Furious at colleague who doesn't pull their weight

BigAunty

""Colleague X hasn't done any work on the project in an entire month while I completed my half last week. If you base our next bonus on actual work done she might realize she can't get away with piggy backing on my efforts and it will force her to pull finger. I want to be recognized for my efforts and because I'm !!!!ed off I want you to acknowledge her lack of effort by penalizing her financially. Why should she get paid the same as me for doing so much less?". I know that sounds just plain nasty which is why I can't say it. "

Hmmmn. Feedback is supposed to be constructive, non-judgemental, specific, and come up with next steps. How about your research best practice for giving feedback online and pop back with a more viable way of doing this and which offers a solution, not just outlines an issue in a negative way?

breaking_free

BigAunty wrote: »

However, I don't understand from your post if you even want to do more copywriting and your colleague's behaviour and management's behaviour is stopping you from doing this? I don't need to do more copywriting - I just want to share the responsibility for doing the hard stuff.

Or if you simply despise the fact that your colleague won't do the technical side and is earning a similar sum? Yep.

By the way, do you adapt pre-designed templates or hand-code? I am trying to understand how technical your role is. I do both. I'm actually a technical writer who has previously configured company templates and styles using Author-it, Help & Manual and Framemaker. We have just purchased Madcap Flare and are porting all our paper and online documentation across to that, hence the need to create templates and configure everything.

My colleague seems to be waiting for me to figure everything out so that she can just do the typing as usual. We had a meeting today with the line manager to discuss what we'd produced. I was able to demonstrate that I have completely recreated the paper-based templates and styles while my colleague said she'd been 'researching' how to do it (for an entire month). My line manager praised both of us for everything we'd done even though my colleague has nothing to show for her efforts and keeps tapping me up with "How do I do xyz" questions. I'm gutted.

BigAunty

I can see why you find your colleague's behaviour annoying.

However, in my present company (a large organisation with 250 people in my particular role), we are expected to mentor new employees for a period of months where no question should be regarded as trivial or annoying. We are also encouraged to continue to ask our peers questions and seek support whenever necessary. We are trained to be respectful at all times and to give only constructive feedback.

Okay, so there's a performance management system in place for weak employees, regular management meetings to discuss issues, and mandatory development plans in place which may have picked up the issues your colleague is having and addressed them far better and far earlier. And I am comparing apples and pears with the size of the organisation and composition of our teams.

However, the attitude and behaviour you display towards your colleague and management, if I displayed this in my current place, would not be tolerated. (I know you are probably more open and hostile on the forum than you are in the work place so I am not making a judgement here, you clearly need to let off steam).

BigAunty

At interviews I've had recently, the competency based questions have been along the lines of 'give an example

'when you had to influence a senior manager to get an action or decision you wished'
'when you encountered resistence in something you were trying to achieve and how you dealt with this'
'how you worked with a team to accomplish a goal'
'how you deal with conflicting priorities'
'how you have built up the capabilities of yourself and others to perform better at your job'

etc etc

If I was to reply using your attitude and proposed solution (via the recommended STARR structure of outlining the Situation, providing an overview of the Task/issue that needed to be addressed, listing the Actions/steps I took to resolve it, detailing the Results, and then critically Reflecting on how I would have done it differently in hindsight or what I learned from it'), I would never get a job offer from an employer.

The response would be something like

'My co-worker is lazy. I resolved to make her do her share of technical duties . I did this by complaining to management, demanding a payrise on my behalf or pay cut on hers, threatening to leave and by making clear to my colleague that I disliked providing support to her. The result is I believed that I was too good for the company that's why I'm at this interview. On reflection, I was definitely the better employee and it's the company's loss',

btw, I hate competency based interviews, often wander off the STARR formula, get tongue tied and have recently got rather hurtful feedback on my performance at interview. But still, this is how it is done, it is what it is.

Sorry to be cheesy but you can you not turn this crisis into an opportunity to impress your current or future employer, rather than hack off your colleague and line manager?

Something along the lines of

'My colleague and I have identical job descriptions.

I found my colleague was under-confident in the technical side which left less opportunity for me to do the creative side. I felt also that operationally, it would be better if we were equally skilled so that project work was completed on time when either one of us were on annual leave, for example, and achieve a better delivery of services to the customer.

I addressed this by discussing this issue sensitively with my colleague who confirmed they were underconfident at this aspect of the work. I provided extra training and mentoring to my colleague, encouraging her to write a training/procedure document/notes that she could refer to, I took an online course/performed research in how to give constructive feedback so that I could provide the right type of encouragement, I gained consent from my manager to help her develop a personal development plan that addressed x/y/z area and together we worked to help her achieve it.

As a result, the roles become more balanced and my colleague became confident and competent at the previously weak side of the role, my colleague and manager thanked me for my assistance and this was reflected in my performance appraisal which noted my excellent team work skills.

On reflection, I may have done x/y differently but overall I learned how to mentor, motivate and train a colleague.

KiKi

breaking_free wrote: »

My colleague seems to be waiting for me to figure everything out so that she can just do the typing as usual. We had a meeting today with the line manager to discuss what we'd produced. I was able to demonstrate that I have completely recreated the paper-based templates and styles while my colleague said she'd been 'researching' how to do it (for an entire month). My line manager praised both of us for everything we'd done even though my colleague has nothing to show for her efforts and keeps tapping me up with "How do I do xyz" questions. I'm gutted.

Firstly, that doesn't mean your manager doesn't realise the issue. I have people in my team like this - and I would never criticise one team member in front of another in a meeting; I'd deal with it separately. I know full well who does the best work and who doesn't.

A question: is she actually creating copy or just typing out copy that's given to her? Copywriting is a real skill and whilst many people can write well, not many people can write great copy. Is it possible (don't shoot me!) that your manager doesn't think you're a great copywriter and actually *wants* her to do all that copy stuff?

Either way, the way I'd position it is this:
* You've recognised that you're a single point of failure in your team because only one person who does the technical side, and you're concerned about the impact on clients when you take leave or if you're ill
* You've been thinking about how to manage this risk for the business, and the best way is to upskill others to ensure that there is continuity should the worst happen, especially given all the ongoing changes in client software and IT platforms etc (or something more techy!)
* You're also concerned that you've not had exposure to the copywriting side of things for a while, and again, this is a risk for the business as the risk all sits with one person
* You propose that to make things more seamless for clients, you work on a client basis - ie, you do all tech and all writing for X client, and your colleagues also take the same approach
* This will also speed up the development process (your colleague's not sitting around waiting!) and so the service for clients will be more efficient and better managed

This is the approach I'd take - ie, this is about your clients and the organisation's reputation - this is NOT about your colleague. No matter how right you are about your colleague, if you make it about her you'll be the one who looks like a PITA.

KiKi

breaking_free

Big Aunty and Kiki, thanks for taking the time to write such well thought out and constructive replies. I'll be borrowing quite a few of your words when I talk to my line manager later

You're both bang on the money about my attitude (and yes I am letting off a far greater amount of vitriolic steam on the forum than I would in person). I came on here to ask how best to handle the situation and lots of posters have given me great advice. Thanks to everyone.

With luck I'll have something more positive to report after I speak privately to my line manager today.

pinpin

How did she get the job out of interest?

breaking_free

She obviously did well enough at the interview to get hired.

I know that there were only a few applicants (there is an under supply of technical writers compared to available jobs) and the others were all deemed unsuitable for one reason or another.

She was taken on as somebody who wasn't familiar with our publishing tool (Author-it) but would be trained up by me and my line manager. That was nearly 3 years ago and she still asks me questions that a novice would ask ('I've deleted the files but the folder is still there. Why?" Answer: because you didn't delete the folder) instead of using the Help system to find the answer.

Incidentally she's been with the company only 3 months fewer than I have AND has been a technical author working with computers for 5 years longer than I have. It truly baffles me that somebody so technologically unsavvy has managed to get a job documenting technology :doh:

FBaby

My line manager praised both of us for everything we'd done even though my colleague has nothing to show for her efforts and keeps tapping me up with "How do I do xyz" questions. I'm gutted.

And that's where your problem lies. Whatever you've said so far, for whatever reasons, they are happy with her work. I expect because between the two of you, there are getting the outcome they need so no point from their perspective in changing the status quo.

If you complain too much about having the same job description but doing different work, they could just re-write her job to fit what she actually does, with the same title and same salary and then there will be nothing for you to do.

If I were you, I would focus on you and let her be, either by doing everything to impress them, so that you could be in line for promotion (when she is not), or by looking for another job.

theoretica

Would changing your job title benefit you? Organisations can often be more open to that than changing pay.

Have you trained your colleague to use the help function? At the moment you have possibly trained her that the way to answer questions is to ask you. A few times of: let me lean over your shoulder while you ask help, what might you type as the query, why would you say this has happened, what have you tried so far - any of these might help by making other ways of working things out easier.