To report my lazy colleague to the manager

[Fedupoflazyones]

To give a bit of background, team of 9, one person been there years, ‘old school’ so of a time when there was no urgency to tasks, no thought about customer service etc.

Things move on over the years, I joined the team 5 years ago from another part of the company, myself and others have slowly turned the team ethic around to get ‘tasks’ done in a good timeframe. This ‘old school’ person rose to the challenge but as they’d been there the longest liked to hand out tasks for others to do whilst looking busy themselves.

This was reported to manager at the time and the role of giving out tasks was taken from her - she was told she, like the rest of us needed to contribute equally.

She didnt like this and has continued to quietly do as little as possible, it’s been brought up to manager on occasions, usually by me as I appear to be the unofficial spokesperson for the team. Manager tries give said person a gentle kick up the bum but they improve for a couple of days and it’s back to square one.

This week has been particularly busy - the ‘tasks’ we have to do, we are all goaled on getting about 25-30 of these done a day. It can vary as some tasks are more complex than others. The tasks build quickly if we have people off so it’s important to keep at them.

I clocked on the system that one day this week the person in question had done just one task all day and it was something that would have taken two minutes to do. We were already two staff down so the tasks were building quickly. The person has attended one meeting (same as us all) and the rest of the time, although tapping away on their keyboard must have simply taken an easy day with headphones listening to music whilst the rest of us battled to keep the mounting tasks under control.

Manager does not look at these numbers daily but we have to enter our numbers into a spreadsheet - it’s become apparent that this person always adds a few extra to their number. I’m waiting to see what number gets added for the day they did one.

I suspect Manager is already a bit sick of me / the team complaining about this person and would rather us all just get on with it (they aren’t around much) but it bugs me to the point I feel I need to leave. Then I think why should I leave? I love my job but it’s a bad egg that annoys the rest of us.

WWYD? Continue to bring it up each time it happens? I have evidence of a screenshot of the task completed, or just say nothing and worry about my own work.

If it’s not reported the manager won’t even know as they don’t delve into the system to check that the spreadsheet figure matches the system figure.

I would do one of two things and if they don't work you need to be prepared to leave. Will management care or are you easily replaceable?

Either, go to your manager and their boss and say you have concerns about productivity which is impacting the team and ask them what they'd like staff to do about this? Do they want staff to report concerns, do they want tasks to be allocated out per day or do they want you to do nothing?

You'll have your answer and can decide what you do because this will drive you mad.

The other option is for the rest of you to agree to only do your quota and to let the data show there's an issue. This won't work if it's only you and someone else will jump in and finish the daily tasks.
Either there will be a shortfall and management will eventually notice or lazy shit will pick up their activity because it's not in their interests for someone to have to look at the figures.

All of you or some of you matching their pace is a terrible idea because the focus will be you pissing around and you're all in the shit. It will look childish and petty.

To me it sounds like you have a lazy colleague and a bad manager.

From my experience the manager will always protect the favourite. I ended up leaving in my situation. My lazy colleague got promoted.

Don't let their laziness affect your career or burn bridges with your manager.

I worked in an environment like this and it really affected my mental health. I was the only person in the team doing work and the others just dilly dallied through the day. I raised it ad nauseum. My manager initially said they'd raise it and did but never with any weight. It became clear she thought I was a problem for moaning rather than the others happily leaving the work to me. It was so incredibly frustrating as I thought easily fixed. Had I toed the line, I may have done better in that company. However, it was such a toxic environment that I left.

I don't know whether you have a good manager and good company excluding the employee therefore she's not worth it or you should also leave.

I agree that everyone should slow down to this persons level. I think it's a great tactic to highlight the issue.

Good post by goingrouge

Comment aimed at the OP, not those who think that proper use of grammar is childish

Not the point of the thread and not particularly helpful. OP's meaning is quite clear.

Looking at it from a different angle (ie, what a union rep might say) you have an older colleague.

She was fully on board with the changes, but was told to not get above her station. She then deals with what could be argued to be a more complex task of the varying complexities, reassuring somebody else that it's OK to do the more complex stuff and chucks in a couple of short tasks by the end of the day.

Somebody who isn't the manager is monitoring her work unofficially and is making allegations that she's falsifying entries. Said not-manager is acting above their role in a way that is similar to the alleged original employee's behaviour.

That could be interpreted as workplace bullying on the grounds of age.

Your manager obviously doesn't care. Let it go

I used to have something similar - worked in a team of 5 - 3 of us at the same (managerial) level although I took on the project lead role. The other 2 were not only getting paid way more than me due to their length of service and location but did in a day what I would do in an hour. Our boss seemed to have her hands tied. Both were just waiting for a redundancy pay off anyway so actually it served them well to do very little. It used to really get me down until I decided just to move on.
I led the projects, did most of the work, took all the credit, then moved role to a promotion.

don't pick up her slack then. Just don't do her work. Encourage your colleagues to do their work and not pick up slack. See what manager says.

If you are a team of 10 and have 90 tasks and one does 1 the others are doing 11, right? if that isn't an issue for anyone, beak out and let manager handle it. If a colleague is able to add numbers to a sheet and nobody is checking if that's correct, what is the point of adding any numbers? so only enter 1 when you've done 37. what happens?

Clearly your reports to the manager have fallen on deaf ears. Either there is some reason this is allowed that you are not privvy to: butt out. Or the manager is useless: work to your contract, don't cover colleague's work.

A family member once worked in a large Govt organisation (tax) and one manager had a pillow in his office and would come in, work for about an hour, and then go to sleep and then would do the same after lunch. FM was amazed that it was tolerated and not dealt with.

When I worked in the County Council offices there were several people who were dab hands at faffing about but not getting much work done. I worked in HR and it would drive some workers there up the wall. They'd all been there long term. Over 20 years ago now so hopefully this kind of thing has been stamped out.

You can of course continue to raise it with your manager, but from what you’ve said about them getting fed up of you you’re sticking your head above the pulpit just to get it shot off by the sounds of it. Your manager doesn’t have an issue with your colleague, they have an issue with you raising it continuously though. You’re making yourself out to be the problem employee by being the spokesperson.

Not saying it’s fair but you want to be careful you don’t lose your own job for it.

Been there op. There's only so much you can do, also be careful your colleagues aren't using you, if they have an issue they need to speak up, otherwise you'll be made a scapegoat eventually.

Just do your tasks at a comfortable pace. Don't pick up slack, don't stress yourself over it. You'll feel less resentful and it will become solely your managers problem if the necessary work isn't done.

Read your first sentence again OP. It positively drips with malice, ageism, condescension and ignorance. You don't like your colleague, possibly or possibly not with good reason, but on the back of that you feel entitled and qualified to pronounce judgment not only on her, but on her entire generation.

I can assure you, as can many others on these pages, that hard work and customer service are not new concepts. Perhaps what your manager is uncomfortable about is your unpleasant and judgmental attitude. You are not your colleague's manager.

You will be your colleague's age soon enough. Enough of the casual ageism, of which there is far too much on MN.

If you're not getting any joy having raised it to the manager, this is what I would do.
They are basically saying (at the moment at least) that if you do what your lazy colleague is doing, that is sufficient. So why would you break your back in doing more than that? They don't have an issue with your lazy colleague only completing one task per day so follow suit!

When they do have an issue, you simply need to raise it, collectively, as "Well Adam was only completing one task per day and you didn't have an issue with that so we followed his lead"

It reminds me very much of that viral video of the bloke who is having his annual appraisal done through Zoom and he was complaining that he was the top performing staff member but hadn't had a pay rise for 2 years. Having raised this with management he was advised that he was being paid a fair market value for his work (which was in the median of what he could have been paid he discovered) so he started doing a 'fair market value' job (half effort of what he was used to doing). Management noticed. It went viral (the video of him saying this). That's what your situation reminds me of.

Yep, I read that too.

Well her response about being valued the same is true. Nine years in she isn't going to be managed out anytime soon.

If you don't have supervising duties don't do them. The frustration of continuing to raise the issue to see no improvement will drive you batty.

Things Can only improve if the manager steps up, that sounds unlikely.

I work with plenty of people who are considered 'old school' in how they approach their daily work. Some are in their 20's and some in their 50's. It is stating how they approach their work. It's not ageist or malicious. I'm not being condescending or ignorant of their situation. It's stating a fact on how they decide to tackle their workload.

Get off the OP's back for a minute and perhaps try to put yourself in their shoes - when they see a colleague who clearly isn't pulling their weight and being carried along by the other team members.
I wouldn't be particularly enamoured with a colleague who behaves like this. The OP's post is dripping with desperation in relation to the manager not actually managing the team effectively because as it turns out this lazy colleague and the manager were on the same level at one point in the past and this may be making it awkward for the manager to raise this with the lazy colleague.

If that is the case @Fedupoflazyones , then definitely go up a level to their manager but have your facts and figures ready for that manager so that you can back up your claim.

I have been the person that everyone relied on to speak out and found that when push came to shove there was no one behind me. I agree with the advice here to take only what is a fair share and if tasks slip then management will take notice. If you can persuade your colleagues to do likewise that will happen more quickly. Or leave. I left as it was too stressful to me to leave things undone and never regretted it. I would like to say I got a better job/promotion a la Reddit stories that you read on Facebook - I didn't but what I did get was more job satisfaction from working with a genuine team. And a word of caution on the age bit- many of the most go ahead people I've worked with are older than me, and I've worked with younger people who were very definitely doing the barest of minimums. Not doing the job very well isn't linked to age, it's their attitude.

OP mentions that they have been there for years (so couldn’t really be anyone in their 20s p) and also says “of a time”. They were very clearly referencing age and not style, it jumped out at me too.

It's not clear from your post. You allude to having to pick up the colleagues work but also say you are each expected to do 25-30 tasks a day. So which is it. If it's the former, you should say something. If it's the latter it's nothing to do with you. Just mind your own business and get on with your own work.

Nice try, but OP refers to her of being "of a time" where she considers customer service and hard work were not expected. That is clearly an ageist reference.

@SeatonCarew

Read your first sentence again OP. It positively drips with malice, ageism, condescension and ignorance

OP said she is 'old school' not elderly. She has been in that job 9 years. If she genuinely only did a two minute job for the whole working day and is quite happy knowingly letting her colleagues pick up her flak, then I would be feeling a bit malevolent towards her too.

I have worked with many hard working women in their 60s, and at least one in her 70s, that worked fast and accurately - were no different to everyone else well in some cases better as more experienced!

I'm probably older than this woman and would be embarrassed to be in that position.

gosh yes, i remember when i started working for a big organisation in the 80s in the sales team. we used to tell any potential customers to get the fuck off the line we were too busy reading magazines and eating bon-bons...

Ugh I hate it when managers won't do their job. Lazy arse has a pleasant life because they are too brazen to care, the good workers are stressed and unhappy. Manager is too cowardly to make the bad workers pull their weight and instead relies on buttering up the good workers by telling them how invaluable they are, but there's never any real reward. It's all just talk. Good workers eventually wise up and leave.

The manager knows op. You have told them enough. They know. They are choosing to let this fly. You need to be careful, as continued complaining about one individual could result in a bullying complaint against you.

you are not the manager, you do not get to monitor her output. That’s the managers job, you have highlighted the issue, they are choosing to let it fly, for whatever reason, they could easily check and performance manage. They have decided against.

so repeated complaints could easily move to a bullying charge on why you keep checking tnis woman’s work and complaining.