If You’re Gonna Lazy, You Gotta Lazy Smart

I work in a big department store as a receiving associate. We get large box trucks full of items, and almost none of them are on pallets, mostly so they can stuff more items into the forty-foot trailer.

Typically, in this store, we have one person loading items on a conveyor belt, one person shoving items down to the end, and four or five people unloading and sorting.

I have this one coworker, who is… lazy. I mean, I’m lazy, too, but I take shortcuts wherever I can. He hides in the racks and plays with his phone while the rest of us work.

One fine, fine day, the store manager pops through and watches us sluggishly make our way through the items for a bit and moves on.

The lazy coworker decides now’s the best time to go use the restroom. The boss came through and saw him working, so he should be safe from another surprise inspection, right?

I step in, directing my coworkers on how to best fill in the slack that was just left, and we keep going. People still need their knickknacks and geegaws, yeah?

Thirty minutes later, the manager comes back through and watches us for a few minutes.

Manager: “Hey, things picked up in pace back here. Good job!”

Me: “Thanks, but no time to chat. We’re behind.”

Manager: “Where’s [Lazy Coworker]?”

Me: “I think he went to the bathroom. Haven’t seen him in twenty minutes.”

Manager: “Yeah? Hm. All right, then.”

He walks off and I think nothing of it. We wrap up the unloading and go to lunch, and as we gather around for the briefing of what we’re doing for the rest of the shift, I notice that [Lazy Coworker] isn’t there. In fact, he never comes back!

Instead, the manager is there.

Manager: “You may notice that [Lazy Coworker] is absent. He no longer works for the company.”

Me: “Might I ask why?”

[Manager] hits me with the smuggest smirk.

Manager: “I can’t talk about that. Just know we’re going our separate ways.”