Laziness on the job = Rant time

I always dealt with people like that by calling them out on it. Whenever I was working hard and saw them slacking, I would just say hey, since you aren't busy, can you give me a hand over here? Or since you aren't doing anything else, help me do this. Or wow, how did you finish all of your work for the day already? Enough times embarrassing them, especially in front of other co-workers, and they should get the hint. If not, then file complaints through official channels. But by not saying or doing anything, you are rewarding the behavior. If you file complaints and nothing happens, then there a multitude of other options depending on what it is you do.

^

It's unavoidable. It's especially bad in retail because retail jobs are so much harder to get fired from. I used to be one of the hardest working people at my job and it pissed me off to no end to see clueless or lazy people. Now I'm pretty lazy myself because I switched to part time so I can go back to school. Doing great in school but at my job I'm kinda useless/average at best. I'll do my job but I don't stress at it anymore like I used to so it slowed my work pace down a lot. I'll have to step it up again come holidays because I'll be on winter break and will be doing full time hours again.

I used to kill myself working as hard as I could and do as much as I could. 15 years later I had nothing to show for it. My employers didn't care. I was blamed for everything that didn't get done that was supposed to be done by others. What's worse is when the managers are just as lazy and don't do their jobs. I left that place and it was the best decision I ever made. Went to a rival company and started at a higher position with more pay and got a promotion in 8 months. At that point I had the authority to do something about lazy workers.

He didn't get fired for the no shows? Most places fire you after 3 no call no shows. They consider it job abandonment.

My job is fairly laid back, and I'm in a position of mild power, so if its chill time and there's not much to do then cool, we hang. Although, if it goes for too long I find projects for people. Everyone is pretty good about doing their fair share and not complaining about or dodging work.

Was this at Wal-Mart?

Yea, totally understandable man. One thing that really pisses me off is when they pretend to work while they really are on their phones or on G chat. I have an employee who does this all the time. It is so frustrating. When I give her something to do, she replies, I am so busy though. I respond to her playing on your phone doesn't count as work time. But my boss protects her because she looks good. Effing ridiculous! All her no work and b/s work becomes mine to do. Oh and she just got a 10% raise.....

My last experience with horribly lazy co-workers was working fast food and that was almost seven years ago.

I used to work for Wendy's and several of the day shift guys were not exactly up to snuff, but the night crew was comprised of the most horrible sacks of crap I've ever known. If I went in there at night to grab a bite to eat, I would catch them goofing off. They'd be outside behind the dumpster on trash runs smoking pot. I'd go to make a frosty shake and the whip cream cans wouldn't have a charge because the night crew dumbasses were doing whippets. You name it, I caught them. Had a assistant manager that would snort coke in the bathroom. He worked mostly nights and got fired for embezzlement.

Had another nighttime guy who would turn off the cameras and then turn off the registers and just pocket the money that came in the last five minutes. He got busted pretty quick after he had risen to Assistant Manager and started pulling that crap.

Now I would try to tell myself that since I had never worked nights at that point that maybe things were crazy and that I shouldn't be so hard on them since I don't know what they're dealing with. Maybe the floor being nasty, the dining room still being a mess come morning, the sink not being cleaned out, no supplies being restocked, and the eighty other things neglected were because they were so crazy busy.

Then I started working nights for usually half or more of my shifts and realized that those kids had it about 10000000000000x easier than day crew did, even without all the crap they neglected. Night shift was the easiest thing in the world. Close at Midnight? Start cleaning at 11 and be out by 12:15. Vs. Day shift, come in at 7 and hope to God the three thousand things you have to do get done before open at 10:30, then face the lunch rush from 10:30 to 2 pm. Then do the dinner rush from 3:30 to 5. Try to punch out but have the manager tell you that EVERY LAST MOTHERF---ER ON NIGHT SHIFT are late and you need to stay, finally leave at 5:45 when they saunter in with weak excuses about school.

I complained. Didn't work. I finally just quit one day. I threw my headset across the room and my hat to the floor and got in my car and floored it. I haven't done food service since.