If the situation where Dinsdale is at is similar to the situation where I am is at, probably not. It’s highly skilled labour, and someone from Mark Staffing is unlikely to be able to contribute in any realistic or meaningful way.
Yeah, I don’t get why people think these situations can always be solved with a temp. Sure, sometimes they can - but my employer can’t hire a temp to replace me. Typically, what would happen is that the other two managers in my building would cover for me. If I was in a different office and the only manager assigned to the building one of my subordinates would be the Acting My Title. And someone else might get “Acting His Title” - but there is going to be a person missing somewhere on one of those three levels. Because a temp can’t do any of our jobs, not even the entry-point one. ( which itself requires twelve weeks of full-time training)
Not sure how much of a “beef” I have w/ anyone. Keep assigning me work, tell me whatever you think policy is re: prioritizing different assignments, and I’ll get to it when I can.
Part of my curiosity likely reflects my previous impression that this missing employee was always “selfish” WRT shared resources/schedules - not a team player and definitely not a hard worker. Impressed me as the type of person who would cut corners. Of the people similarly situated to me, she is the one I would most expect to abuse leave or something. But - and I cannot overstate this - I really don’t care. Just mildly curious.
I also think a workplace can decide whether or not to create a culture in which employees feel like helping each other out, or going above the call to help the office as a whole in unusual times. To put it mildly, our office has done NOTHING to cultivate such a dynamic.
I agree with everyone who observes that it isn’t really my work or the other employee’s work - it is the office’s workload. And management is responsible for assigning it so it gets done. It is mildly bothersome when you put some effort towards doing your assignments in a timely manner, and then get last minute “crisis” assignments that take priority. But that’s why they pay me the big bucks! 
And if I am only capable of producing a certain amount of work, you can assign me a rush task, but that just means something else is going to get put off.
To some extent, if something comes up, I can switch work with someone else. Just allows us to give each other some flexibility. (I generally have to offer my availability 6 months out. Makes scheduling vacations and such a bit of a hassle - but that’s the job.) In such situations, co-workers are definitely helping each other out. But if I’m sick or something, I have no sense that my co-workers are doing ME a favor by picking up my work. I’m entitled to use my sick leave if I get sick.
And no, my job is not the type where you can just hire a temp. We are a national office, tho, and w/ some restrictions, work can be transferred to different employees in different offices.
I would think, feeling obligated or motivated to help on a personal level would come with the sort of basic familiarity that involves, if not some minimal socialization outside of work, at least mentioning major life events. If you are so formal or estranged with each other, I don’t see why you should feel the need to make a special effort on their behalf. Just do whatever you would have done if they were laid off.
And they can’t do anything, anything at all, before those twelve weeks are over?
The lawyer in my brother’s job, which I mentioned in a previous post, is going to be off for at least a year; after that she’ll probably take the option to return part-time (and that’s assuming everything goes well with her and the baby). Now, lawyers aren’t the kind of people you get off a temp office (at least in Spain), but they do take temporary contracts; even with the time needed to get up to speed, any lawyer other than the guy who got the lowest grade at SucksDickUniversity shouldn’t take anywhere near that long to at least be able to take the less-complicated national contracts off the ONE lawyer they’re now left with. Who btw better not come down with anything…
Even for positions requiring training, there is a point at which the expected length of the absence is enough to justify hiring someone. That may need reorganizing, but goddamnit, being able to figure out how to cover up for missing people is supposed to be one of the things managers ought’a be able to do.
Also - at the moment our national workload is dropping (tho still massive). So they aren’t making any efforts to replace anyone who is out for any reason.
I was actually wondering about this, or that she had some kind of mental health issue that required long-term treatment.
Nope, not a thing. When I say full-time for twelve weeks, think of it as something like a police/fire academy or military basic training. It’s not a matter of they spend every day at the office they are assigned to while a co-worker trains them - they are at a location where no work is actually done. All that happens at that location is training- 40 hours a week worth. New people are hired all the time based on projected needs, but they absolutely don’t ( and can’t)* add one extra person to the class starting June 1 because I found out today that Maria is going to be out for six months recovering from surgery. Maybe one of the people from that class will be assigned to my office - or maybe not.
- Lets say a class is 40 people. That means they have enough instructors and dorm rooms for a class of 40 people - and not enough for 41.
To my eyes, the key is that the OP is under contract? Is he/she an Independent Contractor? An exempt salaried employee? A salaried or hourly employee? Paid by daily, weekly, monthly, yearly production? Union/non-union? Too many unknowns to make calls on what the OP should/can do.
In all cases, read the contract. The rights and right to question/dispute as an Independent Contractor are very few outside of what’s in the contract. An exempt employee has a few more rights, but basically is paid to perform the tasks assigned regardless of how may hours it may take.
Speculation as for why the situation may be what it is, is that the company and the employee are in a legal dispute that requires the company to keep the position open as if she was still there. I won’t got into details, but when I worked for the City and County (super strong local union), the former supervisor (who was fired), won a years long union dispute and I was told that if he insisted on returning to his former position, I’d be demoted (with no change in pay or duties) to Asst. Supervisor and he’s be the Supervisor in title only. He wouldn’t even be required to actually show up for work (they didn’t want him to be there). Fortunately, he chose a cash payout instead of returning.
Update - guess who showed up at work yesterday?
They had reassigned all of her work to the rest of us. One of my colleagues was handling some of the cases that had been reassigned to her, in which meetings had to be held yesterday. She was surprised to see the long-missing employee in her office. Her thoughts were, “Why am I doing this work, when the employee to whom it was originally assigned is in the office?” She went to the top administrator who was in the office at the time and asked as much, to which the manager replied, “Employee X is in the office today?”
Gotta love it when management doesn’t even know who is expected to show up when! 
As many observed, I absorbed all of these reassignments into my caseload. They recently completed reassigning ALL of her caseload - not only the “AGED” matters. A number of matters that were reassigned are essentially completed, but need only her review and signature. I have the option of simply reviewing and signing off on those matters, but I do not wish to do so. Whoever signs off on a matter is responsible for all aspects of that assignment. I am not willing to be responsible for whatever this other employee did or failed to do. So I tossed them back into the hopper, and I will essentially repeat the process - but in a way that I will be willing to be responsible for the process and conclusion.
As many observed, makes no real difference to me in terms of workload. The only people who lose are the individuals involved in each action, and the organization as a whole in terms of efficiency. But if the organization isn’t sufficiently on the ball to know who is expected to show up when, I’m not about to bust a gut trying to improve their overall efficiency.
I guess I ought to appreciate my colleague’s situation as improving my job security! SOMEONE has to do the work! Meanwhile, any issues related to this colleague will hopefully distract management from having time to hassle me!
You didn’t bust into her office and scream “Where the f*ck have you been? And WHY were you there??? There are people online who need to know!”
Or (if you really don’t want to know), at least tell her to sign up here and give us a full explanation.
LOL!
By now, filed under “general amusement, but don’t really care.” Just happy she is (presumably) doing her share to preoccupy mgmt!
I am in agreement with your employer that they should not tell you why your colleague is away, nor should they say when they will be back if they aren’t sure. It isn’t your concern.
Gee. When I got promoted to manager they somehow neglected to give my psychic powers to know when employees were coming to work. I trust your manager took her in the office and informed her telling the manager that she was coming back might be a good idea. But you’ll never know.
Go up to her and say “so, how ya doing?”
Funny - when I was a manager and an employee was absent for an extended period (3+ months in this case) I always had a pretty good idea when they were expected back in the office. Of course, our workflow always required something more than just wondering which employees would choose to show up on any given day. And we were able to use telephones and e-mail, to free up our psychic powers for other matters.
Nah. If anything, would more likely be something like “Plan on doing any work anytime soon?”
Datapoint - for those who feel I’m unreasonably nosey, I have overheard 5 out of 5 other similarly situated employees have at various times said things like, “WTF is going on w/ employee x?” (And no, such statements were not made IRT my prompting.) So if I’m too nosey (a definite possibility), 100% of my similarly situated colleagues are as well. 
Oh - another thing. If you are think you might be out of the office for an extended period such that your cow-orkers will have to pick up your work, you might want to keep it in better order than this employee’s. Of the cases of hers that I’ve had reassigned, a majority of them are pretty fucked up in one way or another. Other colleages have observed the same. So this isn’t a stellar over-achiever I’m talking about.
Folk around here remain pissed about this. Me, I’m basically amused. Like I said, I’ve got an insurmountable backlog of work to do; simply adding some more work doesn’t really change anything other than to mean some things will be done later than otherwise.
But today another colleague said that they would’ve expected the absent colleague to say something to their colleagues when they return - either in person or via e-mail, thanking people for putting forth extra effort during her absence. The suggestion kinda surprised me, but I don’t know. If I got sick and was absent from work, and I knew that my absence caused more than minimal inconvenience to my colleagues, I could imagine expressing some superficial expression of appreciateiion when I returned.
Would you?
And yeah, if any of us really cared and weren’t complete babies, we could certainly speak to the person involved. I’m sure not going to ask her any questions. And since I really don’t care if she returned or not, I’m not about to say some banality like, “Good to see you.”
Yes, that seems like something good for the returning employee to do.
It would be nice, except that it leaves her open to conversations she may not want to have. It also leaves her open to even more office gossip. I mean, you’ve all proven you engage in it. Maybe she lost a baby. Or someone else died. Or who knows what? She may just barely be holding it together. Leave her alone and stop gossiping with your colleagues. If she wants you all to know, she’ll tell you.
It is possible for someone to thank those who filled in and say that she had health issues or family issues without being more specific than that. Acting like the absence never happened is dismissive of the efforts of colleagues who held it together and kind of odd. So I’m with Dinsdale and his colleague.