To think that people at work should actually work?

[Fleabag123]

I work in the health service, in a walk in setting. Services are busy, demand is high. I get that. We are a multidisciplinary team (doctors/nurses/healthcare assistants). A lot of my colleagues are hard working, supportive, collaborative. But I am constantly amazed by other colleagues who seem to want to do the absolute bare minimum and let others carry the load. There’s a million and one excuses as to why they can’t do any work, and a lot of wandering around aimlessly.
If we all pulled together consistently we’d be so much more efficient and effective. When the hard workers are in the majority it’s a dream - happy staff, happy patients. Other days when there’s more of the slow workers things grind to an absolute halt and the waiting time goes insane. This makes people (particularly the hard workers who are flat out) stressed.
I can’t see how those who really don’t try could have no insight into the fact that they are very much part of the problem.
Unfortunately one of the ingrained cultures is “don’t push people or they’ll go off work with stress”. So the slow workers are never challenged and just carry on.
AIBU to think this attitude just legitimises laziness? Or am I missing something?

The definition of slacker is "someone else". They don't go in to work to do a poor job and do not think that they are lazy. I'm sure that if you ask them they will say that they work hard, perhaps consistently and methodically, but certainly hard.
The issue may be one of tempo or intensity. They're probably in the wrong job and not temperamentally suited to working in such a fast paced role. If so you can't change them: motivating people long term only exists in textbooks.

YANBU

We have a chap at work that spends so long complaining everyone else is shit and doesn't so their jobs, I don't think he even realises that he himself has done fuck all. It's awful working with him.

We also have a couple of people that are experts in wandering around. They seem to do laps of the workplace, stopping to chat to different people along the way. And in doing laps, they manage to avoid the managers.

Then there's the people that work so slowly they may as well take a nap.

These people are never confronted. Management are fully aware and fully aware of the crazy workload. But it's just a case of 'oh well you know what they're like'. Yet if I did as little work as them all hell would break loose

I totally agree with you but it is very hard to motivate people who probably genuinely feel they are 'working hard'. One of my pet hates was the real time wasters, people arriving at work just after 9am (assume a 9am start), faffing about making a coffee, having a chat, eating breakfast at their desk, surfing the internet etc etc - and in most cases they weren't working 'smarter' when they were actually working or staying late or working through lunch. Some people are just lazy .... to my shame I once did an 'experiment' where I spent a whole day 'at work' but managing to look busy but doing nothing work related- it was surprisingly easy (office based job) .

It’s so frustrating though!

Disquieted1 I can see your point, they probably think they are working hard. Perhaps they’re too busy wandering aimlessly to actually realise what’s happening around them. It just really frustrates me

Some people are useless and lazy, and would probably be useless and lazy wherever they were working. Unfortunately, there are still too many organisations who are obliged to go through long, long procedures to get rid of these fuckers - who invariably know just how long they can take off with 'stress' before they get kicked out, and are also quite good at timing their grievances and complaints of 'bullying' to enable them to keep on getting paid while doing fuck all. Even more unfortunately, if the percentage of staff members who are like this rises above a certain point, it can sink the organisation, because the ones prepared to do the work will leave as soon as possible, and the work will simply not get done.

Mind you, there are some jobs where there isn't that much to do, and not that much point to doing it, in which situation the ones scurrying around trying to look busy are the ones who are a pain in the arse.

There’s definitely no shortage of work!

You’re right, some people know exactly how to exploit the bureaucracy of the system

It depends, I used to work with a woman who decided she did the most work, everyone else was lazy. No Trish the reason you’re stressed and running after your arse is how fucking inefficient you are.

I agree with the point above that it’s perhaps about suiting temperament and ability to the job, but people don’t really do that.
Ours is a really faced paced, high intensity, risky environment and there isn’t any down time (short hours for some though). There are still people who manage to think they’re busy by making endless cups of tea, that the people who are doing the work Never Have Time To Drink. The lack of personal insight astounds me every single day. ‘I’ve made you tea as you’re so busy (doing the same work that I’m supposed to be doing so therefore covering my role at the same time as doing your own)’

YANBU. I have a secretary like this - whatever you ask him to do, he’ll find some way to weasel out of it. For example, I’ll ask him to set up a conference call and instead of just doing it he will ask me if I want him to show me how to add people to a Skype call. Or if our other secretary, who is senior to him and his line manager, asks him to run some reports he’ll offer to show her how to do it instead (as if she doesn’t know!!!). He asks endless questions about his instructions even when the answer is contained within the email first sent to him, so half the time you just do the thing yourself instead of asking him. And it takes forever and a day for him to ever actually do anything, but he seems to have time enough to spend an hour and a half every lunchtime watching films on his phone. It drives me up the wall and it massively overburdens our other secretary because she has to pick up so much slack.

My department has a few people like this and it drives me insane .... it peaked yesterday when a woman spent an hour telling the open plan office what her kids had been doing over half term ..... nobody cares, shut up and do some work. She then spent the next hour talking about booking a
Conference room and wandering about. I'm talking to her line manager today, it's not fair at all.

The kids thing is particularly irritating .... I don't want to hear about the minutae of my own DCs lunch let alone a colleagues!

Sorry posted too soon...

She would pick up abtask, male sure we all knew and make a big performance about ‘all the work she was doing’. Ok love but see that thing you picked up? Yeah, I picked up 4 at a time and did it in batches, I got on with it without letting the whole place know. She actually told someone I was lazy wtf!! I did 6 times the work she did. I didn’t need to let everyone know.

I had a colleague who earned stacks in overtime because she spent most of her 9 - 5 gossiping and making tea, and then complained about staying until 8pm most nights, getting 3 hours’ extra pay a day. Management were under the impression she was a dedicated hard worker based entirely on the number of hours she was on site. The rest of us knew full well she was a shirker but her boss thought the sun shone so nothing ever changed.

Blanchedupetitpois are these issues bought up during his appraisals?

In simple terms a disjointed team is down to something lacking in management.

We could ask - why is management happy to turn a blind eye to laziness and task dodging?

Blanched yes I know the type. I used to work with a colleague and I was actually doing two peoples work if I heard ‘quick question!....’ one more time I was going to be prefixing my next address with HMP! It was constant even though he knew the role. If you sent him an e-nail he’d ask what it was about...I don’t have time to write it and say it! If you forwarded him an e-mail meant for him from the team box ‘what’s this? What does he want?’ I DON’T KNOW READ THE E-MAIL!

This reminds me of Tessie, manager's secretary, whose entire working life appeared to consist of typing 2 letters a week and obsessively tidying the stationery cupboard whilst monitoring usage. The majority of every day, however, was spent prowling the open plan, settling herself beside someone trying to work, and telling them/me how busy she was, then moving on to the next victim, half an hour minimum.Honestly, people used to hide in the loo. Nice woman, nobody had the heart to tell her she was driving us collectively nuts.

Can see your point OP. But what are you doing about it in RL? Have you spoken to your line manager/service manager about it?
Used to work in a large team with 2 people like this, both senior. Even the patients noticed and commented. Whole v busy team used to moan about it all the time but refused to say anything. This was just as annoying as the slackers. Though I was nearly most junior I spoke to manager and things changed for the better.
I’m sure people just slip into habits over time and sometimes a gentle reminder can really help,

I used to be that hard working, conscientious colleague.
After many years and numerous jobs, I am now working at about 50% capacity.
I feel no shame in this.
I've learned that in most organisations, if the work is being done, the Seniors don't notice WHO it's being done by. So they don't notice the workers or the shirkers.
The shirkers are usually manipulative or charming so are liked by management.
The workers are usually too busy for charm unfortunately. So are less liked or noticed by management.
Honestly, you are on a hiding for nothing trying to change the system.
I learned. Now I'm lazier and no longer feel like a mug.

Been bullied for working!

And I thought this was just my workplace (HCP).
I can look round at who's on shift during morning handover, and know if it's going to be a good day or not.
T'was ever thus.

I think most big work places have their slackers. The worst thing is once they’ve been there a while, it becomes a given that they’ll be lazy so other people are expected to mop up after them.

It’s so demoralizing to have to pick up the slack from someone who has been there longer than you and therefore gets paid better/better benefits but they’re doing far less and going on umpteen smoke breaks, but “that’s just how s/he is”. It’s like you’re being punished for not taking the piss yourself, but it’s too late now because you’ve already shown yourself to be a good worker so they expect more from you.

At his previous workplace, DH was actually picking up the slack from his supervisor (who was in a relationship with his manager when he got promoted) - doing stuff above his pay grade - only to be told the company didn’t think he was suitable for training up to be a supervisor himself. Then they were surprised when he quit!

I wored as a temp for years and in 90% of the offices I worked in I thought that if everyone just stopped yakking and skiving and just worked the hours they were paid for then they wouldn't need a temp.

This makes me grateful that I'm the only person who does my role in my organisation. It means I don't have to pick other people's slack. Sometimes things are quiet so I don't feel bad about a quick surf of the internet, but when things are busy I'll be flat out. But it's my workload to manage, which is great.

Its the constant chatter and commentary thst gets me. Its almost as if theyre trying actually Trying to distract workers on purpose. Playing loud music videos, announcing breaking BBC news, swearing, its just so frustrating and so hard to concentrate even with headphones.

I hate these kind of people. They seem to be at every workplace infecting everything with their laziness.
They are normally found sitting next to the boss colon too

YANBU, I could vent for an hour on here about my arse of a colleague who is due to retire next May. He has done sweet f* all for about 5 years but since he announced his leaving date he appears to have disappeared off the planet during working hours. He has always talked about himself but now it's incessant, poor me, so stressed, problems at home, this job's going to the dogs, this company is going to the dogs....no mate, it's getting like that because you're the problem!

Not only that he is drawing his 40 years of pension now (much of it at final salary) and being paid 38k a year to do nothing on top!

Just go now, please, leave, walk out the door, no turning round now, your not welcome anymore.