I went on maternity leave a couple of years ago. During that time a temp filled my position. I returned after 9 months and was moved into another position at the same level to cover someone else’s maternity leave (it was a good career opportunity for me to develop my skills). The temp for my job stayed on in my position.
The person I covered returned to work 5 months ago but the firm kept the temp on with the idea that they would be hiring for another position in the near future and they could keep her. As she was specifically contracted to cover my job I moved into a general position temporarily). This suited me as we just had a diagnosis for one of our children has a serious major illness and that job allowed a little more flexibility.
2.5 months ago HR mistakenly issued her another contract with just a non specific job description (at the same grade) for her. She didn’t tell my direct manager this had happened.
3.5 weeks ago I was on annual leave and I got a fairly angry mail from a director that I hadn’t gone back into my old job . The email was sent to me and my manager.
I was very upset when I read the email. I replied to the director and said that my understanding (from manager) was that while the temp was doing my contract I would be working in a general position until she had a different job. I also told them that I had offered the temp help on a number of occasions to which they had made no response. I said that I couldn’t understand why it was escalated to such a high level without the temp having either spoken to me or the manager and that I would have had no problem going back into my old position if she was unhappy. My manager responded and took full ownership of the issue although I feel that I’ve been besmirched too.
I arrived back into my job after my time off expecting a full hand over having been out of my job for 2.5 years. I did a full handover 2.5 years ago. I should point out that I have no issue with their work, which is very good.
Her handover was an email to me (cc’ing in the manager and director) with a list of ‘who to contact’, ‘these are the passwords’ and ‘you know where this is’ and instructions on how to do a new task that I hadn’t done before. It amounted to 2.5 single sided sheets of paper. I was flabbergasted and replied that I couldn’t accept a handover this way as the workplace would suffer as I wouldn’t be up to speed. I set out a number of things I wanted to cover in person and asked her could we set some time aside to go through it. The director also said that she would prefer a handover to be in person via email.
My email was civil, I kept it completely impartial in the hope that we could just get over this issue and I could take my job back and get on with it. She never responded but apparently was very annoyed that I had responded to her mail and cc’d the people in that she had originally cc'd.
It is over 2.5 weeks now and we haven’t had a meeting. She is not engaging with me. On Friday I rewrote to the manager (cc’d director) and said I still didn’t have the handover and it was making doing work difficult for me. The director replied and asked the manager to sort this out.
Today I had a presentation/meeting with the CEO and senior management which I spent my weekend working on. It was impossible because I had no paperwork or files or updates from this person so I was really caught. Just before the meeting I found out that she left a note for the manager saying all the files were on X shared drive. Her handover email mentioned nothing of these files 2.5 weeks ago. My handover to her were all my files and I spent 3 days going through everything with her.
I don’t know how to manage this? It’s been so stressful, I’m not sleeping and my family is being affected. I never knew her before she came to work with us, we have no one in common. She has been hostile towards me since I returned from mat leave. I need some advice on how to deal with this . Where do I go from here?
(Notes: I’ve worked here for 15 years with a good reputation; I don’t want to move jobs because of the situation with my child- taking on a new role would be foolish given her needs).