Anonymous
10/04/2025 16:01
Subject: Re:Drowning in inherited workload—wwyd?
I was in this situation and I discovered that my predecessor liked to have their fingers in a lot of things that weren’t critical to the job. I worked with my supervisor to re-distribute certain tasks and changed the way I did others entirely to make it more efficient. Could this apply to you at all?
Anonymous
10/02/2025 11:46
Subject: Drowning in inherited workload—wwyd?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I was recently promoted into a new, work-specific position after a colleague left for another opportunity. The role is funded by a grant, and I'm the only one assigned to this particular workload.
When I stepped into the position, I inherited an incomplete and disorganized backlog from the person who left. On top of that, I receive new assignments daily, which are time-sensitive and can't be postponed. As a result, I’m juggling both the old and new work, and I'm falling behind. Despite regularly working 50-hour weeks, I can't seem to catch up.
I’m starting to feel stuck. I’m concerned that my supervisors may soon question why I’m behind, but I’m also hesitant to bring it up proactively. I don’t want to appear incapable of handling the workload or give the impression that I’m already complaining.
Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did you navigate it?
Only you can judge your supervisors' reactions, but if it's time-sensitive work and there was an existing backlog, then that should have be obvious to them. Or you should make it obvious.
Put together some metrics and present it as "now that I have had time to take stock of the status of the program," (i.e. - not complaining) and propose the solution - do you need surge help for 3 weeks? Do you need to offload the oldest items entirely? Or for them to take new items for 2-3 weeks until you can clear the backlog?
You are allowed to present a professional case about the health of the program you took on. If the response is negative then I'd re-think your long term goals with this organization.
Thanks for this; this really helps me clarify how I want to approach it.
I agree that presenting metrics is the right move, and framing it as, "Now that I’ve had time to take stock of the program’s current status…", gives me a way to share the reality without it coming across as a complaint.
Realistically, surge help isn’t an option due to funding limitations, and while I’d like to offload some older items, that’s probably unlikely given that the work directly impacts real people. That said, I’ll still raise it, even if just to document that I asked.
Anonymous
10/02/2025 11:39
Subject: Drowning in inherited workload—wwyd?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I was recently promoted into a new, work-specific position after a colleague left for another opportunity. The role is funded by a grant, and I'm the only one assigned to this particular workload.
When I stepped into the position, I inherited an incomplete and disorganized backlog from the person who left. On top of that, I receive new assignments daily, which are time-sensitive and can't be postponed. As a result, I’m juggling both the old and new work, and I'm falling behind. Despite regularly working 50-hour weeks, I can't seem to catch up.
I’m starting to feel stuck. I’m concerned that my supervisors may soon question why I’m behind, but I’m also hesitant to bring it up proactively. I don’t want to appear incapable of handling the workload or give the impression that I’m already complaining.
Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did you navigate it?
Only you can judge your supervisors' reactions, but if it's time-sensitive work and there was an existing backlog, then that should have be obvious to them. Or you should make it obvious.
Put together some metrics and present it as "now that I have had time to take stock of the status of the program," (i.e. - not complaining) and propose the solution - do you need surge help for 3 weeks? Do you need to offload the oldest items entirely? Or for them to take new items for 2-3 weeks until you can clear the backlog?
You are allowed to present a professional case about the health of the program you took on. If the response is negative then I'd re-think your long term goals with this organization.
+1
Also present the assignments and then ask your manager to identify which ones to prioritize
Anonymous
10/02/2025 11:34
Subject: Drowning in inherited workload—wwyd?
Anonymous wrote:I was recently promoted into a new, work-specific position after a colleague left for another opportunity. The role is funded by a grant, and I'm the only one assigned to this particular workload.
When I stepped into the position, I inherited an incomplete and disorganized backlog from the person who left. On top of that, I receive new assignments daily, which are time-sensitive and can't be postponed. As a result, I’m juggling both the old and new work, and I'm falling behind. Despite regularly working 50-hour weeks, I can't seem to catch up.
I’m starting to feel stuck. I’m concerned that my supervisors may soon question why I’m behind, but I’m also hesitant to bring it up proactively. I don’t want to appear incapable of handling the workload or give the impression that I’m already complaining.
Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did you navigate it?
Only you can judge your supervisors' reactions, but if it's time-sensitive work and there was an existing backlog, then that should have be obvious to them. Or you should make it obvious.
Put together some metrics and present it as "now that I have had time to take stock of the status of the program," (i.e. - not complaining) and propose the solution - do you need surge help for 3 weeks? Do you need to offload the oldest items entirely? Or for them to take new items for 2-3 weeks until you can clear the backlog?
You are allowed to present a professional case about the health of the program you took on. If the response is negative then I'd re-think your long term goals with this organization.
Anonymous
10/02/2025 11:30
Subject: Drowning in inherited workload—wwyd?
Anonymous wrote:Catalog the backlog inherited with due dates. Include stuff you have already dealt with.
Log incomings.
Discuss priorities with supervisor.
Your role seems tenuous if you ste only one and it was funded by a grant. How long is the runtime for the grant.
Start looking.
Thanks for your concern. It’s actually not as tenuous as it may sound. The position is funded by a newly re-established 10-year grant, which comfortably takes me through to retirement. And even in the unlikely event that the grant ends early, I have a contractual fallback into a comparable role. So it’s quite stable overall.
That said, I’m not looking to leave. The role itself is quite cushy, I’m fully vested, and I have no interest in starting over somewhere else at this stage. I’m just trying to figure out the best way to raise some of my concerns with my supervisors, and when the right time to do that might be.
Anonymous
10/02/2025 11:24
Subject: Drowning in inherited workload—wwyd?
Catalog the backlog inherited with due dates. Include stuff you have already dealt with.
Log incomings.
Discuss priorities with supervisor.
Your role seems tenuous if you ste only one and it was funded by a grant. How long is the runtime for the grant.
Start looking.
Log incomings.
Discuss priorities with supervisor.
Your role seems tenuous if you ste only one and it was funded by a grant. How long is the runtime for the grant.
Start looking.
Anonymous
10/02/2025 11:17
Subject: Drowning in inherited workload—wwyd?
I was recently promoted into a new, work-specific position after a colleague left for another opportunity. The role is funded by a grant, and I'm the only one assigned to this particular workload.
When I stepped into the position, I inherited an incomplete and disorganized backlog from the person who left. On top of that, I receive new assignments daily, which are time-sensitive and can't be postponed. As a result, I’m juggling both the old and new work, and I'm falling behind. Despite regularly working 50-hour weeks, I can't seem to catch up.
I’m starting to feel stuck. I’m concerned that my supervisors may soon question why I’m behind, but I’m also hesitant to bring it up proactively. I don’t want to appear incapable of handling the workload or give the impression that I’m already complaining.
Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did you navigate it?
When I stepped into the position, I inherited an incomplete and disorganized backlog from the person who left. On top of that, I receive new assignments daily, which are time-sensitive and can't be postponed. As a result, I’m juggling both the old and new work, and I'm falling behind. Despite regularly working 50-hour weeks, I can't seem to catch up.
I’m starting to feel stuck. I’m concerned that my supervisors may soon question why I’m behind, but I’m also hesitant to bring it up proactively. I don’t want to appear incapable of handling the workload or give the impression that I’m already complaining.
Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did you navigate it?