How do I stop getting all of this work placed on me?

Wombattle

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Currently working for a three letter government agency in their IT department and going on three years as system administrator. I also work as the backup SAN administrator, and manage all of the hardware for various server rooms that we operate across our campus and whatever else comes down the pipe.
I'm starting to notice that most of my co-workers do the bare minimum to get by. While on the other hand, I'm swamped with work from the time I come in till the time I leave. It's typically my manager that passes this work onto me, as I know in his head, that he knows, that if the work gets put on my desk, it will get done correctly. However, this is preventing me from getting other work done, like important projects done for other folks and departments. My manager has commented on this or that work isn't getting done and it's because I'm getting work from him because either other employees let the work slip through the cracks or don't do the work correctly the first time and I have to do the re-work.
I've also looked back on my career so far and this seems to continue to happen to me. I grew up in a smaller rural environment so in my mind, my work ethic is pretty good.
I've brought this up to my manager that we have, for example, a contractor, who either spends most of their time surfing social media websites, socializing with others, or generally screwing around. I've said that I wanted to pass off some of my work to this contractor. My manager responded that this would be tough as the contract would have to be re-written. My response was that I could help with the re-writing of the contract, however it never seems to go any further then that conversation.
So to sum it up, how do I stop getting all of this extra work from being dumped on me, so I can focus on what I was hired for, system administration?
 

Gardener

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Would your manager be open to the idea of time-blocking? Maybe you could give your mornings to projects and your afternoons to this unplanned work.

And have you tried doing delivery estimates? If your manager knows that a particular piece of rework won't get started for three weeks, or that project for Important Person will take four times as long as it would if you could work on it uninterrupted, he might be motivated to try to get your coworkers to do some work.

Basically, I'm thinking that your manager needs clear visibility into the consequences of the current situation.

Another question is whether your coworkers truly don't care or if perhaps some of them just need more training. I realize that you probably don't have time for training, but there is a difference between don't-care and don't-know-how. If it's don't-know-how, you could survey the work to try to find the easiest and/or most time-consuming repeating tasks, tasks that might be worth training someone to do properly. I sometimes hesitate to give the intensely boring work to someone who isn't me, but sometimes it's a useful strategy. This, of course, assumes that you outrank these people, either officially or by your manager's decree.
 

mcogilvie

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Time to explore your options. Your manager is obviously no help, for reasons we can speculate on but don’t really matter. Working alongside people who don’t pull their weight is no fun, even if you didn’t end up doing their jobs. The one thing you don’t want to happen is for your reputation to be tarnished because you are drowning. So don’t wait to start looking around.
 

Oogiem

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So to sum it up, how do I stop getting all of this extra work from being dumped on me, so I can focus on what I was hired for, system administration?
Go up the chain of command. If your direct boss doesn't seem to get the issue then go up until you find a boss that does understand.

And dust off your resume and start looking around. Depending on which of the various 3-letter agencies you are in and your clearance level there is always work somewhere else. Moving to a new agency is a bit harder, there are deep divisions between them IMO made a lot worse by the whole Homeland Security changes but there are opportunities in other places. Skilled, cleared, System Administrators are hard to find I am sure you can go elsewhere.
 

TesTeq

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Go up the chain of command. If your direct boss doesn't seem to get the issue then go up until you find a boss that does understand.
It never worked for me. IMHO the only thing you can win by skipping your direct (unhelpful) boss is to earn his hatred. I agree with @mcogilvie - I would silently begin to look for other options/bosses inside or outside @Wombattle's organization.
 

Oogiem

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It never worked for me. IMHO the only thing you can win by skipping your direct (unhelpful) boss is to earn his hatred.
Not my experience at all. You do have to be prepared to defend your reasons for skipping around the boss and better have good backup and proof you tried there first but it has always worked for me.
 

TamaraM

Registered
I'm coaching an employee through this issue right now. I have the benefit of knowing him and his manager very well. My suggestion to him was that he clue his manager in (BEFORE the unplanned work gets handed down) about what his current priorities list is. Say, via a Monday morning list. "Hey, Bob, just letting you know what's on my priority list for this week. I intend to get X and Y done, and hope to make good progress on Z for next week's deadline. That should leave me with a couple of hours each day to tackle unplanned tasks. Let me know if you have different priorities for me?"

Hopefully, that knowledge alone gives Bob a little pause on sending new tasks over in excessive amounts. If not, it allows the employee to say: "Sure, Bob, glad to tackle that. I'll have to push project Z back, though, to make it happen. Another option is that I could help get Joe trained up so he can tackle it instead. What's your preference? Happy to follow your lead."

For this particular employee, it has the side benefit of holding him accountable to his plan for the week. He (unlike you) had a tendency to get off-course mid-week, and since no-one knew what he'd planned to get done, he wasn't held accountable to his lack of throughput. He was aware of the problem, and appreciated the potential fix.
 
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vino

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@Wombattle It is sure frustrating when others slack and work keeps piling to us.

You mentioned because of all the additional work, you are unable to focus on important work you do for other folks and departments. How do you get this other departments works? Is it through your manager or directly? (Maybe your manager does not want you taking other folks and departments works)

Did you have a frank discussion with your manager regarding this issue?
 

Deirdre

Registered
@Wombattle you asked this a while ago and wonder how things are going?

I am a huge fan of visual systems. Do you share a project list with your supervisor? As new projects come to you, having a quick connect of understanding the timing and priority of the new project, due date and what comes off your list if the new work takes priority. So something like a shared Trello or a white board showing what you are working on.

Hopefully this helps!
 
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