IT employee refuses to take on extra non-IT responsibilities after a coworker quits following a missed promotion: 'I'm not willing to quietly inherit years of accumulated non-IT scope creep'

Author image for Cata Holmes
Cata Holmes • Writer
Jul 7, 2026 8:00 AM EDT

Should this employee be expected to inherit responsibilities that were never part of her job?

An IT employee is pushing back after management appeared to have assumed they would take over the workload of a departing coworker. The coworker was originally responsible for timekeeping, but eventually started handling payroll and business operations, expecting a promotion that never came. Now that he quit, the manager is expecting the OP to take those extra duties.

How unfair is it to up your daily workload because someone who took these extra responsibilities is quitting? This is not the OP's fault whatsoever, and she should not be the one completing these tasks without having a promotion or extra compensation to make up for it.

The worst part of all is that the manager is now saying that the new role has all of these extra responsibilities, and that's why she has to be able to complete them. In her defense, what does payroll have to do with IT? Nothing as far as I'm concerned.

I stand firmly with her in this story since this extra workload is not something she should be worrying about. Once in my lifetime, I started to please a boss that I had by taking over a bunch of extra stuff that was not related to my position. Although I ended up making more money, the amount of work and the stress that it caused me was not worth it. That's why there are detailed job descriptions that outlines were someone's work starts and where it ends, so there're no misunderstandings. 

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  • Senior office worker using a laptop in a home office setting while managing administrative tasks, technical projects, and daily business operations.
    via Unsplash+ (via Aleksei Zhivilov)

    Senior office worker using a laptop in a home office setting while managing administrative tasks, technical projects, and daily business operations.

    Stock photo provided as a general visual representation.

  • I work in IT and already have a full-time senior-level role dealing with infrastructure, systems, integrations, escalations, projects, etc. A coworker is leaving, and there seems to be an assumption that I'm going to pick up a huge chunk of what he was doing.
    via fdiaz78
  • Here's the part that makes this complicated.
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  • His actual IT responsibility was supporting our timekeeping software. Over time, though, he kept expanding his involvement and visibility into the actual business process with payroll processes and procedures. From my perspective, a lot of that was because he was trying to demonstrate value and position himself for a promotion.
    via fdiaz78
  • That promotion never happened. Now he's leaving disgruntled, and the problem is all of the extra duties he took on or expanded into has apparently become part of the expected job.
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  • So now supporting timekeeping software somehow also means chasing managers for missing vacation and leave information, dealing with late or incorrect submissions, rerunning payroll processes, fixing business-data issues, training departments, working through payroll exceptions, and making sure things are correct by hard payroll deadlines. People riot when their paycheck is wrong!
    via fdiaz78
  • Now management seems to look at the whole package and say, "Well, this is what the role does."
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  • That's exactly what I'm pushing back on. Supporting the application? Fine. Servers, integrations, SSO, authentication, data feeds, technical troubleshooting? Fine. That's IT.
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  • Chasing managers because they didn't submit payroll information, validating payroll data, correcting business-process issues, training departments on payroll procedures, and being accountable for payroll deadlines? How the h | is that IT? I'm not a payroll administrator.
    via fdiaz78
  • My concern is that one employee expanded his scope trying to gain visibility and move up, management happily accepted the free extra labor, never promoted him, he eventually got ped off and left, and now the next person is expected to inherit all of that scope creep as if it was always part of the job, and that next person appears to be me.
    via fdiaz78
  • IT professionals reviewing software code on a laptop during a workplace collaboration session involving technical support, systems management, and software development.
    via Unsplash+ (via Christina @ wocintechchat.com M)

    IT professionals reviewing software code on a laptop during a workplace collaboration session involving technical support, systems management, and software development.

    Represented by models.

  • My existing job isn't going away. So I'd basically be doing my full-time senior IT role plus a bunch of payroll/business operations work for potentially 3-4 months or longer while they hire and train someone.
    via fdiaz78
  • And we all know how "temporary” works. You do it long enough, nothing catches fire, and suddenly it's permanently yours.
    via fdiaz78
  • Here's the other part: I currently have another job offer on the table. It pays slightly less, but the responsibilities are significantly lower and the role sounds much more clearly defined. Less stress, less scope, less chance of becoming the dumping ground every time someone leaves.
    via fdiaz78
  • So now I'm seriously questioning whether staying for a little more money is worth taking on all of this additional responsibility and the very real risk that this "temporary" coverage becomes permanent.
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  • I'm willing to help with transition and technical support. I'm not willing to quietly inherit years of accumulated non- IT scope creep because someone else tried to build a bigger role for themselves and management never bothered to define where IT support ended and business-process ownership began.
    via fdiaz78
  • I'm planning to tell my director they need to:
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  • decide who actually owns the payroll/business process get someone shadowing this guy now before he leaves separate IT support from payroll operations define exactly what I'm expected to cover put an actual end date on any temporary coverage Am I being unreasonable?
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  • Would you push back and give management a chance to fix this, or take the slightly lower-paying job with far fewer responsibilities and move on?
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  • Has anyone here ever taken less money for significantly less stress and responsibility? Did you regret it?
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  • Information technology employee working remotely on a laptop while reviewing projects, business processes, and workplace responsibilities.
    via Unsplash+ (via Aleksei Zhivilov)

    Information technology employee working remotely on a laptop while reviewing projects, business processes, and workplace responsibilities.

    The person shown is not connected to the events described in this story.

  • Comments really sided with the OP, arguing that management was trying to turn one person's voluntary extra work into someone else's obligation. That's not fair at all. Many praised the writer for pushing back and refusing to take on these duties, saying that these unclear boundaries that start temporarily often end up being permanent.

  • Pristine_Coffee4111 Let it catch fire. You have a full time job already, and it's their job to find someone to replace the guy leaving. This is why I left IT. I was doing the job of several people and they wouldn't hire.
    via fdiaz78
  • onebaddecisionaway I would have a sit down meeting with the manager and lay it out much as you have here, pointing out where the person leaving played out of position. If their attitude is still that's. what the job is now, slide your resignation notice across the table, respectfully of course.
    via fdiaz78
  • JC505818 Work gets distributed whenever people leave with no replacement. Some people take it on for more pay and promotion. Some just suffer more with no recognition. You can negotiate for more pay and promotion given the additional responsibilities, or you can go to the less stressful job for lower pay.
    via fdiaz78
  • Nomivought2015 They need to hire his replacement then
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  • corptool1972 This is the time to have a direct conversation about the scope of the role they are asking you to take on. It's not what it was. Quantify the difference and show where the added value is. Take it upon yourself to write the JD for this role. Make them squirm when they see on paper the gap if you don't take it.
    via fdiaz78
  • OAKI-io 1d ago you're not wrong, but don't let this become a philosophy debate about what IT "should" own. make it a scope/comp paper trail: here's what i own, here's what payroll owns, here's the temporary handoff i can support, and here's the title/pay change if the business wants me accountable for payroll outcomes. if they won't put it in writing, the other offer is your leverage.
    via fdiaz78
  • Totallynotokayokay Honestly, never let your salary drop. Your salary should only ever increase.
    via fdiaz78

  • Whether the employee stays or takes the lower-paying offer, the situation has already highlighted a larger problem. Temporary solutions have a way of becoming permanent when nobody sets boundaries. By questioning the arrangement before accepting it, the employee could have avoided inheriting a role that was never clearly defined. Sometimes protecting your workload is just as important as increasing your salary.

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