He Answered His Manager’s Question Honestly. Now His Slack-Off Coworker Is Facing Consequences.
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Imagine working on a project at work, and another employee comes over to help you. If the supervisor later asked you if this coworker was actually helpful, would you answer honestly even if he was actually really lazy, or would you pretend like he was helpful so he wouldn’t get in trouble?
In this story, one employee is in this situation and answers honestly, but now they’re wondering if that was actually the wrong thing to do since the coworker ended up getting in trouble.
I think honesty is definitely the best policy in this case. Nobody should cover for lazy coworkers. Keep reading to see if you agree.
AITA for answering a supervisor’s question which resulted in a coworker getting talked to by a manager?
AITA Last week on Friday, I was assigned to do a somewhat routine but mundane task that takes time but isn’t very difficult.
About part way through, a coworker comes over to help though he only did the easy part before wandering off without saying anything to me.
After taking my break, I moved to another area to complete the rest of that mundane task, and coworker comes to help again.
OP is clearly doing more of the work than the coworker.
Before getting to work, he casually tells me he’s having a “lazy day”, then proceeds to help do the easy part, while also not paying attention to small details that aren’t a super big deal but make the project look sloppy.
He did help with some of the clean up, though part way through he randomly decides to take his lunch break.
I’m not one to leave something partially done before I take a break, so I continued working on it.
The supervisor had questions.
About 10 minutes later, as I was finishing up, the supervisor on sight comes to ask me if coworker was helping and why he was in the break area while I was still doing work.
I explained that coworker helped do mostly the easy part, and left part way through the clean up on this one area, but I stayed to finish it up and should be taking my break soon.
Supervisor was frustrated, especially when he saw some of the sloppy-ness of the help coworker provided, and I was able to voice that I was a little frustrated as well.
I took my break and planned to go back to work on that project, but Supervisor decided that he and coworker would finish that project and sent me to another area to work.
Then the manager got involved.
Supervisor later told manager, who asked me what happened.
I explained the situation, and manager decided to talk to coworker about it.
I only know that coworker got talked to because later in the day, Manager pulled me in to his office to let me know that he talked to coworker and that he does take concerns and complaints seriously.
We had a staff meeting today where manager talked about how we need to start working more as a team and communicate with each other better, which I suspect is a result of this situation.
OP feels bad.
I do feel bad that coworker got talked to, as he’s been talked to several times over the past year, both by management and HR, but I was asked by my supervisor a question and I answered honestly.
I wish supervisor didn’t bring it up with manager, though I understand its their job to do so, and it’s my manager’s job to make sure we’re all doing our jobs, but now coworker is mad at me, which will make it more difficult to work with him as he’ll probably give me the cold shoulder for the next few weeks.
So AITA for answering my supervisor’s question which resulted in coworker getting talked to?
The coworker is clearly the problem. Reporting the problem doesn’t make you the problem. The coworker needs to start working harder, or he’s going to lose his job.
Let’s see if Reddit agrees.
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This person thinks the coworker should be happy.
Clearly, she’s not the one who messed up.
Another person explains that she’s not responsible for what the supervisor does.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a military employee who kept repeating the same “wrong” audit until his commanding officer was fired.
This person thinks management did the right thing.
Her lazy coworker is probably going to get fired eventually if he doesn’t start working harder. It’s not her job to lie to prevent him from getting into trouble, especially when his laziness is making her own job harder than it should be.
She did the right thing. Management handled it well. The only one who messed up here was the coworker.
Laziness is not a good quality at work.
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