Then I wouldn’t pick up anything. Nothing personal about her or you, but this is another case of the employer (in this case, the government) making things bad and then asking for others to take care of the problem for them.
This.^^
Correct me if I’m wrong - but this will mean that someone at some point will have no choice but to pick up these cases, right? I assume
is about her using up leave before she officially retires.
Or they hire a replacement, or the timeframe for completing that work needs to be revised. This whole situation smacks of poor planning on management’s part. Yes I realize that’s most likely due to external budget constraints of which they have no control, but medical leave, vacations, leaves of absence, retirements, maternity leave, etc. are usually expected events. Even if you don’t know when they may happen, you know they can and do happen. Not having any plan besides shifting all the burden onto remaining employees is, IMO, not the way to handle that.
Which (completing the aphorism) does not constitute an emergency on your part.
Do not blunt the impact of this, and don’t throw yourself into this trying to buffer the severity of it unless you truly want to be a permanent part of a terrible solution.
It can’t really get better unless it’s obviously bad, and employees “picking up the slack” at the expense of their own health, sanity, and life balance is not an answer.
The employee is not using up leave. We have to schedule approximately 5-6 months out. So when she submitted her retirement in February, she was already scheduled through June. These are the cases that need to be picked up. If no one picks them up, they will likely be assigned to me and one other employee in July-Aug. Cases are scheduled oldest first. So if not picked up, these will be the oldest, and will be scheduled before any others. They will be delayed a couple of months, and everyone else waiting will be delayed a bit.
Whether or not anyone picks up this 3.5 months of her scheduled workload, someone else is going to need to account for her normal productivity in the months after June. As I said, she was one of the most productive employees this very productive employee has ever encountered.
I have not discussed this with her. But IMO this is nothing other than a very capable (I’d go so far as to say exceptional) employee who would have continued to do her job for at least several more years, simply deciding “enough is enough.” She didn’t need to put up with what she perceived as increasing unpleasantness related to simply trying to do her job. I’ve got no idea as to her personal financial situation as to why she considered this economically feasible. She also has a longer drive in to the office than I, so I don’t know how much the return-to-office requirement (not yet enforced for us) influenced her.
Nationwide, there are x number of employees handling this specific task. However many tasks arise, they get divided among the staff. So you’ve got a couple of variables:
-how many tasks does each employee complete in a month/year;
-if you expect more, how much time do you expect them to put into each one and what quality do you desire;
-how quickly do you want to turn each task around.
As others have suggested, if they want more tasks completed more quickly, they are free to hire more staff. But, as I mentioned above, we are down from 1600 or so, to around 1100. We’ve been told there is a hiring freeze - and when/if lifted, they will hire 1 to replace 4.
And I expect the number of employees to drop significantly in the near future. Last week our bosses advised us that anyone who found it economically feasible to retire SHOULD retire, because they expect RIFs. We were presumed to be performing fulltime workloads when we had 1600. My productivity has not declined.
With 2 employees gone, that leaves 2 of us. Feel free to think whatever you wish of this federal employee. As I observed above, I am consistently in the top 5-10% of producers. I am not about to double my productivity simply because someone decided not to hire more staff. Or, if they insist I doublt my workload, I likely will. But the quality of each task completed will drastically decline.
As yet, things have not gotten intolerable for me. But that isn’t to say they won’t get there. I’ve been planning on retiring 3 yrs from last Dec. Each month gets me closer to that date. If they close my office and expect me to report to a further office daily, that would likely trigger my retirement.
In all, I find nothing to criticize about your reaction to the situation you are being driven into.
Of course there is plenty to criticize about the situation, and the people creating it, but that’s for another thread in another category.
I will say that was we, and you, have learned more about your co-worker’s situation, your thread title has become increasingly inapt.
“Would you try to single-handedly rescue an entire Federal agency against the active vandalism of DOGE?” seems like a better title. Not that you should change it; just that that’s what you’re / we’re really talking about.