How to politely deal with my maternity cover person?

[mrsnlw]

I was finished a week earlier than expected and left without warning (was off poorly which automatically triggers maternity leave if in last 4 weeks before EDD) but she had been in place for approx 6 weeks. I was due to be at work another week but had covered everything possible with her. I trained her well but found she often ws too distracted by her phone, colleagues etc and did wonder if she would get a shock when I did leave.

I sent a handover email a few days after starting my leave with the customary "contact me if you need me" to all my colleagues. Now inthe last 3 days she has contacted me (no one else has) asking things that she could have checked with other people, coming to me as a last resort. As in really simple stuff she could just ask my boss about or check herself.

I'm due to pop into work today as we had arranged for some leaving drinks. How do I politely, but quite clearly say to her/my boss that unless its an emergency or last resort that she needs not to contact me.... I'm on leave for 6 months and can't be doing with this all the time. AIBU?

Advice please? X

say something to your boss and let them handle. that's ridiculous and your boss is probably unaware. I'm sure they'd rectify that immediately. how annoying!!!

I'd probably go straight to my boss and let s/he know that your cover was pestering you. I suspect your cover doesn't want to look incompetent (but they may well be!). My experience of mat leave is that work can only contact you in agreed ways, eg. emails and at agreed intervals eg. monthly. But I work for the NHS so it may be different elsewhere.

I would simply say "Good to see how well you're settling in. (Insert name if a helpful colleague) is great at helping isn't she? I'm sure she will be able to answer any questions you have. As will (insert manager's name). And if course if its a real emergency, you can always email me but once the baby is here, I doubt I'll get time to brush my hair let alone check my emails! Anyway, any nice plans for the weekend?"

Leave it there. If she does email, take your time responding. But I have to say, when you are on leave, be on leave. You are not being paid extra to be available, so don't be.

Glad I'm not being unreasonable. I dont mind if it was something only I knew etc but simple things.... Cmon!

Bigger I think somewhere in the back of my mind as I practised employment law a few years ago that if someone is off sick/mat leave etc that work can't contact unless absolutely necessary so am glad someone else thinks the same

As soon as you see her emails, forward them to someone else with a cheery "Could you help x with this? Thanks, mrsnlw". She should get the message after a couple.

Tell your boss. Don't answer emails- you could forward them politely to your boss explaining you're really busy, can anyone help her with this?

TBH you don't have to answer anything when you're on leave.

Your boss needs to know and can arrange for a buddy or mentor to be there in the office for her (this should be done once you went, TBH - speaking as a team leader) for exactly this kind of situation. Might be worth mentioning she may not have retained all her training (nicely). :) She might be embarrassed about approaching others having not been given a go-to person.

She knows she can approach either of my 2 bosses plus anyone else for help.

Am just going to say X rang me about 1 yesterday and text me about 2 today. I advised her to speak with you or a.nother, did she catch up with you about these? Hopefully it will indicate she is asking simple stuff she could find out herself/ask boss about.

My boss is good enough that I could probably say to him, I don't mind occasionally contacting for something vital but this is silly... twice in 2 days.

I think you should do as Finola says and after that only reply to her emails if you think you're really the only one who can help her (and you can be bothered) but otherwise just ignore them. Perhaps you could organise your email to send them all from her into a particular folder so you don't even have to look at them -if there's an acutal situation (e.g. a login to something you forgot to leave) then your boss or someone can contact you about it.

You're only obliged to deal with reasonable contact.

Why don't you say something along the lines of "now you've settled in, if you've got any questions for me can you please channel them thru my boss (name) so that I don't get bombarded from all directions" and then tell your boss that's what you are doing and perhaps add on something along the lines of, so you can get a sense of any themes/anything awry rather than find out too late to manage them.

After all, you're not being paid to be a manager to someone on your level.

Well I spoke to my boss and think he's got the matter in hand now. Phew!