Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

What does it take to be completely untouchable at work?

161 replies

PithyMintFawn · 27/02/2025 12:14

I work in a big corporate and I’ve noticed there’s this one guy who seems completely immune from any expectations or consequences. He shows up to meetings when he wants, barely contributes, and yet no one complains or even acknowledges it. It’s almost like an unspoken rule - he moves between teams every few years and people just know not to involve him in projects. If he does something unprompted, everyone reacts as if he’s done something amazing.

From what I’ve gathered, HR won’t touch his case, and there seems to be some underlying reason he’s so protected. This is unlike anything I’ve seen in my career. AIBU to wonder what kind of situation would lead to someone being completely untouchable at work? Have you ever seen this happen?

OP posts:
Theseventhmagpie · 27/02/2025 17:08

Seen this before. Either the boss’s son/ daughter or having an affair with the boss.

Itsnotallaboutyoulikeyouthink · 27/02/2025 17:07
  1. he’s male 2) he either has a family member there more senior colleagues that he knows that have been there for a long time and back him for some reason 3) they think his knowledge is invaluable 4) he’s been there a very very long time 5) HR are shite and don’t know how to handle him.

there’s just been an internal promotion where I work very senior with a man who has recently had complaints put in about him. Go figure.

Cyclebabble · 27/02/2025 17:07

For the ones I have come across a) shagging the boss- we had a lady who was known to be shagging a senior Director. She came in when she wanted, did very little and was bitchy to everyone. She got promoted as well. She did however leave just after he did and before anyone got the chance to manage her appropriately. Also the bosses close relative I have seen, but usually this is less of a think than the shagging. On occasion as well I have worked in industries where Freemasonry has a hold and you see people promoted and just go eh? And then you learn later on they are a member of the right lodge.

JoyousGreyOrca · 27/02/2025 17:04

Dilbert with the useless employee in a private company resonated with people reading the cartoon, because every company of a certain size has these employees.

Millymoonshine · 27/02/2025 17:01

IsawwhatIsaw · 27/02/2025 15:54

From my NHS experience, ability to intimidate seniors, poor, weak management and ineffective HR..

So true,
I think at least 5% of NHS employees probably take the piss and get away with it.

Jeeekers · 27/02/2025 17:00

One office had a guy with cancer who was untouchable. The backstory: he had cancer and everyone thought he was going to die. They promoted him & gave good raise … because he was going to die and thought his company life insurance payout be more generous for his family etc. Then, he did not die. A few times, had medical set backs. And kept returning to work. Year after year after year.
He had a good job title, and was basically not very good at his job. What he needed to be, to be good was just not in his skill set. Others were hired around him to do what he should have been doing.

Only Sr Management knew back story, & no-one wanted to fire him because of the cancer. And potential for discrimination lawsuit. The company run by basically good people, trying to do the right thing.

StScholastica · 27/02/2025 17:00

Yep, I worked with one, a senior NHS manager. She was always being funded to set up her own little projects that were pitifully bad, with piss poor data.
Her presentations were embarrassing, she achieved nothing, yet she was lauded as if she was Einstein.

theboffinsarecoming · 27/02/2025 16:59

My old boss used to call it 'being promoted out of harm's way'. 😂

Millymoonshine · 27/02/2025 16:54

Priddy · 27/02/2025 14:20

I used to work with a woman like this when I worked in a huge magazine company. She was a named editor on one title but was rarely in the office and the editing work was done by others. She occasionally attended meetings, where managers were clearly careful around her and treated her with kid gloves. She never said anything.

It turned out that when she'd arrived as a young graduate in the company a couple of years earlier, she'd had a relationship with the 30-years-older big-name editor who ran the massively-successful money-making title that the whole London business was hung on. After they split up she accused him of sexually assaulting her and had recorded some evidence (no idea what) of what was clearly an inappropriate relationship. The management couldn't afford to lose him, so to avoid a court case and negative publicity they came to a deal with her. That seems to have involved a cash lump sum big enough to buy her a 2-bed flat in a very nice part of Zone 1 and three years continued employment as an editor, to give her a great CV. From what I eventually understood she did some work from home and only came into the office when he wasn't around, because they weren't allowed to be seen together.

You’re talking about Patsy in Ab Fab. 😂

Lucelady · 27/02/2025 16:42

I worked for one company where the CFO had 'saved' the owner from prison. It was scaremongering. His solicitor wife helped to reduce the impact. I came along from a family of solicitors and I was out the door when I rumbled him. Ditto his bogus qualifications.
However he was a pussycat compared to the ex services ceo who threatened to shoot me if I told anyone he was money laundering. I left sharpish. He's been in prison. Bailed and the company clapsed. Up to that point everyone thought he walked on water.

Coconuthotchocolate · 27/02/2025 16:41

I have one of these in my team. Weak HR and protected characteristics means she can do what she wants. Including lying like she breathes. Everyone knows it but no one has the balls to deal with it (sigh)

it drives us crazy but not a lot we can do.

Isxmasoveryet · 27/02/2025 16:36

PithyMintFawn · 27/02/2025 12:14

I work in a big corporate and I’ve noticed there’s this one guy who seems completely immune from any expectations or consequences. He shows up to meetings when he wants, barely contributes, and yet no one complains or even acknowledges it. It’s almost like an unspoken rule - he moves between teams every few years and people just know not to involve him in projects. If he does something unprompted, everyone reacts as if he’s done something amazing.

From what I’ve gathered, HR won’t touch his case, and there seems to be some underlying reason he’s so protected. This is unlike anything I’ve seen in my career. AIBU to wonder what kind of situation would lead to someone being completely untouchable at work? Have you ever seen this happen?

Related to the boss or sleeping with the boss or someone senior only two options to be untouchable afraid

Hwi · 27/02/2025 16:36

Avoid! Like the plague! (Just in case).

SunnySideUp1233 · 27/02/2025 16:33

We have one of these at work. She is very good friend with someone high up and very quick to go running to complain if anyone doesn't treat her as she would like.

Penwatch · 27/02/2025 16:32

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

saladandchipp · 27/02/2025 16:32

I've seen it with someone very close to retirement in the NHS. Seems like it's easier just to turn a blind eye. Awful.

anyolddinosaur · 27/02/2025 16:30

Identify as trans, although that may be changing.

LucyMonth · 27/02/2025 16:27

Oh and to add to your specific situation…when someone has been getting away with bad behaviour for so long it becomes difficult to pull them up on it. By not pulling them up on it years ago you have essentially been saying “your behaviour is fine”. To suddenly change the goal posts and decide what the contribute isn’t enough can land a company in hot water. The longer someone’s been around the more difficult it becomes to get rid of them.

ColinOfficeTrolley · 27/02/2025 16:25

All it takes in our place is a touch of nepotism, a sense of entitlement and the thought that everything they do is the right way and everyone else is wrong.

LucyMonth · 27/02/2025 16:24

I’ve seen this a few times.

Once I was an assistant manager for a large retailer. Before I joined one of the staff had fallen off a ladder in the stock room and broken a bone. He hadn’t had his ladder safety training. He sued. He was untouchable after that. I asked to sack him because he was smoking weed in the stock room blatantly and the store manager said he was untouchable. We had to just let it go.

I’ve also had a manager who was a couple of years off of retirement. Had been with the company 30 odd years. He was so grossly sexually inappropriate with all of the young female staff. Complaints were made. It was brushed aside because he’d been there so long. If they accepted his behaviour was awful now they would have been admitting that he’d been getting away with it for 30+ years, so they just waited for him to retire.

bakedFishandChips · 27/02/2025 16:23

ThatsNotMyTeen · 27/02/2025 13:36

More fool them

Show quote history

Hm. That is not a big win. Most companies pay you your clock in and out time these days

Zimunya · 27/02/2025 16:18

MrsBennetsPoorNerves · 27/02/2025 12:21

In a healthy organisation, nobody is untouchable.

In a dysfunctional organisation, it could be down to all manner of different things. Maybe he knows something ? Or knows someone?

Exactly this. In a properly run organisation, no-one is untouchable.

IdaGlossop · 27/02/2025 16:13

Once they get to a certain size, most organisations seem to have one of these. Senior people who could take action but don't seem incapable of realising how demotivating it is for everyone around the shirker. The last one I encountered even sued (and won) for constructive dismissal when, eventually, the senior team decided to do something about him. He was so useless he had his PA replenish the staples in his stapler, and so uninterested in anyone but himself that he only found out the name of the person who sat back-to-back with him when she sent a work-related mail to our section of the office and he shouted out: 'Who's X?' She spun round on her chair and said, loudly, 'It's me, Y.' A glorious moment 😊

Totallymessed · 27/02/2025 16:12

Similar to others, in my experience it was due to having a protected characteristic and a reputation for raising grievances at the drop of a hat.

Basically no-one could face the inevitable accusations of bullying/ bigotry, so people just hoped she'd decide to move on of her own accord.

rosiebl · 27/02/2025 16:03

In my experience, a person who has all of the cards in their arsenal. Likely to include, raising grievances for everything and anything, using the 'health' card, specifically mental health when challenged and declaring many different medical conditions. I was told by an HR specialist that these people become untouchable. They never progress or get promoted, but they side move and side move around teams and stay in employment often unchallenged and excused.