I don't belong here on this sub – I'm not against work. I fucking love my job, teaching students in a field I love- but allow me to rant about my manager for a bit, in a place that is probably supportive of just that.. I'll have to keep the details vague so I don't lose the job I like/love.
I work at a university, where four months ago a colleague of mine got sick. We knew it'd be for a longer period of time, so I warned my manager: in four months time, you will need a replacement for him to do The Thing, an activity that involves a lot of students. They did not find a replacement, hoping he would be back by then. He is not back by now, and will not be for some time.
Two weeks ago on Tuesday, another colleague got sick and so management was scrambling for a replacement for him while they still had to plan for the Thing, next week on Monday (let's call that week 1). I warned them again and offered to help: I ran The Thing two years ago and I could do it again with some small adjustments and planning. My manager said she would do The Thing herself, so I offered, no, I told my manager that I would arrange as much as I could: set up a new Powerpoint presentation, communicate with the students, arrange classrooms and such. I mailed her a lot of these documents late at night, but she replied stating she did not need any help and she would ask me if she did. Alrighty then, management has things covered, I will be there Monday morning early in case she needs any help.
Fast forward to Monday (week 1) and I arrive to a couple dozen rightfully angry students and no manager. Apparently, on Friday (week 0) she had communicated that The Thing would be postponed untill Wednesday (week 1) – through an old, incomplete mailing list, not even with me on it, meaning a lot of students showed up for no reason. I told her this, gave her the best mailing list I had, and offered my help again, which apparently she did not need (again).
Next Wednesday (week 1) I come to university to find yet another mildly discontent batch of students who did not receive any mail that The Thing was postponed yet again, to Monday (week 2) this time. Several colleagues start asking me questions, because I was responsible for The Thing two years ago and they think I still am – but my manager clearly said she was responsible this year. I plan a meeting with her and the colleagues involved so we can discuss this on Friday (week 1). Apparently, this did not sit well with her because she sent a rather angry mail to me on Thursday (week 1), said she would not attend the meeting. On Friday (week 1) she called in sick.
In that same mail she said that one of my colleagues (C) was actually responsible for the whole course that The Thing was the start of, she was only going to do the start of it (Thing). I called him about this: turns out he was never notified in the four months that they had to get this sorted. Well, it was Friday (week 1) at this point and we did not have things sorted to do The Thing on Monday (week 2), so we had to postpone things AGAIN, untill Wednesday of week 2. Well, that went over about as well as you would expect with the students…
Coincidentally, my manager has been sick all of last week (week 2), so I had to take over running The Thing again, which took me quite a bit of time to set up. Once I was halfway there in the planning, another colleague (F) came and asked for some documents – apparently, she had been asked by the manager to set up the online documentation. Wierd, given how the manager never asked me for help, despite saying she would. Ah well, I give her the documents so she can upload them – and within 24 hours, they are taken offline from the course classroom. Guess who the only two people with administrative rights in this classroom are? You guessed it right, the uploading colleague (F) and my manager, the latter of which apparently took offense to being helped and deleted several hours worth of work. Thank god (F) had backups…
So, I run The Thing on Wednesday. All goes well, students seem happy (although I bribed them with chocolate) and they can start doing their course. They have lost two weeks out of a ten week project, but I think this will be fine. I finally get to relax and enjoy my weekend after two other days sorting out the rest of the mess of this course. During the weekend, I meet another colleague of mine at a party, who is a close coworker of (F) and shares an office with her. Turns out my manager had been complaining to (F) that me and (C) weren't doing our jobs, and nobody was willing to help her, so she asked (F) for help – which (F) then gave, only for the manager to remove her work. Well, here's to hoping she stays ''sick'' for some while longer…
Edit: tl;dr: Manager does not heed warning to find replacement, then shoves workload to other people while complaining about them behind their backs, only to promptly go on ''sick leave'' while we get shit done.