There’s usually a learned curve when starting a new job. Even someone who has had a similar role at another company will need time to get up to speed on the expectations at the new company.

Imagine getting a promotion at work, but you need to train your replacement. What would you do if you thought your replacement had too much work on her plate for a new hire to handle? Would you speak up, help her out, or let her fail?

In this story, one woman is in this situation, and it’s even more complicated because the job is to assist multiple people. That means multiple people are giving this new hire work. However, in this particular situation, there’s actually one person who is giving the new hire more work (by far) than anyone else.

The recently promoted person feels stressed out on the new hire’s behalf, but she’s not sure if she should stay quiet or voice her concerns to a supervisor.

Let’s read the whole story.

WIBTA For Complaining to a Supervisor about a coworker/friend

So quick background: My job is to assist others in my company with their jobs. The ways I assist are not clearly outlined but there are expectations.

One of my coworkers, “Ana” did my job before me. She got promoted to be one of the positions I assist.

There’s about a dozen people I assist in total.

She helps Ana more than anyone else.

Ana has the easiest caseload, by design, since she’s newer to the position. She gets simpler files that require less work.

She has been in this position for a few years now, just as I’ve been in my assistant position for the same time frame.

Even though she has the easiest case load, she sends me the same amount of work as the other people.

Helping her is 50% of my workload, while the other half is from the other ELEVEN people who have more complicated cases. In addition she has me complete things that are well outside my role.

She finally got promoted.

I’ve recently been promoted to the same position as Ana. But before I start my new position, I need to train my replacement (Beth).It’s how I’ve spent the last week.

Most of the tasks are good, so I can train the new person how to complete them.

But the other people are only sending a few things. I know they’re just handling things themselves in the short term, so they don’t drown the new person.

Ana is not showing the same restraint. She has kept sending the same amount of work to Beth.

She’s worried that Beth has too much on her plate.

Beth is very good. Experienced but learning a new system takes time.

Her to-do list is getting daunting, even with me stepping in and handling some of the tasks so they’re done on time.

I want to bring this to the attention of our supervisor, but it wouldn’t be a big revelation.

If Ana doesn’t have assistance, her work WILL suffer. So I’m not sure there’s even a solution the supervisor can provide. Bringing it up feels like it would just be making waves, but I worry for Beth.

I’m confused about why Ana needs so much assistance when her job is easier than everyone else’s. Is Ana not qualified for her job?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this story about an employee who followed bad orders, then ruined their manager’s career for good measure.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say about this situation.

It’s all in how she phrases it.

This is what I was thinking too.

Here’s a similar comment.

Everyone agrees that Ana is the problem.

Oh, it’s very clear that Ana is the problem. Honestly, if 50% of the work is coming from Ana, that means that when Ana had the assistant job, she only had half the amount of work to do. Ana does not seem capable of handling her work.

I think OP should talk to her supervisor, but maybe she can phrase it in a way where she’s not pointing blame but more just explaining the situation, asking for advice and/or clarification about expectations. It would be awful if the new hire loses her job or looks incompetent when Ana is really the incompetent one.

Her supervisor needs to know what’s going on.