As in, literally asleep. I’m in an office setting and sometimes people (especially the guy in the office next to me) fall asleep. None of our jobs are life and death matters so I let them sleep.
What would you do?
(Poll coming)
Hell, I would go out to the minivan, open all the windows, close all the shades and grab 20 winks myself.
Dennis
When I had undiagnosed sleep apnea, I used to fall asleep at work, especially during meetings. I would nod off and my boss would get out of her seat, walk behind me and give me a nudge. It was a kindness, and that’s the way I always took it. In my annual review she made a point of only saying in writing that I was “often fatigued” or something like that, but she also said to me off the record that I need to go see a doctor post-haste. Which I did, had the sleep test, got the CPAP, and had my first good night’s sleep in years, apparently. So yes, I would wake someone up as a kindness so they don’t lose their job and so they can realize if something is wrong and do something about it.
If I know enough to know that it’s something non-health related and temporary (like a new baby in the house) then I would let them sleep.
Wake them up.
But you have to realize a couple of things about my job. First, I was the boss not just a co-worker. Second, in my workplace, falling asleep on the job could literally be a matter of life and death.
So I would wake people up and give them a warning. I would tell them they just had their one break and if I ever caught them sleeping on the job again I would fire them.
I would let them sleep, but not for any virtuous reason - I’m not my co-worker’s keeper, and I have an aversion to getting in other people’s business that I sometimes think borders on anxiety. Also all of my co-workers are well out of arm’s reach so I’d have to get up and go over there.
It might be perhaps interesting to note that I’ve myself been accused of sleeping on the job - erroneously. My job involves a lot of thinking, and my approach to doing this was to close my eyes and let my body relax while I thought, which resulted in my head hanging down. And I was doing this at a desk that was visible to the hallway. After a month or three I was quietly taken aside by my supervisor who told me to get more sleep because I was nodding off and people were starting to talk. I expressed surprise - the notion that I would look asleep had never occurred to me. And suffice to say people weren’t making a habit of ‘waking me up’ - not that I was in the pose for hours at a time or anything, so people in my department might have figured it out.
I resolved the issue by propping my chin on my hand while thinking. This apparently was enough to make me look awake.
If I’m a customer and I need the person’s services, I would try to wake him or her.
If it’s a co-worker, then I’d leave him or her be unless I needed something urgently.
I’m the boss and I’ve observed my people asleep at their desks before.
I leave them alone. Sometimes I’ll remind them to be sure they don’t let my boss see it.
It’s a government job and there’s nothing to do half the time anyway. No harm done (except to the taxpayers).
What, no poll option for “Draw mustaches on them”?
Or shave-off one eyebrow?
Disappointed that “Scream loudly as you walk by their cubicle” wasn’t a poll option. 
One guy in my group used to fall asleep after lunch most afternoons. However, I suspect he innovated more in his sleep than pretty much anyone else did awake, so I always let him sleep. We were doing software tools and research, so it is not like anything got hurt.
One of the many reasons I did not like Intel was that we were told that sleeping was a firing offense. Some one in my orientation session asked if that were true even if someone stayed at work until 2 am and then came back at 8, our official start time.
He was told yes.
I’m not aware of anyone actually getting fired for this. And we were doing design, not on the fab line or anything.
When I was in the Army, it was entirely normal to find my boss sleeping under my desk. You don’t want the guy on guard duty to sleep, but when you’re in the field for weeks at a time it was totally mundane to walk around the TOC and find people sleeping in chairs, under tables, inside vehicles, whatever. We called it the “Gypsy Camp” thanks to all the hammocks and improvised tents. I also developed the ability to sleep in any conditions or position imaginable.
Like Roderick’s boss I would wake them & suggest that they “see a doctor post haste”. I would also follow up with them to find out what the doctor said. If they refuse to “see a doctor post haste”, I would fire them the next time it happened. Sometimes my job is life or death critical.
IME, As a supervisor, most folks who fall asleep on the job are just partying too hard the night before. However, on some rare occasions, sleep apnea, or narcolepsy is the real culprit. I do not want to get rid of an otherwise good employee over a potentially life threatening condition. Heck, even the less then desirable employees need to have an ongoing sleep issue addressed. I hate it when folks die on my watch. Not good!
During the summers when I was in college, I worked at a large lumber yard. It was tradition after about 3:00 PM that someone would go on a beer run. And after downing a few, hidden away in a shed, everyone would scatter to even more hidden accommodations and snooze for a spell. I’m quite confident management knew what was going on but years of tradition and union labor relations prevented them from making an issue of it.
In my current world of office work, if I saw someone sleeping on the job I would wake them up, but not overtly. Make a bit of noise, if possible bump their chair, call their desk phone, that sort of thing.
A few years ago, I returned to my workspace and my adjoining colleague was face down on the keyboard. I coughed loudly and she shot up and turned to me and started jabbering to cover for herself. It was funny to look at her because she had distinct imprints of the keyboard on her forehead.
There was a guy who regularly nodded off at his desk and occasionally in meetings. He had a second job at night as a limo driver, IIRC. Everyone knew about it but no one said anything. I can’t speak for them, but I personally didn’t want to embarrass him. I would generally do the same for anyone else, unless they were about to get caught in the act by someone higher up in the ranks.
Depends- when working security night shift, I woke up one or two coworkers who’d dozed off. I did actually report one guy for sleeping though. He showed up- on his first shift- and proceeded to pretty much immediately go to bed in the back of his car. Seat fully reclined, shoes off, curled up, hidden under his coat. Oh, and he didn’t see any problem with it when I woke him up.
It was pretty unlikely he’d actually miss anything important; our main job was making sure no-one stole the generators, hardly a stealth activity, but one of the clients was on site in a caravan, and that’s an excellent way to get an unfulfilled contract claim. There’s a limit.
ETA: Working airport coffee shop nightshifts, I left coworkers to sleep a few times. It was dead, we’d cleaned everything already. May as well.
There was a guy who used to do that at a place I worked. We would all gather around him very quietly and stare at him, while one of us called him on his desk phone.
Regards,
Shodan
I had a co-worker who fell asleep in meetings all the time the first several months after she had a baby. Everybody understood, and it didn’t affect her work. Plus, it was temporary.
I work in a hospital. Sleeping on the job is grounds for immediate dismissal. If I saw someone sleeping, I’d call HR.
I’d execute hir on the spot to motivate the others.