i am supposed to be rotating positions every 2 years (ending in early Oct) and i had agreed to extend my stay at this role for longer (till Jan/ Feb next year) initially because i knew that one of my ex colleagues was coming back to the team (and thus assumed that things would be similar as it was at that time or slightly better). however now things have changed – this colleague that came back is leaving for good, and another two colleagues that i’m working with on other teams have resigned since – which has and will make my work more difficult
my team leader joined this team around the same time as me, but i never felt she made a serious effort to learn about the things working on the ground. and therefore she usually would usually just delegate the work to me, and for most emails that are sent to both me and her, i have to do the problem solving and discussion with various parties before preparing an email for her or replying myself. also previously she used to sit in the project meetings but recently she just stopped sitting in these meetings so i’m the only representative from my section which is really frustrating cuz when other ppl ask questions she always has to defer to me, and then even when i was on time off a few times she had to text me in order to answer their questions even tho it was just a few hours off… (to be fair sometimes i also have to text her when im on leave to get her clearance for certain things)
considerations are:
1. in my country’s and company’s working culture, it is rather common to work overtime
2. i got promoted at the start of this year which my bosses would have spent effort to advocate for (and thus i might be “letting them down” in a way especially cuz i agreed to the extension initially)
3. i took a three week vacation leave in May which is quite uncommon and thus nice for them to agree (tho probably reluctantly) to it… reason was to attend my graduation and see family but i was also super burnt out then and wanted a break
4. i wish to take about 10 days vacation leave either in Oct or Nov… which will be a really busy period for the team.
5. for the past two times i’ve talked to her about workload, this has been her response: 1st time i asked her how i was able to work more efficiently in order to be able to finish my work on hand, she suggested that i work on weekends even though it wasn’t obligatory, 2nd time she reduced my workload but also sent a somewhat passive aggressive email that i should focus on what i have on hand since my workload has been reduced, which made me really annoyed (because of the tone of it… still makes me annoyed…)
6. besides being annoying over emails, she usually talks to me in a very nice and caring tone, which also adds to the difficulty of having this difficult conversation with her
7. she has other work responsibilities n two young children to take care of, but im pretty sure i work overtime and weekends more often than her
i wanted to talk to her about two things
1. regarding the possibility of reverting my earlier decision to extend my stay due to the change in circumstances. if this decision is able to be reverted, that would be the best case scenario but my guess is that it would not be too easy for them to agree with this, especially since my 2 years would be up in early Oct, which would mean a very short timeframe for them to find a replacement. The second best thing would be to have some sort of compromise – instead of Jan/ Feb, to leave earlier eg end Oct or early Nov
2. having lack of support from the team and worry about heavy workload and potentially heavier workload when my teammate leaves in Oct. I’m struggling with my current workload mainly because many people defer to me to ask for inputs for diff projects and there are many meetings and i still have work to do outside out that some of which are just piling up because my time is spent on replying emails and meetings. The stress comes from that the accountability lies with me and not my team leader because she does not know the projects in depth.
how do i convey the above points without sounding rude? especially point no. 2 which is like kind of targeting her because the support needs to come from her? any advice would be appreciated!!! thanks so much 🙂