I had a week and a half long cruise vacation schedule for over a year that my two bosses knew about. Since my bosses are commission based, they are notorious for texting me after hours/ on other vacations I’ve taken because they don’t adhere to a standard work schedule and will work super late and on the weekends. So, I made sure to go over several times with them in writing and verbally that I would NOT have internet/phone service on this trip, and they would not be able to contact me at all for anything.
Since I am an administrative assistant for them, we determined it best for them to take over my work since I’d be gone for so long we didn’t want to leave any accounts or clients hanging with no response (I work in a field where people are QUICK to get irritated). Again, we went over expectations and what that week and a half would look like for them several times. We determined they would pay the administrative assistant that had trained me to take over a certain portion of my work and they agreed between the two of them to split and take on the rest.
On the day before I left, I typed up an email to the other admin for the few things I would need her to check in on while I was gone. I also typed up a separate email for them with their tasks. For them, there ended up being just under 20 things that needed worked/followed up on. Since they are commission based, they often fill up their days going out to accounts in hopes for making extra money. Because of this I made sure to notate the time sensitive items and what date they needed to check in on these things as the rest could just be done whenever during the week.
Between the just under 20 tasks, they could probably dedicate about 20 minutes each day to get a few things done each day, or dedicate maybe 2 full hours one day to knock it all out. We all had a nice phone call on my last day before I was off to go over all of this stuff so I could give them the full context of the situation so they wouldn’t be confused while I was gone and have no way of clarifying things for them. All was well and I ended my day.
Flash forward to today, my first day back after missing a total of 7 work days (11 days counting the weekends), I noticed I didn’t have any email from them with updates on the stuff they were supposed to work on while I was gone (they’re usually pretty scatter brained and unorganized, so this wasn’t shocking to me). I shot them a text in the group chat to ask them to give me a quick update when they have time so I could mark things off of my to-do list and file paperwork away. I then got this as a response back: “I didn’t check on any, we were slammed”.
So now, on top of the 40+ emails I got , the 17 missed calls I need to return, and the handful of texts I need to reply to, I have to check on all of the things that were supposed to be done last week. I am so mad. They had so much pre-warning before my trip that there is no reason they should have booked themselves so full that they couldn’t take over these tasks and screw me over this much.
I really enjoy my job but hate who I work for. I’ve been suffering through them because I love what I do, but this was the final straw for me (I could make so many more posts about all of the annoying things they’ve done that screwed me over) so I will be looking for a new job. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to vent, I figured if anyone would understand it would be you guys!!