Thanks for all the support everyone. I really appreciate it 
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Right up until it bites them in the arse...yeh go for itI'd spoken to a recruiter about something similar. They said that post-Covid recruitment has changed and employees are less likely to stay in roles they're unhappy in/aren't what they want to do etc. Go for it! Best of luck
I'm currently experiencing 'death by questions'. I won't go into too much detail for fear of doxxing myself, but a team were been given a piece of work by us then emailed us questions, which is fair enough. We responded to those questions by email, which led to further queries, so we put in a meeting with them to answer those questions and also deal with any new ones straight away.
We had that meeting and all seemed fine, but now I've just had another email with a load of questions in. It just feels like they're stalling and don't want to do the work - otherwise why pretend you've asked all your questions only to then keep sending more?
We had that meeting and all seemed fine, but now I've just had another email with a load of questions in. It just feels like they're stalling and don't want to do the work - otherwise why pretend you've asked all your questions only to then keep sending more?
Sounds like weaponised incompetence where you do stuff to such a poor level or stall to the point you take it over and do it yourself because it’s quicker and easier.
I had a colleague like that and it sucks the life out of you. Don’t give in because that’s what they want
I had a colleague like that and it sucks the life out of you. Don’t give in because that’s what they want
You should definitely do what would make you happiest. Go for the new job you might love it and stay for years, then the other short term jobs won't matter.
You've got a good point there. I'm not going to give in, they're gonna do it if it kills me.
I think if they come back with even more questions now I've replied to these, I'm going to escalate it. If their manager gives them a kicking they might pull their socks up.
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As employed by countless husbands over the years too.
I have someone in my team who rarely does what is asked of them and goes on long term sick leave for a few months every single year. She had the entire Spring and Summer off this year.
We work in the public sector and she is a single mother with children with high needs and a chaotic relationship with her ex so she seems to get more understanding than she otherwise would do.
I sympathise with her home life, I really do. But the fact is that she cannot do her job and the rest of the team has to compensate for her. In fact, she creates more work for us in terms of the admin around her sick leave, last minute covering of meetings and tasks, having to chase her 9275 times for simple asks that she will always have an excuse for not completing, remedying her oversights and mistakes and even investigating a complaint about her lack of professionalism.
It’s pretty much guaranteed that if you give her a job, it will either be not done at all, done poorly or half-completed at best. I’m lower in status than her but am currently doing her job and delegating the easiest tasks to her - so far she hasn’t completed a single one of these tasks. And she receives £40k + a year for this (plus benefits and state-funded carers for her kids, incidentally, although that’s obviously not related to her job). She has been responsible for the failure of two projects in the past 2 years, which has a direct impact on the care we can give to children in need (children with the same needs as hers!) and means that public funds have been completely wasted.
It’s so difficult because when she comes back off long term leave we have to be all ‘poor you, great to have you back’ when what I really want to say is, ‘please find another job that you can keep on top of or accept you need to go on full benefits because it isn’t your workplace’s responsibility to support you like this’.
Am I being too harsh??
We work in the public sector and she is a single mother with children with high needs and a chaotic relationship with her ex so she seems to get more understanding than she otherwise would do.
I sympathise with her home life, I really do. But the fact is that she cannot do her job and the rest of the team has to compensate for her. In fact, she creates more work for us in terms of the admin around her sick leave, last minute covering of meetings and tasks, having to chase her 9275 times for simple asks that she will always have an excuse for not completing, remedying her oversights and mistakes and even investigating a complaint about her lack of professionalism.
It’s pretty much guaranteed that if you give her a job, it will either be not done at all, done poorly or half-completed at best. I’m lower in status than her but am currently doing her job and delegating the easiest tasks to her - so far she hasn’t completed a single one of these tasks. And she receives £40k + a year for this (plus benefits and state-funded carers for her kids, incidentally, although that’s obviously not related to her job). She has been responsible for the failure of two projects in the past 2 years, which has a direct impact on the care we can give to children in need (children with the same needs as hers!) and means that public funds have been completely wasted.
It’s so difficult because when she comes back off long term leave we have to be all ‘poor you, great to have you back’ when what I really want to say is, ‘please find another job that you can keep on top of or accept you need to go on full benefits because it isn’t your workplace’s responsibility to support you like this’.
Am I being too harsh??
This must be so frustrating. I don't even know if your employer could do anything without opening themselves up to a discrimination minefield as well.
I think you can get rid of her by documenting all the fails in her work where tasks are not done or poorly. It would be a long term project and you’d have to offer support and a structure, however if this does not improve then you can go down the incompetence route. It’s hard work and involves difficult conversations and you need the managers on side. We had a similar issue and it wasn’t really resolved because basically our manager didn’t want to have a difficult conversation so it carried on until we got a new boss who wasn’t having it. She was then out in 6 months.
That’s exactly it - as you and @storynerd have identified, the pattern continues because it’s such a sensitive subject and nobody wants to handle that hot potato, especially when we have so many other things going on.
I like her on a personal level but resent her professionally and sometimes find myself questioning how much is genuine and how much is exaggerated for benefit. During her long term sick leave she has long weekends away abroad with her new lover or friends and long camping trips and all sorts…but her home life is so unpredictable and unstable.
In my case I got pushed too far by the constant incompetence and wrote an email to my boss saying that the team was becoming highly resentful of the poor work and gave a series of examples of fails. I tried to keep it factual and dispassionate so it wasn’t just a massive moan and it was acknowledged as correct (I kept that email as evidence it wasn’t me hallucinating!). It went on her file (sadly nothing came of it until the new boss came and kicked arse) but by having staff formally complaining you build a case that it’s affecting the team morale and company profits etc…
I feel your pain as I also work in the public sector and have a colleague who is taking the piss in a similar way. I recently complained about my colleague to the boss (of course nothing has happened) but I made my feelings known. I listed how it was affecting me having to cover for her and increasing my workload.
The colleague I complained about is supposed to be doing the same job as me but it sounds as if your colleague is on a higher level than you.
If you are having to cover her job you should request a rise and being promoted yourself.
If that's never going to happen then I would refuse to do any part of her job. Just say you've already got enough work in your own role.
Thank you…I think my boss is scared of the repercussions. This woman is very nicey-nice on the surface but I get the impression there is another side of her that wouldn’t hesitate to go to an employment tribunal.
My boss is upfront with me that she would demote her and promote me if she could but it’s public sector so it doesn’t work like that. Hopefully there is a promotion opportunity around the corner which I will go for and will put me at level pegging as the problematic woman. Guaranteed she will continue as she is but at least I will get more money for my troubles…
Thanks everyone for the sympathy - it’s good to know I’m not being too judgemental!
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I hear you - it’s literally embarrassing how incompetent my colleague is or maybe just how much she doesn’t care.
And really, one's home circumstances should not affect how you do (or don't do) your work. Everyone is being paid in return for producing work. It's as simple as that.
Of course allowances and adjustments can be made for various reasons but this sounds like the colleague is taking the piss, royally. And others will naturally resent always having to take up the slack.
Of course allowances and adjustments can be made for various reasons but this sounds like the colleague is taking the piss, royally. And others will naturally resent always having to take up the slack.
And those allowances should be short term. Like to make arrangements for the care of a dependent, not going on forever with other colleagues picking up the slack.
As others have said, you're not being too harsh. Everyone can forgive a temporary drop in someone's productivity when they're going through a tough time at home, but they're usually good at their job in normal circumstances and then improve once they've addressed the issue.
I've worked with similar people in the past and they never seem to improve. Like you've said, management can rarely be bothered to tackle the issue head on because they're worried about appearing uncaring but also because it's a lot of effort.
Generally you need to be clear several times about their incompetence, then if there's no improvement, you have to draw them up a training plan while offering support for each item. So you can't just say "you're crap at this, sort it out", you have to be nice about it and say things like "we recognise you're struggling but we really want to help you out here". Sometimes people do respond well to it, because they realise they're under the microscope and know the pisstaking days are over. However, others will still fail to improve even after the training and support and it's at that point HR can be brought in. Obviously everything needs to be documented every step of the way, too.
We had a very meek employee like this but the second they were put on a development plan they lashed out and tried to throw everyone else under the bus. A real Jekyll and Hyde character.
I hope your situation gets sorted soon, as I know how demoralising and annoying it can be.
Edited to add that it annoys me more than normal because my sister went through a tough divorce (husband walking out on her and their children for another woman) and still performed well in her full time job, despite it nearly sending her into a breakdown. I'm not saying everyone should be as resilient as her, but some are too much the other way.
I have two of those in my team- the emotional rollercoaster journey we are on with them is so tiring.
She didn't do it all the time or I would have regarded it as unprofessional. She had put herself into a really terrible situation in her personal life and was dealing with the consequences. I empathized to a point. But she was professional enough to get it together and do her job.
I used to work for a manager who cried all the freaking time at work. That's just inexcusable.
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