Last week was probably the worst week I have ever had at work.

My boss (and 2 other senior people) were off and I was left to "guide the new guy through writing a report".

The new guy is here to eventually take my job so that I can move up to doing more development stuff.

The only problem was that this guy firstly didn't have a clue about anything to do with program and had very little general computing skills and secondly he didn't seem to give a sh*t or want to learn anything.

I started off teaching him basic programming and basic maths and by the end of the week we were no further along.

We still hadn't finished the report by Friday and it's a report that would have taken me about 20-30 minutes to write.

I found out on Thursday that he hadn't actually read any of the E-learning stuff that the company paid about £800 for, at which point I just gave up.

He has been with the company for about 5 weeks now.

My boss came back today and asked me for a "debrief" of the week. I basically told him everything above. Now I feel like a complete c*ck for "telling tales" but if I hadn't done this guy would have got away with everything (or should that be nothing?).

I hate "telling tales" but it was the right thing to do and now I feel bad for doing it.

Soemthing about that isn't right.

From reading this and the bits you've posted elsewhere, I have no idea how the guy even managed to get the job; the lack of knowledge demonstrated is staggering.

If it was someone that was trying very hard to get things right but just wasn't naturally that good, you'd understandably feel bad, but this chap appears to be both incompetent and lazy, as singularly unsuited to the employment.

You did the right thing. He's paid to work, not to shirk.
That was just pure laziness on his part and he shouldn't get away with it.

You acted in the company's best interest.

The alternative would have been to let someone else deal with the mess left behind once you'd moved on, and in all likelihood you'd have been called back down to help shovel it up.

Five weeks into a new job and he's already slacking off? Screw him, it isn't your problem.

I would do the same thing in your position.

And your boss, who is trusting you with more responsibilities would expect you to bring that kind of thing to his attention. It’s not the nicest part of a job, but at times it has to be done.

Feeling upset? God I'd be laughing, stick the knife in, he's incompetent, a deadweight. Cast him aside, he's worthless.


As much as it' shows you're a nice guy to be concerned about telling tales, you need a tougher skin

TBH if there was a colleague who I had grave concerns about, I'd bring it up with the line manager and let them take whatever action was needed.

In your situation, I might've asked if there was a reason why he wasn't interested/pulling his weight - though this depends on your relationship with him.

It's all part of management, if you're moving up in your job then you'll have to get used to it.

If useless workers impact on my work first of all they'll get a friendly helping out if they're finding something tricky, then if they're just pissing about they'll get a verbal off me, finally if none of that works they'll be out on their ear.

Well, the fact that this guy sits right next to me hasn't helped but it is awkward.

Anyway, it looks like my boss has had a word with him.

Oh well, he'll either improve or be out of here. (That is, if my boss does that, he seems to be soft on people who don't make the grade).

Oh well, I'll keep working hard on my iPhone stuff. Soon I may not be here anyway

Either I've just had a sense of deja vu or you've mentioned this before?

he should be replaced with a polish man

Probably

I think he's taken him off to do more training with him. Either that or he's gone to assess his skills first hand. (Maybe to confirm what I was talking about).

We had a guy like that in the first company I worked at offshore. The annoying thing was they never fired him as they had a high turn over of staff anyway. People hated it when he was on their rig. He's the only guy I've ever come close to punching out.

How is it possible to be late every day when you sleep less than a hundred metres from your workplace?

If you have really tiny legs it may be tricky.