An Experience in Having a Bad Co-Worker

When I graduated college and began working for a large corporation, l was under the impression that I would be part of a professional environment much to my dismay I found that I was wrong when I met one of my coworkers, who did not have a strong work ethic, dealing with this coworker on an everyday basis has presented me with an ethical dilemma. My coworker‘s continuing disregard for his daily work responsibilities and his pessimistic attitude affect the way our team performs as a whole, I recall one of our first conversations, when he educated me on the fundamentals of taking sick days.

He told me that I could take up to four sick days at a time without providing medical evidence from a doctor Each of these occurrences he said, would count as one sick day and not four. His exact words were, "Even if you aren't sick, you should just take the days anyway!" At first I thought to myself, "Wow.

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I can really take advantage of this rule," but on second consideration I thought, "How is this going to affect my work and the other members of my department?"

As weeks passed on my new job, my coworker came to me frequently with different ways to bend or break the rules of the company. He tried to coach me on the finer points of taking "paid" time off for bogus "volunteer" days and the holidays of "all" different religions. He also informed me about employee discounts, tuition reimbursement and other loopholes he had found on the company's intranet site.

It seemed to me that most of his working hours were spent investigating the ways in which the company could be taken advantage of or cheated instead of focusing on work. i felt that this was not a professional attitude within the next month. he took a seemingly bogus volunteer day off and "surprisingly" became sick during that day, As a result. he took an additional four days off. With one of our team members out of the office for five days, the rest of my team mates and I had to pick up the slack and finish his work.

At first we did not mind, but his frequent absences made our increased workload unbearable. l confronted him and told him that his lack of work ethic affected our entire department and me specifically, since I had to do most of his work. I was not opposed to helping one of my teammates out on occaSIon but handling two workloads on a regular basis was too hard to manage. He apologized, but it did not seem sincere. Because our positions within the department are on the same level, i did not have the authority to tell him what to do. I could only offer my help in a plethora of ways to ease his workload. He did not accept my offer of help. nor did he change his behavior. Since I was aware of the reasons behind my coworkers actions, I was faced with a dilemma. Should I voice a complaint to management or should I allow my department to continue to suffer? In an attempt to sustain the high standards of our department and my personal concern for the way my own work performance was regarded, i had no recourse but to speak to management.

Our department's associate manager, my direct superior, welcomed my input and told me he would keep an eye on the situation, I was still new to the company and I thought I had done all I could do. In the following months. I saw a slight improvement in my coworkers performance but the quality of his work was still sub pa, by our departmental standards. Every time my eye caught sight of his work space, i could see him conducting personal business such as shopping online, paying bills and making personal phone calls. He had all this "free time" while the rest of our team members and were working non stop so that we could complete our time sensitive work. I did not understand how he had time to manage his personal activities when his work could not be completed Without putting in overtime. After all, his working day mirrored mine and I did not have time to breathe.

One day he came to me and told me that he was putting in overtime hours on the weekends. How is it possible. I thought. that With all these overtime hours, his work is still not completed. "Why is it necessary for you to work on the weekends?" I asked him, "Do you have that much more work than the rest of us?" As before, I offered to help him during the week so that he could have his weekends free, but he firmly refused. He looked at me With a devilish grin and said, "You don't really need extra work to come in for overtime. Why don't you Just come in on the weekends so can make more money?" He informed me that when he came to work on the weekend he brought his friends to the office to pass the time.lt slowly became very clear. that he was slacking off during the week so that he could slack off during the week end and dupe the company out of overtime pay. This behavior once again directly affected the performance of our department because it threw us off schedule.

The rest of the members of my department and I, as most people, would have liked to make extra money but we acted professionally and completed our work at the end of the day to satisfy our deadlines. Our coworker, on the other hand, was rewarded With "free time" during the work day and consequent overtime pay for not meeting his responsibilities, while constantly complaining of the immensity of his workload. Once again this lack of professionalism disturbed me on many levels, so I voiced a complaint to management. I made them aware that his absence of work ethic not only defrauded the company out of money. but it reduced the entire team‘s productivity and morale. This time management paid closer attention because my grievance was very serious, After several intense meetings between my coworker and management. his overtime hours came to a sudden halt and his work was scrutinized much more closely.Without the freedom to conduct his usual escapades, my coworker became very unhappy and pessimistic. As our department headed into its intensely busy season, he was the first to complain during meetings, on behalf of the entire department, without first consulting us. He attempted to have new working procedures instituted to benefit hi lackadaisical work style.

When these procedures were not altered. by the head of the department, he complained to everyone that his superiors where not fare to him. His ongoing unhappiness and negative attitude have an impact on the entire department. Needless to say, he is now looking for a newiob. Management is very grateful that I made them aware of this disruptive attitude in our department. Although they have been aware of my coworker‘s lack of work ethic and endeavors to cheat the company out of overtime pay, there are corporate regulations in place, which prevented them from firing him. Our departmental problem, consequently, has not yet been completely resolved. In the meantime. my team members and I have found a way to work effectively in spite of our non productive coworker, It is comforting to know, however. that this coworker will eventually find a new job (on company time, of course) and someone more capable and a team player will, hopefully.be hired to boost our team‘s performance and morale.