Describe the worst coworker(s) you ever had?

[Braznor]

I had this guy who never took responsibility and only used asskissing to get ahead.

Didn't last long, the guy got canned alongwith the guy whose ass he used to kiss.

 

[skyking]

just stopped by to say that is one of my favorite words. It can either be co-worker or cow-orker as needed.

 

[purbeast0]

at my last gig i kinda got someone fired. i was paired up with this guy to work on a project that we had about 2 months to finish. as the new guy, i was working my stuff and doing a good job. i had about 70% of the workload vs. this guys 30%.

to make a long story short, like a week before things were supposed to be finished the team lead asked us if anyone had any concerns and my teammate flat out said no issues, but i knew for a fact he didn't have anything done. so i told the team lead my concerns.

due to him not doing anything at work the past 2 months, our software was late to roll out and he ended up getting fired shortly there after.

 

[MrPickins]

at my last gig i kinda got someone fired. i was paired up with this guy to work on a project that we had about 2 months to finish. as the new guy, i was working my stuff and doing a good job. i had about 70% of the workload vs. this guys 30%.

to make a long story short, like a week before things were supposed to be finished the team lead asked us if anyone had any concerns and my teammate flat out said no issues, but i knew for a fact he didn't have anything done. so i told the team lead my concerns.

due to him not doing anything at work the past 2 months, our software was late to roll out and he ended up getting fired shortly there after.

Sounds like he got himself fired. you just hastened it a week or so.

 

[Harrod]

I used to work with a guy in a NOC that would come in each day and do nothing but watch netflix. The crazy thing is management would walk by and act like nothing was wrong.

 

[Blackjack200]

I'm losing faith that I can ever be a manager because my co-workers seem completely incapable of thinking for themselves. I answer questions for them on basic shit that they should be able to figure out for themselves, and I get those questions multiple times.

At this point, I draw every difficult assignment because they're flat out incapable, and I still have to help them with the easy ones. My poor manager is at her wits end.

 

[xSauronx]

I interned in the IT dept at a large area hospital. Most of the interns were decent guys. They were smart, motivated, willing to work and learn what they could.

One guy was a slacker. He was willing to work...sometimes. He was kinda willing to work. He was smart, but thought he was a genius. Anyway, he'd regularly do *some* work for the day, then spend the rest on his computer playing games. Never even tried to hide it. Never tried to learn more, do more, or get involved with other teams or anything. Just got a little done and slacked off.

Being in a hospital, uptime on systems is important. This guy would regularly update, reboot or work on machines without checking with anyone, or without finishing the work until the next day. He definitely caused some issues and I cannot believe he didn't get fired. Even worse---he got hired. It was on a boring team, just handling user creation/deletions, but he was such a lousy intern i was shocked.

Parking at the place is a headache, so youd park, wait a few minutes on the bus, and take a ride to the office. IF you got in early enough, between shifts, you might get a parking spot by the building. Most of the parking by the IT building was reserved for doctors and nurses, since we were near the ER. So this guy took reserved spots and got his car booted multiple times, and then started to pull into the visitor lot, card in, and go find a parking spot so he would get paid while he spent his time getting a spot and coming back.

ridiculous. the guy was completely ridiculous.

 

[Blackjack200]

So this guy took reserved spots and got his car booted multiple times, and then started to pull into the visitor lot, card in, and go find a parking spot so he would get paid while he spent his time getting a spot and coming back.

ridiculous. the guy was completely ridiculous.

Guy sounds like a douche, but I understand this part. If they make it that hard to get into the building, I'd want to get paid for that time too. Like those Amazon warehouse workers that have to wait in line to go through screening before they leave (although I think they lost their case on that).

 

[Markbnj]

A guy who wrote a 500-line function in C# inside a single try/catch block. He did very well and was ultimately promoted to upper management.

 

[darkewaffle]

Any of the many "button pushers" I work next to that have no true grasp of what they're doing beyond "Push button A, proceed to step 2 and push button B". Thank god they have, for the most part, competent managers that I get on well with so I can skip dealing with them when necessary.

I can deal with assholes and jerks and cunts. It's the incompetents that bug me the most.

 

[kranky]

A crazy lady. Just one example - we got a new big boss and big boss came to our department meeting. Crazy Lady (CL) asked me and the big boss to stay after the meeting ended. CL then told big boss that my meetings were a waste of everyone's time and we should stop holding them. Big boss said "you mean like the meeting we just had? I thought it was useful and communicated information that everyone needed to have, and productive - it wasn't a waste of time in my view."

CL's brain apparently cannot process what big boss said and comes back with "Exactly! All these meetings are like that!" Big boss says OK, is there anything else? CL gives me a smug grin and says no, she just wanted to make big boss aware. Big boss calls me 10 minutes later to ask what the heck is wrong with CL.

 

[mmntech]

When I was working at the TV station, I was tasked with going over to the meteorology department to get the daily weather reports for traffic department. I needed detailed reports in order to compile road conditions. Especially in winter. Things like potential for icing, fog, how much snow will fall where, timing of storms, etc.

The meteorology department's boss knew about this and has scheduled the daily meetings with her team. Most of the people on that side were good about it except this one lazy ass guy. Every time I went I'd be like "hey, how you doing today? I'm here for the briefing." He'd just give me one word reports like "oh... fair" and shoo me away. Told him I needed more detailed reports to do my job and what he was giving me wasn't good enough. He'd begrudgingly give me the info I needed, then go back to his usual shenanigans the next day. After a couple months of this he basically told me to stop bothering him and check the report on the station's website. I should mention that he was usually doing absolutely nothing when I stopped by. He would also do this to other people in the traffic department. So it wasn't simply a case of him not liking me specifically.

Anyway, I finally got fed up of fighting with this guy to do his job everyday. So I asked my boss to speak to his boss about this. My boss basically threw up his arms saying he didn't want to "get into a war with the weather department" and we all work for the same company, and that I should try to resolve the situation myself. As if I was the problem. My boss was such a weenie and was scared shitless of confrontation. In hindsight I should have just gone over his head. I had a good working relationship with the meteorology boss. Live and learn. Ironically that lazy ass now has a cushy government job with Environment Canada, and I'm having trouble finding steady work.

Actually my old boss at the station is also in the top five of this list. He was a nice guy and all. Very accommodating if you needed time off and what not. However, he got flustered so easily and a lot of stuff just never got done as a result. Spent two years trying to get us hooked up to the Ministry of Transportation's CCTV system because he didn't want to get into "unprofessional" confrontations with the government. All the while the company's paying for a service they're not receiving. Those cameras would have significantly increased both speed and accuracy of our reporting. I had experience dealing with the transport ministry before, but he wouldn't use my suggestions for getting things moving.

He clearly wasn't cut out for management. He knew it too. Don't know why his bosses put up with it for so long. Ended up demoting himself when a job opened up in a different department. Which saved him from the noose when our department got canned in restructuring.

 

[Brovane]

I had a coworker once who got involved with pre-paid legal. It all started one day after he went to one of those informational meetings. It kept escalating and he was blowing off his work so the rest of us in the department would have to pickup his slack. I had a conversation with or Supervisor and he was taken aside and was told to knock it off. Well instead of knocking it off he was more sneaky about it. We eventually the idiot got other people involved at my work and then one day him and another person came up with the bright idea that if the opportunity presented itself he could try and sell the service to customers who called in for technical support. Apparently both of the geniuses forgot that inbound customer calls are recorded. Yup didn't take long for both of them to get themselves recorded trying to sell pre-paid legal. The entire thing came crashing down that day and multiple people got walked out the door.

 

[Ichinisan]

Marked

 

[highland145]

I had a coworker once who got involved with pre-paid legal. It all started one day after he went to one of those informational meetings. It kept escalating and he was blowing off his work so the rest of us in the department would have to pickup his slack. I had a conversation with or Supervisor and he was taken aside and was told to knock it off. Well instead of knocking it off he was more sneaky about it. We eventually the idiot got other people involved at my work and then one day him and another person came up with the bright idea that if the opportunity presented itself he could try and sell the service to customers who called in for technical support. Apparently both of the geniuses forgot that inbound customer calls are recorded. Yup didn't take long for both of them to get themselves recorded trying to sell pre-paid legal. The entire thing came crashing down that day and multiple people got walked out the door.

:awe: But if it had worked....

 

[MongGrel]

Most of you have never worked with a really bad coworker it appears.

These are trivial, I should still have one old one arrested for putting shit in my coffee, which I believe is a Felony.

The old idiot even bragged about it on FaceBook, he only even learned how to use a netbook less than a year ago.

He actually thought he could put MasterCam on it, when he can't even hold plus or minus .010 on most the shit he makes, hell have the time he blows it by .1

He thinks he's a Tool and Die Maker, and has no clue whatsoever, but I've seen that a lot around these parts.

He even drove my my house about a week being a stalker, the guy is insane and should be retired and he only hangs out in the Tool Shop I used to work at for god knows what reason.

He must be related to someone, even the managers at the time were saying I wish he'd just get the fuck out of here.

But he can't actually really produce anything realistically, and sits in a corner being a shop troll getting paid less than I was to not do much other than being a pain in the ass.

Then you have things like engineers fresh out of college actually asking this guy for advice, and kids still going to college getting moved into QA inspecting your parts when they can't hit their ass with both hands when you've been in aerospace over 30 years telling you that what you're doing is wrong.

It's like a constant face palm, you'd have to turn around and tell them how to inspect a part right.

Then they get all pissy and run to daddy or something.

I'll maybe find something else, at this point working with people that do not know what they are doing period just depressed me to where I do not care much anymore.

 

[TheGardener]

My female co-worker was sexually harassed by female temp secretary. No it wasn't what you think. The temp was making sexually charged remarks to her about a guy in the next department. That guy was me. In a way it was funny and ironic, given that my co-worker was feminist. That is until she made it my problem. If a guy did that she'd call him out on it and report him. Instead she came to me, and demanded that I go fix it. She didn't appreciate being on the receiving end of rude remarks, especially those intended for me. I couldn't ignore Debbie, because she had a hot temper. So not knowing what else to do, I walked up a flight of stairs to the temp's cube. She was there, and I explained that she had to stop making these remarks to Debbie. I didn't say anything else, and the temp said nothing except okay. I guess she was embarrassed. I got no more complaints from Debbie. In hindsight it was an easy resolution. Most don't turn out that way.

Least you think I was interested in the trampy temp, I will tell you that I wasn't. One of my peers in the other department told me that he called this temp... Cat Woman. He told me why, but I didn't believe it until I saw and heard it myself. I was walking near the temps' desk. I heard some meowing. Sneaking a look, I saw her licking her 'paws'. It matched up 100% with what my peer told me.

Okay, that were not the only reasons I had no interest. Believe it or not, she was the exact likeness in human form of Miss Piggy, the famous puppet. Her hair style and color, girth, looks and gestures shouted out Miss Piggy. Add in her personality, and I found her revolting. Meeting Cat Woman made me feel good that I sized her up. No pun intended. Between the pigs and the cats, I had no interest. I seem to remember her saying that she was into swinging as well.

 

[Imp]

In terms of attitude and being an asshole: I asked for a document that he was responsible for and under his care but he just refused to send it to me -- just outright refused, not even an "I'll get it to you within a week or two." His solution was for me to drive the 50 km out to his office to look for it myself because he was "busy." It was sad because if I quit, the huge project I was working on would have been dumped on him.

In terms of I just can't stand working with: one guy with very poor social skills. His English wasn't perfect, couldn't carry a conversation, when he bothered to talk he was really cynical, and had no clue about social convention. Spent a couple days alone in the field with him where he barely talked to me and barely filled me in on what we were doing or where we were going -- he ordered me around, no attempts at feigning courtesy, started early and got home late. No one else in the office talked to him, he didn't get along with managers. I think he knew his shit though.

 

[MongGrel]

My female co-worker was sexually harassed by female temp secretary. No it wasn't what you think. The temp was making sexually charged remarks to her about a guy in the next department. That guy was me. In a way it was funny and ironic, given that my co-worker was feminist. That is until she made it my problem. If a guy did that she'd call him out on it and report him. Instead she came to me, and demanded that I go fix it. She didn't appreciate being on the receiving end of rude remarks, especially those intended for me. I couldn't ignore Debbie, because she had a hot temper. So not knowing what else to do, I walked up a flight of stairs to the temp's cube. She was there, and I explained that she had to stop making these remarks to Debbie. I didn't say anything else, and the temp said nothing except okay. I guess she was embarrassed. I got no more complaints from Debbie. In hindsight it was an easy resolution. Most don't turn out that way.

Least you think I was interested in the trampy temp, I will tell you that I wasn't. One of my peers in the other department told me that he called this temp... Cat Woman. He told me why, but I didn't believe it until I saw and heard it myself. I was walking near the temps' desk. I heard some meowing. Sneaking a look, I saw her licking her 'paws'. It matched up 100% with what my peer told me.

Okay, that were not the only reasons I had no interest. Believe it or not, she was the exact likeness in human form of Miss Piggy, the famous puppet. Her hair style and color, girth, looks and gestures shouted out Miss Piggy. Add in her personality, and I found her revolting. Meeting Cat Woman made me feel good that I sized her up. No pun intended. Between the pigs and the cats, I had no interest. I seem to remember her saying that she was into swinging as well.

Yeah, I even knew a few female engineers when I worked at Honeywell worked that way.

I was working at the model shop there for year, the woman actually came in on a Saturday morning which, I used to cover during the weekend as I left earlier during the week.

I had a separate area I worked in she knew of, she actually was pretty.

She knew my work manager at the time had moved her job down to a lower priority on the list, she came in 1 on 1 and wanted me to do her work on the weekend to push it up on the list.

She actually literally batted her lashes at me, and smiled and said something I can't even remember offhand that was very suggestive.

I told her no, I have other things scheduled I should be working on.

When I went in for a review a year or so later, she was sitting there smiling with one of the other supervisors she had coereced into ruining my career at the time.

She is a spiteful little bitch that I hope rots in hell one day.

 

[TheGardener]

Well then there was Billy, a middle aged dude who liked women twenty years his junior. His job was to review and pay bills. He was a Vietnam vet, and came back messed up. I have no idea what shape he was in before he went to southeast asia. But he was scary afterward.

I was waiting for another manager to be free from a phone call, so I hung out by his secretary's desk. Ya, in the old days managers had secretaries. This was a young secretary that Billy liked, so he walked over. He struck up conversation with me. It quickly turned to, "You know Mo, one of these days I'm going to kill Sally, Pete, Andy, Sarah, Kevin and Rick. But don't worry Mo, you're okay."

Delightful to say the least. I said something about having to get back to my cube. I debated whether to go to personnel. In retrospect I should have.

Months later there was a layoff with generous benefits. The middle manager submitted Billy's name. The workforce reduction including Billy went without an incident.

More time goes by. Working after regular hours, I stopped by the middle manager's office. I mentioned the incident to him. I told him his name was one of the names mentioned by Billy, as was Billy's female manager. The manager confided in me that one evening, he went into Billy's desk looking for an unpaid bill. He found that and also found a handgun. He looked at it, and he saw it was loaded. He put it back. He too didn't go to personnel. Ya, he was scared, until Billy was gone.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

My "worst" co-worker wasn't really a bad person, but she managed to make my life a royal hell for a couple months. I was relatively new to the position, working as a database administrator for a nonprofit with a database software package I was not familiar with (why they hired me with zero experience in the field remains a mystery to this day; apparently they figured all computer stuff is identical). Because of my lack of experience, I took a suite of training courses from the very beginner to the power user level, the most advanced of which were only offered several hundred miles away, and only at very specific times throughout the year.

About 4 months after I started, we had the annual auction. It was ostensibly run by volunteers, but our department ended up doing most of the legwork. There was a lot of background stuff to do; procuring and cataloging all the items, securing sponsorships, contracts for event space, catering and MC, setup of electronic terminals, a database exclusive to all things auction, and all the actual set up and tear down of the event onsite. Fairly typical auction stuff, really. And it all seemed to go off without a hitch.

So the week after the auction wraps up, I have my final scheduled advanced level training. It's out of town, so I'm out for a week getting my learn on. When I get back to the office, it is absolute chaos. The staff member responsible for running all the back-end stuff for the auction has unexpectedly quit with zero notice, and in her absence (and mine), the administration has effectively nominated me to wrap up all the loose ends. Me, the starry-eyed youth fresh out of college with no experience in invoicing, accounting or auditing is suddenly put in charge of single-handedly reconciling an auction that brings in 6-figure revenues.

Oh, and the flaky co-worker who peaced out without giving notice? She didn't keep notes on ANYTHING. So I'm reconciling a stack of invoices and sponsorship agreement drafts without knowing what's been finalized, what's been paid for, what anything was even valued at during procurement. It's an absolute nightmare, and it takes weeks and weeks of calls to sponsors and vendors and credit card companies to make my way through the trail of money. I only managed to get within $70 or so and my CFO let out a cheer and said she was prepared to have to write off $10,000.

Note to everyone: don't quit without notice and leave absolutely no information behind about how to pick up your slack when you're gone. That's a shitty thing to do.

I also had a job for two days at a local supermarket. It was two straight days of nothing but training videos. After that ended, we got our shift assignments, and someone else who worked there threatened to beat me up if I didn't cover his shift the following night. I'd say that was my worst co-worker ever, but that convinced me to quit on the spot, and I've never once thought "man, I wish I'd held on to that cushy job in retail."

 

[TheGardener]

MongGrel, these guys don't know what bad co-workers are. Some guy or gal doesn't do their job. Pfffft. That's nothing. Thanks for your story.

 

[clamum]

Well then there was Billy, a middle aged dude who liked women twenty years his junior. His job was to review and pay bills. He was a Vietnam vet, and came back messed up. I have no idea what shape he was in before he went to southeast asia. But he was scary afterward.

I was waiting for another manager to be free from a phone call, so I hung out by his secretary's desk. Ya, in the old days managers had secretaries. This was a young secretary that Billy liked, so he walked over. He struck up conversation with me. It quickly turned to, "You know Mo, one of these days I'm going to kill Sally, Pete, Andy, Sarah, Kevin and Rick. But don't worry Mo, you're okay."

Delightful to say the least. I said something about having to get back to my cube. I debated whether to go to personnel. In retrospect I should have.

Months later there was a layoff with generous benefits. The middle manager submitted Billy's name. The workforce reduction including Billy went without an incident.

More time goes by. Working after regular hours, I stopped by the middle manager's office. I mentioned the incident to him. I told him his name was one of the names mentioned by Billy, as was Billy's female manager. The manager confided in me that one evening, he went into Billy's desk looking for an unpaid bill. He found that and also found a handgun. He looked at it, and he saw it was loaded. He put it back. He too didn't go to personnel. Ya, he was scared, until Billy was gone.

Holy wow. That is pretty frickin scary.

I don't think I've ever had a "bad" co-worker. I've been doing software development for 8 years and have had some co-workers that were better than others, but none that I can designate as "bad." Pretty damn lucky so far I guess. Even at the Taco Bell job I had in high school for a while, there was no particularly bad employees.

 

[MongGrel]

MongGrel, these guys don't know what bad co-workers are. Some guy or gal doesn't do their job. Pfffft. That's nothing. Thanks for your story.

There are some really whacked out people running about in the real world, that management will support.

 

[MongGrel]

I had a coworker once who got involved with pre-paid legal. It all started one day after he went to one of those informational meetings. It kept escalating and he was blowing off his work so the rest of us in the department would have to pickup his slack. I had a conversation with or Supervisor and he was taken aside and was told to knock it off. Well instead of knocking it off he was more sneaky about it. We eventually the idiot got other people involved at my work and then one day him and another person came up with the bright idea that if the opportunity presented itself he could try and sell the service to customers who called in for technical support. Apparently both of the geniuses forgot that inbound customer calls are recorded. Yup didn't take long for both of them to get themselves recorded trying to sell pre-paid legal. The entire thing came crashing down that day and multiple people got walked out the door.

I know a few stories along those lines also.

I could sit here writing them but I won't.

:biggrin: