How to deal with lazy (who are bored from work) coworker engineers in my office. 12

[NewEngineer652]

Hello All,
I am a recent graduate and started working at my current company 8 month ago. we are total 3 engineers in the mechanical engineering group. One has been working there for 6 years, the other has been there for 3 years, I am the junior of all the three of us. I am the most passionate and excited about my work. I am trying my best to do everything and learn everything. My seniors are okay with anything and are bored of doing the same thing every day. The truth is these two people are very good to me but sometimes the fact that I want to do more and more, their behavior towards me changes. It looks like they hate the fact that I want to work more and they just want to spend the time at work and go home.
This is why I have started acting like lazy and confused infront of them so they are okay. Please tell me how to do as much work as possible and they still be okay with it. I really want to do my best at work.

thanks

 

[Guest262653]

Do your work the best you can and forget about it.

 

[Mr168]

Your career success is tied to your work ethic and abilities, not theirs. There is no point in trying to maintain a friendship with a group of individuals who treat you differently from enjoying your career and striving to achieve more from it.

The choice is yours - do you want a satisfying, successful career, or a pair of lazy, crummy friends? Keep in mind, their poor performance is going to catch up to them eventually, and their services will no longer be required. If you continue to mirror their behavior, your employer will no longer have a need for you, either.

 

[Maui]

They are probably becoming irritated with your enthusiastic approach to your work because the more you get done and the more productive you are, the worse they will end up looking to their boss. The boss will eventually start to question why the other two engineers aren't more productive. This means that they will have to put in more effort and work harder. From what you describe, they do not want to do this.

I've seen the same thing happen to a new employee in a union environment. The older employees will tell the new guy to slow down because he's making the rest of them look bad.

Maui

 

[Dievant]

It could also be that these 2 engineers have worked there long enough that there is very little challenge for them anymore, and no challenge tends to lead to boredom. So they might see your enthusiasm and think to themselves we were like that once, as oppose to to being cynical towards you. To some engineers it is just a job, not a passion. So I guess I'm saying don't jump to conclusions about them and like others have said just do what makes you happy.

 

[KENAT]

Could you explain a bit better how you came to the conclusion they are bored & lazy?

You imply that maybe they only want to work their 40 hours while you're eager to work crazy hours. Maybe they have more responsibilities outside of work and it's difficult for them to work extra hours. If only being paid for 40 hours then difficult to argue too much with them on that front.

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[1gibson]

One way to find a challenge with boring, repetitive work is to create tools to make it more efficient, faster, easier. Sometimes it's good to have lazy people on a team because they find the most efficient way to do things. Try approaching from that angle.

If nothing else works, just get them to tell you stories about previous projects that went terribly wrong. Sometimes good for a laugh, usually contain valuable lessons. For example, no matter how late in the project, every time you look at the drawing you should double check the rotation arrows on the motor vs. the rotating equipment.

 

[dvd]

It could be a perception and listening skills problem. Or, maybe they are not as patient as you.

 

[berkshire]

Sounds like another new graduate, who still thinks he can leap tall office buildings with a single bound.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[MortenA]

sound like another grumphy engineer

 

[TheTick]

An old bull and a young bull are on a grassy hillside, looking over a herd of cows. The young bull says to the old bull, "Hey, let's run down there and shag one of those cows."

The old bull says to the young bull, "Let's walk down and shag them all."

 

[sponton]

I read this thread and it reminded me of how my workplace is. I think there is some BS in what people are saying about young engineers being naive and the old engineers knowing the way.

in the firm that I work for, there are two engineers, one that has been in the company for 20 years and the other one who has been only a year, he's like 45yrs old and graduated the same time I did [so experience wise we ain't that different]. Both of them just spent the whole day doing nothing, just chatting about news and then they complain about how much work they have, the old dude that has no that much experience got called on because he keeps putting overtime when it's obvious that the tasks can be accomplished in his regular work hours. I understand the old engineer whose work is mainly routine since he's been doing it work 2 decades, but the other one just picked up the bad habits and it's not even a good engineer in my opinion, he thinks he knows everything but just keeps all the time asking the senior one.

So if you ask me, I think even among the old engineers you still manage to find bad habits, REALLY bad habits, and I think if you have the will to work more and learn, then do it. To tell you the truth in this profession I don't think anybody will be willingly help you to fully develop, specially with coworkers, like someone said if you overwork for pleasure and fun they will feel like you're somehow making them look like they're not doing anything, which may be the truth sometime.

 

[KENAT]

sponton, I worded my response carefully for this reason.

The OP may be correct in their assessment (as may you) or there may be more to it as berkshire and Tick allude to. After all there's at least 2 sides to every story right?

The OP has chosen not to respond to my request for clarification in how they came to their conclusion so we may never know.

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[sponton]

@KENAT

I agree with what you said 100%, maybe i take it a bit too personal cause I am and have experienced it, and it really bothers me, i mean at the end of the day if coworkers don't work it's not your call to judge, it's the guy that manages they payroll, but i do believe that lazyness in the work environment end up being contagious, specially when people don't go the extra mile because they're just being paid to do things at an average quality.

 

[NewEngineer652]

KENAT:

I am sorry for taking so much time to answer your question. I will tell you exactly what happens to me at work.

1) One time I was reading the company's product catalog and the engineer (who has been at this company for about 6 year) came to me and said who do you manage to read so much. I can't even read this for 5 min.
2) When this Engineer checks drawings. He likes to take breaks every 10 mins.
3) Most of the time he is chatting with other engineer about his personal life and he complains for having so much work. I wonder what he would say if some day I ask him " But you dont even do anything. I dont see you doing any work, how do you complain for having so much work".

 

[NewEngineer652]

how do you manage*

 

[MikeHalloran]

You could be even more productive than you think you are, if you stopped keeping track of what the old farts are doing, and concentrated on doing the work you've been assigned.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[TLHS]

Other people notice too, so don't stress about it. You can't fix it and it's not really your problem. Do your work to the level that you need to do it. If you have free time at work, learn something new or work to improve the processes you're following to do tasks, or take on more work if you can. People notice all those things too. Give it some time, and if things haven't changed or people haven't noticed that you're doing things to stand out, find another job. Make sure you've taken a good look at yourself as well, though, and aren't overestimating your work or abilities.

Do, however, use some of that time to have a chat now and then with people, whether it's about your personal life or an interesting technical problem that doesn't necessarily impact your current work, or something else entirely. Building good relationships with other people is a huge help in getting your work done and functioning as a team. Don't be a grump like some of the people you seem to be describing, though. Nobody likes the people that are complaining all the time about their home life.

Also, remember that while there are certainly lots of people half-assing it out there, you may not always be able to tell. I know I assumed that some people weren't really doing much when I was a junior. I eventually realized that some of them were getting a heck of a lot more actual work done than I was in fewer hours because they didn't need to do anywhere near the amount of work that I had to do when finishing the same task. I was spending more hours, but they were getting more work done. Of course, others just weren't good at their jobs.

The sentence " It looks like they hate the fact that I want to work more and they just want to spend the time at work and go home." jumped out at me. There's nothing wrong with wanting to go home at the end of the day and live your life.

 

[KENAT]

While it's often easier said than done, concentrate on the things you have some control over e.g. how hard you work and how you respond to them in any interactions you have with them.

I've seen some documents that are hard to read and might have made a similar comment in a jocular manner. Now that doesn't mean that if I needed to I wouldn't read it but from your little snippet of the story maybe he was just trying to be friendly - certainly not a searing indictment of his work ethos from what you say.

I used to check a lot of drawings, and I'd often find it hard to concentrate on doing so for long periods, so depending how long his breaks are and possibly what he's doing on them I'm hesitant to be the first to throw stones here too. Of course, changing what you're doing every 10 minutes doesn't help with concentration either so maybe it's something he needs to work on - but arguably that's up to him and his boss.

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[NewEngineer652]

Maui:
You have described exactly that problem I am facing at work. My boss is expecting more and more from them since I have started working at the company. The thing that doesn't make sense is they say they have alot of work and they are too busy while they talk to each other about their daily life most of the time.