(Image credit: Getty Images)
With a perky “Here you go!” it arrives in your inbox: A tonally awkward, super wordy, not-quite-right series of paragraphs from your coworker. You’re furious, already fatigued and ready to rip someone’s head off.
You just got “workslopped” — a new workplace dynamic where AI-generated content gets submitted by coworkers without adequate editing or quality control.
And while headlines around workslop have focused on the supposed productivity costs it’s creating for businesses, the bigger issue is the erosion of trust happening between colleagues.
Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free Newsletters
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more – straight to your e-mail.
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice – straight to your e-mail.
That’s a dynamic that companies are completely unprepared to handle.
A breakdown of trust
The impact of workslop can be immediate: 50% of people who received workslop said they now viewed the sender as less creative, capable and reliable, according to research from BetterUp Labs and Stanford Social Media Lab.
Forty percent considered them less trustworthy. One-third said they were less likely to want to work with that person again.
These numbers are depressing. But instead of using them to actually fix the problem, everyone’s just pointing fingers — at coworkers for sending it, employers for allowing it, AI companies for overselling it. The age-old blame game is having a tech-fueled resurgence.
None of this helps employees dealing in real time with workslop’s ramifications. Blame prevents collaborative problem-solving, amplifies negative emotions and blocks opportunities to learn. Worse, it robs people of the chance to take meaningful action right now.
Don’t wait for company policy
Instead of waiting for companies to solve this from the top down, employees can deal with it using something surprisingly simple: Conversation.
And no, not the “let’s circle back and align on this” kind of conversation. Productive conversation isn’t about casting blame; it’s about exploring the context behind unmet expectations.
Rather than letting distrust fester, equipping ourselves with these skills builds the confidence to respectfully share concerns and the humility to recognize there’s more to learn — all for the sake of getting work done together.
Workslop may be the tech-powered headache of the moment, but it’s far from the only workplace friction point. Building skills for productive conversation doesn’t just help with AI use — it creates a healthier culture overall.
How to manage workslop frustrations
Nobody wakes up excited about difficult conversations at work. But the alternative — silently seething while trust evaporates — is worse. Here’s how to handle it without losing your mind or your cool:
Come prepared. Confronting someone about work quality is already uncomfortable; don’t make it harder by winging it.
Before you say anything, map out the conversation on paper: Clarify your feelings, what you want to communicate and — critically — what you don’t want to say if your frustration spikes. Without this prep, emotions can derail everything.
Lead with curiosity, not accusations. Nobody wants to hear “Did you even read what you sent me?” Create common ground by framing the conversation as collaborative: “Let’s figure out how we both work so we can create something we’re actually proud of.”
Frame questions as opportunities for understanding, not gotchas. And don’t assume AI was involved — ask first. You might be wrong, and starting with an accusation kills the conversation before it starts.
Ask what actually happened. If your colleague did use AI, dig into the how and why to determine a path forward. What prompts did they use? Where in the process did they let AI run wild? This isn’t an interrogation — these questions help everyone learn how to use AI more effectively.
But also ask about constraints: Did tight deadlines or competing priorities make them feel like they had to use AI as a producer rather than an assistant? These questions can surface workplace issues that extend far beyond AI itself.
Here’s the kicker: When you choose curiosity over judgment, you’re not just giving your colleague the benefit of the doubt — you’re proving you’re trustworthy. It’s easy to declare someone else unreliable, rather than be reliable ourselves.
Every honest conversation about AI use is the harder choice, and colleagues notice. The cost of avoiding these conversations is steep: Workers may increasingly withdraw from collaboration altogether.
The payoff
Here’s what most people miss: Employees have more power in this moment than they realize. While companies scramble to create AI policies, colleagues can act now by choosing conversation over blame.
These conversations don’t just solve your immediate problem — they generate the insights that inform better company-wide policy.
Don’t keep what you learn to yourself. Share it with your wider organization. Document what works and what doesn’t. This isn’t about waiting for the perfect company directive; it’s about recognizing that the skills to work together effectively are already within reach.
You’re not just fixing individual frustrations — you’re building the organizational knowledge that shapes how AI gets used everywhere.
Teams that can talk openly about what’s working, address disappointments without throwing blame grenades, and learn from each other’s experiments won’t just survive workslop. They’ll build cultures that can thrive when everything is changing.
AI doesn’t have to be one more reason we turn against each other. Handled right — through curiosity and real conversation — we can transform inbox rage into something better: Genuine human collaboration. No algorithm required.
