What do you do about a coworker who gets to work 2 hours late, takes 2-3 hour lunches and leaves early?

I've worked with many brokerage teams throughout my past and have never experienced a coworker who arrives to work late every single day, takes very extended lunches, slacks off at work, and leaves early. I find it ridiculous that they're being paid almost the same salary as me when they don't get their work done.

I don't want to look like a complainer and bring this up to my boss because I've heard that it is better not to say anything. I have to constantly work together with him on projects and I am always doing 95% of the work while they're playing on their phone all day. This coworker takes 2-3 hour lunches with his girlfriend and probably actually does work for 1-2 hours a day. Our manager has been very angry with our team/department because we missed a few deadlines due to my coworker being lazy. My coworker's reasoning is that everyone is on vacation and working from home, so he feels like he shouldn't need to work as hard because everyone else isn't. I've tried talking with him in a calm matter to explain that we need to get our shit together but he continues to slack off. What do you do in situations like this?


 

Are you an intern on the team? If so there's not much you can do in terms of getting him to do more work. The only thing that you can do is the same thing you'd do if you were at school: talk with your boss and show that you are doing work so that the blame can't be pinned on you at the end of the day.

 
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Anonymous Monkey:

I've worked with many brokerage teams throughout my past and have never experienced a coworker who arrives to work late every single day, takes very extended lunches, slacks off at work, and leaves early. I find it ridiculous that they're being paid almost the same salary as me when they don't get their work done.

I don't want to look like a complainer and bring this up to my boss because I've heard that it is better not to say anything. I have to constantly work together with him on projects and I am always doing 95% of the work while they're playing on their phone all day. This coworker takes 2-3 hour lunches with his girlfriend and probably actually does work for 1-2 hours a day. Our manager has been very angry with our team/department because we missed a few deadlines due to my coworker being lazy. My coworker's reasoning is that everyone is on vacation and working from home, so he feels like he shouldn't need to work as hard because everyone else isn't. I've tried talking with him in a calm matter to explain that we need to get our shit together but he continues to slack off. What do you do in situations like this?

Sounds like you need to communicate to your boss if he is slacking off so much making the team look bad.
"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

That sucks. Dealing with untalented and, ahem, ‘lower quality’ people is my biggest gripe about real estate. I would allude to the situation to the boss. But, if you wanted to work with hardworking people you should’ve gone into banking or law, not brokerage. You reap what you sow my friend.

 

There's too much nuance in this situation for us to definitively tell you how to handle it. In some cases, going to the boss is the right call. In many others, keeping your head down is preferable. 

Ultimately, the only thing you can control is your own effort. Keep pumping out good work, and if it goes unnoticed, start looking elsewhere. 

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

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