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Coworker seems to do anything but work!


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I have complained about this person before, but I am really getting tired of her coming to work and then spending a majority of the day reading her book online, doing online crossword puzzles, shopping on Amazon, looking at Facebook and who knows what else, but then when someone comes over to her desk she quickly clicks off what she's doing and clicks onto some work thing. Sometimes I can see her agitation when she doesn't get warning that someone is coming to her desk and she is all flustered. She has the one seat in our area where nobody else, but me, can see what she's doing on her computer. you know if her desk was facing the other way she wouldn't be able to get away with that. And whenever we have our morning meetings she is the ONLY one who reiterates just how INCREDIBLY busy she is and how she just doesn't know if she'll be able get ALL her work done, whereas if she would actually do it, it would be done in 1/2 a day. The ones who actually work hard, don't complain about how busy they are. And my problem is is that my workload stops because most of it has to go to her first before it comes to me. I can see a stack of things on her desk that I could be working on if she'd get to it, but instead I'm trying to look busy doing other things.

 

I mean today is really bad. We had to attend an 8AM meeting, which isn't an issue for me since I'm usually here before 8AM, but she doesn't usually get here until after 10AM (we can kind of set our own hours--within reason as long as we get 8 hours a day in). So the meeting was over at 9AM and then she proceeded to come back to her desk and look at her investments online for an hour and then looked at entertainment sits as well and do the NY times online crossword puzzle. She did that until 11AM when she went to another investment meeting until noon. It is now 1PM and she has done nothing but crossword puzzles and web surfing since being back from that. And keep in mind she still hasn't had her lunch break, which will consist of bringing her food back to her desk where she will "officially" take her break of 30 minutes by reading her book online and eating. By 2PM she may get to doing something workwise, but then we can always expect her husband to call her about that time and ask her what she's working on and what they will have for dinner and she will tell him the gossip of anything she overheard from her coworkers whether they know she heard it or not. She will sit at her desk and talk to him about that for a couple minutes before she finally walks outside to talk to him for another 10 minutes.

 

The problem with reporting her to my manager is that we are such a close knit group and people don't rat on others. Obviously she would know it was me if I did say something to our manager since I'm the only one who can see how little she actually does. And I can always tell when she's working and when she's not because when she's working she doesn't say anything. As soon as she starts doing actual work she talks out loud with every step she does so we can see just how incredibly busy she is. I mean I did part of her assigned book last week because she had "a poop ton of research to do" (her words) that she didn't know if she'd finish that on time" I was bored and wanted to do something so I did her work! Meanwhile she spent about 1 hour a day doing research and the other 7 hours surfing the web, eating, shopping online!!

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Doesn't matter if you are close knit.

 

Tell your manager.

 

I did with someone in a close knit group with me and he sorted the issue professionally and she now excels at work.

 

There was no impact on me as it could have been anyone, anyone could see what she was doing just by walking past her desk.

 

Speak up.

You keep complaining about her so either leave or speak up.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I question what kind of company could have such dead weight hanging around. What is she charged with doing, and how in the world could they think she is doing anything if she's not? Something is missing here. Seriously, I've never heard of a company where somebody just goes in and surfs the web.

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I experience this same issue at my own job, except I'm not close to any of my co-workers BECAUSE of this. I think you should bring this matter up to your manager because it need to stop, and if they no longer want to be ''close-knit'' anymore, that's fine. At the end of the day, you're all there to do a job and that's all.

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If you need stuff from her before you can do your job stay on top of her. Ask her when she will have things available. If you see her playing walk up to her & ask where she is at on x,y,z.

 

 

I know you are not her boss but if your work is dependant on hers then you have a right to be proactive & find out when you will receive it.

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I understand how odd this seems, but our manager is pretty much hands off. She trusts that we know what we are doing, but she doesn't fully understand what goes into what we do. Half of the dept are editors and half are graphics people. She is an editor and knows the editorial side of things and if this person tells her all this stuff she needs to do then she thinks she's busy. She constantly lets it be known at our dept. meetings on Monday mornings just how incredibly busy she is and makes it sound like we'll be lucky if she gets it done by the deadline. Funny how the ones that are actually busy don't make it known just how busy they are because it goes with the job, but she makes it sound like nobody else in the dept has as much to do as she does. Yet she will then return to her desk and read her book online, do the NY Times crossword online, shop for clothes, peruse Facebook, look at various entertainment sites. She will do one thing and give it to me and then do some frivolous activity for 20 minutes, go back and get another one done, go back to frivolous activity, etc. She gets away with it because he desk is turned such that nobody but me can see it. If she were turned the other way I bet she'd get a lot more done. I left yesterday 2 1/2 hours before she did and I came in to 5 minor things to do this morning. She could have had twice as much done. She won't be in until 10:30, then she has to eat her breakfast at her desk and peruse the internet. Usually her husband calls her every day shortly after she gets here to talk about dinner or what he should get at the grocery store and then she's on the phone with him for 10 minutes. Maybe about 11:30 she'll start doing some work. By that time, half my day is over and I've been twiddling my thumbs.

 

She's been here 20 years and has her nose in everyone's business. She knows birthdays of coworkers kids (who knows that?!) and always let's us know when it's so and so's birthday. Always is able to interject herself into every conversation and turn it into something about her. Last year a coworker got a call that her father passed away unexpectedly. This coworker screamed and cried and we didn't know what was going on. We find out her dad died and this coworker even had to turn THAT into something about her saying "Yeah when my mom died last year..." She has no empathy for anyone buy herself and if she can't put herself into a conversation then she has no desire to be part of it. And she gets SO irritated when someone comes up to her unexpectedly and she has to quickly click off what she was doing and you can tell she is just so flustered!

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