I've worked at this company a long time, and so did this coworker. She started a few months ahead of me and seemed to think this meant I had to do whatever she said. I work on a team and most of us work really well together, happy to lend a hand when needed or bounce ideas off each other, but she was allergic to work and hostile if you dared try to get her to do anything she hadn't been strictly instructed to do. Which didn't make her a great teammate.
I'm really big into workers rights, but whenever I had to work with her, it was a misery, and unfortunately our jobs overlapped the most. So I was desperately hoping she'd find a job somewhere else. But she didn't, and she'd keep finding new ways to make the rest of us (mainly me) do her work, and I kept complaining about her, hoping management would do something productive.
After years of this, and after losing one of my favourite colleagues to a different department (I wish her the best, but her absence leaves a gaping hole) and another colleague quitting due to strain, she's finally gone. Management is being unclear whether she was fired or made redundant, but they are clear that there will be no replacement for her. So now I'm doing the job of two and a half people, with my best back up gone.
I want to quit, but there's no company that pays as well, so I'm stuck. My team is still great but we're whittled down to the bones now. I remember thinking this company was fairly decent as companies go, but even then I knew they'd start acting like a soulless corporation as soon as they could, and I guess now is the time. I can already see how the strain is affecting my performance – I'm making small mistakes – and I'm miserable and stressed during the work day. But I'm trapped. I can't stop, or else some other poor sod on my team has to cover for me, and if I get fired or quit, I'll be homeless within a month or two, with the way my bills are going.
No real message to this. I wish we had a say, and I wish we had a union, but it's not an option.