Boss and new colleague flirting - anyone have any experience of this?

[SirChenjin]

New colleague joined our small, scattered team a while back. Very poor CV, has moved from job to job in our very niche market, and has gone down grades over the years. Has wound up every member of the team since joining - e.g. trying to delegate work with arbitary deadlines in bold, with no mandate. Very charming and attractive though.

Boss has taken a major shine to them. New colleague has obviously decided that they won't get anywhere with the team and has taken to flirting with the boss (it can only be described as flirting). Boss is lapping it up, is ignoring errors they've made, is backing them up, and is allocating the 'good' tasks to them.

None of us know what to make of it. We don't want to challenge it because it will be denied (and it's nothing major, iykwim) but it's not something that's ever happened to any of us before. It's getting everyone's backs up - as one colleague said "I feel as though I should leave the room".

Anyone have any experience of this, and what did you do?

[ImperialBlether]

Does your boss have a boss?

[SirChenjin]

Yes, they do. Boss gets on very well with their boss, who would only really intervene if things were very bad - and they're not at this point. It's all very low level stuff, but certainly uncomfortable to watch. New colleague, I suspect, is well aware of their behaviour - very charming and flirtatious.

[mrschatty]

It's making your working environment inappropriate you need to speak to HR or a senior manager have a note of times and occasions imo. Good luck

[SirChenjin]

Thanks - think we will need it! I'll certainly be recording things from now on, but I suspect it will look a bit meh when written down tbh. Our boss is well aware of how the team feels about the new colleague, so will claim that we are persecuting them, I think.

In the meantime - ignore them?

[RiverTam]

Did your boss hire this person? Because I'm struggling to understand how they got the job.

[SirChenjin]

So am I Tam. Yes, boss hired the person. Colleague was also on the interview panel and had reservations from the outset.

Baffled - hope you're right! It's not something we've ever experienced as a team, so it's a mixture of and at the moment.

[RiverTam]

Sounds very dodgy then, boss hires poorly qualified person and proceeds to flirt with them.

I'd talk to HR.