Dealing with an incompetent work partner

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Last week, a new employee in my office was assigned to work with me on a very important project. This new employee is 20 years of age, this is her first job, and the only reason she got the job was because her aunt also works at this office, but all of that is besides the point.

This partner is constantly misplacing important paperwork. She is constantly telling me to print out lists for her when she clearly does not understand how all of those lists have relationships with each other in this project. She is consistently looking for excuses to not do what our boss told us was her part of the job. My part of the job relies on processing the information she gathers, but that is impossible when she is not gathering any information effectively. Her mantra is, "I didn't do that." Or, "That's not my responsibility." Or, "I don't really have to do that, do I?"

Worst of all, she keeps on telling me, "You're funny." That's extremely insulting, especially when I am not trying to f*****g amuse her. She is working in an advocacy office for people living with developmental disabilities, and she is constantly taunting me like that while working for that employer? She is trying to prove that she has some kind of intellectual superiority over me with those taunts, and she is failing at that miserably.

I will be going back to the office in a couple of hours. After I talked with the boss, she decided to not have us work together on this project any longer. A part of me feels like I failed the boss by not doing my best to make the situation work. Another part of me knows that there is no way that I could make order out of chaos with a partner like that.

Suggest to your super that she may benefit from a more well-rounded work experience, then assign her to work with other staff members on a "temporary" basis. Sooner or later, everyone else will get so disgusted with her that no one will like her, and eventually her aunt will have to deal with it.

I had an assistant assigned to me who could "talk the talk" but couldn't "walk the walk". One day, he starts reprimanding me. When he stopped for breath, I quietly informed him that since he knew so much more than I, he was on his own from then on. In six weeks, the front-office brass invited him to leave.

It's been seven years, and I still get phone calls from bill collectors that are looking for him.

Document what you told her to do. Your co worker will attempt to place others at fault. In the absence of a record, she will throw you under the bus. However, if you keep a record of what you told her (emails are great for this) you can avoid the drama. If you don't have emails, date and descriptions of what you have said work well to counter claims that you failed to tell her what to do. I've learned this the hard way.

That girl (yes, I'll call her a girl) is not mature enough to work in a professional environment. You did the right thing. It's not just about working with disabled people...she wouldn't be tolerated in any office unless she was nice to look at.

I didn't look up the laws in your area, but it seems like hiring favoritism, which is illegal where I'm from. I think you are experiencing a case of workplace corruption. If you can, report it to whoever handles workplace fairness policies for your company or region. When jobs are scarce, it's important that the right people get them, and the right people usually aren't the ones with connections. Most people I know don't seem to think that helping people with disabilities is any more important than working at McDonalds, though.