There’s always that one coworker who does the bare minimum and expects everyone else to pick up the slack.

When one phlebotomist’s rude coworker tried to manipulate their working schedules in her favor, the phlebotomist figured out a clever way to turn the clock against her.

Read on for the full story!

Boss says I can’t come in early to set up my cart. So I come in right at clock in. Coworker who leaves early gets mad at me

So, this happened back in 2015 through 2016.

I (now 28F) was working as a phlebotomist in a local hospital, and I worked first shift, which was about 3 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Despite the early call time, she still liked to get a head start on the day.

I loved to come in about 10 to 15 minutes early and set up my cart.

Nothing fancy, just metal wired shelving types, and we had our own personal phlebotomist trays that we put in the top section of the cart.

I didn’t always restock my tray before leaving my shift, so I’d typically come in early to organize it and get my metal cart ready.

Once the work was done, she had time to relax.

It usually took me maybe five minutes to put my tray on a cart and put the handful of tubes I needed back in place.

Then, I’d spend the rest of my time waking up in the break room with coffee.

Well, one woman (can’t remember her age) who came in to work a few months after I started and I had issues.

I found her lazy and rude.

She lists several examples.

• She would come in and snap at people when they tried to help her.
• She would take a book with her during morning rush (which was 3 a.m. – 6/7 a.m.), sit on the floor to read, and not come back to the lab to help after collecting her labs.
• She would hang out during the nurses’ celebrations and not come back for hours at a time.
• She wouldn’t clock in until the last second and then she’d clock out the earliest minute she could.

There was no end to her rudeness.

When it was time to start the morning rush, she’d get mad if someone took the stack of labs she wanted and would go demanding them.

She and I worked the same overnight shift, but I got tired of her attitude and switched shifts.

Then the rude coworker started blatantly taking advantage of her.

Well, like I said, I liked to come early and set up my cart before I clocked in.

She figured this out quickly, so she would try to hand me the stroke or trauma pager — something that needed to be handed to the next phlebotomist scheduled to take it that shift.

But she’d try to give me hers even if I wasn’t scheduled for it, and I refused, saying, “I’m not clocked in yet.”

So, she just left it on my cart a few times without telling me, which led to it going off for a call to the ER.

I had to clock in early.

The two get into a heated confrontation and the supervisor was no help.

When I saw her in the lab again, I told her to never do that again.

The conversation got heated, which led to a meeting with me, the coworker, and our supervisor.

Our supervisor took her side and said, “Just take it, and if it goes off, you clock in, and then I will adjust the clock-in on the computer,” saying she’d shorten my time on the clock.

So she decided to adjust her schedule to avoid this.

So I said fine.

I set my alarm for later in the mornings and started coming in at the last minute I could to clock in at 2:59 a.m.

But showing her rude coworker she wasn’t her assistant was all worth it.

Yes, it made me start my rush a little later, but the look on my coworker’s face when she saw me later (right before she was to clock out) as she was trying to hand me a pager I wasn’t scheduled to have — and I already had the one I was supposed to —was priceless.

She complained to the supervisor, who tried to talk to me, but I said, “Well, I’m not supposed to be here until 3, so that’s when I get here and clock in now. I don’t want my hours messed up.”

This time, the supervisor agreed with her, much to her coworker’s dismay.

She didn’t even try to argue.

The coworker was very upset. She even screamed through the lab, demanding someone take her pager so she could go home.

It was still 20 minutes until her shift was done.

Malicious compliance: Some powerful stuff!

What did Reddit have to say?

You expect a certain level of professionalism with healthcare workers.

The boss doesn’t come out of this story looking so hot either.

Managers don’t always look out for their employees the way you’d expect.

A reminder to always treat others how you want to be treated in return.

Funny how the rules suddenly mattered when they weren’t working in her favor.

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