Project manager forced to clean up after incompetent coworker, Toby, who used AI-generated falsehoods for a key research project

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Apr 29, 2026 2:30 PM EDT

Imagine being handed a research document for an important work project, only to discover that the vast majority of the information was not only inaccurate but also entirely fabricated.

This project manager began working at this non-profit organization only a month ago, when she quickly started to notice something deeply frustrating about one of her coworkers. Toby, with whom she had to co-manage several projects, loved using AI at work a little too much. 

Yes, it got to the point where he was so overly reliant on a variety of AI tools that the work he would often bring to the table had barely been vetted by a human being, not even himself.

The latest project they were working on together ended up being the straw that broke the camel's back for the project manager, who was unable to stop herself from giving Toby a piece of her mind. 

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  • An employee types on a laptop as her male coworker leans over her shoulder behind her.
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    An employee types on a laptop as her male coworker leans over her shoulder behind her.

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

  • Struggling with AI-dependent colleague and AI use in new job

    I started working for an NGO a month ago as a project manager. I was supposed to take over a couple of projects, and Toby, the guy who was managing them in the meantime, was supposed to show me the ropes. He's
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  • hopeless in that aspect. Every question I have he tells me to ask someone else or to look it up in the shared drive.
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  • Now, apparently, turns out we have to co-manage the projects and he's not going to hand them over to me.
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  • An employee sits down with her coworker, reviewing notes he has made.
    via Vitaly Gariev

    An employee sits down with her coworker, reviewing notes he has made.

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

  • But that's not the part that's most annoying me. He is dependent on Al for everything. Email? Al. Presentation to introduce the NGO to someone?
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  • Al. Notes? Al. Literally, the first thing he said on our first meeting is "just ask Grok, I prefer Grok to ChatGPT because it is not reliable"...
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  • Ok, whatever...but then we go to a research-based document he wrote. The goal of this document is to guide field workers to do work with kids in under-served communities. Since I have a PhD
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  • in that topic and years of experience (both practical and in academia) I was asked to look into it.
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  • An employee takes a closer look at the notes her coworker made as the two sit down to work together.
    via Vitaly Gariev

    An employee takes a closer look at the notes her coworker made as the two sit down to work together.

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

  • Surprise. It's Al generated. By itself, if you are discovering the topic and stumbled upon this document, you could be tricked into thinking it's legit information.
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  • But the redundancies, useless information, misquoted/invented/low-quality sources, and lack of practical application are really sticking out to me.
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  • I thought maybe I was missing something because the organization of the document sections seemed arbitrary to me.
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  • The employee shows her manager her corrected work on her laptop.
    via Vitaly Gariev

    The employee shows her manager her corrected work on her laptop.

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

  • Look, there is no denying the fact that AI tools have already and will continue to be adopted in the workplace. If I had it my way, we would regulating its use across all industries far more than we currently are, but unfortunately, I do not make the rules. That being said, no matter what industry you're in, employees simply cannot let AI replace their own input entirely. It's simply not advanced enough yet, and even if it was, there will always be the possibilty of abnormalities and irregularities of some kind. 

    In short, it sounds like Toby was getting way too ahead of himself when it came to all the AI tools at his disposal. He didn't just seem like someone with a passion for it (otherwise, why would he be working in such a different industry?), but he acted like he didn't even have to provide surveillance over its application. At your own peril, Toby! Not only could this lack of due diligence speak volumes to his own work ethic and job security, but it could also make life harder for coworkers and clients, who then have to clean up his mess. Now, he's proven himself to be incompetent while also creating a growing list of enemies in the workplace. I guess he has Grok to thank for that.

  • Maybe it was a strict structure required by a donor? I looked up the proposed structure of the document: Al generated, again. It
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  • appears that Toby asked Grok to come up with the structure of the document, and then asked Grok to fill in the text for each section of the document.
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  • Half-way through the document, I gave up in "editing" it. Why should I bother to edit what someone didn't bother to write?
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  • I talked to my supervisor, who now wants me to write a document explaining how I would improve the document. I told them the issues, that the ideal would be to propose a new structure and for a human to do proper research with legit sources and practical information. Of course, we
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  • cannot do that because we have a deadline and we are already late. They still want me to give suggestions to correct the document.
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  • It takes more effort to write why Al is wrong than to produce the wrong information with Al.
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  • So now, here I am: stuck with a useless Al-addicted colleague who cannot write, forced to edit Al slop.
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  • The image of lan McKellen breaking down while filming green screen scenes for "The Hobbit" comes to mind. To paraphrase: this is not why I became a researcher/why I work with kids/why I work with NGOs.
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  • Any advice (for dealing with Al slop in professional settings or with useless colleagues or both) is appreciated.
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terrible coworkers employee coworker stories Office overworked-employees funny work stories
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