"Full-time pain, part-time gain"/ "Should I rat out my colleague as the office slacker?"

Jan. 9, 2018 "Full-time pain, part-time gain": Today I found this article by David Eddie in the Globe and Mail.  It is a job advice and I thought this should have sent to the "9-5" advice column.  However, David Eddie gave good advice about telling your boss you have a lot of passion for this job.

The question

I work for a small company which has been in perpetual start-up mode for 10 years. There are three senior employees, all in our 50s, who are the core knowledge and management base of the company. 

Four years ago, the company went through a funding crisis which required all employees to lose a day of work (we were working 3 to 4 days/week then). After a year, more funding was found and all the lower-level production employees saw their work week restored. 

The upper level were left at the reduced work week. However, the time continues to be contributed without remuneration – because the work needs to be done. 

Recently, the CEO scheduled an overseas trip and required us to leave on Sunday evening and travel for four days. We asked for pay for the Sunday travel and were grudgingly paid for 4 hours. 

Recently we were asked to travel again on a similar schedule. This time, the Sunday time was denied. If we were working full-time, we wouldn’t mind the extra time, but being part time it’s abusing our goodwill. (No bonuses either … sigh). If this were a once-off, I’d let it slide. But given the continual history of entitlement to our time for free, this feels as if it’s crossed the line. 

It could be argued that if we’re not happy we could leave; however, being in our 50s, the job prospects are not that plentiful. And we’ve contributed substantially to this company. Leaving now (to me, at least) would feel like abandoning one of my children.

The answer

I hope I am the right person to ask. I am but a humble scribbler. The few times I’ve been paid to travel somewhere, I was so grateful, I was (metaphorically: we scribblers like to use metaphors) in tears the whole time I was in that country.

Also, I tell people I am descended from Vikings, but it’s a lie. The truth, I will now reveal, is I am descended from Norwegian serfs and somewhere in my DNA is the perpetual urge to lick the boots of the master.

What I’m trying to say is, I’ve always been bad at standing up to bosses and saying “Hey, I deserve more than this.”

But, here’s what I’ll do for you. I will attempt to channel the spirit of my wife who, as with everyone else, is insecure, but will actually stand up to bosses for her rights, because she has a sense of her worth. As should you. 

I get that it’s tough to be in your 50s. It’s an awkward time to be out looking for work, especially these days, when everything is so tech-oriented and, no offence, you are perhaps a bit behind the curve on that.

But I also think people in their 50s – and I’m going to go ahead and say sixties and seventies and even eighties – have a way of being in the prime of their lives and a lot to offer. They tend to have their Gladwellian 10,000 hours under their belt (if you don’t know it, I’m referring to great Canadian writer Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent theory that it takes about 10,000 hours or about 10 years to get good at anything) yet also plenty of vim and vigour and piss and vinegar, if I may put it that way.

Moreover: Wisdom. Maturity. Experience. But at the same time, the humility to remember that no matter how talented and integral one seems to any given situation, one is always (basically) expendable and instantly replaceable.

(Although of course that may be my serf DNA talking.)

Okay. What I’d do: Begin with a soliloquy to your boss (which sounds like it’d be both true and heartfelt) about how much time, energy and emotion you’ve invested in the company. 

How you care about it. Even, as you’ve said (I don’t know how this could hurt you), say what you said to me about how leaving it would be like leaving one of your children.

I think your boss will enjoy that. Then, and only then, perhaps, a discussion about compensation. It sounds as though you’ve definitely been helping build the company. You never know where these things will lead.

Why not suggest you’ll become more rather than less of a “stakeholder” in this company, even ask to be paid in shares – roll the dice like that?

Have less of an employee/what-am-I-getting-paid-for-my-time, more of a let’s-all-get-rich mindset.

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-globe-and-mail-bc-edition/20180109/281749859749238

Jan. 16, 2018 "Should I rat out my colleague as the office slacker?": Today I found this advice column by David Eddie in the Globe and Mail:

The question

I share an office with a slacker. Three-hour long lunches, sometimes not returning at all. When at their desk, anything but work. On average, this individual works one to two hours a day. This has been going on for ages. 

Part of me wants to tell the manager but 1) I don't want to be a rat; 2) it may make the manager feel as though they are not on top of their employees and they could shoot the messenger (me!); 3) it may result in the micro-management of the rest of us; 4) my co-worker may find out I'm the rat, thereby jeopardizing our relationship; and 5) do I really care enough? 

The perks are 1) that this person may start working, which would reduce my already overwhelming workload (as I'm having to carry the weight of their slackery); 2) the organization/company will not be ripped off any more re: time theft; and 3) I would be less distracted and thus, more productive. And, yes, I've spoken to the individual first and they're not interested in making any changes.

The answer

You know, over the course of my professional life, I've pretty much come full circle on the question of so-called "ratting out" one's colleagues at work.

I remember my first-ever (career-related) job, fresh out of school, me a little green around the horns, as a junior reporter for a weekly newspaper on Long Island, thinking: "Not only will I admit openly and honestly to all my own mistakes, but I will also nobly 'fall on the grenade' as the occasion arises and take the blame for my co-workers' screw-ups as well."

My new-found colleagues, when they discovered this was my policy, couldn't believe their luck! A rube, a patsy, a sucker with a target on his back had wandered into their midst, willing to take the blame for their mistakes? They started dumping their blunders, slip-ups, faults and errors on me wholesale. After a few months, "my contract was not renewed," shall we say, even though I was good at my job and worked hard.

Nursing my wounds, back on my mother's couch, I thought: "Hmm, have I maybe misjudged human nature?"

But still, the misguided urge to cover for colleagues persisted until fairly recently. 

I was trying to cover for a co-worker who was actually hurting me professionally, when my boss – a boss of the laser-like focus, don't-even-try-to-b.s.-me variety – sensing a problem, said, in effect: "Dave, you owe it to me, and the company, to tell me what's really going on here."

And I realized he was right. He had hired me. He was putting bread and meat on my family's table – not the person I was covering for. So I spilled the beans.

I think you should too. "Rat" your colleague out to your boss. For any number of reasons. For one thing, a person such as that is potentially dangerous – they could, and I think would, do anything to cover their backside if it came down to it, including feeding you into the (metaphorical) wood-chipper.

Also, it's hurting the organization. If that makes me sound like too much of a "company man," well, then, so be it. I've referenced the book Sapiens before, by Yuval Noah Harari, but let me do it one last time. It's a big, fat book full of excellent points, but here's the gist: 

1) It is our ability as a species to organize/co-operate that has enabled this slow, weak, fangless, clawless, mostly hairless animal to be at the top of the food chain; 

2) what we call "gossip" is a crucial tool, as it helps us identify weak links in the organizations we create.

You have identified a weak link in your organization. That weak link is hurting not only the company as a whole but also your own ability to perform your duties, as you attempt to pick up the slack for this slacker.

As I see it, your path is clear – a path straight to your boss's office, whereupon you unload forthwith and in great detail your colleague's goldbricking.

Don't worry about being a rat, for reasons stated above. And don't worry about your boss becoming upset and "shooting the messenger." Quite the opposite. You are doing your boss a favour, you owe it to him or her and the entire organization, and you should be and I believe will be thanked for coming forward.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/should-i-rat-out-the-office-slacker/article37591534/

My opinion: I totally agree with David.  You should tell on your co-worker.  He should either work or get dismissed.  It seems like he doesn't even want to work here.

That reminds me of working at the Soup place.  There was Co-worker J who usually misses Mon. and Tues.  The bosses tell her to come to work and she doesn't.  Then Co-Worker B misses 1 or 2 days a week and we don't know when he is coming in.

We and the bosses have to work harder to cover when they're not here.  

Oct. 31, 2020: This makes these co-workers undependable and unreliable.  

My male boss S said this about H: There is an 80% chance she misses a Mon. and a 50% chance she misses a Tues.

If this worker continually misses those days at any other workplace, she would be dismissed.

My bosses at the Soup place were nice and too lenient on J: If she comes to work that's good.  If she doesn't, we'll work harder without her.