Work situation incompetent colleague

[Neodymium]

Need advice on work situation.

I was hired a few years ago part time for a technical type role. It was job sharing with another lady, and there was an older man who was also in the role - but he had 2 roles in the company. He is meant to work in our department 50% of the time and the other department the other 50%. Small department only the 3 of us there.

He is however using his 2.5 days of work in our department to do his 2.5 days work in the other department at a leisurely pace over the week. So his workload compared to others there is half.

My boss has told him that he is expected to be present in our department 2 days a week, plus extra half day as needed. I now also have a 2.5 day workload in the other department he is in, so we are employed the exact same.

He has to be reminded by the boss he is meant to be there. He comes over for a few hours and then leaves and no one says anything. Or he comes over and just sits somewhere and does his other work. The other day he came over and hid and had a nap. I left something in that room and went to get it and he had the light off and napping in the corner in a chair.

it’s now pissing me off as I work all my hours and then some plus manage my other workload which I often do at home cause I’m so stretched. It just seems like it is grossly unfair that he just gets away with it. the flip side is that he is completely incompetent and so even when he does work there he messes everything up. He also is pretty incompetent at the other job too, and could in no way handle if he was 100% in that department instead.

He just gets away with it cause he’s an older man and he’s pretty useless at both jobs. My boss also quite likes him so he doesn’t really come down too hard on him and defends him all the time. To be honest everyone feels abit sorry for him cause he’s kind of awkward and has a bit of a speech impediment.

i feel like if I take it further it will just cause my boss problems (who I do generally get along well with). Plus it just feels like I’m being mean to him. So I just don’t know what to do. equally I’m sick and tired of working myself to death to pick up the slack. (Leaving isnt an option for various reasons I won’t go into.)

I think you just need to separate the two issues - your colleague not completing a fair share of the work, and you having more than a fair share of the work, and to focus on the latter one only. So, tell you boss that you don't have time to complete the remaining work; it's then up to them to try to fix that. I don't think you should burn yourself out in the meantime though.

Stop enabling/covering for him for a start.

I have spent 4 years working in a very similar situation, I am now at breaking point and moving to another job as management are refusing to do anything about the situation.

i have spoke to him a few times with things to that effect. As has the other lady. He usually will just say I need to tell him what to do or put up lists for him. I don’t think my job should be telling him what needs doing. I don’t have time for that. he also doesn’t reply to emails, so when I do email him and ask him to do something he doesn’t respond. So I don’t know if it’s done or not. My bosses response to that when I have told him is ‘go find him and ask him then’. His desk is in another building. I don’t think it’s my job to go chasing him down to nag him to do his job.

I’m just over 4 years too. Maybe that is the limit of tolerance for this crap.

I have considered the only way to change it would be to just start doing exactly what he does. Stay in the other department and just refuse to do anything. It would all fall in a heap pretty quickly. But I couldn’t do that to the other lady who is amazing. She doesn’t have 2 roles like us she is just in that role.

If you are 50/50 between two departments and he is 50/50 between two departments why don’t they just make each of you 100% in one department? Seems mad to split two people in half.
This would also show up his incompetency. Suggest it?

As another poster said, concentrate on your work and your work only.
It isn’t ‘fair’ but your boss is aware of the problem. If work isn’t done/completed incorrectly your boss will ultimately be answerable.

He sounds very like someone I worked with. I always felt a bit sorry for him as he found change difficult or was so used to people complaining about his work that he had no trust in himself. He was a lovely person and I preferred him to more competent people. Another colleague was similar and spent hours on the phone making personal calls - he was competent but lazy and it was far more frustrating to work with him.

I’ve lived that situation and just left in the end. I’m walking into a similar situation again soon with a job share and I’m dreading it. The job sharee is known to be hopeless. People talk about it all the time. I guess I’ll be doing their work as well as my own.

This- it just doesn't make sense having you both doing 2.5 days in each dept

Unfortunately this wouldn’t be an option - they aren’t ‘equal’ positions. The department that he doesn’t do the work in has much lower rate of pay. I would not go full time there as my pay would drop significantly. He would also not be able to cope with a full time position in the other department. He can barely cope now even with using his other time and having half the load of everyone else.

Essentially - I have one (lower) rate of pay for my original position. And one (much higher) rate of pay for the other position. Same as him.

additionally, the work I do in the higher paid department he couldn’t do anyway. And I’m not prepared to go full time in the much lower paying job.

I am extremely overqualified for the position. I took the job initially as it worked with my kids at the time, as it was part time and school hours, plus close to home. It would not be worth my while to go full time in that role.

If the work hours still suit you, then just do your own work and keep going to the manager if you’re overloaded. That’s what I would do in this situation. Don’t make him your problem.

But you don't mention the possibility of going full time in the dept with the higher rate?

I would be pushing so hard for me to be ft in the higher role and him in the lower role tbh. Then the company could track his shit performance better and manage him out. There must be a way, play the game, make yourself required, flag up his issues when it affects work etc.

Obviously with pay reflecting this. I'd not be happy at all that we were paid the same for such different outputs and would be highlighting my performance at every progress meeting.

Other posters are right - this isn't your problem to solve; it's your manager's problem.

I'd want the higher paid single role too.

In this post when you said you had spoken to 'him', the him in question is the crap colleague, not the (lazy) boss? It's not your job to tell him what needs doing. What happens if you tell your boss you can't complete all your work on time, and some will need reallocating or delaying?

When you email crap colleague to ask him to do something, is that something that's a dependency for your own work? Or something that will be given to you if crap colleague doesn't do it?

Sorry - I mean I have spoken to my boss. About the colleague not doing his share. Boss tells me to tell colleague what to do, make him lists, ect. Go and find him and tell him. Colleague never comes to ask me what needs doing or what I want him to do either. His excuse is often ‘there is nothing to do’ when there is no urgent tasks but plenty of non urgent things that he doesn’t seem to think is his job, like cleaning up ect.

whrn I have emailed asking for tasks to be done it’s typically urgent stuff that has to be done that I don’t have time for. When I tell boss he doesn’t reply to the emails that when boss will say go find him to tell him. Like I have time to go hunting him down.

boss will also ask him to do things and then ask me to remind him to make sure those things get completed.

Sounds rubbish. I'd look for a new job.

It is potentially a possibility. Though boss has said that he likes me being in the half half role because I do such an amazing job at the lower paid role. As I said I am extremely overqualified for it so the stuff that I do someone else in the job wouldn’t be capable of. They would not get someone else same as me because the pay is so low. Almost minimum wage. Boss would never want incompetent bloke in that job full time. And incompetent bloke wouldn’t agree to it either. Why would he, he’s got it easy the way it is. Plus take a pay cut.

I actually do enjoy the lower paid role, plus it does have a degree of flexibility with start and finish times ect. Plus it’s very autonomous. If I was full time in the other department I would lose that flexibility and autonomy.

Your boss sounds lazy beyond belief. If you really can't leave, can you look for a different role inside the company? If not, I think the only things you can do are:

• refuse to manage crap colleague in any way
• refuse to pick up the slack for the fact that he's crap.

On the second point, I would talk to the other woman in the department so she doesn't end up just taking on even more.

This seems like a very nice set-up for two bone idle, barely competent men - having two women covering up for them.

when your boss asks you to remind him, either say it’s not your responsibility or send the man a delayed email reminder copying in your boss. He is clearly being poorly managed, your coworker should have targets, supervision meetings, reviews in relation to progress to targets, warnings. Personally in your shoes I’d tell the manager that you are incredibly unhappy with carrying his workload and want to know what steps manager will take to rectify this

I does feel that’s why. I feel like the incompetent (older) colleague considers the vast majority of the job to be women’s work and beneath him. Cleaning up organising ect. There is a whiff of misogyny there I think.

other lady and I are pretty much both fed up. She doesn’t have the same need to stay there that I do. She’s getting fed up with him
and im so worried she’s going to just leave at the end of the year.

my boss is in every other sense a good boss. He just doesn’t manage this useless man. He personally works very hard and does a lot. He actually covers for a lot for incompetent colleague in his other role.

I do refuse to manage him. When boss says go find him or tell him I don’t. I just say no I’m too busy.

This?

So X is loitering mostly in the building for the more autonomous lower paid job, doing that slowly over most of the week, and not really doing any of the higher paid job?

Of course the main problem is, manager is lazy too at this job of managing which he is being paid extra for, and currently has no incentive to fix the issue as you and female colleague are managing to cover. No brainer he likes you being in the job you're massively overqualified and underpaid for and working loads of overtime to pick up for X.

I think you and female colleague need to force the issue, call a meeting with manager, front up and get some answers from him. You need to press for manager to delineate what's your job and what's X's, and manager make this clear to X too, so that you can leave his parts undone and leave at the end of your working day. If you need an excuse tell him your personal circumstances have changed and you're not able to take work home.