'Bro, I’m not your assistant': Hardworking office employee accused of throwing his lazy coworker under the bus when he stops covering for his forgotten responsibilities, management sees the truth

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Oct 26, 2025 10:00 AM EDT

Teamwork makes the dream work, but team members with no work ethic will derail everything.

A hardworking employee realized that their efforts were not only going unnoticed, but they were being taken advantage of by a lazy coworker. Happy to ride the coattails of everyone else, this lazy office worker left emails unanswered, spreadsheets unfinished, and calendars unkempt, pushing the responsibility on everyone else—specifically, one overachieving coworker. 

Well, after this incident, nobody is going to get caught with naivety as their excuse, because the hardworking employee simply stopped performing their coworker's duties, leaving them high and dry with management. Perhaps they should have been making sure that their task list was getting checked off every day by SOMEONE, lest they get caught getting paid to do nothing. 

Sometimes it's the truth that catches up with you in the workplace, especially when you're a lazy worker with no work ethic to speak of. At least the overachiever won't have to pull their slack anymore…

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  • Man being lazy at his work desk
    via Lazy_Bear

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • I stopped helping my lazy coworker and now I'm the bad guy?
    via Shield95
  • So I'm Jaycee, I work in an office where I share tasks with this one coworker who's been there longer than me. For months, I've been covering for him,
    via Shield95
  • fixing his mistakes, answering emails he ignores, and doing extra reports so we don't both get yelled at. Recently, I decided to stop doing his work. I only focused on my stuff. Guess what
    via Shield95
  • happened? He got called out by our boss, and now everyone's acting like / threw him under the bus.
    via Shield95
  • Like bro, I'm not your assistant. I just stopped saving you from your own mess.
    via Shield95
  • Strict Poet_9975 People only scream "teamwork" when they're secretly asking you to carry them. xD
    via Strict Poet_9975
  • CassandraApollo Yep, there is one in every department. You are right to stop doing his work. You are paid to do your work only. I once worked with a woman who sat next to me in cubicle land. This woman would do maybe 1 hour of work per day. The remainder of her time was spent doing various things like; crafts, reading, texting, surfing the internet, grocery shopping online, ect. Then she would have the audacity to interrupt me thru the day with anything except work. When I complained about the c
    via CassandraApollo
  • Most-Artichoke6184 Tell him that you will do part of his job if he gives you part of his salary. Otherwise, no.
    via Most-Artichoke6184
  • Trinikas Been there, I was in a small branch office of a small company, it was two of us managing the NYC office. My coworker who was a good 20-30 years older than me would always make sure it was clear that despite me having been with the company longer she did NOT have to take any orders from me. Since I never ever tried to give her any orders I don't know what her issue was. We both handled some of the same stuff, namely taking phone calls and registering people for stuff (various professiona
    via Trinikas
  • Acceptable_Age_4769 Keep receipts btw. Folks like that love rewriting history when consequences hit.
    via Acceptable_Age_4769
  • rosier 1985 lol classic. ppl love the "team" talk until it means they actually gotta do work, you did the right thing.
    via rosier 1985
  • NervousEssay5074 Tell everyone, if they're that bothered they cant do his work for him, its not your fucking problem that he's shit at his job.
    via NervousEssay5074
  • Hello_Hangnail My coworker is like this. At some point I just threw my hands up because they don't pay me enough to babysit a 29 year man. I stopped bothering and just let him hang himself
    via Hello_Hangnail
  • CocoaAlmonds Rock Who is "everyone"?
    via CocoaAlmonds
  • Calm-Ad6612 The real question is how he did not get in trouble before, either way its completely his fault, you should have done what you're being paid for mate!!!
    via Calm-Ad6612

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boss worker employee manager job work coworkers working ceo employees supervisor workplace company coworker business
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