My Staff Sergeant went on long-term leave after committing to a fairly big project for another unit, and now I am left with it even though I have no idea what I'm doing and it doesn't come under our purview, per se. I've spent quite a lot of energy trying to chase down people who can actually help me with this thing.
This sounds like a great opportunity to set and enforce some boundaries. You didn't make the commitment, you're not in the unit that it was made to, you don't have the skills/knowledge to meet the commitment, and you most certainly don't have the time to to act as though anything else I've said is untrue.
Making a commitment like this, with an impending long-term leave, and failing to either properly hand it off before said leave, or to inform the unit to which the commitment was made that it wouldn't be completed until after he returned from leave, is a failure in integrity. Unless you're the one in a position to discipline him for this lack of integrity upon his return, its consequences are not your problem (and even then, it may not be necessary to take responsibility beyond making a statement to the effect of "I'm sorry that my subordinate made commitments that he was unprepared to meet; rest assured that he will be appropriately disciplined for this lack of integrity when he returns from leave.")
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Date: 2021-02-03 08:09 pm (UTC)This sounds like a great opportunity to set and enforce some boundaries. You didn't make the commitment, you're not in the unit that it was made to, you don't have the skills/knowledge to meet the commitment, and you most certainly don't have the time to to act as though anything else I've said is untrue.
Making a commitment like this, with an impending long-term leave, and failing to either properly hand it off before said leave, or to inform the unit to which the commitment was made that it wouldn't be completed until after he returned from leave, is a failure in integrity. Unless you're the one in a position to discipline him for this lack of integrity upon his return, its consequences are not your problem (and even then, it may not be necessary to take responsibility beyond making a statement to the effect of "I'm sorry that my subordinate made commitments that he was unprepared to meet; rest assured that he will be appropriately disciplined for this lack of integrity when he returns from leave.")