by Pat Lunsford

Created on: January 23, 2007   Last Updated: September 27, 2010

Experience has taught me that when you are a competent worker and the slacker receives favor from the boss it can make your life miserable. You have to examine the situation and decide for the sake of your emotional and mental well being if the job is really worth it.

Competent people have very little tolerance for incompetence, especially when it is rewarded. When you put forth your best efforts every day and get your work done on time you get a tremendous feeling of frustration when it is not only unappreciated, but the boss points to your one trivial mistake. Then the slacker, the one who was in your way, the one who coasted all day, gets a pat on the back for something small and insignificant.

I have been in this situation and have learned that it wears on your self esteem and messes with your mind. Your resentment grows, making you bitter and it will reflect upon your personal life. I have experienced all of these things. I had a family that depended on me and I felt like I was being silly for allowing the situation to bother me. For several weeks I tried to let it go over my head, believing I could deal with it, convincing myself that it didn't matter. My paycheck was what mattered so why let it bother me, right?

When we suppress strong emotions for any length of time they will manifest in other ways. Family and friends had to sit through endless ravings about my job and how the slacker coasted through the day. I took these feelings to bed every night and couldn't sleep, making me moody and unpleasant to be around.

As it turned out I confronted the slacker which ended badly. I took it to the boss who basically said I should worry about my own work and let him worry about the other employees. Ultimately, I ended up quitting after making a big scene at work, telling the boss and the slacker how I felt about them. I found another job within just a few days and looking back on it all I wondered why I stayed as long as I did because my mental and emotional state improved 100%.

Years later I found myself in the same situation. I had worked for the company for about three years when the slacker was hired. It was the same as before. The slacker came in late every day and was the first one to leave at the end of the shift. He knew every trick in the book for coasting through the day and quickly gained the boss's favor.

This time I found a another job first then confronted the slacker. It was the same as before. He laughed it off. I went to the boss, gave him a two-week notice, and told him I wasn't going to carry my full workload plus the work that the slacker leaves unfinished. His first reaction was one of indifference. Two days later he was jumping on the slacker for every little thing he did wrong and after a few days of this the slacker quit. I withdrew my resignation.

The slacker knows how to push work off on other employees while kissing up to the boss and most of the time the boss is so busy soaking up the brown nosing that he may not realize the effect it's having on other employees. In some cases the boss doesn't really care about the other employees, in which case you have to choose whether you can tolerate it or not.

Therefore, if you can see that the slacker isn't going anywhere and you know you won't be able to tolerate the situation much longer, the best course of action would be to try for a transfer or another job altogether.

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