After her co-worker quit, a corporate employee’s supervisor tried to give her the majority of her former colleague’s work tasks without any extra pay. In our current employer market, increased responsibility and limited resources seem to be the growing trend because employees are tethered to their jobs whether they like it or not.
The corporate world often seems to run according to its own set of rules and regulations that aren’t necessarily explained to workers, as though it were a club that only a chosen few have access to. In a supportive working environment, younger workers have mentors, people who support them and who guide them to the next stages of their careers. But most of the time, employees are left to fend for themselves, as one office worker discovered when her job description changed abruptly.
The corporate worker explained that the office manager at her company had given her two weeks’ notice, which affected her position in ways she didn’t expect.
She shared that she’d known about her colleague’s decision to quit for two months since they’re friends who “talk all the time,” but the rest of the office just found out, taking the news as “a big surprise.”
What happened next made the worker question her position at the company entirely. “They pull me into this meeting that I wasn’t invited to or anything; they just, like, called me in,” she said.
In the meeting, her boss divvied up her former co-worker’s responsibilities, casting most of them onto the woman. “Basically, 80% of her job is now my job,” she said, wondering, “When am I going to do this? I already have literally zero seconds in the day to do anything because I’m already doing two people’s jobs.”
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“I will not be doing any of these things,” she declared. “Because, one, I’m not the office manager. Two, I wasn’t hired as the office manager. Three, office manager roles and responsibilities are not my job description. Four, you didn’t ask me at all. Five, I’m not the office manager.”
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The “unfettered audacity” of the situation got even worse after she learned the exact details of what her new, unwanted role entailed. She found out that the former colleague’s tasks were supposed to be split between herself and another woman in an administrative role, only the division of labor was far from actually equal.
“One of the responsibilities I was given was ordering all of the supplies, all the kitchen things, and all of the food and all of the drinks from all these different vendors for the office and doing inventory on them,” she said. “I don’t even know how to do [that]. I don’t know who to order them from. I don’t know what they’re called… I’ve literally never done this.”
She continued, “Then, her thing was, when we have a lunch meeting, which is like, once every six weeks, she orders the pizza.” She added, “I’m not gonna do any of them, anyway,” she said before delineating how unevenly the tasks were split apart.
“One of her things is to keep the shredded bin keys at her desk for when people need them,” she continued. “And one of mine is to learn the entire phone system, set up every new employee on the phone system, ensure that it’s going from person to person correctly, and also check everyone’s voicemails.”
“Didn’t seem equitable,” she said. “I’d rather do the keys thing.” She went on to say, “As it is, I am not the holder of the keys,” she said. “I may not be the holder of the job anymore after tomorrow. But we’ll see, we’ll see how it goes.”
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Commenters firmly took the woman’s side, with one person noting, “The reward for doing more work is always to get more work.” Another person wondered if her supervisors were trying to force her out, saying, “They might be trying to get you to quit.” “Let them fire you,” they advised. “Then, they have to pay.”
In refusing to take on her co-worker’s job, the woman did right by herself. She set clear workplace boundaries, staying within the confines of her job description and nothing more.
Yet her concern about the security and stability of her professional future offered a peek into how her company functions and what they prioritize. Hint: It’s not the comfort of their employees or helping people maintain a work-life balance. It’s possible that refusing to take on the extra work could cost her the position, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. In fact, it might be in her best interest to document everything, including a clear delineation of the additional responsibilities they expected her to take on, in case she needed to speak with an employment attorney in the future.
The fact that her supervisors assumed she’d do free labor without question highlights how toxic and dysfunctional certain companies can be. While this woman knows her own worth, her supervisors do not. The situation puts her in a position where she holds some amount of power. One hopes she wields it to her advantage so she can protect her inner peace while getting paid.
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Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.
