TikTok user @itsjessilyn shared the video on June 10, and it has since amassed nearly 400,000 views. Fellow TikTok users did not hesitate to share their personal experiences about working with difficult colleagues.

‘Weaponized Incompetence’

“Can we talk about the fact that weaponized incompetence also factors into the workplace?” she said at the start of her video. “I just had a male colleague throw me under the bus to a client because I asked him to do something that was part of his job role that he didn’t feel like doing because he’s not very active in my clients’ accounts.”

Weaponized incompetence, also known as strategic incompetence, occurs when someone avoids completing work by pretending they’re unable to do them.

“What swiftly happens, the masters of strategic incompetence learn, is that people stop expecting you to undertake certain tasks; they no longer ask you to do them, and they adjust how they rate you: your failure to perform the activity stops counting against you,” The Guardian reported.

@itsjessilyn said her coworker failed to schedule a phone call despite it being one of his responsibilities.

Her initial thought was that her coworker was “bad” at his job, but that changed.

“I thought about it for a minute, and I thought, ‘This guy’s been with the company for multiple years. He gets paid maybe $40,000 more a year than I do and he can’t schedule a f**king call?’” @itsjessilyn said. “He knows how to schedule a call. He’s making this purposely difficult.”

TikToker Takeaways

Viewers took their thoughts to the comments section.

“Is asking HR to document it possible? Because if it’s part of his role that should be factored into his review,” a TikTok user wrote.

Some suggested that @itsjessilyn take the matter to her boss and tell them that her coworker is in need of training to complete the different aspects of their jobs.

“People go to work to literally find [ways] to NOT work,” another viewer commented.

Many shared their own experiences with working with people who also make the job more difficult.

“I have a coworker who tries this,” one wrote. “She tried to take the boss off, said something rude. I added her back.”

“Had a 40 [minute] call to show a grown man how to save an attachment and be able to find it in a folder I created on his desktop,” another commented.

A viewer said he has seen this type of behavior unfold in front of him.

“As a man that’s in a corporate [environment]—I have WATCHED my male colleagues do tasks for/with me and then suddenly ’not be able to’ when a woman asks,” they wrote.

Resolution

In a follow-up video, @itsjessilyn revealed that her coworker has resigned, though he will continue working with her company for the next few weeks.

She said the incident was escalated to her manager, her manager’s manager and her coworker’s direct supervisor. The employee, @itsjessilyn said, reportedly had several other complaints lodged against him, though she does not know if this particular incident pushed him to resign.

“My company did take this seriously, which was something that I was very privileged to experience,” @itsjessilyn said.

Newsweek reached out to @itsjessilyn for further comment.

Other stories have been shared by people who said they have experienced weaponized incompetence.

Readers of a viral Reddit post backed a woman for leaving her then-boyfriend who ruined her birthday breakfast.

Another woman called her brother-in-law “incompetent” during a holiday dinner, while one woman’s response to her boyfriend’s poor housework also attracted praise.