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It seems that there are certain people in every company, heck, probably in every group/department within a company, who are incompetent yet have learned the art of BS'ing so well that they give the impression to people outside of your group or even your management that they are competent and carrying their weight.
They don't do any of the work, and don't know any of the tools, yet they hear you talking about it and you sound knowledgeable and are actually getting stuff done so they regurgitate your comments in front of the right people as if they know something about it even though they just yesterday asked you what it was. Meanwhile you and every member of your group FUME over not only the incompetence of this person but their audacity to take credit for your work right in front of you, or BS other people right in front of you talking about stuff you and every one of your co-workers KNOWS they know nothing about, etc.
As if that's not enough, they take credit for your work/ideas when they're loved by management, and as soon as someone finds a flaw or doesn't like it, they are more than happy to point the credit in the right direction.
In reality, the people outside of your group don't notice any of this/don't get it, and in most cases, management doesn't either. Even in cases where management is aware either because you've made them aware or they are smart enough to have figured it out on their own, all that seems to happen is their failing projects get reassigned to you every time. YOU then get to do not only your work but that of this BS artist. Supposedly management who is aware tries to get rid of them but HR is typically where it stops and goes nowhere.
In any case, it's hard for me to put into words the BS/injustice of dealing with these people. I've even had them promoted over me in the past. Lately I've taken the approach of letting management know in a reasoned, calm manner, with supporting evidence. This has worked out better since I instead get promoted over them once the truth is aired. But still these people cling to their jobs and make every project horrible, since HR would rather protect their own ass than do their job.
Is there a better way to deal with this? Frankly, if I walked off the job today, then they would do something about it, because then there is no one to carry the other person anymore. That's what happened at my last job; when I left and there was no longer anyone with my level of skill to carry them, HR and Management terminated them within weeks after my leaving (I suppose mentioning this as the reason I was leaving during my exit interview had something to do with it as well).
In any case, I've come to form the opinion that it's best to avoid being promoted above the person because then you will just be expected to carry them because it's your job. Is it best to just do your own work and NOT help these people until they fall flat on their face and are finally fired? I figure if I play dumb and don't help them, don't carry them, only do my own work, let their projects fail, don't share my expertise with them, etc. they will eventually get fired.
I think with slackers, it's best to train/coach them (not officially) by informally mentoring them how to be better. If not, then it's probably just something to live with. Management may not care in honesty, dependent on their goals or competence.
Sadly, most management personnel are untrained and unqualified for the job and were merely promoted for good performance in another non management role; they rise to their level of incompetence. A good receptionist doesn't necessarily translate into a great HR Manager, Sales Manager, IT Manager, etc.
Positive re-enforcement seems lost on some managers. Had a great manager that whenever you did well he'd tell you did a good job. If you screwed up he'd let you know what you did wrong and that next time you'll get it done. Employee morale was great.
He was replaced by someone who had horrible social skills. He was stressed all the time. If you did a good job you never got an "atta boy". When you made a mistake or underperformed you were scolded and told not to let it happen again. Company morale torpedoed.
These types of nitwits are common all over and nothing will ever be done about them. They will live out their careers wherever they wish, completely immune to any consequences for their actions.
Some examples from my DoD contractor job:
1) Lazy and Useless: A guy who came in 2 hours late every day, took a 2 hour lunch, and left with everyone else. He never answered his phone, read his email, or spent more than 1 hour a day in his cubicle. Instead, he'd wander the huge facility, chatting with people. He lacked basic engineering skills and common sense, often flat-out refused to do his job, and delayed a major program's drawing release by a year. At one time, a manager was actually assigned full-time to keep track of this nitwit, which is insane. I sat next to him for 8 years, so I know of what I speak... and yet he still works there while plenty of good people were laid off.
2) Daddy's Boy: Son of a VP with mediocre engineering skills. Promoted as fast as allowed by the company - he may actually be a VP himself now with under 15 years experience. Completely immune to all consequences for his actions. Once broke into and vandalized a rival's office on the company dollar, completely remodeling the place to look like a lady's restroom - toilet included - and trashed the office, resulting in it all needing to be redone. Literally nothing happened to him for this action.
3) The Sadist: A rat-man hybrid that spent his whole career on "top secret jobs" that had no requirements, budget, or anything else. In short, he goes to work to hide in closed areas and do basically nothing. I worked on one of his insane jobs for almost a year, so I know what's really going on. The man is useless, evil, sneaky, and sadistic. His only joy in life is "watching other people suffer" - his words, not mine - and yet the company still feels he deserved lifetime employment over all the other people they laid off.
4) The Loon: A screaming madman I sat next to for many years who's only skill was loudly spewing noise, denying accountability, and being a jerk. Again, like all these clowns, he's been there since forever and nothing will ever be done about him. His big thing was giving people bad information so he could laugh at them later -I sat next to him, so I'd hear him call up his cronies after giving the misinformation to laugh about how "stupid" the person asking for help was and how "funny" it'll be when the guy gets screwed over. His crowning achievement came when he angered so many people the company just made up a charge number - at the taxpayer's expense - for him to sit on since nobody wanted to work with him any more. And yet, he topped that when, on a business trip, he cursed out a VP and flew home only a few day's into the week long trip because he wasn't happy with it. The company's response? Give him a month off (maybe without pay), and try to deny what actually happened to anyone who asked. Any normal employee would have been fired on the spot. Of course, he still works there.
5) The clueless ones: This covers several idiots who still work there who, despite being "mechanical engineers" are completely unable to use ANY of the tools the company requires to do that job. The hypocrisy is glaring since I'm sure plenty of worthwhile candidates have been rejected since they don't have "3 to 5 years experience in NX," but these clowns can't even draw a box in the CAD tool we use, but that's okay for some reason. Of course, they are also idiots: One of them strongly supported to the bitter end a design that was proven to fall apart under it's own weight... and it was somehow supposed to survive being launched into space on a rocket. Another one once designed a series of machined housings that were entirely solid pieces of metal with the only machining taking placed on the INSIDE of the boxes... and the list just keeps on going. Total morons, immune to reason and facts, unable to do their jobs, and yet - without fail - kept on by the company and promoted to leadership positions.
The company pet: My most recent job was completely dysfunctional and the place shouldn't even have been in business. At they rate they are going, they won't be around much longer since they haven't made any money (or broke even) in over half a year.
They had similar problems. The company COO was completely clueless and made decisions that were so stupid a child wouldn't have made them. He was also a raging, hate-filled lunatic who loved to pick fights and was immune to reason. Most of the workers were okay, though some were bigoted nuts who hated everyone else in the company, which was impressive for a company that only had at most 80 people. Then, there was the "company mascot," a old buddy of the CEO who was completely incompetent. When I started there, I had NO experience CAM work, and he had years of experience. Within a few months, I was producing programs that were just fine, and yet he still was unable to produce a single CAM program that was not a completely useless disaster. Every single job he produced was wrong and had to be redone from scratch in most cases. He also refused to follow any company standards, didn't document his work, and couldn't even handle the most basic tasks, like producing an accurate tool list or putting his files in the right location. The final insult - he'd often be given "employee of the month" bonus checks - despite his endless mistakes - while the rest of us who actually did our jobs and put in overtime got no bonus at all.
Care to guess which of us still works there? That's right - not me, but the company pet. Of course, given the rate at which the company is bleeding money, it won't matter in a few months, but it still proves what I'm saying: If you have connections, you can literally screw up EVERYTHING YOU DO and still keep your job forever.
OMG! I have been trying to look for a place like this for a while. I relate to all of the above. I was hired to be a sales engineer.
Even though the company knew I wasn't, they still hired me and it has gone well for a while. My coworker is a total lazy person and lives in his own lala land where he thinks he is a rock star sales person for the company. He is arrogant and backstabbing as well. It got so bad that I told my boss I refused to even speak to him again.
He said that he wanted to promote me over him. Out of pettiness, I agreed just to spite him and didn't think it through. Little I knew the mess that I was getting myself into. Now I am his boss and he is absolutely disrespectful and even more incompetent than ever. My boss/owner knows it and yet still doesn't fire him because he would rather for lazy guy to leave on his own. I cant keep working like this but I shouldn't have to quite because of all this! I am so hopeless
^^ Wtf is a sales engineer? Did you sell engineers or did you engineer sales?
I've heard that term used to describe people who handle sales in an engineering role. For example, if you are representing a company that sells a wide variety of complex products (RF connectors and cabling, quick-disconnect fluid couplings, etc.) as a sales engineer, you'd work with the company's engineers to chose or create a product that meets their needs.
Ah, that makes sense. So he is selling engineers essentially. If you're in sales, you're not an engineer haha . Sales guys round here call themselves Tax Advisors...
If you are an engineer, I sincerely apologize for my assumption and that you have to do sales.
Rambler123, yeah, I read your post in the "Frauds at work" thread. It's somewhat funny that I can relate to what you posted, but at the same time it's very depressing.
Jaekn,
A Sales Engineer is usually the TECHNICAL representative for a companies products. They work in conjuntion with the sales rep/account manager to demo a product by gathering requirements for the customers needs, configuring the product to meet their needs, and answering deep technical questions during the sales cycle. Most often sales engineers are in IT or Industrial/Mechanical fields.
How I know: I got hired as a billable IT consultant at a company and when I hired on, no one else in the newly hired consulting division OR their sales engineers had any knowledge of the technologies. For the next few years, I built their demos for them, trained them, essentially did their work for them...only to watch them get promoted above me because everyone thought they did it on their own.
As if that wasn't bad enough, when I found out they were making way more money then me, I refused to do their work for them. I mean, I had to actually spend MONTHS and in some cases YEARS delivering on large development projects while these imbeciles showed a tiny little demo I had built in a couple of days ! So basically I had a way harder job, got paid less, and was expected to do their work for them.
Well, when I refused they still kept their jobs, and the pay, though I was given a promotion and more money in exchange for doing their work for them. I won't make that mistake again. When I eventually left, I cited that as the reason I was leaving. They tried to throw more money at me again, but I had had enough. I learned that when there are signs of inept management and gross incompetence in an orgnization, don't expect your pointing their incompetence out to magically give them sound reasoning and decision making skills from there on out. If you have to point out basic things that would be obvious to anyone with an IQ higher than two digits, then you've already lost, just move on.
In any case the people who I had to carry got terminated not long after I left. My colleagues cheered me when I refused to talk to the VP I reported to or the CEO anymore. They sent me IM's and emails saying they know I was carrying the load, etc. They were actually the ones who emailed me to tell me the problem people got fired.
A strategy I am currently trying is just letting them fail rather than rescuing them. When they ask me a question, I just play dumb and say I don't know. Yes, it eventually escelates to management, but that's when I hit them with all the documentation on the issue and where the responsibility really lies. I'm hoping after a few big escalations, they finally see a pattern...but I'm asking too much of people who struggle to figure out which shoe goes on which foot.
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. Sales guys round here call themselves Tax Advisors... 
