Hello, I am looking for some advice on how to approach this. I have a co-worker, I will call them K. We have worked together for 2.5 years, both female and about 29 years old.
So K and I get along really well and work very easily together, we both have the same role but handle different material lines in the same business area.
K has recently taken to sometimes what I feel like is stepping on my toes a little bit. We work out of a shared email account (other people work out of it too) and sometimes, I guess when they are bored, they will take some smaller stuff from my responsibilities. I have tried to be cool about it but it’s starting to really annoy me. Like I can handle my own work, I don’t need you to do it for me. It can be as simple as sending a document to a customer or forwarding and email internally but it makes me feel like K thinks I can’t handle it (which is not true, I am just as good at the job as they are). It also leads to double work, where I don’t know that K has done that task and then I go and do it again.
I don’t know how to approach this with K. Logically I know they are doing it because they think they’re being helpful, but it’s really annoying me. I don’t want them to think I am mad at them for trying to help but it’s just more like stay in your lane unless I specifically ask for help. I have a regularly scheduled 1 on 1 with our manager later this week and idk if I should bring it up there or just try and say something to K.
I don’t want to make it weird between us, I otherwise value our relationship.
Thank you!
Tldr: I don’t know how to tell a coworker to stop doing portions of my job, without it turning into a big deal.
2 comments
I think I would just tell her look I really appreciate that you are trying to be helpful but you are actually causing me more work. Please just let me handle it unless I ask so I don’t get messed up.
I don’t know how else to make that nicer. If you can think of something I would go with that. It’s hard to be nice about this kind of stuff because chances are 50/50 on why she’s doing it. Is she being nice or trying to get noticed for doing more while undermining you?
Approach k first before the meeting thank them for their assistance and state it would really help me if I could be responsible for my own workload and if I might need additional help I will reach out to you. The goal is to change behavior it is not giving in it is being assertive. You may have to provide some examples during your talk and you have to give it time for any behavior change. If none of this works then the Manager might be the next step in future meeting.