It’s amazing how so many people have jobs they don’t deserve or are not qualified to do. And sadly, their attitude affects the whole work environment.
That’s why people should be assertive and professional when speaking to their boss, but never blindly support an irresponsible coworker.
Redditor maybeisuck276 encountered this very issue with his coworker. So he turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for moral judgment.
He asked:
“AITA for getting my coworker in trouble for not covering me?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“I (21m) work retail and have trouble with my coworker (19f).”
“She barely stays at work while clocked in, goes off and does whatever and no one cares.”
“We were the only two people working the store together until the afternoon, me for 3 hours by myself before she got there.”
“We were busy for an hour or so and I needed to take a quick bathroom break. Before I could say anything, as soon as we stopped being busy she was walking out the door again, talking on the phone and saying ‘I’ll be back, I have to go get something at the store’.”
OP started to get inpatient.
“At this point, I’m pissed off because she does it all the time, I had been working for 4 or so hours at this point and I really had to pee.”
“Nothing I could do so I waited for her to come back.”
“15 minutes, 25 minutes, nothing. I was at the point where I HAD to go, so I said screw it and locked the door for a couple minutes.”
“Turned out that backfired, because of course my boss tried walking in, seen the door was locked and got so f**king mad. I told her what happened and where she was, and finally someone is mad about it.”
“Coworker comes back with bags of stuff she bought, boss is waiting for her.”
“She sent her home for the day and wrote her up, and now she’s mad at ME for getting her in trouble, saying I should have covered her being gone and not said anything, told our other coworkers I’m a little b*tch and I ruined her paycheck for the week.”
“I’m not sure what I was supposed to do here, but apparently I’m the a**hole.”
Redditors gave their opinions on the situation by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Most Redditors agreed OP was not the a**hole.
“NTA. She ruined her own paycheck.” ~ dellorted
“Exactly! OP’s coworker sounds terrible. It’s not OP’s responsibility to cover for sh*tty coworkers and potentially get himself in trouble. What if he had covered for her with his boss and she then turned up with her shopping bags? That would also put OP in hot water with his boss. Definitely NTA.” ~ FeelMyAnger
“She’s actively stealing time. This is a fireable offense at pretty much every major employer. And one of those ones where it kinda doesn’t matter if you were considered a decent employee to begin with. Once it’s shown you’re willing to act like that, you can never really be trusted.” ~ SinibusUSG
“She is stealing from her boss by being clocked in and then leaving. She is stealing her pay. She is lucky she didn’t get fired straight out.”
“NTA – ‘Turned out that backfired, because of course my boss tried walking in, seen the door was locked and got so f**king mad.’ Didn’t backfire at all it was the best thing that could have happened.” ~ ArwensRose
Many were wondering why she wasn’t fired.
“NTA, your coworker sounds like a horrible worker who doesn’t do what she is told nor is a team player.”
“Honestly it’s surprising she wasn’t fired.” ~ CT0760
“I think it’s because we are so understaffed that they keep letting people do whatever because they have no one else to work, they only get pissed when it affects them personally which is why I’m looking for a new job.” ~ maybeisuck276
“If any of your other coworkers or this coworker says anything to you just tel them I’m not going to risk my job lying for you for your bad decisions. If you didn’t want to get in trouble then you shouldn’t have left. Take responsibility for your actions instead of blaming others for what YOU did. You’re not worth my job.” ~ italy2986
“This is really good advice.”
“I work a job where one person f**king up can affect all of us and I flat out will tell my coworkers I will not cover for them and if they get caught they will get in trouble (over unacceptable things not one time ‘oh can I/ I really need to do this’ or things we all do occasionally).”
“Or I tell them if they keep doing something I will tell our boss. It might not stop them but they can’t pretend to be all shocked when it actually happens.” ~ kiwiupc
Many argued this would affect their morale.
“Nothing ruins the morale of good employees like seeing the company tolerate bad ones.” ~ kristallnachte
“So true, I’ve left a couple of jobs because spineless management let a couple of lazy, irresponsible people do whatever they wanted without consequence. It completely kills morale and makes the good employees miserable.” ~ Sylaqui
“That’s the truth!! I worked with a chick who basically bullied the quiet ones. She also kissed the bosses ass all the time. She’s had lots of complaints and vets have also quit due to her b*tchiness. I no longer work there, but she still does. Go figure.” ~ kiwichick286
“Damned straight. Lady I worked with told her supervisor to do it her fucking self when told to do something on the floor, then proceeded to have a bad attitude throughout the day. Those eight hours were brutal.”
“She was nonstop complaining and threatening to quit, said she was done with this place. Ended the day cussing out everyone, with the manager telling her to go home, said she was never coming back… she showed up the next day.”
“This dragged on for months and eventually HR got involved. Nobody did anything about the cancer named Angela and they lost all the good people because of it.” ~ Keri221B
Coworkers can make or break your work life.