"3 for 1"

I am the lone administrator in our office. We have gone from a support team of three admin people to one (I'm now the only one). I have taken on a lot of extra work since the Sr. Administrator left, and the receptionist went on maternity leave. Once I took on the extra work I thought I was doing a lot around the office, or that I was doing enough work around here - I thought my team members and my boss would take notice. Well, last week my boss decided to have me trained in 2 additional areas so I can help the "team" out more. I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. I want to help out, but when i go into the common area it seems that I am the only person doing any work. How can I be motivated to help these people when all I see them do is NOTHING?! I'm hurt that my boss doesn't think I do enough, and frustrated as to why he'd want me to take on more work. I know I'm not going to get a monetary raise, or compensation of any kind for working extra hours, and picking up more work, so there is very little incentive for me to want to do this. Can you offer any advice on how I should handle this?

Thanks, Busy in a sea of calm

Dear "Busy in a sea of calm",

A couple of things occur to me. First, you need to let your boss know how you feel about being asked to take on more tasks. Don't suddenly dump all over him or her, but share your concerns about being asked to do more work without apparent reward. Ask if this is a developmental opportunity. Will the reward come later? Is the boss offering you stock options, or a promotion down the road, or at least a plaque which acknowledges you as employee of the week?

The second issue you raise is the concern that you are feeling busier and busier, while it seems that others are not doing anything. You have not said what those others are doing. If they are knitting, or talking on the phone to their brokers, then you have a legitimate grievance. The question is, what to do about it. Perhaps you could suggest to the boss that since there have been two employees leave recently you would like to have a general review of the work assignments to make sure the chores the Senior Administrator and Receptionist were doing are shared around fairly.

On the other hand the people that you think are not doing anything may in fact be doing exactly what they are being paid for. Some types of work require a lot of reading, or quiet concentration on ideas, or time spent in creativity enhancing meetings that can look like people just fooling around. I would suggest you be sure that you know what the responsibilities of those others are, and what sort of contribution they are making before you consider raising your concern with your boss.

If your perceptions are right and you are being asked to carry the load previously carried by three people and you are surrounded by do-nothings who are being protected in their positions, then I think you need to look around for a firm with better Human Resources policies.

Thanks for writing.

Dr. John

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