I work in art production and run my own department (as one person.) Next to me is an adjacent department, also run by one person. My co-worker is out this entire week for a wedding and funeral back-to-back, and they gave appropriate notice about this several weeks back.
So of course, there are still orders scheduled to be due while my co-worker is out. I'm now being asked to finish them, despite me having observed but not being adequately trained on the equipment. I mention this and have been told by my manager “Well, can you do it anyway? It doesn't seem that hard.” (And no, no one else in the building knows how to run this particular machinery.) They are now asking me to call co-worker to have them run through the process for me, but I do not want to do that because they are currently out for bereavement and that feels insanely insensitive to do.
Is this a crock of bullshit? I stated firmly I would try to help however I could, but this is out of my threshold. Do I just continue to be adamant that I will not being doing this? Or suck it up and do it and possibly fuck it up?