My general perception is most of these people it's not that they are "not smart" it's that they figured out other people will do the work for them. The way I de

My general perception is most of these people it's not that they are "not smart" it's that they figured out other people will do the work for them. The way I deal with this is I am happy to teach someone something new in detail the first time. I'm not going to do it for them but I'm going to explain the process the reasonings how it's done and point out any documentation that we have and encourage them that they are also empowered to update the documentation if they don't find it detailed and granular enough. The next time they ask I'm simply going to point them to the existing documentation and give them a very terse reply of the highlights of how it should be done. If they continue to ask follow-up questions, because they want basically someone else to do it for them, I will ignore them for longer and longer stretches of time. I will also keep notes on the times that I've discussed these things with this person just in case my manager comes back and acts as if I'm not being a team play. This way I can have a very frank discussion with my manager about the times that I have helped them out and I can also speak to my own workload and then ask them what my current priorities are. Should I be prioritizing my own workload or should I be prioritizing continual re-education and retraining of this person. That way my manager is now deciding how my time gets allocated because there's only so many hours in the day. This allows the manager to actually see what's going on and the amount of time these people are taking away from those who are more productive or need less guidance. In the companies I've worked for the manager usually realizes this and when the person who keeps trying to engage someone smarter to do their work realizes that tactic is not working anymore they will either step up their game and become productive or they will be let go. But it is quite critical when your manager is involved in this that you not be seen as being critical or talking down or shaming the other person. You have to keep notes and keep records and documentation of how you've helped and how you've assisted them but also managing your current work duties. This way you always approach it as a time management problem rather than you being frustrated with someone you're having to carry and not being a team player. Because you want to be a team player and you want to help the other person but you also have your own priorities and your own duties to account for. Until the manager adjust your priorities you must take care of your priorities first before you can assist someone else.