Absolutely useless collegue, how do you proceed.

Fireflash

So there's this guy on our team, pretty much everybody knows he isn't doing anything ever except the boss since we're supposed to be pretty autonomous in our work and we share responsibilities. Work hasn't been busy at all so his lack of effort don't have much of a direct impact for now. It doesn't even make a difference when he's not there because he literally does nothing work related. I always have to ask him when I want him to do something otherwise he's content doing nothing and laughing with his friends, either texting on his phone or chatting on the internal IM system with his friends on different projects.

And most of the time when he ends up participating our in our multiplayer efforts (this is a videogame company you see) he ends up just being idle 75% of the time. And he does everything to not be efficient! He's been getting his work emails late for months now, and never got in contact with support to try and fix this. Even if I post necessary info in our group chats he always ends up having excuses for not being ready. "Oh you know my mails get here late". Oh I didn,t see your message in the chat" Yet he obviously has no issues keeping up with his private conversations..

I could list tons of things like that but I think you get the point and it's just making me angry. He's sitting next to me and hearing laugh constantly at whatever his friends are telling him for the past hour while I'm working makes me want to snap right now.

I feel like I should just go to my boss cuz he's been doing that for too long now and he obviously doesn't care about what going on on our project. I'm only hesitant because I don't like the idea of snitching on someone. I've seen a few people like that in the past, snitching on anyone who would have a moment of laxity to make themselves look better, and I don't like that. Also making an enemy in the office doesn't sound like a good idea.

What do people do in this situation? Help!

Esh

How do your other coworkers feel about the situation? You should go as a collective if you decide to do this.

EclecticGroove

Whatever you do, be careful provided you want to keep your job. These kinds of things can be incredibly political. Your boss may see him as a buddy and just not care for instance.

I've had similar situations where it was obvious I and/or others were doing more/better work than another person, but they were always in the right place/right time and schmoozing with the right people.

You may hate this guy, but upper management may love him. So just tread cautiously, and absolutely talk to other teammates about it. If you're the only one with an issue, don't bother unless he really does start hampering everyone. If things do fail because of him, DOCUMENT it all. Keep all the e-mails/chat logs/whatever to prove he's the break, and not you/others.

Rayze

I was in a similar situation as you are in now, same industry. After about a month of the person not pulling their weight, I went to my superior and told him my concerns. Turns out a bunch of other people felt the same way and eventually, the problem was rectified

I would suggest talking to your superior in private and see what they say. It can be completely confidential and take solace in the fact that you're actually trying to do something to help make your team better. At the time, I felt bad for telling on someone but they were hurting the team with their lack of dedication to their work

ANTVGM64

I'll be honest with you, I'm a pretty crappy employee. I'm one of these folks that if left to my own devices I'll probably do the bare minimum unless asked to do something specific. I'm perfectly happy to take calls, sit on my ass, and bomb around on the PA forums for 8 hours a day. I was like this for several years, fearful for my job, but not nearly motivated enough to be better at it. I know that sounds weird.

Now I can't begin to tell you what it's like at your company, I have no idea. I know if I had this dude's job I'd be in 45 minutes early daily doing whatever it is he does because I think working for a game company is the coolest fucking thing on the planet. But anyway, the way my job sort of got me involved, was, well, to make me feel involved.

I spent a lot of time having specific troubleshooting procedures and concepts and changes pass me by because I worked second shift, and it was hard to stay connected to the goings-on at all times. I was afraid to ask questions because I was afraid people who look at me funny and be like "You were supposed to *know* that already, asshole".

Anyway, eventually I got over the hump simply because a few people took it upon themselves to sort of re-educate me on some of the things I missed, and I no longer felt scared to ask dumb questions. I was actually recently offered full time at my position, and the idea that they'd want me here in a full time capacity actually makes me want to work harder. I'm by no means the best, smartest, or sexiest employee here, but I do my job pretty well, I'm nice to folks, and I think a lot of that comes from feeling like I'm wanted here.

So, when it comes to your shitty employee, here's what I recommend.

1. Force him to help you on things. If you're working on some gaming related project, force him to work with you on it, but in a friendly, not punishing way.

2. Give him lots of tasks you don't like doing. When I'm left to my own devices I tend to poke around forums and answer Help / Advice questions like I am now. I was recently assigned the task of organizing Cat 5 cables by length and color. Is this bitch work? sure. is it something I can do and be proud of when I'm done? abosfuckinglutely.

3. Ask him what he's laughing at. If you engage him as a person, and don't sneer / ignore him, he may just want to work harder as to not let you down.

4. Positive re-enforcement. If he does something wrong, ask him if he knows how to do it!


But anyway, I could go on, but I should get back to work.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

I've never worked in games, but I've worked in distributed teams coordinating via basecamp and shit.

You can handle this a little bit more tactfully than just going to your boss and saying this dude sucks. For example, bring up whenever you meet with him (one on one) that you don't feel like tasks are moving smoothly between members of the team and see what kind of advice he can offer.

A good project manager will take a little bit of time and pay some more attention to how your team is working; he'll identify the problem himself and deal with it. He might even already be aware of it on some level, especially if one team member is chronically late responding to mails or something.

I have found that bringing things up in this kind of non-confrontational way lowers the pressure you're putting on the person being asked to deal with the problem, which makes them more responsive to you. And if it doesn't get corrected, the more direct approach is obviously still available.

Deebaser

If he ain't your direct report, he ain't your problem. The worst this clown can do is make your boss look bad.
There's really no point in snitching. If this dude is as obviously dead weight as you say, other people already know.

Invisible

I don't know about that. A failure of one can be detrimental to the team as a whole. If it's affecting your work directly then yeah, go for it, but if it's not, it isn't your concern unless you're his supervisor.

Organichu

I'm not trying to sound disapproving- I understand that you have a job you wish to complete and you want support from your team. That's completely fair.

So far, though, it seems like you've treated him as a 'normal worker'. That is the reasonable attitude for your initial communications with the guy. But it seems like you've now identified that he has some issues regarding work ethic, productivity, et cetera. While I think you're well within your rights (though it's shaky ground w.r.t. self-preservation, and highly dependent upon your situation) to go to the boss man, I'd advise first trying another tack with the guy.

Have you talked to him about it in a way that isn't critical? Obviously some sort of thorough remediation is not your responsibility or privilege; you're not meant to manage. But it seems worthwhile to me to take the guy aside at lunch or over dinner or something and ask him how he's doing, how he's liking work, et cetera. Pretty much everyone self-evaluates to some degree. You might just spur some introspection.

I'd say it's probably in your benefit to- within the bounds of your responsibilities and privileges- try and show some interest in him and his work in a way that is non-threatening. If it doesn't work you can always ignore him (as some say) or, if he adversely affects your personal performance and reviews, you can run it up the ladder. But if a casual thing can help, you might end up gaining a buddy and a supportive coworker. Seems like a better option than the likely-aversarial attitude you'll receive if you're forced to report him.

Fireflash

Ok, I got time to cool off and think a bit more while relaxin at home. A bit more details...

- We're a small team of 10 + bossman, but are also divided in cells of various sizes based on workload. The guy in question is in my cell of 3. Most cells are 1 or 2 employees right now.

- I'm not the lead obviously, but we've been many weeks at various times without our lead. While he's out, I'm the point of contact for our team and I'm the one making sure everything gets done (and even when he's there too, for a part of the work). Because of this I also have a couple of more global responsibilities on top of working on our cell's stuff. I make sure things are done on a macro scale but I'm still officially at the same rank as everyone else, I have no authority over anyone and I'm certainly in no position to discipline or correct someone's behavior. It's just that for now we can get stuff done just fine without him.


So pretty much everyone else knows he's doing nothing because he's always the idle one 99% of the time and most of his contributions to the team are jokes and witty wordplay. Never seems to be aware of what's going on. To the point where one time someone from our team but a different cell came over to ask us a question about our stuff and useless guy immediately exclaimed "Don't ask me whatever you wanted to ask I've no idea ask Fireflash!" Now no one goes to him for anything.

I've known him for a while actually. Been on the same projects as him in the past a few times, though rarely directly working with him. Even shot the shit while drinking beers with him at after-work parties. Not the kind of person I'd be friends with but still a cool guy once in a while nonetheless.

One of my good friends who's on the team with me says that as an assistant I should just crucify him in front of the boss... I don't believe in that. I've thought about it more a bit and I'm wondering if I could approach my boss about this while not causing any issues to the guy. Like "I want to talk to you about something but please keep this between us for now and don't go shit on the guy". You see I know that there's a chance one of our guys in a solo cell might be getting a new job within the company soon. I also know that a few weeks or months from now a few more solo cells will open up when things start ramping up. I figure maybe I could push my boss to switch him to a solo cell. Somewhere where he'll have work and reports that only he will be responsible of. No one to do the work he's not doing. on top of that the cell that has the guy potentially leaving has daily tasks and reports. Knowing him I know he might not like ending up in this type of cell but at least it's a chance to let him help himself... right? So I'm wondering if I could push this idea on my boss without putting my problem guy in hot water...

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

I've thought about it more a bit and I'm wondering if I could approach my boss about this while not causing any issues to the guy. Like "I want to talk to you about something but please keep this between us for now and don't go shit on the guy".

you could say this, but it's not very realistic. If the problem is serious enough that you're reporting it to your superiors, you should expect them to actually do something about it.

If it's not directly affecting your work right now and you really don't want to make waves, just leave it alone.