Being the onboarding buddy has quietly become my second job

I volunteered to be the onboarding buddy for one new analyst.

The role was described as two coffee chats, help finding documents, and a friendly person to ask the questions that feel too small for a manager. I liked the idea. My own first month at this company had been confusing, and one patient coworker made it easier.

Six weeks later, I am spending between one and two hours a day on onboarding.

The new analyst is not demanding. He asks reasonable questions because the formal training is incomplete. His manager gives him assignments with little context, then tells him to “check with your buddy” when he gets stuck. Access requests come to me. Process explanations come to me. Draft reviews come to me. Last week his manager asked me to sit beside him while he completed a monthly task for the first time.

My own work has not changed. I am still responsible for the same reports and deadlines, except now I complete them after a string of messages that begin with, “Sorry, one quick onboarding question.”

I raised the time with my manager. She thanked me for being generous and said the support was temporary. I asked what date or capability would end it. She said we should see how he feels after another month.

That answer makes his comfort the only measure. There is no measure for whether I still have time to do my job.

I do not want to withdraw help abruptly. The new analyst did not design this arrangement, and he is doing what both managers told him to do. The process has made me his unofficial trainer without giving either of us a training plan.

I am proposing a reset: one scheduled thirty-minute question block three times a week, a shared list of process gaps, and technical reviews routed to his manager or the actual process owner. I will still answer small navigation questions, but I will not approve his work or decide his priorities.

I also want my manager to identify which of my deadlines moves if structured training remains part of my role. Praise for being helpful does not create another hour in the day.

How would you narrow an onboarding-buddy role after everyone has become used to the expanded version? What support belongs with a peer, and what support should return to the person who manages the new employee?