The co-worker or subordinate that is a slacker is a large problem in any entity. These are the people that started early with the "Dog ate my homework" routine and have been at it ever since. We need your input on such problems. Please send us, or leave on the Tip Line (678-201-9575), your anecdotes, success stories, pleas for help, suggestions to solve pleas for help and so forth. We'll keep them anonymous.

The excuse of safety and quality. The flip side of our stress on safety is the slacker that uses it as an excuse to move slooowwwllly in executing a task. They will confront you with a question such as, "You want me to work safely, don't you?" The answer, certainly, is "Yes." Of course, the safest way to work is to do nothing, so there is a little risk to everything we do. The issue is to minimize it. So the real answer is "Yes, but..." As a manager, you must be ready to follow up on the "but" immediately and in detail in order to prevent it from being used against you.

Quality is the same thing: "Well, I wanted to make sure I did it right, and you want it done correctly, don't you?" In this case, define the level of quality in great detail and agree on how long each step will take. I cover this topic in my book, "The Lazy Project Engineer's Path to Excellence." Each job has its own level of quality and it does not need to be overdone.

One of the first jobs I had out of college was as editor of process piping specifications and design standards at that famous large soap company in Cincinnati. The character from whom I took over this job had a backlog of over 100 of these waiting to be finished and issued. He told me it was a three year backlog. His boss, now my boss, agreed (because he had been listening to my predecessor). I worked as slowly as I could stand. I was caught up in four weeks. And this was when each page had to be laid out galley style and a printing plate made--no modern word processing here. I was scared--I thought perhaps I had missed some complicated quality step, since I had absolutlely no experience in this field when I stepped into it. Nothing happened--no pipes fell down, no vessels exploded. Everyone was ecstatic and they thought I was a genius. I received an unscheduled raise. By the end of month two I was bored and looking for responsibilities to add to the job.