How do I deal with this lazy coworker?

As you can tell from the title, I have the unfortunate pleasure of working with one of the laziest human beings on this planet. Let's call him Joe (I don't want to use his real name because he might find this)

Physical description: Obese, weighs close to 300 pounds, has tattoos and a big beard which is very unprofessional.

Basically all he does during the day is call his wife at least four times, snack on food, surf the web, and then hide in random areas of the building. He even comes into work 10 minutes late EVERY DAY, and he lies on his timesheet.

Now if you thinks that's annoying enough, it gets worse. What really gets on my nerves is that he will go out of his way to nark on other employees to either make himself look good or get other people in trouble. A real shady guy. He'll also try to take credit for what me and other coworkers have done, and he tries to promote himself like he's an authority figure in the workplace. Another interesting thing:
He's OBSESSED with guns, and you can tell by all the gun stuff he has in his cubicle.

Normally I don't worry about this kinds of people, but the fact that he is in my same department means I have to look at him every day. Here I am answering calls and troubleshooting, while the big oaf sits on his booty. If I were to make the same kinds of mistakes that he does, I know darn well I'd be getting the pink slip.

But seriously, how do these people maintain a job with these unethical habits?

 

To elaborate, the guy sent my excel file to the client with calculations (and a whole lot of other stuff I don't want the client to see) and then explained to our boss that it was my fault.

All he had to all morning, from 6 to 2, is to check this presentation and calculations and make sure it was good to go. You give a dumbass easy work and they still screw it up and make you look stupid.

 

First, make sure you are truly "in the right" and can articulate your position effectively.

Then, single him out in a public place and call him out while he is mentally unprepared. Rip him a new one in front of everyone.

Let him know that you will not tolerate that BS. Make an example of him.

Don't get a reputation as a pussy.

***I'm not in ibanking yet, but this works in D1 athletics - a realm in which I have some experience.

Group dynamics and reputation are a big deal.

"Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Protect it with your life" - 48 Laws of Power, or some shit.

For what it's worth, +Hammy

 

Are you at work now? glares

Just kidding. OK from my professional experience (not banking) it is never good to be the group tattle tale. Most likely you are not the only one who knows about this, since you said he does nothing to add any growth. You also said he comes late and leaves early and I assure you that doesn't go unnoticed. As long as the work gets done then I imagine the uppers don't mind. I am sure that they know what work you are doing. Keep up with it and I'm sure you will get rewarded one day.

What groups typically don't like are the "life isn't fair this guy does less work and makes more money" game. He might have worked just as hard as you not to mention he has seniority on you. If you say anything it will most likely get back to the guy and then you will have a worse working environment. Keep your mouth shut and keep peace or open it and cause more trouble for you. Suck it up it won't last forever. Another thing I have noticed is it is very rare to get "thank yous" and "job well dones" from people for doing your work, but stop doing it and I know that they will definately have something to talk about then and it won't be positive.

 

Agreed Pumpkin1621, but still, it is extremely frustrating given that every time I turn around he is on espn.com or some other website blogging in mandarin chinese. I just wish I could set him up in some way and make associate a year earlier.

 

Can't relate to this specific industry but agree with comments above... His lackluster work ethic isn't going unnoticed... Stick it out.

 

People like this will get what's coming to them. I guess just have some patience as long as he doesn't hold you back too much.

Banking > VC > Tech PE; PM me if you would like any advice I'm happy to help
 

If it really bothers you, why don't you write him an annonymouse note. keep it professional and to the point.

Your goal should be to make him aware of what he's doing. It is up to him to want to change.

 

Be a tattle-tale -- honestly, people who speak up get geeked up (as in promoted) so do the dirty and get the worthy (that's praise) -- no but in all seriousness write an anonymous email to the MD -- that my 2 cents (discounted at premium of course!)

LA Bull
 
confused23:

I am working with a second year associate who lives in Connecticut with kids. He gets in at 10 PM and leaves before midnight, never coming in on the weekends. On the projects that I am staffed on with him, he rarely helps out and oftentimes, volunteers more work from me. I know that he is higher up on the totem pole, and technically he can have me doing all the work and just "check" if he wanted to, but it's hard not to give him a little push back. How do I deal with this?

speed boost blaze
 
Whiskey5:

ha, i worked with an associate comes in at 2-3 PM and leaves at 6 PM.
suck it up and do the work is the best advice. people will start to notice.

God help you if I was your associate.

Under my tutelage, you will grow from boys to men. From men into gladiators. And from gladiators into SWANSONS.
 

I had an associate who transferred from our head office. She got >1 hour in late every morning, out by 6 most days, no intellectual curiosity or desire to do work, but plenty of assurance that the head office way of doing things was best. She delegated to juniors most of anything work I or others delegated to her, including work which she really should have done herself.

I and others picked up on this quickly. If you're unlucky, your useless associate is on of those psychopaths who makes an effort to treat superiors like royalty and treats their peers and juniors like shit. Then you hope that your VP/director has enough experience/empathy to spot the problem.

If the problem persists and, as in your case, your under and not above the problem, talk to your division's HR contact if he/she is a good one. Our HR person is excellent at receiving intel and passing it back to the right people in a way that doesn't cause problems (which is what a good HR should do as morale monitor).

If your HR is useless or doesn't work this way, you'll need to talk to your VP or director.

A good VP should be approachable about this and he/she should be managing the problem. But there are many VP's who aren't good at this.

Depending on how hierarchical your organisation is and how god-like your director is, you could just go to your director.

If this is not possible, then at least consider how to raise it at your staff review, although be diplomatic in how you put it. An comment that implies your associate is lazy should do the message. For example, a comment that you don't believe the team is adequately resourced on a deal and that this forces juniors to work without sufficient associate guidance/review, to do work which requires more input from an associate. That raises obvious questions for VP/director which will lead to questions which you should answer diplomatically (but not too obscurely).

Those who can, do. Those who can't, post threads about how to do it on WSO.
 

If you haven't done your due diligence on team relationships already, does a little DD on the relationships between any VP or director you talk to and the associate before you start any conversation. You don't want to find out the associate was the VP's best man or anything like that before you starting shooting.

Also, "you're under and not above the problem" not "your".

Those who can, do. Those who can't, post threads about how to do it on WSO.
 

I think 14 hours a day is plenty for someone with a 3 hr daily commute and kids. Make sure you know what the associate is actually doing before complaining that he doesn't help you with your work, he might have his own work to do and expects you to be able to do your part on your own. Hours worked stops correlating with actual productivity after like 50 hours or so anyway.

 
awawgoian:

I think 14 hours a day is plenty for someone with a 3 hr daily commute and kids. Make sure you know what the associate is actually doing before complaining that he doesn't help you with your work, he might have his own work to do and expects you to be able to do your part on your own. Hours worked stops correlating with actual productivity after like 50 hours or so anyway.

You either haven't worked in banking or one of those kids who would jump off a bridge of a MD tells you too; or in this case an associate.

 

Honestly, I don't try to change my work environment anymore. If a group/shop is fucked, just leave. Especially if you're dealing with the pathalogical type of megabitch that SSits talked about, and a VP/MD who doesn't see it, the place is fucked and so are you if you stay.

Get busy living
 

Does your group have a review system where analysts get to review people above them? If so, you are likely not the only analyst that feels this way about this associate - and it will come out during reviews. I worked with a similar associate in the past, and all the analysts despised working with her. Our top second year analyst brought it up during review, and everyone (including other associates) actually agreed.

 
confused23:

I am working with a second year associate who lives in Connecticut with kids. He gets in at 10 PM and leaves before midnight, never coming in on the weekends. On the projects that I am staffed on with him, he rarely helps out and oftentimes, volunteers more work from me. I know that he is higher up on the totem pole, and technically he can have me doing all the work and just "check" if he wanted to, but it's hard not to give him a little push back. How do I deal with this?

TLDR: It seems to me that the guy is doing what he should be and that you are just whining. If I'm wrong and he is actually useless and not working on anything for anyone, then bring it up with your staffer.

I'm confused here, if you mean that they come in at 10am and leave around midnight (14 hour days) as an experienced associate, that sounds about what they should be doing. Also, you haven't said whether or not they work on weekends, just that they don't come in. Most bankers who don't live in the city, or live far from the office, will work on weekends, but not come in. I live within walking distance of the office and still do most of my work from my home office on the weekends.

Even more unclear is if this banker is busy on other stuff, actually doing work, or if they are a complete slacker who just hangs out for 14 hours a day.

Taking a big step back here, his job is to monitor your work product, not necessarily to produce it himself. Your job is to make models, presentations, do research and anything else assigned to your team on a project, within reason.

--There are stupid questions, so think first.
 

deal w this shit everyday - at a certain point you will just accept it. build some credibility by consistently producing good work and talk to your staffer if he / she can arrange staffing in a manner so that you don't work frequently with the problem associate. do your DD first however.

 

Sorry for the typo I meant 10 AM. I don't think that we should factor in the associate's commute. It was his choice to live in CT and he enjoys a lower tax rate and cost of living compared to living in NYC. I come from a world with much less hierarchy, so it is tough for me to accept a middle man between the VP who draws up the pages, and an analyst who cranks out all the models and analysis who comes in later, leaves earlier, does not come in on the weekends and gets paid twice what the analyst does. Sure he has more experience and an MBA, but it still seems like an inefficient system. I will just keep my head down and keep cranking into my exit.

 

Stop being such a bitch. He's doing his job, which is to delegate as much BS to you and manage upwards. In fact, take it as a compliment that he trusts you so much. I worked with two associates like this and they kept piling me with their work because they trusted me to do it. On the flip side, they were really smart and cool guys who had done their time as analysts themselves, and taught me a ton. I appreciated what I learned from them.

Also, since when is a 14-hour facetime day for an associate light or lazy?

 

Okay, I have not posted in years, but consider this the prodigal son returning. A little background; I work in PE, never worked in banking. I have a wife and a kid. I am almost 30 with a little under 3 years in my job (did something else before, not banking/consulting). I work with multiple analysts under me on various deals. As I read it, this guy is probably in a similar position. I have to agree with those who say you are whining. His job is to manage your work. If your work sucks, he suffers. If he wants to manage you over the phone and through email, that is his prerogative. What you haven't made clear is if he isn't supporting you but providing timely feedback or giving you tips to do things better and more efficiently. If he is doing that, you shouldn't be complaining. I never ask an analyst to do something I can't do myself or haven't done myself. He's obviously older and more experienced than you, and has earned his stripes (or will have to deal with being a banker for years while you skip out to PE), so just deal with it and quit complaining. If I get pushback from an analyst, all I think is that I won't be inviting them on the next deal I catch.

 

Thank you guys for the feedback. I apologize for complaining, and you guys make a good point that my associate trusting me and being more hands off is a good thing. I guess I just come from a different background and don't fully grasp the banking hierarchy yet. Merry Xmas!

 

It's good that you're willing to learn but never drink the koolade. Get through it and get to the buyside or wherever your goal is. It's nothing personal, but you need to understand that everyone in this business is 100% disposable, so if a situaiton isn't serving your interests (whatever they are) then you need to get out. No one cares about you here.

There's nothing wrong with pointing out that finance often runs on the "dominant male monkey" principal, and that you'd have to be an emotionally retarded robot with a drug habit to believe the bullshit. Or maybe autistic. You just can't point this out to the people you actually work with.

Get busy living
 
UFOinsider:

It's good that you're willing to learn but never drink the koolade. Get through it and get to the buyside or wherever your goal is. It's nothing personal, but you need to understand that everyone in this business is 100% disposable, so if a situaiton isn't serving your interests (whatever they are) then you need to get out. No one cares about you here.

There's nothing wrong with pointing out that finance often runs on the "dominant male monkey" principal, and that you'd have to be an emotionally retarded robot with a drug habit to believe the bullshit. Or maybe autistic. You just can't point this out to the people you actually work with.

That's deep, bro.
Under my tutelage, you will grow from boys to men. From men into gladiators. And from gladiators into SWANSONS.
 

I'm an experienced analyst, and while I agree that this kind of stuff is run of the mill for banking, it still really sucks. Maybe your situation is a bit different, but I've worked with multiple associates in my group who do no work, leave early (6-7), upsell expectations with the VP/MD, create artificial deadlines with the internal team or the client without consulting me on whether that deadline is reasonable, and are entirely clueless about how to do this work themselves. I think the main point where my experience diverges from the example MPG gives is that the associates I'm talking about have NO CLUE how to do anything - in other words, if I were to just make up a bunch of numbers and text, there is a fairly high chance that they'd never know, and would deliver it shamelessly to the VP/MD or, worse, the client.

I generally feel that the associate role is pretty useless in banking. I'm not sure how it works across the street, but my group has a really strong analyst class and a really weak associate class, due mainly to the fact that there's an entrenched culture of associates doing no work which is passed on every year to the new guys. One negative externality to allowing these useless people to skate in banking is that it totally disgusts your analysts (who are typically a pretty deep talent pool - the type of people who go into banking pre-MBA are typically much more impressive than those who go post-MBA). Convincing your good analysts to do A-A is hard enough given the grueling nature of the work, but it's even harder when the analysts have no respect at all for the associates. If you have amazing associates in your group, some of the analysts might aspire to follow their footsteps, or at least think that the associate role is something people they look up to have done. When the analysts don't respect the associates, it's practically impossible to keep people past 2 years. When it's really bad, it actively encourages people to jump ship (buyside/corporate/startup) early, without even finishing the 2 years.

This may just be idiosyncratic to my group, but nothing I've said above is speculation - I've seen exactly this situation unfold in my years as an analyst. Oh well, 6 more months before leaving for the buyside (can't go by fast enough).

 
LifestyleBanker:
I've worked with multiple associates in my group who do no work, leave early (6-7), upsell expectations with the VP/MD, create artificial deadlines with the internal team or the client without consulting me on whether that deadline is reasonable, and are entirely clueless about how to do this work themselves.

This sums up my frustrations almost perfectly.

"For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now and at the hour of my death, which I hope is soon. Amen."
 

Don't rock the boat - don't moan, don't bitch, don't cry. People hate complainers or people who cause trouble. Mind your own work, if she really is sh.t it will shine through. Just make sure you are visible and people see that you work a lot (emails sent, models worked on, direct contact with VPs etc...). That's the HARD bit for you to pull, be visible.

Complaining is not the way to go, but again I don't know your situation and maybe that's what you should do.

As UFO said, I had a toxic situation and moved out to another company; but it doesn't seem that this is exactly your situation.

 

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