M.Y.O.B.

There was a recent business advice column in the Washington Post in which an aggrieved worker wrote in to complain about a co-worker who spends an inordinate amount of time Facebooking, texting, and shopping. They had reported the underworked colleague to their manager, who pretty much told them to M.Y.O.B. Advice with which the advice columnist occurred. As did most of the folks who wrote in to comment on the original article.

I'm with the M.Y.O.B. brigade.

Yes, it is completely disheartening to have do-nothing, slacker, gold-bricking fellow workers. Especially when you're busting your ass.

But somewhere along the line, you just have to assume that their do-nothing, slacker, gold-bricking ways will catch up with them and they'll be gone. Managers generally have a pretty good sense of who's productive and who's not. Or they should have. I know that it doesn't always work out this way, but no one needs you ratting out a co-worker to their supervisor. Annoying as it is, sometimes you just need to suck it up. (And managers who are too dunderheaded to recognize and do anything about useless employees will at some point or another be found out. And be gone. At least one can hope...)

As for "reporting" poor employees, I know that, as a manager, the last thing I wanted was someone darkening my door to finger point at someone else in my group. (Oh, shut up, shut up, shut up.)

And it may be that your seemingly do-little colleagues are doing more than you see. Especially in these days of "always on."

The person you think is spending three hours shopping may have spent three hours answering emails the evening before. Maybe they got up in the middle of the night and went on a work spree, as has been known to happen, and are now chillaxin.

Okay, these are occasional situations. But the truth is you really don't know what's going. So bitch to your friends, gripe to yourself, but don't take it on yourself to tattle-tale.

It also may be that the person you perceive as slacking is highly productive - a lot more productive than you are - and that they get through their assignments at warp speeed, and can thus afford to while away a few hours looking at bathmats on Wayfair or shoes on Zappo's.

Case in point is a colleague of mine from the pre-Internet days.

In her office she had a small black & white TV, on which she watched soaps and talk shows. While she was watching, she was also knitting - the most elaborate and gorgeous sweaters imaginable.

Sometimes, I would overhear people grousing about her. How bad for morale it was to walk by her office and see her watching TV and knitting.

As I was always happy to explain to the grousers, this woman was the most productive coder we had. While she was watching Oprah and Days of Our Lives, while she was knitting and purling, she was thinking through coding problems in her head. (And she was the one always given the thorniest problems to solve, the biggest bowls full of spaghetti code to untangle.) When she sat down to code, she was fast and meticulous.

I think if someone had said anything to her manager - rather than just pissing and moaning around the halls - he would have laughed in her face. He'd have been happy to have an entire team composed of folks like her.

My bottom line is that there always have been and always will be shirkers. Yes, it's aggravating and annoying. But if they don't report to you, you really can't do much about it other than cross your fingers and hope they do themselves in. The best advice here is definitely Mind Your Own Business.