how to tell coworkers, “that’s not my job”

by Alison Green on July 22, 2024

A reader writes:

I have been employed with my agency for five years. Six months ago, I was promoted, but no one was hired to take over my old job. Some duties have remained with me and others were transferred to other people, primarily a great support person named Robin. We has communicated with the relevant people about tasks that have been transferred.

The issue I am running into is that people are asking me to do things that have either been transferred to Robin, or that they could really do themselves. For the former, a cheerful “That’s actually one of Robin’s duties now!” sometimes works, but other times people will really push back with things like “Oh, I thought since this related to area X and not area Y, you could still do it.” My management always backs me up on these, but is there a way to convey my point a bit more emphatically?

For the people who are asking me things they could just as easily handle themselves, I get flustered. My own manager has made the excellent point that if I agree to help, that reinforces that these are appropriate requests when they’re not, and I get it, but I’m not the best at drawing boundaries without going overboard. Any advice?

I answer this question  over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

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{ 97 comments }

{ 97 comments… read them below }

  1. Justin*

    Ooooh this is my life currently. My boss said the same thing about setting expectations, but the problem is the person who is supposed to do the thing (an easy thing! we have an LMS at work that some people use often and some don’t, and the ones that don’t forget their passwords and email me for help) basically refuses to learn how to do it, and no one is holding her to it (she’s in a different department from me and line of supervision), and I CARE about the thing succeeding (I built out the LMS, not via code but in terms of what is on it). It’s her responsibility because she reached out to me 2 years ago asking to collaborate and bring our employee learning under what I had built for external learners. She was supposed to take ownership of this subpage but she basically refuses to.

    I am in the process of creating various systems (IT helped me make a new email account that will soak up the queries for this task) and have asked some colleagues for literally ten minutes of their time per week. But jesus I just wish my colleague would do the thing or care about it.

    1. Justin*

      (And to what Alison said in the post, people come to me because they… trust me to get things done BROADLY, so they therefore trust me to do This Thing faster. I am now at a place where the site is expanding beyond what I can handle alone and also deal with their password queries, so I am focusing on the big picture and design, and we just need to sort out the password nuisance my colleague ought to be handling.)

    2. WeirdChemist*

      There is a similar situation in my office! The person in charge of maintaining certain systems is retiring, and the person they’re transitioning it all over too is just refusing to do anything! You send him a request and it takes multiple follow-ups and being super pushy for him to actually bother doing it… usually after several days! And the requests are usually for things that are both quite time sensitive, but also fairly easy things to do (like “please correct this single typo, but also the information can’t go out to the customer until it’s fixed”). We’re still in the early period of the transition, so I’m hoping that management will be on top of it once it becomes a deeper pattern, but in the mean time it’s super frustrating!! And in the mean time there’s been instances where it’s been the entire 8hr work day, and replacement still hasn’t done the task so I have to go to the retiring guy to just get it done so I can leave for the day, which I feel super bad about

      1. Justin*

        A one-person brain drain is way too common! But when one person is often very very good at a thing, companies often figure, well, we don’t need redundancy there.

        Until!

      2. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

        What happens if you talk to retiring guy’s manager? Presumably that manager can talk to new person’s manager? I mean, that deeper pattern won’t appear until it starts being surfaced, right?

        1. WeirdChemist*

          The proper procedure for making requests involves cc-ing management on the request, so they are being made aware! I’m also including management on the multiple follow up’s and the eventual requests to retiring guy. This switchover is still very recent, so I’m hoping after a few weeks either replacement will get in line or management will take action. Just crossing my fingers until then!

      3. My Useless Two Cents*

        WeirdChemist, as someone on the other side of the situation, something else to consider which may differentiate your situation from Justin…
        What I’m finding is people coming to me with a “simple” request that turns into the biggest clustermess because retiring person refused to follow procedure A, D & X which my boss is requiring me to do. So it’s not a simple typo correction, it’s fix a typo, then go thru and fix everything from A which takes 2 hours, then fix everything in D which takes another 25 min, and finally do everything for X which takes another hour and that simple typo correction ended up taking 3 and a half hours. Not saying that is happening, but it’s one of my current biggest frustrations at work at the moment.

        1. WeirdChemist*

          I don’t want to get too detailed on what the request are, but trust me that is not what’s happening (although I do sympathize with your situation!)

          His excuses have such been:
          “I didn’t realize you actually wanted me to do that”
          “I didn’t think it was that important”
          “I haven’t checked my email yet today (6+ hours into the workday)”

          He is in general just super lazy and work avoidant lol

          1. Also-ADHD*

            Is there an actual expected time? That might help. I would personally block the requests and do that kind of function once daily, but I imagine that’s function dependent (and also didn’t sound like what he was doing). But a time expectation would help the issue maybe (from management, consistency, etc).

    3. She*

      It’s the old “ask a busy person” because you know they will get the task done. I stopped helping when people were asking basic questions that had obvious answers or they just wanted confirmation. Not my sink, not my dishes.

  2. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

    The “Ah, that’s Robin’s job now – you can go to her” responses should be the default response. For folks who try to cross the boundary and get you to do it, you could up the ante by asking questions like “oh, was Robin unable to do it for you when you asked?” and “gee, is this an emergency such that Robin doesn’t have capacity, so you’re checking with me about MY capacity?”

    Even if you CAN do the thing, it is no longer on your plate, so make ’em beg. You can do the favor or not, but they need to verbally acknowledge that they recognize that it’s not a simple ask.

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Another wording: “Did you ask Robin to do it?” I bet a lot of them don’t ask Robin first, possibly because (as another commenter here said) they don’t realize that the task is Robin’s now.

      I also find that “Oh, I haven’t done that in months now and I’m not sure of the exact procedure anymore, now that Robin’s taken it over. I’d suggest you ask her about it.”

      And for the tasks that are supposed to be self-service now, it might help to point the requestor to the documentation on how to do the task. “We discussed in all-staff mtg in April that going forward everyone would be responsible for doing that task on their own. Here’s the info on how to do it. If you have any issues, feel free to ask [me or Robin, whoever is the contact point for that task] and we’ll see if we can help you out.”

      1. Forest Hag*

        In the same vein of “Did you ask Robin?”, I have used “what have you tried so far?” This has been helpful for self-service things where the person COULD do it, they just didn’t feel like it. And if someone did try the self-service option and genuinely needed help, then at least I know they tried, and I’m more willing to help them, as opposed to someone just not wanting to do it themselves.

    2. ferrina*

      Another trick is to be busy. Simply say “gee, I’d love to help, but I’m swamped this week. I could fit it in next Wednesday, does that work?” Basically give a timeline that was so silly that it became inconvenient. The higher the inconvenience, the less likely they are to ask again.

      This isn’t foolproof- it’s better to decline to do the thing at all. But if for some reason you can’t do that, this is a diplomatic way to discourage people from coming to you.

    3. Ellis Bell*

      Maybe I’m misunderstanding the nature of the tasks, but why don’t people see that it’s disrespectful to Robin to cut her out? Most people wouldn’t want colleagues constantly encouraging a predecessor to step on your toes. I’d go with a “I couldn’t possibly now I’ve handed over the role; this is Robin’s baby.”

      1. Anna*

        Hanlon’s Razor – they’re not thinking, they’re just doing what they have always done.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          If you’re right, and I think you are, then it isn’t pushback at all, but confusion.

      2. Craig*

        could be sexism , if Robin is male and op female. People will step over the guy admin to ask the woman

    4. JSPA*

      can become very effective as time passes:

      “oh my, its been so long since I did that task! You really have to ask Robin. Even if it were my job, I don’t even have the right protocol anymore.”

      Sub in, for “protocol,” as needed:

      “login credentials”
      “the relevant pages bookmarked”
      “current contacts”
      “a current price sheet”
      “authorization”
      “my old cheat sheets”
      etc.

    5. Hush42*

      It is absolutely infuriating to me when people come to me and say “I know this isn’t your job but can you help with XYZ because I know the person who is supposed to handle it is really really busy.” I think they’re *trying* to acknowledge that they know it’s not my job but it comes off as “You obviously have nothing to do so you should help with my problem that I don’t want to wait on”. It has never once been something that couldn’t wait.

  3. Someone stole my croissant*

    There’s an evil little part of me that would say “Sure! That’s not my job, but I’ll do it for 10 bucks!” Then I’d say, “Robin will do it for free, but who am I to say no to 10 bucks?”
    Then at least you’d make some extra cash. Make sure to adjust for inflation in your area

  4. Coldfeet*

    In a similar situation, I found eventually pushing back with “This is really meant to be a self-service task. If you need some training, I can talk to my manager about appropriate training resources, and they can discuss the training need with your manager as well. You’re not the only one, I’m sure!” this invariably leads to the person backtracking and just doing it themselves, because they know how but didn’t want to.

    1. Cadmium*

      I really like this response! I’m gonna have to write that down and keep it in my back pocket.

  5. Lab Boss*

    We’re in the middle of a profound overhaul that’s moving a lot of work out of my department and into other teams. A lot of things will end up not being done as quickly as originally planned, because these other teams also have other work to do.

    One of the few deeply satisfying parts of this whole process is the ability to smile and very politely say “Sorry, that’s with Fergus’ group now. The new structure backs this up, my boss backs this up, Fergus backs this up, and that means I don’t HAVE to really strategize over the details of messaging. For the pushiest people the most I’ve had to say is “This isn’t something we even have the capacity to do any more. You’ll need to talk to Fergus.” It’s not just a matter of not losing the discussion with these errant requesters, it’s a matter of never letting it become a discussion at all.

  6. JP*

    I sympathize very much with this. It can be so challenging to diplomatically say this because a lot of people hear “that’s not my job” and think that you’re not a team player or being petty or something else equally unfair.

    1. xxttmm*

      I worked in a team (of professionals!!) where all of the other staff would do the tasks asked of them that were completely outside their roles, and when I said “that’s not my job” – or a more polite variation, I got a lot of push back from everyone – including my managers, other staff etc. Even when HR stated these were not my tasks, I was still asked to do them and blamed when I refused.

  7. Red Headed Stepchild*

    I use the “Copying in Robin as she is handling this now” method. Then if it doesn’t get answered I always have the option of looping in that person’s escalation point.

    1. Turquoisecow*

      Yeah if this is an email request just forward it to Robin, CC the requester: hi Robin, can you handle this? Bob, Robin does this now.

      This is how we’ve handled it at past jobs in my company and it doesn’t usually take more than one or maybe two emails, then the person is like okay I’ll update my notes that I send this request to Robin.

    2. Yellow*

      This is my method. Duties in my company get shifted around a lot, and not everyone can keep track. So when people reach out to me about things I used to do, I just copy in the correct person.

    3. Brain the Brian*

      Bingo — this exactly. If you’re in-person and the asker is standing at your door, “Let me walk you over to Robin’s desk” can also work.

    4. TheBunny*

      This is what I do.

      I have a reputation for replying quickly so people ask me because they know I will answer even if it’s literally not something I handle. I’ve had to learn to say “thanks..let me direct you to the team in charge of this”.

  8. Spreadsheet Queen*

    OMG all the time! I moved from Department A to Department B 2 years ago (and before that was kind of half in/half out of both and before that was Department A for many years). Then they went through multiple replacements in Department A but things have been stable for a while now. People STILL ask me Department A things, including the person who is supposed to answer the Department A things. For current stuff, unless I just happen to know off the top of my head, I send them to current Department A person. Or if it’s the Department A Person, I tell her that it should be in Department A Sharepoint. (Like seriously, I’m not looking that up for her. I’m probably not even supposed to still have access to Department A Sharepoint). For old historical stuff, that none of the current Department A people will know, yeah, I’ll go find the files on Sharepoint, and send the link and an email with a little background information so they can do what is required. If somebody will not let it go re my involvement, my boss will totally back me up, but it’s been a good while since that has been necessary. We interact regularly with Department A so the relationship is important, but there are only a few areas that I still need to be involved with, and only under specific circumstances.

    1. Glazed Donut*

      I was in a similar position for a while. At first I just forwarded the requests to the “new me” in Dept A – and then when the requests kept coming, I forwarded and CC’d the boss of the “new me” in Dept A…they eventually slowed to a trickle and stopped all together. I do think some of it was a combo of new me 1) not having answers, 2) not building trust with the requesters, and 3) happily passing off anything she could so her workload would be lighter (it was already 1/2 of what I had been doing in the role!! she really milked a lot of free time in her wfh role).

      1. Mockingjay*

        This is my mantra: “Don’t accept, redirect!” Repeat. And repeat.

        You don’t have to justify your response beyond the fact that Task A is now Someone Else’s Responsibility. “Fred handles that now.” “No, I’m dedicated to New Task B now.” “I’ve forwarded your request to Fred.” Just keep flipping it back or sending it on politely. But never let it stay in your In box.

    2. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

      Agreed… redirect them to the correct resource each time. I even have a few links in my standard email signature for my most often requests that people should be doing themselves:

      “Please submit a service ticket at (link).”
      “The Department Sharepoint for essential resources is found at (link).”

      The OP could add something like, “X, Y and Z are now handled by Robin at robin.person@company. For all other ABC requests, please visit helpyourself.at.sharepoint.org

    3. Katherine*

      OMG I could have written this myself! I transferred from Dept. A to Dept. B to years ago, too, with a period of 6 months or so when I was half in/half out of both departments and I still get questions about Dept. A all the time, even from Dept. A people. I really feel your pain, Spreadsheet Queen!

  9. Ansteve*

    I love having to hide behind Audits. “Oh sorry we need an access or change ticket for that. While I can do that I need to have that ticket otherwise we will get hit on an audit and you may find yourself suddenly without access.”

    If it is something we don’t handle at my level I’ll tell them “we need a ticket to route it to the correct team. We don’t have access to what you are asking and that team only responds to tickets.”

    LW1 is the reason IT asks for tickets. Otherwise everyone comes to you for things that will get all of us in trouble.

    1. Lab Boss*

      This is truly just the adult version of “Sorry, my mom said I couldn’t come to [event I don’t want my friends to know I don’t want to go to]” and I love it.

      2. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

        I had a co-worker once who had a code with her teenaged kids, where they called her “Mother” (rather than “Mom”) when they needed to save face in front of their friends by letting her be the bad guy who wouldn’t let them do the thing. I liked that a lot. It was so thoughtful.

        1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

          The version with my teenager is that if he uses actual punctuation in his messages (otherwise entirely absent) I will understand that he is in need of rescue. He also knows he can throw me under the bus if necessary.

          Another version I’ve heard of is that any random emoji means HELP.

          1. Ed 'Massive Aggression' Teach*

            Yeah, my folks gave both my brother and I blanket permission to use ‘sorry, I can’t, I’m grounded’ to get out of stuff as kids/teens, particularly since grounding wasn’t a punishment they ever actually used. If we needed them to refuse the request in person/on the phone, we just started the request with “I know I’m grounded, BUT…” and we were off to the races.

  10. kiki*

    Is there any way you could document who is now in charge of each of these tasks and make sure that info is distributed to all the folks who need these tasks done? Maybe even a flow chart if it’s helpful?

    I know LW took “Oh, I thought since this related to area X and not area Y, you could still do it.” as pushing back, but it’s possible it’s genuine confusion. Especially if people are frequently needing to ask for LW and Robin to do tasks, always having to guess is probably annoying. And a lot of times the distinction as to who would handle what is super obvious to the people doing the tasks, but hard to understand from the outside.

    1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      They know who is in charge – otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to weasel in with — that’s not really part of her job. Because its easier to go to LW than get into the habit of going to the new person.

      Going through this right now with my Lions Club. I have been president since March 2020, so its been a ride. I am legit burned out on presidenting. It has interrupted vacation, taken over weekend, etc. Finally as of July 1 someone else is president. Everything is still coming to me from everyone in the club and higher up in the district. I keep saying – send it to new president. Who they all know who it is and have her contact info. Like leave me alone to fade into the background.

      1. Ama*

        Yeah OP’s description of the people who try to argue with her reminds me of an old coworker I had who knew full well my department didn’t pull a particular report, but the department who did wouldn’t accommodate his inability to plan (they asked for at least 5 business days notice and he frequently forgot to ask for the report until the day he needed it), so he’d try to see if he could get us to do it.

        After I’d told him no several times, he actually successfully went behind my back to a new report of mine for a few months — once I found out about it, I both set him straight and made sure any new employee in my department got warned that he’d try this until he left the company.

        There are some people who don’t really care who the *correct* contact is for a task as long as they can get someone else to take of it. These are the people you have to be really really firm with. Even forwarding the task to the correct person will just teach them that they can keep asking you and you’ll get it to the right person. You have to make it their job to contact the right person and maybe, someday, they’ll figure it out.

  11. A Disappointing Australian in London*

    This is particularly an issue with IT and gives rise to “shadow IT” where rightly or wrongly people are frustrated with the official IT support team and do it themselves or go to people Who Get Stuff Done.

    The IT world is surprisingly divided on whether shadow IT is good or bad. (I’m so firmly in the camp of “bad” I have trouble understanding how anyone thinks the right answer to a Missing Stair is a whole new set of private stairs.)

    Anyway I’ve had success saying something like “Ah but that’s how shadow IT organisations get created; if there’s a problem with Official IT Support Team then everyone else feeling pain is the only way the problem gets fixed”. People grumble but understand.

    I’ve also seen my boss say something like “This is an opportunity to explain what the Engineering team can and can’t do”, which I was impressed by.

    1. Fatima*

      I’m so glad our end users don’t have the access/ability to go around us (IT) like that! We respond pretty quickly to all requests, and if something is going to take a while, we let the requestor know. At the same time, we don’t do anything without a ticket. We need them for our reporting. When we really started enforcing requiring a ticket, I asked people to forward the email they had just sent to me to the IT email address. So far, everyone has been happy to do that.

    2. LostCommenter*

      I’ve been shadow IT before. Basically I just know enough to know my limits, and then IT gives me rights to the systems trusting that I would not screw things up. But I believe that if there’s an error in the system that allows people to ask me to do something, then me doing it without highlighting it will just hide the problem, so that’s the fastest that I say “Sure I’ll help, but I’ll make sure to let the relevant managers know that the system isn’t working.” This weeds out the real emergencies from the people not willing to follow the correct procedures. and if it’s a real emergency, then IT knows what I did so they could check that I did it right.

  12. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    It’s a great advantage that the OP’s manager is supportive in pushing back; a much worse problem is with managers who aren’t.
    The OP just needs to keep repeating the cheery reply “Sorry, that’s Robin’s job now” because if she keeps caving in and doing that task, they’ll keep asking.

    If she feels the need to call on more authority “I’m so sorry, but my manager Lily has told me not to do this. I’m sure you understand I have to do as she says”

    1. cosmicgorilla*

      I personally am a big fan of falling back on the “my boss said” or “we have a new policy” excuse. Well…not an excuse, it’s always true, but it legitimizes my pushback.

      1. Lurker*

        On a related note — I like to use the “you’ll have to ask [CFO] or [Director] or [whatever highest position here]” when they try to get you to do something that is not an emergency/outside the regular cycle, or not following policy but they want you to make an exception. Oftentimes they’ll decide they don’t want to deal with the trouble of going to those positions because they know they’ll get a lecture, or told no, or it’s not that urgent after all.

        1. MS*

          “Sorry, so and so, I need to get all rush turnarounds approved by each of our directors – would you please loop all four of us in on an email so we can get that authorization? Thanks!”

          Suddenly a lot of rush requests are surprisingly flexible! haha

  13. cosmicgorilla*

    LW, you don’t need to be more emphatic. You just need to be consistent and firm.

    There’s a great quote that you teach people how to treat you. If you give in, you teach them that they can keep coming to you.

    When someone says “oh, I thought you could still handle that because of x reasons”, any of the following would NOT be rude:

    No, those duties have transferred to Robin (or other person).
    I’m in a different role now.
    My boss has me focused on other priorities.
    My boss has me focused on other priorities, but you can open a case at…
    That’s not in my remit anymore.
    That doesn’t fall under my area of responsibility any more.
    That’s been transitioned off my plate. (different ways of saying that’s not my job without saying that’s not my job.)
    I’m focused on other responsibilities now, but you can use x software to create that file (or whatever the actual request is.)

    The important thing is that you remain cheerful and firm that of COURSE you aren’t supposed to be working on that. Of COURSE you are denying their request. It feels weird because you always used to be the person that did that, and it was a reasonable request in the past. Some people have a hard time saying no. But pretend they just asked you something egregious, like getting them coffee or carrying their dirty dishes to the community kitchen 5 steps away. See how much easier remaining firm is then.

    1. Ellis Bell*

      Honestly, yeah I wouldn’t worry about being emphatic just because someone said: “Oh I thought you could maybe still do it, because (reasons).” I’d just choose to believe they were embarrassed and explaining their mistake. I’d be responding with: “No, problem, we all make mistakes, but at least you know who to go for it now!” Yes, I’m willfully obtuse.

  14. KvH*

    I usually reply with an email like you do but I also add Robin in as a cc with a note of “I’ve cc’d them so they can help”. Then I ignore any other emails in the thread.

  16. IT_in_all_its_little_places*

    Due to some staffing issues at my current IT position, we’ve had to push some IT related work back to our vendor instead of taking care of it ourselves. I ended up having to print out the list of things that I could do vs. what needed to go to the vendor and post on my door. World of difference and quite a few people checked the door and then contacted the vendor without talking to me at all. Helped out so much during a very stressful time.

  17. Mermaid of the Lunacy*

    One way I’ve dealt with this is to forward the request to the correct person and CC the asker. That way I don’t end up doing it, but I don’t look unhelpful either.

  18. I AM a Lawyer*

    I’m having this situation and when I cheerfully redirect folks, I get a barrage of excuses, reasons, and apologies for why they asked me and not the appropriate person, which is so uncomfortable for me and totally unnecessary. I’m not mad! I’m just reminding them. I think it sometimes stops me from redirecting. I wish they could just say, “will do, thanks!”

    1. allathian*

      Requests in person are more difficult to redirect. Emails are easier, just forward them to the person who’s supposed to deal with them and CC the asker. That way you’re seen as helpful rather than the reverse.

  19. Scriveaaa*

    We’ve finally hit a letter I remember reading when it first came out! Time flies.

  20. JPalmer*

    Minor nitpick, I don’t like the excuse “I’m on deadline right now so can’t help, sorry!”, as that implies that if you weren’t busy, you would help with this. Like it’s a redirect to shut the request down, but I’d want to be very consistent on my message of “These are not responsibilities I handle anymore.

    I like the avenue of pointing out the time you’ve been out of the role and implying your knowledge is outdated, because that will help dampen future requests. “Oh, those are not my job’s responsibilities anymore and given its been X months/years, it is best if I do not attempt to help, please refer to Robin or for help with those topics.”

    1. Ellis Bell*

      There’s a big downside to that one, for sure because some people will not hear the soft no, and come back to you more than once to see if you’re still busy. If you really want to use language that soft though, it can be usable. You just have to remember to always be so consistently busy that people give up. Lots of people do hear a soft no, as well. If they don’t you can always follow up with something firmer.

      1. Hyaline*

        I agree–for softening the “no,” instead of focusing on “deadline” which implies an end to the busy excuse, I might focus on “new workload” or “Manager Bob’s priorities for me” or something else that indicates “I do not now nor will I ever have time to assist with this request.” “My schedule is really full with the Penguin Bow Tie account, and Manager Bob wants me focused there.” “My new role shifted a lot more work onto my plate, so I’m afraid I can’t help you with the Puffin Audit.”

  21. MagentaPanda*

    Not specifically work related, but after my divorce, my former husband called to ask me to do something for him. I said, “I’m not in that business anymore.” He didn’t call again.

      1. Iain C*

        I think that would depend on the thing.

        Obviously MagentaPanda thought it was out of line, but my ex and I still cooperate often. She shortens my trousers, I change her summer / winter wheels.

  22. Hyaline*

    I think a key part of dealing with this is taking a clearheaded look (aka NOT when you’re frustrated by the eighth request of the day) and ask–are these people legitimately confused by who should do these tasks, or are they being rude/entitled/prejudiced about who does this kind of work/some other issue outside of honest confusion?

    If it’s the latter, I think all you can do is stay firm, do not give ANY indication you would/could/might ever again do these tasks, and if there are repeat offenders, loop in your boss that “Karen may need training on the Widget Database because she keeps asking me to cover her inputs” or whatever. It’s ok to feel frustrated if this is the case! And if it’s rudeness, you have to stay professional while you remain firm, but you don’t have to worry about hurting feelings or about reporting up any truly egregious behaviors or requests.

    But I like to think the best of people, usually, so I would like to guess it’s the former–they legit don’t realize/remember it’s not your job anymore. Which means it’s not rude AT ALL to provide them with the correct information! (Either “Robin has taken that over, she’d be glad to help!” or “Manager Susan said everyone is going to do their own Widget Database upkeep now; I really cannot take on doing yours with my new workload.”) Sometimes adjustment takes time; think of it as retraining your coworkers. Stay patient but firm. You can remind yourself that they’re not trying to be rude if it helps you feel less frustrated. If it’s widespread–as in, this is happening a lot, from a lot of people–it might be that the communication about your new role and what tasks should shift away from you wasn’t as clearly communicated as it should be. If that’s the case, I think it’s worth looping your manager in to clarify with the team what tasks you used to do that now should go to Robin and what tasks they are supposed to pick up on their own (and if they have an issue with that–such as needing training or not having the time to prioritize those tasks, they can take it up with the manager instead of continuing to ask you).

  23. Higher Ed*

    Any advice for dealing with students and faculty colleagues with this issue? I’m a professor (young, female, PoC—my male colleagues don’t get the same presumptuousness) and undergraduate and graduate students will tell me to send them emails reminding me of questions they approached me with; to send them reminders for meetings I set up for them outside my office hours, etc. A graduate student even pressured me to do some service (conference) work they had been assigned, cc-ing their (dean) advisor. Others asked me to read and provide feedback on their dissertations and job materials even though they didn’t give me a committee slot; one audaciously branded it an intellectual opportunity for me. Any pointers on how to fend this off? The problem is exacerbated by: 1) I am untenured, going up in a few years, and others have been sunk by lack of fit; 2)HR does not deal with this; and 3)full professors support this behavior and do it themselves as well (e.g., regularly asking me to read and provide feedback on lengthy drafts; the one time I asked for feedback, a month after doing so for the colleague I asked, I was ghosted).

    1. Don’t put metal in the science oven*

      Do you work at a private institution? A friend did & said the students were way more pretentious (& would ask their rich parents to call the dean & threaten to withhold donations), and he was forced into a lot of crappy student-driven tasks.
      Private or public, you may not be able to push back much if you’re trying to get tenure.

    2. Hyaline*

      I would highly recommend separating this behavior coming from the students from similar behaviors coming from colleagues. The undergrad students are clueless; the grad students are slightly less clueless but still wildly overconfident that they know the landscape; the colleagues are probably being jerks.

      “Hold my hand” via “send me reminders” is something I’m seeing a lot more from students. “Are you going to post a reminder about this?” “I didn’t know we were supposed to read before class; you didn’t send a reminder!” “Wait, we were supposed to know the paper due dates from the syllabus and assignment posts?” They’re not good at managing their own deadlines, schedules, and commitments, and while I’m sure that there are about a million hypothesis why that is (high school coddled them, mom and dad coddled them, they haven’t had to balance their own agenda before, they’re tethered to electronics that do a lot of automatic reminders, etc etc), I think the best thing you can do is think of them as half-formed clay blobs who need patient training, not as rude or presumptuous. And while they may well do it more with you because you’re a woman and a POC, it’s also very possible they’re doing it more than you realize with a lot of people (my experience is…they do this with everyone who doesn’t terrify them. Good job not terrifying them, I guess?).

      So–teach them, at least by setting clear expectations of what you will and will not do. If you want them to remember a due date, tell them “I will not remind you about this.” Ask them how they manage their deadlines and schedules and if they give you a blank stare, do what you can to coach them. Tell them your expectations up front: “The test dates are in the syllabus. I will not be responsible for reminding you.” If they ask for a reminder about a meeting, just smile and say “Nope, I trust that you will put it on your calendar and be there! Email me if you have any questions!” Teach them to go ahead and email you a confirmation or add it to Outlook or whatever so they can look it up later for themselves. (Maybe terrify them a little. Just a little.)

      As for the faculty who do this–you know the politics and tenor of your office. Push back when you can, and when you can’t…roll your eyes inside and know that your colleague just outed himself as the a-hole.

    3. A Significant Tree*

      I think you could take three different approaches. For the undergrads who are in your classes, stress that the information and deadlines are in the syllabus and remind them of that whenever you cross a threshold of too many people asking about deadline reminders. Add a recommendation that they enter deadlines into whatever calendar app they choose.

      For the grad students – I was a grad student and I can’t imagine the audacity to blindly push actual labor like conference work or draft reviews onto a professor. I choked on “intellectual opportunity for you,” that’s some gumption! For the labor requests, if you’re concerned about the appearance of not being helpful then don’t decline these “opportunities” outright, but do be clear about your priorities and that it might be a while (i.e. never) before you have enough time to review or whatever.

      For your colleagues, I agree that you might just be stuck dealing with their one-sided requests. I would slow-roll any future requests from the ghosting colleague and any others that you need to outprioritize. Weaponize the cheerful nope when you can but balance that with being performatively responsive when it makes sense. I have a colleague who is always asking me to do tiny bits of labor for them and I’ve just learned to selectively stop responding when that happens, but otherwise responding just as normal when it’s a regular work conversation. If ever I were to get called out on it, I’ll just claim that I thought the request was rhetorical or them thinking out loud, not an actual request for me to Google something on their behalf.

    4. Higher Ed*

      Thank you all so much. You provided the caliber of advice I was seeking.
      Don’t put metal in the science oven: I do think the private aspect is a factor here. I will keep thinking long-term. It’s helpful to hear that others face this.
      Hyaline: The clay imagery is inspired; and your suggestion of asking them their plans is better than telling and is a benefit to them, because it’s in the spirit of education and recognizing them as developing adults instead of children.
      A Significant Tree: Your tailored suggestions for each group gave me additional immediately implementable ideas, and the outprioritizing and “cheerful nope” particularly resonated with me.
      Ellis Bell: So far I’ve been taking on much more than I want. The advice here will be crucial to getting back to manageable. Your suggestion of a preemptive PSA hits the right note of coming across as organized rather than punitive.
      I feel fortunate to have this stellar advice from all of you. (I also appreciate Allison for making this forum available.) If, in the future, any of you write elsewhere on academic careers, link it in an open thread and I will read and share.

  24. MS*

    I work on a shared services team and handle processes and operations. If I were dealing with something similar, especially if there were a lot of different people asking the same thing, I would put together some “cheat sheet” documentation. Once reviewed by my manager, I’d take a three-strike approach. First strike, they get a friendly verbal explanation of the process change, the cheat sheet and some hand-holding to get them to the right person. Second strike, they get a polite-but-firm response and the cheat sheet, but no hand holding. Third strike is a terse message with the cheat sheet and nothing else.

  25. Ellis Bell*

    What have you tried? I have younger students but I’m a big fan of prevention being better than cure. I think if it’s really pervasive it might require a public service announcement of “expectations” of what they’re expected to deal with, and what they can expect from you. Put the top offenses in there that bug you. Then, you know they’ve been fairly warned and it puts you in a good headspace to feel stern if they fail to pay attention to that. If they do, you can just zap them a reminder “Per the expectations communicated to everyone at the beginning of the course, please note items B, and C. You should probably review the others as well just in case they come up.” Obviously a lot depends on whether the higher ups have your back on the expectations you want to convey, but it’s better to be the person making the request, than responding to one iykwim. If it’s an important standard, it should be possible to communicate it.

    2. MS*

      Agreed – a lot of this only works if you have clear process documentation. I personally am greatly motivated by spite and so went on a tear last year after some catastrophic project meltdowns and wrote basically our “bible”. Obviously I can’t share internal docs publicly but here’s an anonymized table of contents:
      – what we do vs don’t do
      – the software and tools we use and how to set up an account
      – our intake form and thorough explanation of all the questions asked, the information we need and why we ask
      – our ticket evaluation process
      – step by step description of our production process and descriptions of the submitter, “producer” and my-team-lead’s responsibility for each step
      – a description of “roadblocks” – what we do if you miss deadlines, fail to answer messages, submit requests with missing content, start changing project scope, etc. etc.

  26. Cat Admin*

    One thing I tried to do with people who could do whatever thing themselves, which still was some work for me, but was to make a guide on how to do it and then send them to the guide and ask them to save it somewhere for next time.

  27. LateRiser*

    This comment section is really making me appreciate my coworkers. A couple of years ago my boss decided we needed to route all IT-related requests through the actual IT support mailbox, so he could see the scope of common annoyances. I’m not on the IT support mailbox, but as babysitter of one of the systems I’d do little bits here and there if people asked.

    When the new policy came in, people would still ask me to help them over Teams, and if I wasn’t busy I’d say “sure, but in future these requests need to go via IT support” – every time I got a “thanks” and a “sorry” and never get the request from the same person again. Didn’t know how lucky I was!

  28. Safely Retired*

    When all that doesn’t work?

    “Yes, I used to do that. That was then, this is now. Times change/”

  29. Lacey*

    People always ask with the weirdest things for me. It’s not time consuming, but it’s something like, “Can you save this as a pdf?” “Can you change the file name?” or “Can you resend this email?”

    Like, yeah, but so can you. And you can search for the email and find it just as easily as I can.

  30. BikeWalkBarb*

    I appreciate Ellis Bell’s point that this cuts Robin out of something that’s their job now. They can become your partner in this for handoffs. Describing what we’ve done to route requests to the right frontline person:

    I’m heading a team that has grown quite a bit and lots of people are used to just emailing me as a central point of contact. I’ve told everyone on the team to use a specific format for handoff to cut me out of the email loop going forward.

    1) I forward an email to them if it comes to me alone. I don’t reply to the original sender and CC the new point of contact because that would mean I’m still in the email chain.

    2) If I’ve forwarded, or if they’re cc’d, they reply to the sender and put my address in the BCC field. They flag this explicitly for the sender: “I’m moving BikeWalkBarb to BCC to let her know the handoff is complete. I’ll keep them in the loop if/as needed.” I found if we didn’t have this step people would assume I’d inadvertently been dropped and keep cc’ing me back in.

    3) If people try to circle around past the new point of contact I forward to the new point of contact. I usually don’t respond because that would put me back in the loop.

  31. DJ*

    I assume LWs manager has already advised staff of the changes including what’s gone to Robin and what duties now are done by the requester. But if not LW should discuss with manager about getting the message out to staff clearly. Eg email advising of change of responsibility in duties, outline at team meeting etc.
    Great short answers from both Alison and commenters that LW can take on board. Easy to implement when flustered or caught on the hop! Also if well implemented may demonstrate the need for a replacement for LWs original position!

  32. Peanut Hamper*

    I did all of the technical writing at my old job (including work instructions) and people would often just come to me to ask me how to do things. I very quickly learned to just say “What does the work instruction say?” I mean, we did write those for a reason!

  33. Semi-retired admin*

    It’s also unfair to Robin to not be allowed to do her job and prove herself. People don’t want to trust the “new person” when the former, tried-and-true person is easily accessible.

  34. Stained Glass Cannon*

    Not me but my direct reports! My team does work that can be drawn on for support by other departments (think ‘teapot polishing’ but they’re also skilled in polishing a lot of other non-teapot surfaces) and everyone used to come to them for *anything* involving the slightest bit of polishing, often without looping me in so I would have no idea someone’s workload had ballooned from all the additional requests until they came to me begging for intervention. I’d push back directly, flag out to senior management that this or that team lacked polishing expertise and can we hire or at least get them some training, offer to train the offenders myself, and it still took years to wean people off that dependency.

    (The other teams didn’t actually lack polishing expertise. They just didn’t even want to try, and I later found out that someone in senior management had been actively encouraging that extreme division of labor.)

  35. Working Class Lady*

    I’m a supervisor at my job, and people have sometimes come to me for stuff that I could do, sure, of they’re too overwhelmed to do it.
    I will usually say, “Sure! I’ll walk you through how to do X task so that you know how to do it next time.” Then, show them how.
    If they ask again, say,
    “I showed you how to do that – do you need a refresher?”

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