Frustrated with work colleague

LegacyUser

A colleague of mine recently confided in me that he had been diagnosed with ME. I had suspected that something was up as he was constantly on sick leave (20 days sick leave since the Summer alone).

My colleague refuses to tell my boss about his illness. Yet he's constantly on full or half days out sick or in late in the morning, etc. (My boss does not monitor sick leave and is generally useless at anything remotely like managing the office or its staff - by the way this colleague is also his "favourite"!). I do have sympathy for my colleague but the thing is he keeps taking lots of sick leave and work is suffering. Muggins here has to pick up a lot of the slack. I'm a bit angry at my colleague that he won't admit his illness, because then maybe we could get some staff in to help. On the other hand, he told me he thinks the illness will affect his future prospects at work and doesn't want to let anybody know.

I don't mean to sound harsh but my sympathy is wearing thin now that I'm nearly sick from the stress of dealing with the stuff he's not around to do!!

What can I do?

Goldenquick

While I would offer him sympathy, I would also sit down with him and explain how stressed you are and that you seriously need help to carry out your duties at work.

echosound

You don't sound harsh - why should you be sick with stress covering for a colleague?

I don't think you should tell the boss about the illness yourself, but I would a) let your colleague know how unfair it is on you, and ask him to come up with a solution whereby you are not left holding everything together, whether that is by them actually telling the boss about the illness, and working out a strategy for sick days he needs to take, or whatever other solution he comes up with that will allieviate the workload on you.

Failing that, if he refuses to take steps to ensure he is not dumping all this extra work on you, I would b) make it clear to your boss that you cannot cover all the extra work on the days he's out sick, and ask for a temp to be brought in to cover the work.

Nothing makes a boss appreciate the extra work you do until it hits them in the pocket - what I mean by this is that in a place I worked, a colleague used to do this regularly too, leaving me covering two fulltime jobs and often working back til 8 or 9pm to get the work done (it needed to be done that day). My boss didn't or wouldn't appreciate that for me to cover both positions meant working flat out for 12-14 hours a day, instead of my usual 8, plus all the stress of dealing with so much, until I refused to do the extra work and insisted on hiring in a replacement when my colleague went off sick. Suddenly they came down hard on their sick policy when they realised they would have to pay both my wages, the sick colleague's wages, plus the wages of a temp.

I would also suggest to your colleague that while the boss might not be visibly monitoring the situation now, he doesn't know whether it's actually being monitored or not, and a lot of sick days on his record will affect his future promotional prospects a heck of a lot more than a certified illness would. I'd definitely insist that he sort the situation so that extra staff can be hired in, or he goes to a shorter week or job-shares so he has the time off he needs and you are not left stressed out.

Persius

You can bring your concerns up with your boss without actually mentioning his illness.
Tell your boss just everything else you've said here. I.e. he's already taken 20 sick days since the summer. You must therefore assume that there may be something seriously wrong and therefore many more such sick days. You can't cover the work yourself and are unwilling to continue with regular 14 hour days.