Being asked to do someone else’s work

[Summer257]

I work for a housing association. An employee from the council has asked me to print and send a disclaimer form of theirs to give to our tenant who will soon become their tenant. I initially ignored the email.

She has then lied to our tenant and he was patronising me saying I have caused the hold up not printing the disclaimer form. I had to keep telling him this woman needs to do her job and send their form out herself as I am not employed by the council. I said I am not get involved as this is not a document from our organisation.

I emailed this woman late Friday saying it’s not for our organisation to be sending out their documents and they will need to send this.

In the 14 years I have worked in the sector we have never sent out disclaimer forms on behalf of another organisation and I am not going to start doing it now. It’s really bugging me to be honest and I know I can’t do anything as it’s the weekend. My manager is off for 2 weeks now and I know they would agree with me.

What would normally happen in these circumstances?

The organisation whose disclaimer form it is would send their own disclaimer form out. They have sent their own forms out many times over the years.

Who would the form get returned to?

I wouldn’t have ignored the email I would have replied saying it wasn’t your responsibility and they needed to send it.

I had similar at work recently but from within the company, I replied saying I didn’t have access to the forms and even if I did it was their responsibility- they did it eventually when they realised I wasn’t budging and I’d worded so that any complaint would show them to be the idiot.

I probably should have replied at the time and said it was her responsibility as she has twisted it. I have now emailed to say it is her responsibility.

The form would be returned to the council with absolutely no involvement from us as what they agree with clients is between them.

I don’t want to be unkind, but this is a learning opportunity - She hasn’t twisted anything, you are the cause of the delay as much as she is.

Let’s assume she 1. Didn’t know or 2. Thought it was a reasonable request.

So she sends a form to you, asking for it to be printed. She doesn’t hear back, but it’s a simple request so she assumes you’ve just done it. Then it transpires you just ignored it instead.

Frankly, neither of you put the tenant first. I can’t get my head around just ignoring the email anymore than I can her not chasing it up to make sure you had done it.

Yep kind of agree.

Your reply to her should have been a generic :

We are not a party to the proposed contract. We as an organisation can not become involved with communications or contract arrangements between our client/service user/etc and third parties.

This prevents delay or confusion in communications.

Also we dont provide legal or advocacy support ....... and to avoid GDPR issues [and any other issues] we can not provide this service.

Please communicate directly with client/ service user.

^ Says do your own job without having to say do your own job.

Yes you should’ve replied at the time and explained she needed to send it.

I appreciate it’s not your job to do it but just ignoring it has made it worse.

Thank you, your reply has been very helpful.

Never ignore an email. Always forward it on to someone or reply or whatever. Just don’t ignore.

Thank you, you are right as it has made me look bad whereas actioning it promptly avoids these disputes.