My problem is I’ve got a clear job description that management and some coworkers who feel entitled to boss me around oftentimes forget because it suits them to offload what they don’t want to do on me. What infuriates me is, it lasts way longer to argue with them than simply getting the job done, but if I don’t establish a boundary I feel like an idiot, because I feel they offloaded their shit on me, meaning they’ll keep doing that in the future, because I didn’t establish a boundary.
Establishing a boundary sometimes means they badmouth me, complain about me to my superior or yell at me, but I’m in a union.
I’m also not a patient person and arguing with a coworker about job duties when those are clearly written is not my strong suit. I just want to do my job and get paid.
When management offloads like this, I comply the first time, but then I start half assing it, working slower, not doing the job as good as I could.
This is not sustainable and feels like bullying. How do you deal with this?
Don’t argue. No is a complete sentence. Talk to your boss about it if your coworkers have a problem with “no.” Perhaps express mild interest with appropriate additional compensation?
If you don’t enforce your boundaries, then no one will.
This is great, sometimes you need to have those solid, clear boundaries.
If you want to be somewhat “diplomatic,” what I’ll do is give a response depending from whom it comes from.
Not my boss: “please check with my boss to see if he wants me to drop anything to help you.”
my boss: “I’m doing x, y, and z. Which do you want me to drop so I can do this new task?”
This is a much better response. In business you have to speak business-speak. This is the business-speak way of saying no.
Double plus good talking to your boss. One of my people had this exact same thing happen to her. I went to the other dude and told him any requests for my people to do work outside my department had to come though me, end of story.
Nobody pulls that shit on my people.
You’re in a union, talk to your union rep, bring documentation of the incidents and see what they think and if they can help. If they agree and help, great.
If they can’t help, then anytime anyone outside your management chain asks you to do something, you can say something to the effect of I’d love to help, can you just ask my manager for permission to prioritize your task over their normal priorities for me. If your manager/management chain asks you to do something, make sure you tell them what won’t get done properly or timely if you comply with their task “If I do XYZ tasks, then I won’t have time to finish ABC priority today”, if they’re ok it, then you document it and suck it up.
The keys here are: always act as if you’re willing and happy to help, you only do work authorized by the people who can give you work, the people who give you work are the bad guys if they say no and they become aware of all the extra requests of your time, don’t overload your trying to carry your own work and someone else’s, document as much as possible in case someone in your management chain has an issue with you not having done something that a manager agreed to.
That’s what’s worked for me in the corporate world at least, not sure what your environment is, so YMMV.
I dealt with it by becoming unemployed and living off of social security.
Must be nice being able to afford that.
Rent is 70% of my income, unemployment would mean living in a tent.
My country has a social safety net, you don’t lose your home when you go unemployed. You just live in poverty instead, which for me, was preferable.
