Showing up to work 8 hours a day but not actually there when the work needs to be done

by Kim
(Newark)

I work in a small office with 7 secretaries and 1 floating secretary. All seven of the secretaries work everyday from 8:00 or 9:00 until 5:00. Our floating secretary who is supposed to be the person who helps us when we our overloaded (which most of us frequently are) comes to work (when she bothers to come to work) at 5:00 a.m. and leaves at 12:00 or 1:00 p.m. She thinks that as long as she is present 7 or 8 hours in the office she has fulfilled her obligation. Our office manager has never addressed it with her. The problem is that it bothers all of us immensely because half of her so-called work day she obviously has nothing to do because people aren't in the office until at least 8:00 a.m. and then when we need help in the afternoon she is gone. We are afraid to approach our office manager about it because she doesn't like the boat rocked and although we have more senior management in another office, none of us dare go over her head. What should we do?

Response from Carl: Good question, Kim...what do you do? If you do nothing, the same thing probably continues but it seems that you're concerned about saying something and getting intro trouble.

Have you asked the floating secretary why she shows up so early for no apparent reason? I can't think offhand of any legitimate reason but perhaps there is one?

I guess if all seven of you who are being affected by the odd hours of the floating secretary band together and approach your office manager as a united group, perhaps that would help. You'd just want to ensure that all seven of you are on board if that's the case.

Carl