Lazy A**holes, Assemble!

Everyone working on the assembly line has had to move around after some new equipment was installed. I’m now working with a bunch of new people. They seem okay, but the guy down track from me seems a bit of a waste of space. I don’t know the guy, but any opportunity to slack off, he will. I’m not sure he actually checks anything, which is pretty bad as he is supposed to be the goalkeeper to stop stuff getting out.

It gets close to the end of the day and [New Guy] disappears. The problem is, if he doesn’t pass off my parts, then I quickly run out of room, and then the guy before me will do, too.

I keep working until my section is full and I literally can do no more. I ask around to see if anyone knows where he is. 

Me: “Do you know where [New Guy] is?”

Coworker: “What time is it?”

Me: “It’s 15:30.”

Coworker: “Did he leave about fifteen minutes ago?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Coworker: “Yeah, he goes for a smoke and then something to eat about this time on a Monday.”

Me: “And that’s okay?”

Coworker: “Well, no, but he gets away with it.”

Me: “The line has stopped for me. I’m backed up.”

Coworker: “Oh, just pass the parts through. He doesn’t check them, anyway.”

Me: “I can’t.”

Coworker: “Oh, come on, man. Just do it. We’ve always done it that way.”

Me: “No. I mean, I can’t, even if I did want to. I don’t have the access and the PC is locked.”

He swore and grabbed his phone. He tried to call [New Guy] but he didn’t answer. We went down to his machine, where, apparently, he leaves all his passwords. But they weren’t there.

Just as [Coworker] decided to go and find [New Guy], the timer alarm went off and management came down.

Eventually, we had to tell them what had happened. Of course, just letting parts go to the customer without a safety check is pretty bad, and they didn’t know how many parts were out there.

I think they wanted to fire [New Guy] on the spot, but they couldn’t, so they transferred him to work in the yard doing actual labour. He lasted two weeks.