I work as a legal assistant. Our office has about 8 legal assistants and about 12 attorneys. On top of that we are supposed to have 2 people in front desk/reception area: 1 person is an actual receptionist taking calls and the other person processes new cases. They’re supposed to back each other up if one of them is out. Well we used to have those positions filled until the actual receptionist quit. This left the person processing new cases handling the job of 2 people.
Besides that, this person got promoted to be a legal assistant and she can’t leave that reception/front desk position until the office finds 2 new people. We’ve been short staffed since August of last year. This caused more workload put on all the assistants because we essentially become backup to the front desk person. The manager always pulls 2 specific people from my unit to cover the front desk if that person is out only because they used to work the front desk. I and others don’t have experience in front desk so I can’t imagine if these 2 suddenly are sick. This causes my coworkers to become frustrated because they get behind on their workload and adds work to everyone else.
I don’t mind helping those coworkers who have to cover. But it’s constant because the front desk person is always out due to her kids being sick. My coworkers have pushed my manager to be more active in hiring people and it’s like they’re not putting effort. They take forever to get back with potential hires which only causes those people to get a job elsewhere. It’s definitely infuriating that the manager isn’t doing much to hire new people and I don’t know why. We’re all frustrated because we need new people and the lack of effort is being seen. We’ve told our manager time and time again don’t snap at us if we get behind our work.