick days sometimes, and there ought to be a policy of how the rest of the staff cover for them, which should be taken into account when looking at their workloads.

So - it depends! If my colleagues who man a phone line were all off, then everybody would have to pitch in to make sure it got answered. But it can't just be left till someone is available.

Surely it depends on what the purpose of the phone line is for?

Hello!

Couldn't the phone answering be shared by all in the office or have you got a 'sticking my head in the sand' culture?
Alternatively, if others in the office aren't going to help, could you split your day so that you spend an hour doing your work then an hour answering/dealing with messages and calls?

Or employ one of these fellas.