Rant about Slackers

I count slackers as worthless wastes of perfectly good oxygen that someone else could be breathing. Slackers contribute to the proliferation of greenhouse gases without any compensating positive effect on the world.

I understand laziness; I can be lazy with the best of them. Procrastination? Hey – I’m a champ. I’m not going to condemn anyone for being a little lazy or for procrastinating a bit.

But when someone deliberately, intentionally, without reason, refuses to do what is expected of them-and what they are paid to do-I have to draw the line. These people come in different flavors and they come with different insidious excuses.

 

Every boss should encourage the occasional mental health day, just to boost morale among their employees. Such days off allow people to adjust their attitudes. Some severe cases of anal glaucoma need more than a day. They should take a week. Heck, take two. Really think about why they’re coming to work every day. And if the answer is that they hate their jobs or co-workers, they need to find someplace else to suck the soul out of their surroundings. Because by not doing their jobs, they’re making more work for everyone around them, lowering morale, and raising resentments.

When they sit around acting like it’s the weekend when there’s work to be done? That means more stress and more work for everyone else. If all they can do is stare into space, they need to take leave time to get their heads on straight so they can come back to work refreshed and actually do their jobs.

 

There’s a special, swampy pool of fetid disgust I reserve especially for people who don’t want to perform their jobs to the best of their abilities, in a reasonably timely fashion, and for the benefit of their customers and clients. These, too, are slackers. Too often their reasons for deficient performance come down to “it’s too much effort.”  Do they really think, even for a moment, that other people can’t recognize one of those whiny excuses for what they are? I really hate working with those kinds of people.This especially applies in industries like law and medicine, where the quality of clients’ and patients’ lives actually depend on the attention we give to detail when taking care of them. If a professional service provider is not willing to do what’s ethically necessary, it’s time for them to look for a new career-because they’re hurting the very people they’re supposed to be helping. They cause a ripple effect of harm that sloshes out messily around them.

 

 

Lazy people who are self-employed don’t stay in business long. That means that the true slackers are working with other people, sucking the productivity and enthusiasm for the project straight out of their colleagues’ souls. That mediocre job the slacker did? It reflects on everyone he works with. Slackers make the rest of the team look bad, cause everyone to lose productivity, and may cost the co-workers and the employer time, money, and respect-all because one jackass didn’t want to do what was expected of him.

Slackers do more (less?) than just fail to pull their weight. They are typically the ones who liberally slobber over gossipy tidbits-usually completely irrelevant to the job at hand-that undermine their managers or their team. These slackers are the ones who deny responsibility for everything, assume responsibility for nothing, and don’t seem to be accountable to anybody. They may have a cliquish gaggle of fawning admirers, or they may be the person no one likes. They always bring everyone else down.

 

 

People who make things up, twist the words of others to the point of being unrecognizable, assume they know what someone else’s next words are going to be, and then abdicate their responsibilities based on those things torpedo even the best organizations.

 

Co-workers victimized by this office gossip and finger-pointing blame-shifter tend to hate her. Passionately. She is the one who is ever quick to take credit that belongs elsewhere. Her co-workers know who she is and she makes their work lives miserable. They avoid her whenever possible, which means the rest of the team is missing a cog. She sows discord, foments distrust, and utterly destroys office morale. Naturally, none of that is ever her fault.

 

Insidious slackers can be at any level of a company. They can be managers, owners, clerical workers, temps, paraprofessionals, and professionals. When I hear that a lawyer does not want to re-revise that contract for the third time, or when I see a doctor unresponsive to his patient’s actual complaints, I have to wonder why they’re even in the office. I identify them as slackers. It’s their jobs to pay attention to details. Not only are they letting their clients or patients down in a devastating way, they’re compromising their own integrity in the process. Maybe they’ve got so much integrity they think they have some to spare. (Hint: they don’t.)

 

 

I always hope that mercy takes a day off when slackers get called out for their prevarications and defamations. Dishonest? A cheat? Trying to pull a fast one and hoping no one notices? Stabbing someone in the back? Getting fired should be the least of their worries. There is a reason for civil and criminal penalties. By intentionally badmouthing someone else and by interfering with the productivity of others, such people deserve to reap the rewards of such nefarious activities.

Just desserts are sweetest when they are observed, not consumed first-hand.

Have integrity. Don’t be a slacker.

 

Last Updated on February 13, 2016 by Anne