There’s a difference between being young and in your 20s and being middle aged in your 40s or 50s. What if you were in your 20s and had the exact same job as someone in their 40s or 50s. Would you be annoyed if they were slower at their job than you are if the job was somewhat physically demanding, or would you be understanding?

In this story, one security guard who is in his 20s works with a security guard who is in her 40s or 50s. He doesn’t think she’s lazy, but he does think she takes too long to do her job. This really annoys him, because the way their job works, when she’s slower, it slows him down and cuts into his break time.

Now, he’s thinking about complaining about her to their supervisor, but he’s not sure if that’s a good idea or a bad idea.

Let’s read the whole story to decide.

WIBTA if I told my supervisors about my coworker?

So I (22M) got a security job about a month ago.

This place doesn’t have a ton of workers or traffic, so there’s only so many people on security at any given time. 99% of the time there’s only 2 of us.

Most of the week, I work with the same coworker (mid 40’s to mid 50’s F).

Basically how we work things, every hour, one of us is doing a particular route around the plant, and we have to alternate and be on time.

This sounds frustrating.

Here’s my issue: A lot of the time she is incapable of being on time.

Now being a few minutes late to start a route isn’t anything bad, it happens. But every time she goes to take a route, she takes over the allotted time, over an hour, sometimes reaching almost 90 minutes.

This, in turn, makes me late getting started and back, giving me less down time.

Also, I should say we don’t get an actual lunch break, we eat when we have down time, but she’s cutting into mine every single route. Less time for bathroom breaks because I can’t leave the office if she’s not here and so on.

He clarifies the real problem.

I’ve been considering telling our supervisors and wondering WIBTA?

Also to clarify. I’m an able bodied guy, and my route is slightly shorter than hers, maybe saving 10 minutes, but she doesn’t know these routes, only her longer one.

I know both of the routes but that doesn’t help her.

She’s also not being generally lazy, she’s generally pretty tired coming back, often pounding down some water. She’s just generally incapable, not lazy.

It sounds like he’s not equally matched with his coworker, but if she’s not lazy and just takes longer, I’m thinking maybe he’s being too hard on her.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee whose dietary restrictions caused the whole office to turn against her.

Let’s see if Reddit agrees.

One person shares their rule when dealing with coworkers.

This is a good question and suggestion.

This person thinks he should report her.

Another person thinks he needs to be careful how he phrases it.

It sounds like the coworker is doing her job to the best of her ability. It’s not like she’s just being lazy and making it take a long time on purpose. If her route is longer, it’s valid that it takes her longer than it takes him. The idea of switching routes seems like a good idea.

I’m kind of wondering if OP is the lazy one. He seems annoyed that she’s taking longer because it cuts into how much free time he has. While that’s valid, if he still has plenty of time for lunch and breaks, then he shouldn’t worry about it. And by plenty of time, I mean the normal amount of time you’d get if you had standard lunch breaks.

If he talks to the supervisor, I hope he does it in a helpful way, such as suggesting switching routes instead of trying to get her fired.