Whinging Wednesdays - Guilt by Association

It's another edition of Whinging Wednesday's. This week's topic is people who don't take responsibility for their work.

Last Saturday, I showed up for work as usual at my second job after a long day hanging out, and drinking at my chapter's holiday party. I had a fairly easy night at work, checking repeats and writing questions for Saturday Night Live. Since they always assign two people to work on SNL, I knew that I would only have to write 6 questions instead of the usual twelve. Still I knew that since SNL didn't end until 1 a.m., I was probably going to be in the office until at least 2 a.m. At least the company reimburses you for a cab if you stay later than two.

Now, I knew when I took this job, it would mean late hours and most of the time, it's fine. I'm making good money, and it's rare than during the week at least, I'm there until 2 p.m. It's not the most thrilling job, but at least I can say that I'm getting paid for writing.

Well, I was sitting in the back with some of the other writers who were either floating (not assigned a show) or waiting to write their show if it was on late, when one of the writers assigned to write Trading Spaces came into the back to announce that they had just watched the wrong show. Not only that, but he had no intentions of telling anyone that they had watched the wrong show. WTF? Well, he didn't want to spend another two hours at work, watching another show, and writing the questions, despite the fact that he was going to be paid for it and it wasn't his fault he'd watched the wrong show.

The company had been having problems with the cable on Saturday night, so the coordinator simply cued up the wrong show on the Tivo. What made it even more insane, was the fact that the writer had watched Moving Up with me the previous week, so I'm not sure how he didn't know he couldn't figure out he was watching the wrong show until after it was over. Besides, if he'd done his homework by looking up the show on the TLC website, he would have known in seconds if it was the right show or not. The editor that night should also have figured it out because Trading Spaces is one of the most product heavy shows on TV, and for these guys to just say there was only one product placement shouldn't have computed.

But what really annoyed me was the fact that he cavalierly decided not to tell anyone, and to just write up the questions from what he'd watched. I mean, this job has it's faults, but hey it beats working on an assembly line in Detroit, or pushing overpriced lattes at Starbucks. There aren't that many jobs out there where you get paid to watch TV. And it's not like the job is taxing. We write questions not critical essays. It wouldn't have killed him to at least do his job properly.

So now in the backend both Moving Up and Trading Spaces have pretty much the same questions. I'm also annoyed that he told us, because now I feel guilty by association. I sat there thinking should I say anything? Should I just keep my mouth shut? I hated being put in that position. In the end I decided just to say nothing.

Oh, and here's the kicker. Nobody so far has figured it out that Trading Spaces has the wrong questions in the system. So much for cheaters never prosper (I'm not sure if that applies in this case, but you know what I mean).

So what would you have done? Kept your trap shut or told someone in charge?