In your present job or in past workplaces, do you have any experiences with other employees getting away with doing less work than you?

I am not looking for advice for myself. This is not something I’m experiencing now. However, I work for an organization that advocates for employees who work under a contract. We get complaints sometimes from employees who say they noticed their coworker is doing very little, while they’re pressured to do a lot.

I know that oftentimes, employees are told not to watch others but just pay attention to their own work (in other words, “mind your business”). I have experienced being the fast one at work and being given others’ work to help them catch up, and it became frustrating to me, because I was then responsible for that and under threat of getting in trouble if it wasn’t finished.

When I started my job (government job), twenty years ago, I was told, along with my coworker, that we had to do more work. We were doing a lot of work while there was another worker who did almost nothing. My coworker (the other one who was very productive) told me that in the government, the ones who do a lot are asked to work harder to pick up the slack for the ones who are slow.

Do you have any experience with this happening at work?

What would you advise someone who experiences this issue?