What business is it of yours that your co-worker isn’t doing their work?

Nicole49: What business is it of yours that your co-worker isn’t doing their work?
I believe in the “do your own work” and “mind your own business” rule, but I see quite a lot of people who get involved in their co-workers as far as them not doing their job, talking on the cell phone too much, e-mailing, taking long lunches/breaks, etc.

Unless they’re taking away from your own work, shouldn’t it be between your co-worker and their Supervisor?

Answers and Views:

Answer by hr4me
Yes, but some people like to monitor other people and cause trouble. They feel that they are the only ones who do the work and others should be allowed to “just get by”.

What comes to mind when people do this, as a manager, is “do you have enough work to do since you have enough time to track your fellow employees behavior?”

Answer by Brian G
If you strongly think its affect the business, and you seem unfair since you are doing more work them him / her that you should talk to your supervisor about it. Maybe this would be a wake up call for this person. Since it is common for someone to get unmotivated and if they get into trouble could be a boost for them.

Maybe you should talk to them and see how they are doing on a certain project?

I personally think its unfair if the person is making the same money or more and they aren’t doing their work. This can cause a lot of stress on you and create a bad relationship with that person which could cause even more problems.

Answer by OverRuled23
Lots of people out there sucking up to the boss, spying on/backstabbing coworkers, lying on them, figuring they’ll “score points” or “in exchange”, they can do anything and they won’t be reprimanded.

I worked with another coworker who had the worst attitude I’ve ever come across, in a government agency. Guaranteed her attitude wouldn’t have been tolerated anywhere else. We both held the same title, which means the work should have been shared, but wasn’t. I never ran to the supervisor and told her coworker was on the net and not doing anything else. Because she sucked up to a couple of the supervisors, she was allowed net priviledges while the rest of us weren’t. I honestly didn’t have a problem with that, but it wasn’t fair that she sat there and surfed the net all day to pretend she “was too busy to take on more work”, and did nothing else while I ended up doing most of the work. I.e., sometimes she would take files, stick them under her desk, surf the net, then the next day she’d put those same files on her desk as ‘proof’ she’s “busy.” I did the work, didn’t complain, but I slowed up. Supervisor and Personnel knew of her attitude/”work ethic” because she treated everyone the same way, and her refusal to do anything, (i.e. she even claimed she couldn’t xerox because “of the fumes” and because “it’s dirty where the xerox machine was”), but did nothing to rectify the situation.

I asked for a transfer, never referring to coworker. Answer: “Well, we thought you could get along with xxx, she’s difficult to work with(!), encentric(sp) and if you feel you can’t deal with that, maybe you should transfer.” True words, folks. I’m not making this up. My career spans from the private to the public sector, including temp work and every shift you can name-and that was the first time I ever heard a supervisor actually side with an employee.

That was all I needed to hear, quietly got my retirement papers in order and was out of there within the year. I heard that she intimidated my replacement, who transferred to another dept. Someone from within replaced her and is working out-of-title by doing my coworker’s job, while she continues to sit and surf the net all day.

Answer by ModelFlyerChick
Your rule only works if the boss is always “on location”, ie he/she works out of the same location as you.
If you worked where I do your rule wouldn’t work. All of us in the office now have the same boss, the company VP. He works out of the corporate office and only comes to our location twice a week. So..he doesn’t know whether or not there are problems with the employees unless someone brings it to his attention.

Answer by WhAt?
Well in my case i cant do my work unless my “co-workers” do theirs. So yes it is my business……

Answer by AQM9
If your supervisor is not located in your office, all co-workers need to work as a team. If you have a co-worker that is not doing their work that should not be tolerated. It is not fair that other co-workers have to pick up the slackers work. In order to have an effective running office you need to have cooperation, and commitment of all co-workers. I have worked in an office where a co-worker was pushing all their work onto others…..while they made personal phone calls, left the office for long periods of time, and surfed the net doing their personal shopping. Enough is enough. a line has to be drawn…..everyone needs to contribute.