Sneaky, Sneaky Co-workers

Misbehaving co-workers endanger your livlihood. If you know about a misbehaving co-worker you are automatically in a double bind, given the equally unpleasant choices of turning in the miscreant - being a despicable snitch - or putting up with it and saying nothing (ie) betraying your employer by being complicit in the misbehavior. Neither one of these are very pleasant, which is why your misbehaving co-worker not only does not hide the misdeeds, but rather would prefer you know about it so you will be in that nasty double bind.

Think about it: If you turn this person in what do you gain? You focus the spotlight of management not only on this person, but also yourself. Are you so pure that you have absolutely nothing to hide? I'm not. You probably aren't so, either. So who wants that? And if the co-worker is not canned, you've made an enemy - actually a few, because no one else you work with is going to trust you so much, you snitch, you.

Your boss isn't going to be grateful that you've brought an unpleasant problem to solve. In fact, it's just possible that the boss was aware all along and was happily ignoring what was going on. I'd probably say it was more than likely. Now the boss isn't happy anymore. And if the boss has something to hide - well, you see the mess you've created. You're the one who's the most inconvenient.

It gets worse than this. Your misbehaving co-worker is going to try and tempt you into misbehavior, also. There's a good chance that you might indeed want to work a little less hard than you do, especially if you have a real butt head job. And this way you're both of you in the same boat and you can be black mailed into silence, because you're doing it, too.

Yes. I have a story that goes with this one.

Back when I was in college, one of my jobs was as an evening security guard as a parking ramp. Before you turn your nose up at me for this, it's an excellent job for a student because you have a good deal of time where you are actually not guarding a damn thing and have time to study your course work. I didn't. But I could have.

I was working at the parking ramp with a very charming, but shifty fellow named Jim. Shifty Jim would nightly regale me with amusing stories of his shiftiness. I guess I envied him a bit, wishing that like him I could also do so many wonderful things like he did without worrying about a conscience to bother me.

One Friday night, a couple of hours before quitting time, Shifty Jim told me that I could take off and he would cover for me, and then the following Friday, I could do the same for him. Sounded good. So, I left and for the next couple of months or so we took turns covering for each other and I didn't feel very bad, because the security company didn't pay all that much and I wasn't taking off that many hours anyways.

Then one Wednesday, about four hours before our shift was supposed to end, Shifty Jim told me that he'd signed up for an evening class which he was going to right now, and if I wanted to report him I could. And then he left. Well, I couldn't report him, could I? He had just about as much dirt on me as I had on him - he'd made sure of that - so all I could do was sit it out and hope no manager from the company came by enquiring where Shifty Jim was. Eventually, that was precisely what happened and I was then in the position of having to come up with some sort of lame lie to cover for myself, and I barely kept that job, though - really - I should have been just as fired as Shifty Jim.

What should I have done? First of all, (obviously) I should have made sure I was doing my job, regardless of what anybody else was doing. Should I have reported him, if I hadn't been taking off myself? That one I'm not sure of. Probably in that case, I could have, because what he was doing was so egregious but also he wouldn't have done it in the first place if he hadn't carefully laid his foundation of blackmail so that I couldn't.

If you have a co-worker like this, I think you have every right to be angry right from the start. Somebody has to do the work they're getting out of and that nice person is probably you. And they are putting you in an unpleasant situation that you didn't ask for. Maybe what you want to do when you start a new job, you might want to let it slip out that you just cannot keep any kind of secret of any kind, ever. That could well save you some trouble later down the line.