inheriting more job responsibilities based on another's departure

I just learned today that a coworker will be leaving the workplace, and he is our go-to senior analyst for our videoconferencing service (I am the junior and was also on another ongoing project therefore a bit sheltered from his responsibilities). Our employer basically has us specialize in certain areas as the company we are contracted to is way too large and complex to be effective jack of all trades.

As such, it looks like I will be inheriting his responsibilities as we are the only two who are extremely familiar with our videoconferencing service. As it sunk in, I thought run for the hills!!! But, despite my anxiety I'm going to have to face this head on and try keep it running smoothly. Our documentation so far is decent, but we're in the middle of a MCU upgrade project that I don't know if it'll be done by the time he leaves.

I'm basically just looking for tips from others who have experienced this before - share your stories with me

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Comments

Andretii

ask for a pay increase...

djhss68

And no increase in salary? I would run.

darkerosxx

I've seen people in the same situation handle it very well and get a hefty pay increase/promotion to the position of the person who left after proving they're competent to perform the same skills.

dynamik

It's a great opportunity to learn, regardless of the likelihood of a pay increase. Take it on if you think you can handle it. Even if they don't reward you, the experience will likely lead to a bump in pay from another company.

tiersten

dynamik wrote: »

It's a great opportunity to learn, regardless of the likelihood of a pay increase. Take it on if you think you can handle it. Even if they don't reward you, the experience will likely lead to a bump in pay from another company.

What dynamik said. Just make sure they're not exploiting you. You don't want to get stuck with a bad performance review because you're not completing tasks as quick now you've got two peoples worth of work. They need to know that you're taking on more tasks.

Knives Out

Well, I just found out today from my coworker - I pretty much have no choice about taking it on, I'll have to. I'm sure once he lets our company know that he's leaving, they'll probably react and discuss salary in order to keep me from leaving as well as they're having a ridiculous time trying to find qualified people even for junior network analyst positions. The position fell to him in the exact same situation, so now its my turn.

All I know I got a ton of learning ahead of me, and i gotta stick to him like white on rice for information until he leaves! I knew he was going to leave eventually, but wasn't expecting it for another year.

tiersten

Knives Out wrote: »

Well, I just found out today from my coworker - I pretty much have no choice about taking it on, I'll have to. I'm sure once he lets our company know that he's leaving, they'll probably react and discuss salary in order to keep me from leaving as well as they're having a ridiculous time trying to find qualified people even for junior network analyst positions. The position fell to him in the exact same situation, so now its my turn.

All I know I got a ton of learning ahead of me, and i gotta stick to him like white on rice for information until he leaves! I knew he was going to leave eventually, but wasn't expecting it for another year.

Think of it as a chance for some accelerated learning and a potential pay rise

Get as much information out of him as possible. If you can convince him to, he should document everything he does. The day to day stuff you should pick up as soon as possible but you need documentation on the weird random events that occur once in a blue moon.

Plantwiz

Knives Out wrote: »

.... I'm sure once he lets our company know that he's leaving, they'll probably react and discuss salary in order to keep me from leaving as well as they're having a ridiculous time trying to find qualified people even for junior network analyst positions. The position fell to him in the exact same situation, so now its my turn.

Why do you think they will offer you more money?

All I know I got a ton of learning ahead of me......

You state you need to learn a bunch to do the same work your co-worker did. So, before you see any additional money, you'll need to prove you "CAN" do the job.

So do learn all you can, but show the work, then you'll have leverage to negotiate more money. Perhaps the position really doesn't require two people...it's just been made into a two person position?? So, the people handling the payroll/wage decisions will need to see the return on their investment (i.e. cost savings) to justify paying money out. Perhaps they were already cutting one of the positions? This will just save them the headache.

It is a fantastic opportunity for you! However, show you can do it, before demanding more money.

Jordus

Try being promoted to design an entire network infrastructure for 100 phyiscal locations with 80,000 users and then being told that the raise that came along with the promotion was cut due to the economic downturn.

chmod

Plantwiz wrote: »

Why do you think they will offer you more money?

You state you need to learn a bunch to do the same work your co-worker did. So, before you see any additional money, you'll need to prove you "CAN" do the job.

So do learn all you can, but show the work, then you'll have leverage to negotiate more money. Perhaps the position really doesn't require two people...it's just been made into a two person position?? So, the people handling the payroll/wage decisions will need to see the return on their investment (i.e. cost savings) to justify paying money out. Perhaps they were already cutting one of the positions? This will just save them the headache.

It is a fantastic opportunity for you! However, show you can do it, before demanding more money.

I agree, you better first show them you worth the money they are already paying you and them request a pay raise.
I used to work for a huge poker company, i was in charge of the microsoft servers and the layer 3 switches and the senior system admin was fired and he was also the IT manager so the new IT manager promoted my to senior system and network engineer and i was 20yrs old, so i had to work a lot but i proved them that i was good enough to handle the new position and ater 6 months i got a pay raise of 500 dollars which is a lot of money in my country.

Knives Out

Plantwiz wrote: »

Why do you think they will offer you more money?

You state you need to learn a bunch to do the same work your co-worker did. So, before you see any additional money, you'll need to prove you "CAN" do the job.

So do learn all you can, but show the work, then you'll have leverage to negotiate more money. Perhaps the position really doesn't require two people...it's just been made into a two person position?? So, the people handling the payroll/wage decisions will need to see the return on their investment (i.e. cost savings) to justify paying money out. Perhaps they were already cutting one of the positions? This will just save them the headache.

It is a fantastic opportunity for you! However, show you can do it, before demanding more money.

I'm not "demanding" more money, our customer has a multi vendor/contractor environment and I'm just saying the company I work for tends to panic whenever an employee leaves and tosses salary at whoever is going to be assuming the responsibilities left by the departing employee.

Truthfully, at this time worrying whether I get a salary increase based on this is not my primary concern - I've been handling the day to day operation support of the service for the past 6-8 months. I'm more concerned that I likely have to take on his responsibilities as well as my current responsibilities and keep everything running as smoothly as possible.

The thing that kinda sucks, is I've been thinking a lot about leaving the company myself before he decided to LOL