I (28M) and my coworker, Dave (30M), were partners on a major client presentation due Monday at 9 AM. We split the work, I was doing the data/models, he was handling the design and slides. We agreed to have everything ready to merge by 5 PM Friday.
Friday afternoon, I’m finishing my part. I message Dave at 3 PM asking for an update. His words, “All good, slides are done and polished. I’m fried though, I’m gonna log off a bit early for a mental health afternoon. See you Monday!” I said okay and logged off too, relieved.
Sunday night, I get a gut feeling and log in to check the shared folder. The slide deck is there, but it’s just a rough, half-finished template from Wednesday. None of the polished work he described is there. I panicked and spent all night until 5 AM doing his half of the work to finish it. The presentation happened and went fine, but I was exhausted and running on caffeine.
Now Monday morning, I confronted Dave. He admitted he lied. He said he was burnt out and just wanted the long weekend, and figured he could “throw it together quickly” Sunday night but fell asleep. He apologized and thanked me for “having his back.”
I was furious. I went to our boss and reported the situation. I said I didn’t feel I could trust him as a partner. Dave got a formal written warning. Now, he and a few other coworkers are calling me an asshole. They say I should have just talked to him, that I “solved” the problem by doing the work, and reporting him was vindictive and could hurt his career. They say I didn’t care about his mental health.
NTA – the other guy FA and FO
\#neededtohearthat
If I was your boss, I would want to know that someone did that.
If he was feelign sick / tell someone then we can reassign the work, just not doing it and lieing about it – is the worst thing.
Deadlines are different than just being stressed out. Random stressed out situation you can take a couple of mental health days and then catch up. When you’re an adult and facing a deadline, you finish it or find people to help you finish it.
NTA
This happened to my and my most senior report. She said she had a big presentation handled. She pulled me into my office two hours before and started crying, saying she didn’t have half of it done. I scrambled, got it done.
I wrote her up and put her on a PIP. I told her she had two weeks to ask for help. She said when she asked for help she thought I would think she didn’t know what she’s doing. That’s literally what I am asking her. Do you know what you need to do?
She went on the claim mental health issues, talk about her medications, then said I was too threatening to work for and got transferred to a different account. She got laid off recently.
NTA. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes
Nta
You didn’t get Dave written up. Dave got himself written up.
>They say I didn’t care about his mental health.
Fair, but Dave didn’t care about OP’s mental health either! Or the mental health of both of them if they’d showed up to the 9AM presentation without a finished slide deck.
“They say I should have just talked to him, that I “solved” the problem by doing the work, and reporting him was vindictive and could hurt his career. They say I didn’t care about his mental health.” Well, apparently he didn’t care about hurting YOUR career, and, by extension, YOUR mental health.