Who's Got the Monkey

Caring for monkeys
Monkeys are fed I must not own up or get involved in a task that others are shying away from, instead I will give useful hints which can be applied to solve the problem. It must be dealt with by staff of that department.
              Monkey population are kept below maximum number By this I try as much as possible to reduced self-imposed time pressure by refusing overloads of task which are originally not mine.
              Monkeys have an assigned next feeding time and degree of initiative. This implies that in situations of work overloads. I allocate time slots to address job responsibilities. My original task comes up first before any other.
              Monkeys are fed by appointments only By setting a specific time for addressing colleague problems, this prevents unnecessary piles of overloads or clash of assignment.
Why the monkeys are mine The monkeys eventually became mine because I took time constraints for granted. I had replied the senior consultant EHS “I’ll try and see what I can do”. Zach’s team members gave excuses for not being good at writing presentable reports. Furthermore, I had received compliments of always writing a good report which is a task I am familiar with out of ignorance I thought dateline had nothing to do with date line.

Never let your subordinate or another manager of of another are put their "monkey" on your back. If there is a problem, the immediate supervisor over the area and/or your subordinate should (at the minimum) recommend a solution to the problem when they tell you that "we've" got a problem. Instead of saying to you, '"we've" got a problem', they should be saying ' "I've" got a problem' and they should take lead responsibility for recommending and finding solutions to the problem." Don't let others and/or your subordinates put their "monkey" on your back. They are getting paid to take care of their own monkey.