I work with a woman who is very nice and I get on well with her but she is constantly in her own world. We are youth workers and she always comes in late so we set everything up, doesn't contribute to team decisions and then sets up arty activities and confines herself to that for the whole session, therefore not doing any other jobs like coffee bar, memberships etc. SHe then does the activity until the very end and so isn't involved in cashing up, cleaning or post session disucssions. She's very hard to talk to as she drifts off mid conversation and constanlty goes off on a tangent so forgets what you say and I often doubt she understands it either. I literally ask her a question and she'll answer with something totally irrelevant or with another unrelated question. We have tried asking her to do things and reminding her of the time etc but she just waffles on and says she's busy doing things. OUr manager seems to know what's going on but ignores it because we cover all the work. I don't want her getting upset because I genuinely like her- have known her for years- and she's fantastic with the kids.
So what do I do? Subtly speak to our manager? But how without it getting back to her that I've said something? I'm not convinved he wouldn't tell her I'd said it (always says 'I shouldn't tell you this but my style is 'open management'...)and he's not very tactful so would hate him to upset her. I know the other staff feel the same way but they wouldn't say anything.