What do you do about co-workers slacking off (in a job where you actually care about what you are doing)

another reason you want to keep your boss informed is your slack friend might be telling the boss you're the one taking long lunches and not doing any work. because people can be mercenary like that.

Happily, a few people have either chosen to move on or been chased up recently, so things do change. Just slowly.

My main problem, however, is a certain ration of employees don't feel it necessary to do any work when they are on the desk. Two people are usually on the desk at a time, except for at night, when it is three. One guy I work, who is is assistant manager, spends all his time at the desk working on his own stuff, which we all use the time to do when we are not at the desk, and/or talking to patrons for interminably long periods of time, especially when there are numerous people in line. Some others will disappear for 15 minutes or so when they are supposed to be at the desk. It's just a bit confusing. At least half of our day is spent not on the desk, so I don't understand why people find it so hard to be at the desk when the schedule calls for it.

There's tons of stuff to do at the desk, check books in, check books out, answer the phones, give people libary cards etc, and if one person is doing nothing, it can put a strain on the other person, when it's busy. When it's not busy, it's just kind of annoying, like why are they not doing any work, when I am doing work? I mean, sure, we'd probably all like to not do any work, but out of simple consideration for your co-workers you would like to think people might make an effort.

This was my situation at 1 pm and at 3 pm today. But I reached the breaking point at 7 pm. A lot of part-timers work nights and are in college, but are very immature. This one guy who I work with never does anything, but novice crossword puzzles, and never even looks up from the desk on the rare occasion that he is sitting there, so of course patrons don't go to him, they come to me or the other person. And we do all the work when he sits there doing crossword puzzles. And for a young person, this job does actually pay pretty well by the hour, you might think they would be more appreciate.

So I was already annoyed bc I had to work two shifts with the first annoying guy, so then I find myself in the same position with the second annoying guy. This cool girl is dealing with patrons, I'm shelving the reserves, and this guy is chatting with the shelvers, with his whole body turned away from the desk. So between me and this other girl, we asked him about five different times, "can you get the phone?" "can you help this patron?" or just called his name to get his attention so he would help out. Finally, I got so annoyed, I just said, "XXX, can you PLEASE help us??" And he said, alright, alright, chill, and came up and basically did work for the remaining hour.

The thing that annoys me also, is that it puts me in the position of having to nag, of having to seem like his mother, or something. I don't care what he does when he's not on the desk, but get frustrated when he's on the desk and doesn't do anything. I wouldn't speak to the higher ups--but one new crazy woman did--and the only result was that my boss said to this guy, "Oh, I hear you are quite the lady's man." This woman told my boss that he and this other girl didn't do any work and just flirted all the time, which is true.

I can acknowledge that when I was that age and i worked nights in a bookstore without any managers around, I would just sit at the information desk, and not run around and shelve books like I was supposed to, but these people don't even do that. Any my job was very low paying. What do they think they are getting paid for? Anyway, yes, suggestions, please.

You could totally work at a library, T. And, if you wanted to make a little more than most of us make, you could do the IT stuff. Don't even get me started on the inefficiencey of our IT guy. I'd love to write more but am a bit paranoid.

I just had a thought. Maybe people who don't do their share of work are like people who don't pick up their fair share of the check. Lack of some intrinsic societal fairness valve? Or scrupulous desire to exploit/use/get the better of others?

Absolutely! This is the worst part of it all, having to seem like the fucking nagging wife as he jabbers on to customers ad infinitum and acts like lord of the manor when actually you're trying to do some work, not that I don't speak to customers.

Anyway today it turns out my boss asked me about it, and seems to be fairly aware of what's going on. I did tell him when he asked about the lunch breaks and he was surprised but said he couldn't really do anything unless the worker in question messed about while working with the boss, which is hardly likely.

I felt a bit guilty cos my boss was like "if there's bad stuff going on you need to tell me" and I was caught between telling the truth and a constant paranoia that I was exaggerating or not being honest, but I did caveat everything with "I am not trying to cause a big conflict etc".

It seems the phone bill for the shop is up alot too.

It just bugs me so much even having to be pissed off with a co-worker, as I say anyone who works in a record store nowadays knows how hard it is to keep making ends meet and his slacking off really pisses me off particularly when he's supposed to be a good friend of the boss too.

Kepp the head down and I'd say it'll be alright. Worst comes to the worst be direct with him. Who's he going to run to? Relax and all good things come to those who wait.

Then kill him.

Horribly.

Lunch breaks? Just tell him that he's only allowed 30 minutes.

Re phonecalls: I didn't realize it was allowed to make social calls. Noone at our place can do this. Only the frigging cleaning lady does this. Granted it was on her cellphone. She *complained* her son called. I replied:"A good idea would be to turn off your cellphone while at work."

It's fine for someone to make a personal call at work, with the understanding that none of us ever do unless it's absolutely necessary (ie almost never). And it's fine in theory to take a bit longer on your break, but once again we seldom do, or at least do so intentionally. There's never been letter of the law before cos noone's ever pushed things.

I did actually tell him direct but he pretended he didn't realise he was taking really long lunch breaks, he actually said "oh my watch must be broken" and mumbled for a bit, I mean a fucking 7 year old would come up with better. It really bugged me that he wouldn't even say "yeah listen I took an hour an a half break".

Or go with Plan A above.