Really Hope This Is Just Me Being Paranoid

[moon_custafer]

My coworker, who books all the meetings and trade shows and makes the travel arrangements and a dozen other things, is leaving at the end of this week and they haven’t found a replacement for her yet. Which means they’ve started telling her to train me to pick up the slack. Now from something she said I suspect her job was originally done by two people, and I’m worried that “covering the job for the foreseeable future “ might turn into the new normal yet again; and I’m already trying to get their catalogue layout done before the December deadline I was given – I can’t do that *and* be the company’s full-time secretary and back-up telephone receptionist as well.

Comments

[sabotabby]

Yikes. In my experience, when a critical person leaves, they try to just offload that work onto other people. I hope that doesn't happen to you!

[moon_custafer]

I eventually tried confiding my fears to my co-worker, but she didn’t seem to get what I was worried about, even though I tried explaining that I’ve previously worked for companies that were chronically understaffed, or where every couple of years the management decided it would increase efficiency if they merged, say, the Data Entry Department with the Customer Service Department, because they had forgotten what had happened the last time they tried it.

[dewline]

Oh dear.

[sovay]

I can’t do that *and* be the company’s full-time secretary and back-up telephone receptionist as well.

Not without them paying you a lot better than I expect they do. And possibly, since that sounds like being four people, not even then.

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, no, here's hoping it is temporary - that sounds like it's going to get impossible fast otherwise. (And employers have a nasty habit of trying that sort of thing, urk.)