My dumbass co-worker

I have a coworker (fairly recently hired) who is doing some incompetent work. It started last week, when one of the project managers assigned him a task that he did wrong. It was screenshot captures of a client’s application for their documentation. It was due monday morning, and friday afternoon he asked me if I could spend an hour or two putting some final touches on them, resizing & adding circles, because he doesn’t know his way around photoshop. I handle all graphic design/manipulation, layout, desktop publishing, etc. for our company.

When I open the files, I find that they are, well, wrong. Wrong resolution, cropped wrong, wrong screens, not what the client requested, with fake content that was obviously fake, showing real email addresses. . . it needed to be done over from scratch. Only, being friday afternoon, there was no way to get access to the client’s app and make the deadline.

I talked to the PM, and ended up spending the entire weekend heavily photoshoping these files. The PM then spoke to this guy, and I spoke to this guy, and tried to stress that his errors had almost cost us the deadline, and that it had cost me my weekend (time which we couldn’t bill the client for, obviously). He’s new, so we wanted to provide feedback and some level of the benefit of doubt.

Now, he’s working with another PM, more screenshots. Again, it lands on my desk with no warning. Again, all screwed up-- some of them were in the wrong operating system, even. This time I can have them recaptured. They come back mislabled and mislocated and I send them back yet again, before I get them correct. I find out he told them PM that I would take care of them, fix any mistakes, and re-capture any that were wrong. . . without telling me that he’d said this (or, even, asking me to do it)

There was another batch that needed to be captured today, and both the PM and I were VERY explicit about exactly what he needed to do, and how they needed to look. We questioned him about taking them-- did he have any problems? Anything he needed help with? Did he check them? Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine.

So I open up the file and. . . surprise. . . they’re wrong. Now I’m dealing with things I can’t fix, because there are instances of things in the wrong language. All I got from him was, “Yeah, I don’t know why that’s like that.” What, a magic pixie put it in there?

“You can fix it, right? With photoshop?” ARGHHHH.

I have never tattled on anyone before, but I need to go talk to our boss. I am very nervous about this. I’m not a manager, and I hate confrontation. I’m pretty pissed right now, and I feel like I’m going to come off as whining, because he is particularly screwing me. I want to ask the other PMs not to give him any more graphic work, and send it through me instead, but I know I need to talk to our boss before doing that. My boss, however, really likes this guy and it may not go over well.

On the one hand, I’d like to talk to him, but I think it will go about as well as the first conversation. I couldn’t figure out a tactfull way of saying the the errors were so grossly blatant that they had to be caused by extreme idiocy or exreme carelessness. This is not something I can really provide feedback about.

Can I suggest the basis of your conversation with your boss is not to complain about your co-worker, but to clarify your company’s expectations about how you two should be working together. You can then use the example of the Project Manager being told that you would assist your co-worker without your knowledge.

I wouldn’t get into your co-workers incompetence as it’s really hard to not come across as petty, even when the lack of competence is huge.

pour tar on his teeth and make him scream like a bitch

I feel your pain, because I really screwed up a batch of screen shots once. Dark room, wrong desktop background, aargh! He needs to fix his own mistakes. And if that means preparing them in small batches and having them checked, then so be it. My coworkers certainly had no problem jumping all over me for my error. Based on my experience you have a fair amount of latitude in bringing up this type of screwup. And specifying exactly what the requirements are is a big help, which it sounds like has already been done.

Yeah, this is what I’m worried about. On the other hand, if you were a boss, wouldn’t you want to know that one of your employees is costing the company money by requiring his work to be done over again? That he is in danger of causing us to blow deadlines or deliver unacceptable work to clients? The only reason this isn’t happening is because I pick up the slack.

At the very least, I really need to make the other PMs aware that this is going on. We are a very independant type of office, we trust each other and tend to give people a lot of space. “This is your task, this is your due date, I’m not going to micromange you.” This guy needs more supervision. People need to not be trusting him to do the job correctly.

Harriet, I’ve tried to give as much leeway as possible. . . I know screenshots are a PITA, and a certain amount of mistakes happen. But when pointed out, I just get a shrug and attitude, which is not cool. It’s like he doesn’t care.

What exactly is it that the boss likes about this guy? Were his alleged qualifications supposed to include the capability to do precisely the work he’s being given, or is what he’s being asked to do a little outside the scope of his CV? If this guy was hired in whole or part to perform in this particular area then his apparently chronic inability to do so will have to be addressed at some point. Better sooner than later where the bottom line is concerned. It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t seem to have an eye for the work, and equally clear that he just doesn’t seem to know how to use the software being used to do it. Software can be learned in a fairly short period. Artistic sense, even in the context of relatively dull manual design, is a lot harder to acquire.

It will have to be dealt with sooner or later, and better for the bottom line and the sanity of all concerned that it be sooner. As long as the chain of command is observed and proper procedure is followed I can’t see why there’d be too much of a problem. Howevermuch your boss may like this guy, he probably dislikes wasted man hours and money even more. You’ll be doing him a favour if you bring this to his attention. Just be tactful and approach him with a positive spin; you’re trying to help him become more productive and self-sufficient, not complain about how and why he isn’t.

Ever the insightful one. They will write tomes and tomes about your wisdom someday.

Do the guy one last favor. Sit down with him and have him show you how he’s doing it. You’ll find out pretty quickly what the problem is and can show him how to fix it. If he’s not a complete fuck off, he’ll figure it out with your guidance. Mentor him a little bit. If you have to work overtime to fix his mistakes, make sure he’s right there working for free too.

From what Obsidian has said, this idiot doesn’t really care that he’s incompetent.

I still recommend taking the clarification approach - if you get the opportunity to comment on his ineptness then you can, but even if you don’t get that opportunity, having the meeting with your boss will have at least signaled that somethings not quite right with the new guy.

Screenshots are only a PITA in that they can be kind of tedious, but they’re also incredibly EASY to make! I can’t understand how he’s screwing it up so badly. Go to desired screen. Hit Print Screen. Paste. Done. You’re being way too sympathetic, and I think talking to your boss as sandra_nz suggested would be the smartest way to go.

I would do this in two steps. One, bring the current error to the attention of your PM, then two, both of you go in and talk to your boss. You can both present “We’ve done A, B, and C, and it’s not working.” If both of you go in together I think it will go a long way with the Boss (Wo)man.

Obsidian, I think you misunderstood what I meant by latitude. I don’t mean he needs latitude, I mean give yourself some latitude. Going to him is probably OK, going to the boss is probably OK, running through the office screaming may even be OK. These are very concrete errors and need to be addressed.

And Beadalin, ummm, no. The sad voice of experience in my head tells me the problem in taking professional-quality screenshots to someone else’s specifications is that it seems that easy, but it’s not. Do you have the standard desktop scheme? Are any icons showing that shouldn’t be in the tray? As the OP referenced, are any real email addresses included? If multiple languages are involved, is everything in the right language? Is the system giving any error messages where the software is actually supposed to be working? Are all of the settings on your computer consistent with the settings of everyone else who is providing screen shots. These problems can all be addressed, but they’re not automatic, either.

I can understand how the OP made the errors he did. I can even understand why he might not have thought to or been comfortable to ask the questions he needed to to do the job right. But the fact that the coworker in the OP tried to pawn off correcting his mistake on Obsidian seems like a much bigger red flag. Either this guy has some other major talents that he needs to be using, or he needs to learn how to do screen shots, and how to proactively get the direction he needs in an unstructured work environment.

Good luck, Obsidian!

Hmm. I guess you’re right, Harriet. I’ve been doing it for so long that it just doesn’t strike me as complicated (aided by the fact that I am fluent in Photoshop and do any adjustments in it myself).

I would send it right back to him with a note saying, “X, Y, and Z are wrong. I need you to correct them before I can work on them.” CC that to your boss, as well. That way, everyone is aware that the onus is on him to make the corrections and get it back to you.

Cc-ing a note to your boss is a dreadful thing to do, imho. If you want to make the boss aware of these issues, then talk to the boss up front, don’t go passive-agressively Cc-ing them in emails.

What’s that saying, don’t go to your boss with problems, go to him with solutions? Your co-worker is incompetent and he doesn’t care, and no one is making him care so far. So, what should be done about it? Does he need training? Does he need more supervision? Does he need to be fired? What would solve the problems he’s causing?