We have all been around lazy people that irritate everyone around them, and believe me, dealing with them is one of the most difficult things in the world. They always try to use other people’s kindness to get their job done.
Over the years, I had to deal with lots of lazy people that were dragging me down and delaying my plans for the future. Luckily, I successfully managed to come up with a few practices that worked like magic, so today I’m gonna share those with you.
First Priority: Protect yourself by gathering evidence
Whenever something goes bad, lazy people always have the perfect excuse and most of the times they blame others for their irresponsibility. In order to protect yourself, take credit for every job that you have done, and gather as much evidence as you can in case other people put the blame on you for anything bad that could happen.
This doesn’t mean you have to spend all day taking pictures of everything he/she does or doesn’t do, but simply keep everything that shows how their attitude is hurting the overall performance of the company and what can’t be sustained anymore.
The more reliable evidence you have, the easier it will be to approach your superior to complain and get them to take you really seriously, as it is always better to provide evidence that shows the reality of what is happening than just words of complaint and dissatisfaction.
Don’t be afraid to say NO to them
If your co-worker is really lazy, keeps leaving things undone and at the last moment always chooses to ask for help in order to deliver the work to your superiors, what would you say? In most cases, we all end up giving in and saying yes because we feel the obligation to be good colleagues and it is very hard for us to say no.
Now, to turn this behavior into something habitual is not good at all, neither for you nor for your companion. It’s okay to be a good partner and to want to work as a team, but if in the end you do everything and he crosses his arms and takes all the credit, the only thing you will get is to become even more bitter and end up hating your lazy partner twice as much. So learn to say no in time and you will save yourself a lot of headaches in the future.
Avoid Teaming Up With Lazy People
Avoiding lazy people, in general, is a great strategy, especially in the work field. If you hang out a lot with lazy people, there is a high probability of becoming one yourself.
In order to protect yourself in the workplace bid on projects that don’t require a team. This way you won’t have to worry about whether or not your lazy colleagues have finished their part of the project.
Try to help him overcome his laziness
There is a possibility that the colleague you call lazy is leaving all his work half done and making many mistakes because he really doesn’t know how to do it and is being overtaken by an excess of work. If this were the case and you realized that this person is trying to improve his work performance every day without success, you could become a kind of guide and help him to organize himself better in order to be able to perform all his functions successfully.
However, you should become a guide, that is, punctual support in which the other person can find advice, which does not mean that you should do everything that the other person does not know how to do, no. It is important to draw the line between helping and substituting because otherwise, all you will be doing is aggravating the problem, and not the other way around.
Keep a cool head
This sometimes gets really complicated when we have been putting up with a lazy person for months who only give us trouble and problems, but it is strictly necessary that we do it: don’t let yourself be carried away by anger and impulses, because you will only make things worse. It is logical that an extremely lazy person gets on our nerves and makes us want to yell at him/her for everything that comes into our heads, but do you think that will really solve the problem? No, of course not.
Analyze the situation in-depth, identify your problem and take a breath, as many times as you need until you feel much calmer, and then arrange to talk to him about what is happening to you.
Share your thoughts with a friend
Gossiping is wrong, but talking to a close friend to blow off steam and help us see things from another perspective is not. We all need to talk about our problems and office problems are no exception, so if you need a second opinion on what to do with a lazy person, look it up. You will feel much better.
Talk to your Superior
When you realize that the problem is a real problem for the company and that your partner’s inattention to his or her tasks is causing a huge loss of profit for the whole company, then the time has come for you to report to your superior in command what is happening.
It is important that you emphasize that the problem has become something that really hurts the company and that it is not something that only bothers you personally, since it will depend on whether or not you are taken seriously when talking about it.
Don’t overlook the problem
The last piece of advice we will give you in dealing with a lazy person is the most important of all: recognize that a problem exists and that a certain situation is affecting us emotionally. Many times, for fear of starting a conflict and making someone else feel bad, we refuse to acknowledge the existence of a problem, which will only make us feel worse and turn that small initial problem into a big problem with a difficult solution. Therefore, listen to your feelings and take action to resolve them quickly.
Final Words
In conclusion, if you have a lazy companion who is making your life impossible and to whom you will not tolerate even one more fault, do not hesitate to put into practice any of the advice we have given you in order to be able to solve the problem. Our work is part of our daily life, so we must ensure that those hours we spend in the office provide us with welfare, and not the opposite.
