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Kindly recommend some self help books!
Looking for some book recommendations :)
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It seems to me like she thinks, because you are her friend, she can slack off. And more importantly you even help make that happen by possibly doing her work for her. Don’t enable her. Set firm, yet delicate boundaries. Don’t be afraid to remind her this is HER job. You can even go to the extent to talk to her as not only a friend but as someone she works with, a calm sit down (as a generous warning). Let her know if the behavior continues, you might need to report her and you don’t want that. She knows what she’s doing in my opinion. She hates working I’m assuming everything feels like a chore for her, but that’s no excuse. There are more people out there struggling to keep a room over their families head right now in this economy, so if she doesn’t like the job, she should let the job go to someone who wants and needs to be there! Nothing comes for free. Best of luck!
I would be more understanding of that friend if she did her duties, but complained outside of work over a drink or a cup of coffee!
If you are close with her, I suggest having a candid conversation with her. Tell her you know she’s capable and ask why she’s struggling.
In the hierarchy, to be honest, if she’s not a close friend of yours and your management is understanding, I would just let them know instead of speaking with her. It will hold more weight if someone who is over her corrects her behavior
When she asks for help just say you’re super busy and can’t get to it so she should see if her super user is around to help. If her work doesn’t impact your work and her lack of performance doesn’t affect you then no harm no foul.
I would tell her if I want to value our friendship so I do not want to discuss work related items, is there someone else who can help you?
I'd firmly but kindly inform her that you shouldn't be handling those tasks while still keeping an open dialogue to hear what they have to say.
"I'm always happy to help with tasks when the workload is too heavy, but lately, I feel like I've been increasing my workload to help you with tasks that really should be on your plate. I'm just trying to understand what's going on, are there other tasks being assigned to you I'm unaware of that are making you feel overworked?"
If the answer is yes, I'd reply with something like "I don't want you to feel over worked, but I also don't want that for myself. Do you want to try to meet with the manager to discuss our duties and try to create a better balance for both of us so neither gets burnt out?"
If the answer is no, "OK I am happy to hear that your duties aren't too much. I'm going to ask you to take back these tasks to balance out our workloads."
Or whatever is comfortable and natural to you, the point is to bring up the issue, give space for valid reasoning, and give options to solve. A good friend would have the ability to own that and accept that you are setting a boundary.
Honestly she's shown her true colors as someone who takes without giving in return which isn't a healthy friendship. Cut her loose as a friend and ask your manager for help in her trying to push additional responsibilities onto you.
“Bc I know her, I know she hates working in general.”
…
“I know you’ve been doing this task for almost 2 years now. You asked me to walk you through it and I’m wondering if this job/role/position you truly enjoy. I know you’re smart and capable, but I also know we sometimes detest doing/procrastinate on things that are simply not fun for us. I’d be happy to help and walk you through this again, but this needs to be the last time I do this for you. I love you but I hope you understand this adds more work to my own plate and I’m starting to neglect ________ because of it.”
…
She might get aggressive by telling you you’re a bad friend (great info to have for you to decide whether or not you need to move on from this friendship) or she might come clean and say, “yes, I totally hate this.” Which will open the door to a discussion that maybe she should figure out what type of work would bring her joy/get her out of bed every morning.
I don’t believe in statements “[someone] hates working in general.” To me it only means they haven’t figured out what they really want to do in life. Maybe she wants to be an IG influencer, but is judging herself and not doing anything about it (because everyone else is judgy about that). But there ARE IG influencers who are successful and love doing that and work really hard behind the scenes… that’s just an example…
This is really though, but please don’t fall into the trap doing the work for someone else. If a candid convo with her as a friend fails, do have a convo with her manager indicating she’s adding tasks to your plate. Good luck ❤️