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While collaboration should be a team effort I’ve found it’s like team projects in school, half the people do nothing and the other half do it all. Yet everyone gets credit for a job well done, it sucks and it’s the main reason I prefer to work alone on projects. I don’t mind jumping in to help junior team members on project so they have a sounding board but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna do the work for them.
Collaboration is a team effort. Sure, there are individual responsibilities involved in everyone's job specific duties, but every department works together exchanging necessary information etc. in an effort to get to the end result. When it becomes "extra work" is when someone takes advantage and pushes the individual responsibility of doing something onto another. For example, you mention being involved with meetings you normally are not a part of or having to take on another employee's assignment. At that point it isn't really collaboration but rather an individual trying to get out of work and looping you in to do what they don't want to do.
“For the love of all things holy - DO NOT “loop me in” is standard mantra for my functional area. We have historically been the ‘dumping ground’ for several other functional areas.
I do Supply Chain, all things parts is our umbrella- evidently. Engineering, Operations, and Warehousing all find their way to us. My job is managing strategic sourcing, so switching to these more tactical ‘loop in’s’, especially when we are seeing headcount adjustments and reorganizations has become tedious.
I have a great working relationship with my direct manager. We meet weekly to align my priorities between daily workload, special projects and the loop ins. She’s gone to bat for me numerous times by helping decipher what ‘collaboration/loop in’s’ she will not allow me to engage in.
Don’t be that person- like I was for 14 years, who would just do it all, no matter the cost to work/life balance. It’s self care to avoid burnout by raising your hand when enough is enough.
As long as you have a solid reputation for high productivity, you will always have extra work come your way. But - you should also have a manager that understands if YOU are raising an alarm, it’s legitimately bandwidth overload and they’ll help.