Incompetent Coworker
Hello Guys,
I have been at my current firm for a little over a year now. It's a small development shop based on the West Coast which does value add opportunities in office and MF. The team I am on is very small, and I only have one junior counterpart that has the same job responsibilities.
While I was friendly to her at first, it quickly became apparent this person was massively incompetent and (by their own admission) had little clue how to do any work that wasn't filling in a template. Even then, there is a very real chance that they mess it up. They have been spoken to multiple times by senior management, but it seems senior management will never fire them. Coworker has been in the workforce for way too long to not have developed the required attention to detail or financial modelling skills necessary for our role.
I tried to help them the first 4-5 times because of our friendship, but I slowly realized this wasn't helping either of us. The worst thing is that they have no desire to get better at the role. If they ask for help its for me to do the task for them - not to show them how its done. I've been in the position of messing up at a prior job, but screwing up made me hungrier to get better. It is the exact opposite with this person.
Meanwhile, I have been giving 110% since I joined. Both in work product and big picture of how I can add value. Management has noticed this, but I'm not getting much beyond "great job, thanks". I can't help but feel a very large sense of resentment that my coworker is getting paid more than me while being unable to do a large part of their job description. We're on the same promotion cycle as well.
It's hard to stay motivated given this reality. Should I ease on the throttle and start looking for other opportunities?
TL; DR Coworker absolutely sucks. I don't. We're being treated differently compensation-wise and same promotion track wise. What should I do?
The only thing you can control is you - your own effort, how you react to things, what you care about, etc. You situation would annoy me too, especially if your coworker is only there because she’s someone’s daughter, but at the end of the day you have to decide if it annoys you enough to move on.
You can stay, keep working, and live with the confidence of your capabilities and the knowledge that being capable will help you later on in life, or you can leave for hopefully greener pastures where your abilities will hopefully be more adequately rewarded.
Just know that in life things like effort and ability are rarely equal. You’ll always find people both smarter and dumber than you, more and less dedicated than you are, etc. Some people may be better at or care more about one aspect of the job while you may be better at or care more about another.
Only you can decide what your breaking point is and when differences between people become clashes instead of synergies.
I have been in a similar situation. Strongly suggest you start looking for a job because you will be the one that gets fired not the moron you work with. It's unfortunate that the employer is always right and employees are wrong no matter the situation. I wonder if you are at my previous employer since you mentioned west coast developer.
No matter what management says, you are not on the same track and they will chose this person over you! Do not voice your concerns to management!! I guarantee that you will be out of the door in 1-3 months if you complain.
In my situation, I revamped the company tools, created the company offering memorandum, introduced them to a lender that saved them over $1 million on an office acquisition, tried to coach the moron manager who had no idea what a discount rate, sources & uses, and other basic concepts are for an acquisitions lead or manager, made continuous mistakes in a write up, had no idea you could link two separate excel files, and the list goes on.
End of the day, I got fired for doing my job after 6 months. I have never worked so hard for an employer to get royally screwed. Luckily, I found a new job a month later at a new employer. It hasn't been easy but I have become a "YES MAN".
The market is challenging, start looking but it will take you 3 months to a year in the current market environment due to COVID. Also, I strongly suggest you stay away from small shops. It's mostly friends and family and no matter how much value you add, you might not be valued as much.
Stay calm, ease the throttle, don't communicate your frustration, become a "YES MAN" and start looking for a new opportunity (you can still network during COVID if you think creatively).
If you work for former tech guys who are now developers, we worked at the same shop. Good luck bud, going to be a fun roller coaster ride :)
OP - please message me directly. I feel your pain and I can give some very strategic advise to help you weather the storm.
Why do you think they canned you? You sound like a really solid employee.
Incompetent co-workers are part of life, I wouldn't stress it, the faster you learn to accept it, the better.
Not sure what you were like in college, but I'm guessing you may have been the one who did more than an equal share on group projects. Guess what, those free loaders still suck (and probably became like this co-worker), and you are probably better at your job/life/career because it.
All my life, I have benefited by doing jobs that I technically wasn't hired for, paid to do, and got not much thanks for at the moment. That let me grow my skills, efficiency, and abilities, and i def got paid in the long-run. So see it as a good thing long-run, it will benefit you.
That's an unfortunate situation to be in. Have you tried having a discussion with this coworker? or has your direct boss had a discussion with you about this person?
I''m assuming that while they are your junior counterpart they were hired before you got there. That's tough to deal with.
Having a discussion with said coworker just leads to them complaining about you to management that you are not a team player, difficult to work with, etc.
I went through this exact same situation and I promise it will not end well for OP.
Say that you don't have capacity to help. Create a scenario so that she misses a deadlines because of her incompetence. If she tries to throw you under the bus, you can then say: 1) You had no capacity. 2) You helped her with a similar model many times in the past, and that you don't understand what the issue was.
I doubt senior management would be forgiving if she missed a deadline. They might ask you for your opinion and then you can say "You don't mind helping people out, but you feel that you are being taken advantage of. I've been helping X with models for a long time, but she's prefers that I do the work for her instead of learning." Maybe you can use this as an opportunity to talk about promotions, especially since you're the competent one. If this convo leads no where, and the pay isn't that great, JOB HUNT.
Have you tried taking a vacation for management to realize that they cant get their tasks completed without you being there? Sometimes that can help build perspective for importance.
He'll just end up working like a mad man when he gets back from vacation to catch up on everything that didn't get done.
Agreed but sounds like a reasonable price to pay if you want your colleague’s true colors to be seen by management
if you cannot learn to win battles with finesse and thoughtfulness your career in this industry is capped.
direct confrontation is not the solution. management is no the solution.
quitting is an excuse.
I hear you. you’re better than this person. good. then prove it in all aspects. work product is not the end all be all. politics may be more important.
^^^^^ THIS
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