I work in the public sector in a fairly specialised role, but also 'supporting' another area. In reality, my job should already be divided between two people but the latter prong isn't too strenuous and my employer had budget constraints so it was combined for the previous post-holder. I took over about 6 months ago.
In the last few weeks, however, something seems to have shifted and I'm being assigned duties that I previously only got in an emergency/blue moon. Its happening every day to the point that it eats up sometimes a 3rd of my working day (and with the nature of my work there is no doing two things at once – it supersedes the other stuff). None of the responsibility is too 'hard' taken separately, but when you look at what I do in a day/week its ridiculously straining and too much for one person, especially when there are plenty of others who could chip in instead of me. None of my other responsibilities have been reassigned nor have I been given more time for them, so I'm effectively doing 30% (low estimate) more work for free. Forget the fact I'm not even paid all that well.
I've struggled along hoping it was temporary staffing issues while the person above me assigning the work avoids me like the plague. Everyone else, even people I have very little to do, offer sympathy in passing when the emails come in and we can see what everyone has been lumped with.
I have a new direct manager though, a fantastic person and supervisor, and today we had a catch up. He knew exactly the complaints I'd have about my volume of work before our meeting even started, even pulling up emails he'd been sending across leadership advocating for me/my ACTUAL role. But despite his being the no.2 in charge, he got met by a brick wall of staffing/budgeting bullshit and he could only offer me the reassurance that he'd pushed for things to be reassigned more evenly and I should flag him if it isn't. I thanked him and left out the detail that if not, I'd seek other employment.
However, as we moved on to how I was feeling about the other aspects of role and he was skimming my job description, I vocalised my main issue i.e.. that these tasks aren't mentioned anywhere there as a possibility so I felt quite confused about the expectation/change. He was visibly surprised and scrolled to a section that detailed exactly this 'new' element of my job (tacked on as a vague 'supporting in x when needed' thing). I know for a fact it wasn't there before, because I checked over my JD last week to make sure I wasn't overreacting. Someone has added to it without consulting me. He sort of brushed it off with a concerned look but said to check what I signed against what he was sent and he would take out anything which didn't marry up.
Am I right in thinking this is a huge issue? It's my salary review/end of 6 month probation imminently and it feels like they wanted to add this huge other responsibility for me to sign off without my noticing. I'm a little disgusted by it really and feel like a bloody pack mule and people are trying to grind the absolute most out of me before I inevitably cave and quit. Where should I go from here? My head says fuck the whole job off but I love the 'core' part of my role and all my colleagues so I'm hesitant.