How to deal with colleague not pulling their weight

[Anasbananas]

I work in a small team of three, all working remotely, head office abroad and minimal contact.

We have tasks to complete each day and I often complete twice as many as one of the team members, yesterday it was 4 x more! Even allowing for slight variation in work rate it’s getting ridiculous and I’m exhausted. If I slow down the work just keeps building and this colleague doesn’t speed up. Our other colleague works at a more similar rate to me but is off at the moment.

I once tried to speak to them about sharing leave fairly and got a very difficult response, so I don’t feel I can speak to them directly.

What should I do? I am really starting to feel demoralised and tired. 😫

Isn’t it plain old favouritism?

I’ve sat in an office after being told to mindful of comfort breaks yet sat listen to others being told they can go whenever and how often. Excuse me, where does this sit in the hidden ibs/ibs spectrum?

Then I sit and listen to people who are having ‘hard times’ yet can’t possibly be a busier lines (although these were the people going on about how much they wanted to be busier) going through a colonoscopy I was expected to get on with it, keep up with training, no expense spared.

Told them I hate their job after being left to it what all of 2 days later I’m hardly going to be expert flying it solo one day after being being given wrong training material and then day 2 entire day shadowing more experienced colleague who got every uncomplicated call one after other. It’s the most truthful I’ve ever been. They could be making me feel iller. A pity I have to work a month’s notice.

I had this at my previous company. It was also not worth the shit bonus. I then realised i was working hard for nothing and pushed back on work.

I would have an urgent discussion with your manager (do not wait for a 121). Ask if you can have a discussion about workload. Maybe prepare some figures as evidence. Then say you’re concerned about your high workload and ask if it could be distributed more evenly, and the key part is ‘to remain reflective of your PAY’.

Also, just stop doing so much work.

OP you need to slow down its the only way to get management to notice the work isnt getting done quickly and they’ll look at work completed and figure out whos not pulling their weight.

Don’t focus on them, focus on you! It’s not your fault if there is work left over! Tell your manager you’ve been busting you’re ass to pick up the slack and can’t do it anymore, so will continue to do as much as possible but x amount (don’t refer to how much the other person does) is too much! Your boss likely knows the situation but doesn’t deal with it as it isn’t impacting them! Make it

If they do count how many tasks and which tasks each of you carry out, I would mention it to my manager.
I would try to keep up with the workload for 1-2 weeks to cover holiday, but no longer. If then the work piles up, the manager will have to take action. It is not fair on you. If you do it long term, your health will suffer. Just work at your normal pace.

So there is a record of who does what.

You need to work at a speed that's comfortable for you - not lazy, just not ridiculous - and let them investigate if and when they see an issue. At this point, they will see that it's not you that needs to increase output.

Don't stress out over a job that would replace you in a second if you had to leave due to a nervous breakdown.

Inform manager in writing
Slow down
Let the work build up
Make a note of the work levels completed
Let the management team deal with the rest

You need to raise this with your manager.

Do not wait 6 months for your 1 on 1 (!?). It’s literally your managers job to talk to you. As others have said you are currently covering slack but you shouldn’t do that - work sensible hours & if it causes problems with work not getting done, make it your managers problem. You can do that constructively, maybe start sending a weekly email with what the incoming is, what’s been done & what the backlog is? If the backlog goes up & your manager doesn’t notice, point it out & ask for suggestions to resolve it that don’t involve you just working loads of overtime. It’s not about your colleague (ok, well it is, but that’s your managers problem) - it’s about keeping your workload manageable.

I personally would keep a spreadsheet of how many requests come in per day and do 50% of the tasks or slightly more.

If you want to do one extra (eg doing 4 tasks if 7 come in) then I think that’s reasonable.

If your manager queries it you have the spreadsheet to say « well last Thursday 9 tasks came in and I did 5 of them and left the other 4 for colleague »

Sometimes we have to allow things to fail in order to see change.

Just work through the tasks at a normal pace, record the ones you have done and leave the rest for the next day. If progress isn’t fast enough and this results in some kind of negative impact it will be noticed by your boss who will take action.

Why on earth would you be killing your self for no apparent reason? Nobody likes a rate buster.

I had a really lazy coworker (when we were still in offices) but she was a bit protected cause she was friendly with the (not great) manager.
As work was allocated to individuals, she had to do a certain amount but I had to push for her to take up slack when my work load increased. She also use to slope off early, not help the rest of the team. A few years later when redundancies came round they got rid of her! So a bit of karma 😊
Lots of good advice here about getting in touch with your manager soon, letting them know the situation and pushing for a resolution (either better spread of tasks or salary rise for your greater capability!)

Ask for the work to be equally shared out. So you all have an inbox and the works is divided. Putting it in a pot for everyone to take is going to allow classic piss taking, which is what is happening here.