Dealing With Co-Workers Who Won't Pull Their Weight at Work

It's late. Most of the offices are dark, and the only sound if the "squeak, squeak, squeak" of the cleaning guy's cart as he slowly wheels it down a nearby hallway.

At your desk, you try again to focus on the work in front of you. You've been working for 14 hours straight, and only grabbed some potato chips and a soda from the vending machine for dinner. Your head pounds and your neck and back are one continuous pulse of pain. You long ago shed your jacket and rolled up your sleeves. Your hair sticks up in spikes after you've run your hands through it about a thousand times in the last several hours. You figure you now smell as bad as you feel.

But you have no choice. You can't go home yet. Probably not for several more hours, you think angrily. Someone you stupidly trusted has let you down. Instead of coming through with his part of the report, he missed the deadline and then gave some lame excuse about how he couldn't work late.

"Sorry," he said, walking out the door hours ago.

So, that left you with the problem. You have to get the work done by tomorrow, because that's when the boss wants it done. You can't afford to lose this job, and that means that if you work 24 hours straight to turn it in on time, that's what you're going to do. But in the meantime, you hope karma really is a bitch -- you'd like to see your co-worker get a toe fungus that eventually overtakes his whole body.

Many of us have been through similar scenarios in our career. We trust our co-workers to come through for us, and when they don't, we're angry and vow never to trust them again.

Unfortunately, with today's lean workforce environments, we rely more than ever on one another to get the job done. Our success -- and our company's success -- depends on employees working together efficiently and productively. If one of those cogs in the wheel is faulty, then the whole operation can be jeopardy.


Let's look at ways to handle co-workers that drop the ball, and how to get them to pull their weight:

1. No one is a mind reader. Make sure that if you need a co-worker's input by a specific deadline, you've made that deadline clear. Don't nag -- that's sure to annoy the other person and only lead to more communication problems. If you think there may be problem, be positive: "David, I just want to check in and remind you that our deadline for those figures is Friday. How's it going -- any problems? No? Great! That's wonderful news. I'll check back in a couple of days."

2. Don't be a martyr. If you know the only way the work is going to get done is by pulling some long hours, don't get angry that you're probably the only one willing to do it. Instead, be proactive. "Mary, we've really got to make sure this report is done by Friday, and it looks like that means we're all going to have to pull some extra hours. What section do you want to tackle?"

3. Be persistent. Most of us are working very hard right now, but we all know the people who seem to be extraordinarily talented at escaping their share of the growing workload. Don't give in simply because it's easier to do it yourself. You'll only end up hurting yourself because you'll burn out that much sooner and possibly ruin your health. Instead, be focused on your objective, which is making sure the co-worker follows through on a work commitment. It's best to do this when you're not under the threat of a looming deadline. Pick a quiet time, and say, "Bob, it seems that I'm usually the one who puts in the late hours when there's a deadline. I'm willing to do my part, of course, but I'd like to talk about ways we can split the work a bit more fairly."

4. Acknowledge contributions. You may be angry and resentful by the time a co-worker does come through, but your sullenness won't help. Instead, be appreciative so that the co-worker's helpfulness won't be a one-time thing. "I see that you got the figures to Bob in time for us to include them in the report. That really helped us meet the deadline. Thanks."

What are some other ways to deal with co-workers who may not be shouldering their fair share of work?

Is Your Manager Setting You Up to Fail?

Recently I ran into a friend of mine who told me he's quitting his job and going back to school to become a registered nurse. I was a bit surprised: Quit a job in this economy? Take on more student loan debt?

When I asked him why he was leaving a job that he seemed to love the last time I spoke to him about a year ago, he told me that he was simply exhausted, both emotionally and mentally. The position that he had fought so hard to get had become an anvil around his neck.

Over cold drinks at a nearby cafe, he told me that the job he was leaving in no way, shape or form resembled the position he had accepted two years ago.

"We had two people leave, so I took on a lot of their stuff. Then, a third was laid off," he said. "I was given those duties in addition to what I was already doing."

While he said the boss often assured him that he would get some help, it never materialized. When he would remind the boss that he was being spread too thin and he worried about the quality of the product, the boss told him that better time management -- and better use of technology -- would solve the problem.

That's why a recent story about companies combining mid-level and lower-level jobs -- and then hiring someone at the junior level for a lower salary -- really struck a chord.

I have been hearing similar stories for a while: Companies laying off workers, then rehiring one person with what I call a "kitchen sink" job description to do the work of many.

Let me give you another example: A woman I have known professionally for years works for a company that has been bought and sold so many times she jokes that she's not even sure who she works for anymore. But under that humor is a lot of stress: In the last three years, at least five people have been laid off in her department, and each time she has been given their duties.

I asked her whether she's received additional compensation for her additional duties. She told me no. Instead, she's been continually reprimanded for missing deadlines and not meeting goals. I have to wonder why the company doesn't fire her for her "poor performance," but I suspect it's because they can pile on the work -- and keep those notes critical of her performance in her personnel file to drag out when she wants to discuss more money.

(You may think this woman should have bailed on this job a long time ago, but because of her personal circumstances, she needed to stay in the position and try and make it work.)

I just don't get it. Why would companies set employees up to fail? If they hire lower-level workers, pile on the work until they break, then what's the point? They may have saved some money in the beginning, but it takes time and money to recruit and train a new body, so it seems that's pretty short-sighted.

At the same time, how can you ever make a good hire if you're using job descriptions that are laundry lists of so many disparate duties that no one human being can meet it?

I know that many employees rise to the challenge. But what I'm hearing goes beyond that. If we've got workers limping for the exits, where does that leave us in terms of training the next generation of managers? If we think that only time management and technology is the answer to overworked staff, then how can current managers create a team that's capable of competing in a global economy?

Please, someone clue me in. I just don't get it.




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Feeling Like What You Do Is Never Enough

Why are you working so much?

C'mon, I know it's true. You're on your Blackberry at the dinner table, you get up at 4 a.m. just to answer a few e-mails and you've never been in a car without the cell phone to your ear. This is above and beyond the long hours you put in at your desk.

So, again I ask you: Why are you working so much?

Some of you are going to claim it's because you have no choice. You will say it's to please the boss, keep up with the workload, further your career or simply because you have no idea what to do if you're not working. You're worried what someone else will think of you if you're not working. Bottom line: You're scared not to work.

But here's what happens when you work too much: You get anxious. You get mad and depressed. And then you look for someone to blame.

That means you start fighting with your spouse, you yell at your kids, you begin to hate the guy in the cubicle next to yours and you begin to ignore the boss, who you hate more than anyone.

But I've spoken with some very successful people over the years, and whether they're entreprenuers or work for Fortune 100 companies, they've provided some good insight into making sure you control the work, not vise versa.

Some tips:
· Avoiding the “never enough” trap. When surveys ask people how much more money they need to be financially comfortable, without fail they answer 20 percent to 40 percent more than they are making – whether they have an annual salary of $20,000 or $100,000. We always seem to want more, and when we don’t set limits, we can get caught in compulsive behaviors, such as working more hours. But if you don’t set the limits, no one will. Determine what you need to do to be satisfied, and stick to it.
· Evaluate your work. Look at your job from an objective point of view – what would another person you respect say about what you accomplished in one day? Would this person judge it as adequate? If the answer is yes, then you have done enough for one day.
· Make choices. Pick the one or two events outside of work that are most important, and bow out of the rest. While the choices you make may not please everyone, remember that there is nothing in life that pleases everyone.
· Working for completion. If you stick to the thought that you can’t go home until all your work is done, you’re going to be at the office until your body is found covered in cobwebs by co-workers. Keep in mind that the long hours may mean you have some inefficient work habits, such as forgetting to prioritize the most important tasks each day. At the end of your work day, only unimportant tasks should be left – and those can wait until the next day.
· Something came up. It always does. Last minute emergencies do happen, but if they're a regular thing, you need to evaluate what -- or who --is causing it and try to find a way to head it off in the future or remedy the problem so it's not a continual one.


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