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This is a case where you should have talked to your coworker there was no reason to go to your boss. It's simple to go and talk to your coworker and discuss it. The coworker could have honestly felt they were helping you and not realizing they were upsetting you.
MPowering gave great advice how to talk to the coworker for future tasks.
Maybe this is just me, but if this person's workload is large and yours is smaller - maybe that is why they are pawning some tasks off to you and you can view it more as an opportunity than an annoyance... and when promotion time comes, being perceived as a team player and going that extra mile to help out others really does help you particularly if you are both working for the same boss.
There have been times when I was busy and our mutual supervisor told me to give tasks to another teammate. Didn't mean I was any better than this teammate, just that at the time I had a lot more on my plate.
If your supervisor is CC'ed on it, I think my reply-all response would be, "Sure thing, Rhonda! Whatever you need. I am always here to help you if I can since we're all one team." You will then notice a change in how Rhonda perceives you for being nice about it and your supervisor would be appreciative of you going that extra mile to help out colleagues.
Just my $0.02. I don't think everything is always a competition and don't see the need to be hostile when you're part of the same team.
We work our own contracts, but we are backups to specific other contracts.
Sometimes if our workload is lighter than the other person we back up, we may get asked by that person to handle one of their tasks or I may ask someone to handle one of mine. We have a general understanding that if we are available, we are encouraged to pitch in but that we are not responsible for putting someone else's tasks above our own. If we are too busy and the task needs to be done asap, our manager will decide the order of importance on all of our tasks and assign it to whomever's task ranks last.
This seems to work pretty well. We don't go through our manager when we ask a co-worker to do a task.
Intra department issues, the managing supervisor should be on cc.
Inter department issues, both supervisors should be on cc.
This should really settle things.
Typically, we don't necessarily know what each others workload is. There was no way for my coworker to know if I was overwhelmed with work or not.
When I first read the email, I reacted poorly and felt that my co-worker was giving me instructions. That was one reason why I did not respond immediately. I read the email again this morning and I think I over-reacted a little. I still feel as though this co-worker could have come to me at my desk and just talked about this. There was no need to send a "directive" via email and copy our supervisor. Unless I was out of the office, which I wasn't.
In the end, after talking with another co-worker and getting his advice, I decided to not respond at all. I know what needs to be done and I will complete whatever I can (along with balancing my other workload).
It's really not worth getting into a power struggle or anything like that. I'm looking for another job anyway and with any luck, this won't be an issue for much longer.
Typically, we don't necessarily know what each others workload is. There was no way for my coworker to know if I was overwhelmed with work or not.
When I first read the email, I reacted poorly and felt that my co-worker was giving me instructions. That was one reason why I did not respond immediately. I read the email again this morning and I think I over-reacted a little. I still feel as though this co-worker could have come to me at my desk and just talked about this. There was no need to send a "directive" via email and copy our supervisor. Unless I was out of the office, which I wasn't.
In the end, after talking with another co-worker and getting his advice, I decided to not respond at all. I know what needs to be done and I will complete whatever I can (along with balancing my other workload).
It's really not worth getting into a power struggle or anything like that. I'm looking for another job anyway and with any luck, this won't be an issue for much longer.
Good for you! If many other people would do this there would be a lot less conflict.
I think the co-worker may have been doing this to ask for your help, but let the supervisor know they were asking for it. You may find that just responding and saying you will do your best, but you have some other tasks that have to get done first is all your co-worker needs. They may just be assuming that your workload is lighter than theirs because they don't know.
I had a co-worker like that. Now she's my boss and she's worse. I like the advice MPowering gave you on page 1.
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If many other people would do this there would be a lot less conflict.
