Complacency, Laziness, or Apathy?

I dare say all of the above. I’m terribly disappointed and angry at one of my coworkers whom I feel is not pulling her weight even to the point of shirking minor duties. Even for her, I found it hard to believe what she did last Sunday night. Up till now, I haven’t said a bad thing about this woman, but it appears that as time goes on she has become too complacent with what needs to be done in our job. I dare say that complacent is too mild a word for it. Complacency is something I don’t give in to and that just differentiates my work ethic from others. It’s not as if our jobs are physically strenuous, although it could be mentally tiring, but there are some tasks that just require a little common sense. Let me tell you about last Sunday night that raised my ire unnecessarily.

 I was assisting a couple of patients by putting their clothes in the washer and dryer. While I was in the laundry room, I heard a knock on the door. It was a patient asking me if I could take them outside to the patio for a fresh air break. I told the patient to ask the staff sitting out in the hallway who were doing nothing other than talking with each other. The patient said the mental health worker in the hallway sent him to me. This person had to gall to tell a patient to follow me to the laundry room and ask me to take the patients for a fresh air break in the patio when I was already busy with something else, while she was just sitting there talking?! It’s not as if she didn’t see me carrying two bags of clothes to the laundry room because I walked past her on my way there. She could have easily monitored the fresh air break while the other person monitored the hallway. Instead she told the patient to ask me?!!! I don’t know if she expects me to be in two places at one time. I asked her why she couldn’t escort the patients to the patio and she said because she was watching the hallway. I brought it to her attention that there was an LVN sitting with her who could have done that. She replied that the LVN was passing out medications. Well, that response was not justified because the LVN finished passing meds half an hour earlier. By the way, she doesn’t just reply, she retorts, even though they’re not logical. More like response to cover guilt.

Wow! I still can’t believe up to now that it happened. How can one be so lazy? All because she didn’t want her conversation interrupted for a 15 minute break to assist the patients? That doesn’t even require physical or mental work! It’s difficult to comprehend that kind of thinking and that’s why I was so angry about it. This is not good for me because it spikes my blood pressure and it takes awhile for me to get it back down.

Being the one who does most of the heavy lifting on our work shift and don’t complain about it, I think I’m justified about my complaints about the other person here. Please forgive me for my rant but I’ve been bottling it in and I just needed an outlet.

Here is a draft I wrote a few weeks ago regarding another incident. I was going to title it – Blissful Incompetence:  I don’t know what to think about some of my coworkers anymore who have been working in our hospital for several years. Is it laziness or apathy? Despite being here for years, some of them don’t seem to know or haven’t learned how to do things properly. Even when you delegate the simplest jobs to them, they seem to bungle it. They also take more time than necessary to finish, and not even finish it correctly at that. The diligent ones really shouldn’t have to check up on the others to make sure they did the job right the first time. I guess some people just want to get paid without earning it.

Do you have any coworkers with similar work habits? How do you handle the situation?

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