My boss has been quietly dumping his own admin onto me for months
my boss is one of those people who has mastered the art of making his own work sound like a generous gift to whoever ends up doing it.
About six months ago he started pulling me into his office every couple of weeks for a "quick favour." It was always framed as a one off and always wrapped in flattering language. He needed someone to "polish" his board update because i was "such a strong writer." He needed me to "have a look" at the budget reconciliation because i was "so good with detail." He needed someone to "step in" for him on a meeting with another department because i had "great cross team presence." Each one was small enough on its own that saying no would have felt petty.
About a month ago i sat down on a sunday night and listed every "quick favour" id done for him in the last six months. The list ran to eleven separate ongoing pieces of work, three of which were technically parts of his actual job description and one of which was something his predecessor had explicitly been told to stop delegating to other people. None of it was on my objectives. None of it was acknowledged in my last review. He had even taken the board update one to a leadership session as evidence of HIS year so far.
I tried to raise it gently at our one to one a fortnight ago. I said i was carrying a fair bit of extra work for him and wondered whether we could either formalise it as part of my role going forward or hand a couple of bits back. He smiled in that way he does and said i was being "really mature" to flag it, that he hadnt realised it had built up, and that hed "give it some thought." Two weeks later, two more "quick favours" have landed in my inbox.
The clincher was Friday. He pulled me aside and asked if i could "just take" his quarterly travel and expense reconciliation off his plate going forward because i was "such a natural with this stuff." I asked him outright whether that was a permanent change to my role and whether it would be reflected in my objectives. He laughed and said "lets not make a big thing of it."
Is my annoyance valid?