Leave The Jobs For The People Who Actually Want To Do Them

[Coworker] used to work in a different department, but for reasons we were never told, had to quickly change to ours. This always surprised me, as I remember her complaining constantly about our department before she started to work in the other. Either way, we welcomed her, and we all did our part to train her and get her set up.

[Coworker] is what many would call an attractive young woman, and she certainly knew this. She would easily get some of the younger guys to “help” her do her work. When she didn’t want to do even that, she would talk and talk — mainly about herself — stopping them from doing anything, either.

After a few months, the department was way behind on work, complaints started to come in about delays, and we were given a dressing down by senior management. 

This improved things, but not for long. Eventually, they realised that [Coworker] was a major disruption, but instead of disciplining her, they put her with me. I decided what work she did and I was to report back if she didn’t do it.

She quickly learnt that fluttering her eyelashes wouldn’t work on me, and the other guys had warnings not to help her. She did what any reasonable person would do — not — she started taking longer and longer toilet breaks, lunch breaks, etc. to avoid doing any work.

I reported that back and she made a complaint of bullying. When that didn’t work, she requested to change departments again. No one would have her. Then, someone somewhere pulled some strings and gave her a last chance and she changed departments again

She lasted six months before being sacked as “unmanageable”.