No one ever wants to be on bad terms with their coworker – but no one wants to be the office pack mule either.

So what do you do when someone you work with isn't pulling their weight?

This week on ‘So You Think You’re an Adult’, one woman asked if she should let management know that her coworker is skiving off work.

“I’m new to a job and when I first started, I was pretty happy with the setup as the workload seemed manageable and my colleagues were friendly,” she told Moncrieff.

“Now that I’m in a couple of months, I’ve noticed that one of my direct colleagues does nothing on their work from home day, which is a Friday.

“The other week, we had a work night out and he confessed to me that he usually plays golf every Friday, so he was gone for four hours of the workday.

“I’m tempted to politely bring it up to one of my senior colleagues, but at the same time, I’m only new.

“I feel like a fool for slaving away and doing extra hours and he’s getting away with not working one day a week.

“Am I just being petty or should I say something?”

Office snitch. Image: Panther Media GmbH / Alamy. auremar

Broadcaster Barbara Scully said that rather than run straight to management, this letter writer should first have a conversation with their colleague.

“This person does say that they feel like a fool slaving away and doing extra hours,” she said.

“If that is as a direct result of your colleague playing golf of a Friday and him not doing stuff that then you are having to pick up the slack and cover for him, then for sure you need to say something.

“I think you’d say it directly first to the colleague who’s playing golf on a Friday, making it very clear that you don’t give a damn what he’s doing on Friday.

“But if he’s got responsibilities that he needs to do that he doesn’t do, the impact on you, that you need to say, ‘I need you to do that so I’m not doing extra’.”

'Maybe he's doing something else'

However, TV personality Declan Buckley questioned if that was really what was going on here.

“I get the impression [that's not the case] with this letter because that isn’t even the way that it was phrased,” he said.

“It was phrased like, ‘I have noticed some of my emails don’t get replied to on a Friday’.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean, by the way, that this person is telling the truth when they say that they spend the whole day in the golf course – a lot of people joke about that.

“Donald Trump is always going on about how, ‘We hate [working from home],’ and as a result, it has an edgy appeal to it.

“They kind of go, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m doing nothing of a Friday – maybe they’re doing something else.

“If they can make it look like they’re not working very hard while you’re slaving away, maybe that says more about your abilities than theirs.”

Declan said the only reason one person should ever care about another’s work is if they are firectly impacted by it, or if they are evaluating them.

Main image: Man looking through office blinds. Image: Connect Images / Alamy. 21 January 2008