WIBTA if I reported my coworker? First time posting, so sorry in advance if the formatting and writing sucks.
I recently (literally today) had a problem and I guess safety concern with one of my coworkers. Today we were supposed to work together because none of my other coworkers had availability today. And I kinda get along with her but overall she just gets on everyone’s nerves by not doing what she’s supposed to be doing.
I guess our manager decided to have her do something else before the next task arrived because I was almost done with everything. Our manager told her to toss out a trash bin we have that’s been sitting in the back of our dock for about two weeks now. She couldn’t get it up the ramp so I helped her and went back to what I was supposed to do cause I had literally two more things to scan into our system. She called me back to help her because she, again, couldn’t get it up the ramp to our compactor. I helped her out and then waited to see if she needed anymore help. She couldn’t lift the bin up so, again, I helped her out to dump the trash out. And both of us have seen the housekeeping in our buildings dump them out before. We both know that at one point, not everything is gonna fall out and you need to grab out by hand. It’s not always the case but it happens.
Well, she decided that wasn’t going to work and kept trying to shove the bin into the compactor to get all the trash out despite me telling her not to do that because in the event it gets stuck, we have no way to do it without help. She laughed me off and continued to push up the bin until she got tired of it and threw it in. Luckily the bin got stuck and didn’t fall into the compactor fully. But she then looked at me and said we need to get it out. I almost snapped at her but decided, yeah we still need to get it out.
We couldn’t leverage it out with our weight so we needed to find something else. We found crutches and they worked somewhat. Found a bent metal pipe, didn’t work. So she grabbed the last remaining thing. The axe. She wanted to use the axe to get the bin out. I told her I was gonna help her if she was using the axe because I wasn’t sure if it was gonna hold with that. Right as I said that it slipped off and went towards her. She laughed it off and continued to tell me to help her. I, very begrudgingly, helped her but when we got the bin out the axe again slipped out and almost hit me. She laughed and then left it on the ground to look for gloves to get the remaining trash out of the bin.
I just want to know, would I be the asshole for reporting her to our manager and HR?
EDIT: I forgot to mention that if I report her, I don’t know what’ll happen with her job. I know she’s retired and she work just enough hours to still be considered for social security(idk if that’s the right one)
Take it to your manager and frame it as “coworker might need some additional safety trainings” and explain the situation that occurred. She’s not just a danger to coworkers but to herself. NTA.
I don’t think it would end well for you to report her. You may get labeled as the problem. A tattler. And report for what, exactly? Her not listening to you, a coworker? However, what you could do is approach your manager about a “safety concern.” That spells “liability” to them and they tend to listen. It sounds as if this task was a two-person job to begin with. And the whole ax episode is alarming. They should provide tools to safety empty the bin. And that’s the safety issue to bring up if you bring up anything.
It was more of the fact that she takes safety as a joke. Between herself and our other coworkers. We work in a receiving dock. We handle equipment daily. It’s in our job description. She just does everything her way without care of everyone else.
NTA. She sounds like a massive liability. It’s also good for you to document this now since there’s a real good chance this becomes a bigger safety issue down the line.
How would you feel if you ignore it and someone else loses and arm later on because of her?
Safety training is much cheaper than rehiring.
ESH.
She was not being safe, but you helped her every step of the way. So there is nothing to report without you getting equally in trouble.
In future, do not assist a coworker who is doing a job unsafely. Warn them of the hazard, say something to the effect of “I’m not going to help you to be unsafe” and walk away.
What happened was a “near miss” safety-wise. If you want to make your workplace safer, suggest ways to prevent the same thing happening again. It could be training, signage, personal protective equipment, or even a special tool.
Disagree. This coworker didn’t start doing things unsafely until she started getting help from OP. How could they have anticipated that behaviour? They’ll have cameras to see what went down if they have doubts.
If you are assigned to work with her again on the same task, maybe pull your manager aside to say hey, this gal has a hard time lifting the dumpster/bins, it would be easier and faster and safer if I could work with someone else.
She is a safety risk to both of you and everybody else she works with. NTA
Report her. She’s dangerous.
Absolutely NTA. She’s messing with dangerous industrial equipment. Eventually she’s going to get herself or someone else hurt. Please report her behaviour.
NTA. If she is not competent then she is a hazard to both the job and others. Report her.