Best way to deal with co-workers who try to get you to do their work? Advice?

[freefreefree]

I just have a question on what is the best way to deal with a co-worker who finds ways to get you to do their work, so they have less things to do on their days at work.

So, what happens is that at the place I work, we have this girl who is bossy and love to take advantage of other people and suck up to the boss. We all know that she is close to the boss, so we are all thinking twice before we say anything to her because she will find ways to tell the boss to cut other people's hours and increase hers, and this happended recently, and Thank God it didn't happen to me, but I still look into the situation because afterall I am one of her co-workers, and if she does that to someone, she could be getting it on me. Anyhow, rencently, she is getting on me in away. What happen is that there are some paper works that we do together. By our job duty, I was supposed to do one part of the paperwork, and then pass it to her to complete it, and all of the sudden last week, instead of completing her part of the work, she wrote me a note with instructions on how to complete her part of the work, so I wrote a note back to her saying that " have you had a chance to look at these because you haven't write anything on it?", and then she wrote me a note saying " going forward, please follow the instructions and complete the work" So, basically, she just want me to do the work, so she can have an easier day.

I was speechless when I read the note. She has higher senoirity than me, and she was the one who trained me when I first started the job, so I was hesitaing on complaining to the boss. I know that with her personality, she will find ways (she is very good at that) to get ride of you if she finds that you disagree with her. She recently got somone fired with her ways through the boss, and I know the whole story. Now I am feeling this is unfair, but I am feeling stuck at the same time becasue I know a storm will come if I complain. The extra work isn't too much, but I find it unfair is that she just dump it on me like that and if she keeps dumping work on me like this bit by bit, it will add up at the end. I am wondering if you have any suggestions on how to deal with this creatively and most importantly stop her from doing more of this. I get the feeling that if I am not careful with her, she will give me more of this.

[blueeyetea]

Is she your supervisor?

If not, and you have evidence with the note she gave you to "going forward, please follow the instructions and complete the work", go and ask the boss (and show him the note) if your duties have indeed changed to include her share of the work. (Is she even supposed to be giving you any work?) Don't complain, just say you need to know so that you can arrange your schedule accordingly, for example.

From her note she seems pretty confident she'll get away with it because it probably worked in the past for her. Apart from asking her directly why you need to do her work (she may have a valid reason) and dealing with the backlash, you also need to know if the boss is supporting her at all in her behaviour. He may not be aware of what she's doing, but then again, he might be.

On the flip side, every one she's dumping on, just stop doing her any favours. Make her ask for everything that's not part of your job and document the requests.

[freefreefree]

Is she your supervisor?

If not, and you have evidence with the note she gave you to "going forward, please follow the instructions and complete the work", go and ask the boss (and show him the note) if your duties have indeed changed to include her share of the work. (Is she even supposed to be giving you any work?) Don't complain, just say you need to know so that you can arrange your schedule accordingly, for example.

From her note she seems pretty confident she'll get away with it because it probably worked in the past for her. Apart from asking her directly why you need to do her work (she may have a valid reason) and dealing with the backlash, you also need to know if the boss is supporting her at all in her behaviour. He may not be aware of what she's doing, but then again, he might be.

On the flip side, every one she's dumping on, just stop doing her any favours. Make her ask for everything that's not part of your job and document the requests.

No, she is the same level as me, but she has been with the company longer than I am. I know what you mean with going to the boss with the note, but I am sure my boss will say oh, it is just a little bit more work, and XX is always busy anyway. I am pretty sure she will say something along that line. This was what happen when one of the staff got her hours cut and job duties stays the same and this XX girl got her hours increased with the same amount of duties. The staff with the cut talked to the boss about it, and (the boss) she showed her a new job description with a timeline, and saying from the look of the new job description, you still can finish your work on time, or (at lease that was what I heard from the staff got the cut). We were all betting that the new job description was created by the XX girl and she conviced the boss with it that this staff was given more time than needed and she needs more time, so we all know she has her ways. Yes, she is confident that she will get away with it and she has gotten away with many things including gotten her hours increased, and cut other people's hours.
I think you are right about not doing her favours and avoid her. I do notice that the staff got cut was kind of close to her before (not anymore) and I think XX used the friendship for her advantage (like figuring out how she does her job and how the work flow is, and then somehow she figured, she can transfer the $ from that staff to her, you know when she got her hours increased, not only her income goes up, she has lighter days too). Now I just realized that for the last two weeks are so, she tried to be nice to me and asked about this and that, and now you just make me realized where she is headed, maybe she woundn't find ways to cut my hours yet, but I am sure nothing good.

[miztia]

Make sure your part is complete, and save her part until last. She cant complain to the boss that you didnt get HER work finished. I would also make sure I did her part wrong.

[Ciel]

Does your workplace have a human resources professional? If it's a small workplace and the boss is the hiring authority as well, something's going to give.
Are customers/clients noticing your supervisor's behaviour as well or her impact? (If yes, see if there is a way to harness their notice to support a possible meeting with boss about the supervisor.)I don't know if your work is in front of clients or is in the back rooms.

If you have the means to see an employment law lawyer, try to see if there is anything other is advised beyond documenting dates/times and incidents.

Only you can decide if this situation is worth sticking out and seeing if boss comes around (if you can present it as having a business impact) or if its time to ask your network to help you get work elsewhere.

[tobiwobi]

Wow that's crazy. I would save all notes, and before taking direction from her and doing her work, go to the boss with the notes and say what blueeyetea said, and if your hours get cut or you get fired those notes are a good case for wrongful dismissal suits. That girl is a liability to the employer, that's extremely unprofessional, both from her and your boss.

[blueeyetea]

but I am sure my boss will say oh, it is just a little bit more work, and XX is always busy anyway. I am pretty sure she will say something along that line. This was what happen when one of the staff got her hours cut and job duties stays the same and this XX girl got her hours increased with the same amount of duties. .

But, as XX is not your boss, it's not unreasonable to request from the boss that any new duties come through her instead of XX. That could be another tactic. If XX gets uppity by giving you more work, just turn around and say you're not refusing to do the work, but you'd like to hear from the boss that you should be doing so. If everyone XX dumps her work on does the same thing, either the boss will get fed up from giving in to XX demands, or XX will think twice of asking all the time.

She's obviously has the boss' ear, and as long as she does, she's controling the show. You have to find a way to fight back without it bouncing back to you that makes the boss believe you're uncoopeerative.

And if you're stuck with XX's work, just do as Miztia suggests, make her wait for it until she asks. What's she going to do? Go back to the boss to say you haven't completed her part of the work? If it's affecting your work, go ask the boss what's a priority: your job or XX's requests.

[tjthemanto]

First do your work completely ( finish it ) and then just do a bit of her work ( but don't finish it ) , so that it doesn't look like you delibrately avoided it.

When she asks you , why its not finished..tell her politely , but firmly ..I was busy doing my work and by the time I got around to doing your work , I didn't have much time left to do your work .

Stress on the words my and yours.

I don't think you should confront her directly right now , due to her seniority ( although she is on the same level as you ) and coziness with the boss.

But you can always play the passive aggressive game right now.

Always let her know that your work is going to be your first priority and her work ( if she wants you to do it for her ) is going to be your last priority.

Eventually , she will get the message.

[Brad]

I think you have the wrong attitude for working on a team. On a team there's no my work or your work, there is just work that needs to be done for the team to achieve its goals. Why would you assume she was giving you this work because she didn't want to do it herself? Maybe she had too much work to do and the boss told her to delegate it to someone else. On my team it is common for people to ask other people on the team to do their work for them, regardless of if they're the same level or not. I can't really judge cause I wasn't there, but I think you may be finding malice on her part where there in fact is none. Besides, if you do the work instead of her, that means you get the credit for it, right? Just make sure the boss knows it was you who did it.

[tobiwobi]

I think you have the wrong attitude for working on a team. On a team there's no my work or your work, there is just work that needs to be done for the team to achieve its goals. Why would you assume she was giving you this work because she didn't want to do it herself? Maybe she had too much work to do and the boss told her to delegate it to someone else. On my team it is common for people to ask other people on the team to do their work for them, regardless of if they're the same level or not. I can't really judge cause I wasn't there, but I think you may be finding malice on her part where there in fact is none. Besides, if you do the work instead of her, that means you get the credit for it, right? Just make sure the boss knows it was you who did it.

What??

I wouldn't just leave my file on someone else's desk with a sticky note saying do it. I would have a quick workload conversation with the team, end result of which would be some work being reshuffled. Two completely different things.

[frugal50]

the bottom line is how much do you value your job?

if she has the bosses ear and lots of clout....

there isn't much you can do

either do as you're asked or quit.

[freefreefree]

I think you have the wrong attitude for working on a team. On a team there's no my work or your work, there is just work that needs to be done for the team to achieve its goals. Why would you assume she was giving you this work because she didn't want to do it herself? Maybe she had too much work to do and the boss told her to delegate it to someone else. On my team it is common for people to ask other people on the team to do their work for them, regardless of if they're the same level or not. I can't really judge cause I wasn't there, but I think you may be finding malice on her part where there in fact is none. Besides, if you do the work instead of her, that means you get the credit for it, right? Just make sure the boss knows it was you who did it.

Ouch, I know what does work as a team means, it means you help your team memebers with their work occasionally, so that everything goes smoothly, you do take over any part of your team memebers work permanently. She wanted me "going forward" with it. Meaning I will have to always do it for her from now on.

[freefreefree]

First do your work completely ( finish it ) and then just do a bit of her work ( but don't finish it ) , so that it doesn't look like you delibrately avoided it.

When she asks you , why its not finished..tell her politely , but firmly ..I was busy doing my work and by the time I got around to doing your work , I didn't have much time left to do your work .

Stress on the words my and yours.

I don't think you should confront her directly right now , due to her seniority ( although she is on the same level as you ) and coziness with the boss.

But you can always play the passive aggressive game right now.

Always let her know that your work is going to be your first priority and her work ( if she wants you to do it for her ) is going to be your last priority.

Eventually , she will get the message.

Thank you for your suggestion. I didn't think about that before. Yeah, I don't think I should go directly to her or the boss yet.

And guess what, today I just got an e-mail from her requesting and at the same time instructing me to do more of her work. This woman is just ridiculous. I think she saw that I did her part of the work (it was due, so I kind of had to do it (or otherwise it hurts the bussiness and she really could use that reason against me), and also thinking what frugal50 said, and the work wasn't too much, so I just kind of did it and waiting to see what happens) And now this. So, she knows that I contact clients with answers to client's questions and requests, so today, she decided to send me an e-mail to kind of requesting and instructing (with instructions how to) request stuff from clients to finish her job (She needs certain infos and payments from clients to do her job), so that she doesn't have to spend time sending e-mails or call clients. In the e-mail, she tried to sound like she wasn't asking too much by saying could you please add this to your e-mail since you will be contacting them. well, this time the work isn't so simple beacuse there is a list of clients that I don't contact, so that means everytime I will have to check that list and do all the typing. How ridiculous. This time I am seriously angry, but still hold my anger tho. I replied back saying that I didn't mind too much (trying to be reasonable tho) of doing the previous duty as you requested, but for this one, I will do it this time and please do it next time as it is part of your duty (Thank you Tjthemato for the suggestion, I didn't bold it, but I put the word your in, I think if I didn't read your post, I wouldn't have thought about that kind of wording). I am seriously keeping record of things now. In my reply, I clearly told her that I have already taken on one of her little duties and now she wants to add more? I am thinking of going to my boss that she is being unfair and kind of bullying me and with this progression of after a few days, add more things to me even thought I know she is close to the boss. What do you think?

[lecale]

.

[freefreefree]

I find taking on more responsibility usually leads to a promotion or a raise, so I always welcomed it. Worst case scenario is they are making cuts and trying to discover who is useful enough to keep. I would say, master the tasks, do the work for 3 months and then go to the boss and say I have taken on these responsibilities and everything is going smoothly...show me the money!

No, unfortunately, this wouldn't be the case because this woman who is giving me the duties is not my boss and she is the same level as me, and second, this company has a set rule on raise, so you can only get a little bit of raise each year regardless if you taken more duties or less.