The Coworker Who Wants You to "Push the Swing"

Anyone who's spent time around kids knows the pattern: a child sits on a swing, perfectly capable of pumping their own legs, and instead asks to be pushed. It's an easy thing to be patient about with an actual child, of course they'd rather be pushed than do the work themselves.

The Adult Version of the Same Pattern

That same dynamic shows up constantly with adult colleagues, coworkers, consultants, sometimes patients, who consistently arrange situations to their own advantage, effectively asking to be "pushed on the swing" in a professional context.

A familiar version of this in emergency medicine: a colleague who consistently "cherry picks", rather than taking the next patient who genuinely needs to be seen, they select the case that's easiest or most appealing to them personally. That might mean a patient with a potentially serious complaint waits on the board while a minor complaint gets seen first, simply because it was the more convenient pick.

Working regularly alongside someone who does this consistently tends to produce real, recurring frustration.

Why Complaining Doesn't Actually Help

A common first response to this kind of frustration is simply complaining about it, venting, getting worked up, replaying the annoyance repeatedly. That response is understandable, but it doesn't actually improve anything. If anything, repeated complaining without any accompanying action tends to make the underlying frustration worse, not better.

The Reframe: They're Just a Kid on a Swing

Here's a useful shift in perspective: a colleague who consistently takes the path of least resistance is, in a real sense, just asking to be pushed, because, like anyone, they're inclined to conserve effort where possible. That colleague never actually promised to be an ideal teammate by any particular standard. They're not obligated to meet an expectation they never agreed to in the first place.

Given that, is it really surprising when they behave exactly as expected? And more importantly: does staying annoyed about it actually serve any purpose, unless something is actually done in response to the underlying situation?

What Can Actually Be Done

Rather than simply staying frustrated, there are genuinely a lot of concrete options available:

• Raise the pattern directly with a supervisor or medical director.
• Address it directly with the colleague themselves.
• Request scheduling changes to reduce overlap with that colleague.
• Consider whether the broader work environment is still the right fit.
• Focus energy on your own patients and the quality of care you're providing, rather than on the colleague's behavior.

The specific action matters less than recognizing that continued annoyance, without any of these steps, doesn't actually resolve anything, it just repeats the same unproductive cycle indefinitely.

The Bottom Line

A colleague who consistently takes the easier path isn't going to stop simply because their behavior is frustrating to witness, that's simply what asking to be "pushed on the swing" looks like in a professional setting. Recognizing that pattern for what it is, and choosing between actual action and continued unproductive irritation, tends to be a far more useful response than repeated complaint alone.

FAQ

Why do some colleagues consistently choose the easier or more convenient option at others' expense? Like most people, colleagues tend toward behavior that conserves their own effort or energy when given the opportunity, this isn't necessarily malicious, but it does create real friction for coworkers who end up managing the resulting imbalance.

Why doesn't complaining about a frustrating coworker actually help? Complaining without any accompanying action tends to reinforce and even intensify the underlying frustration, since it doesn't change the actual situation, it just repeats the same unresolved cycle.

What are some concrete steps for addressing a consistently frustrating colleague? Options include raising the pattern directly with a supervisor, addressing it directly with the colleague, adjusting scheduling to reduce overlap, or reevaluating whether the current work environment is the right fit.

Is it reasonable to expect a colleague to change their behavior just because it's frustrating? Not necessarily, a colleague was never obligated to meet an unstated personal standard. Recognizing this can help redirect energy toward actionable solutions rather than continued, unproductive frustration.