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:
JasmineTea11 · 27/02/2025 16:01

In my long working life I've observed there's someone like that in every job. It's always been a bloke.

ClassicBBQ · 27/02/2025 15:58

There was someone like that in my last place. No one actually knew what he did. He would wander around complaining about how busy he was, but didn't do anything! He's still there and I have no idea how, when he doesn't actually contribute in any way.

bakedFishandChips · 27/02/2025 15:58

It happened to us once in another country; We had a French boss who managed from Paris and we had a local boss with oversized girlfriend who turned a hell of a bitch. Going round commanding to people what they should do, until the employees rebelled and the Parisian guy sacked her with a msn messenger text

bakedFishandChips · 27/02/2025 15:56

So sad. The millions hard working people who get abused and thrown out and these ....these

IsawwhatIsaw · 27/02/2025 15:54

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

Priddy · 27/02/2025 15:40

AnonymousBleep · 27/02/2025 15:03

I have a strong feeling I know who you're talking about!

Show quote history

Hello there!

smooththecat · 27/02/2025 15:34

IMO there will be quite a few people like him in a large corporate, you’re just noticing this one. There will also be many more doing bare minimum.

Coralsunset · 27/02/2025 15:33

Yes I worked with a man like this for many years. His behaviour was dreadful.

He was fucking the male Managing Director, who was married to a woman and had four children.

Untouchable.

TwentyOddSocks · 27/02/2025 15:29

He could be autistic, and that's between him and his manager or HR

Rewis · 27/02/2025 15:23

We have one untouchable employee. He's pretty good at this job but he's allowed to say whatever he wants and be as unpleasant he wants. I've yet to figure out what it is. He's the managers golden boy for some reason. It was from interview onwards. I don't think they know each other previously, I don't think they're having an affair. He's not kissing the managers ass.

MyrtlethePurpleTurtle · 27/02/2025 15:22

TorroFerney · 27/02/2025 12:32

Because actually you can (at work and in life) behave really badly and no one does anything, and if you establish that as your default really early on then many people will just say oh that's just John don't mind him. People just work round difficult people.

But behaving badly or slacking off is not in a lot of people's nature so they never get to experience it and the fact that for the most part you'd be allowed to get away with it.

Agree - that's fairly typical business as usual for corporates and general inertia. Don't think we need to look for nepotism, skeletons in the closet etc. (And as he's a waste of space, he just gets shuffled from dept to dept)

Tabitha005 · 27/02/2025 15:20

My husband has one of these in his company. An IT 'manager' who doesn't know the difference between 'resolution' and 'file size' when it comes to graphics and images.... along with many, many other failings. I think she's related to one of the chief officers.

CautiousLurker01 · 27/02/2025 15:15

DatingDinosaur · 27/02/2025 12:23

He's related to or shagging someone senior.

This, or he has a hidden disability that makes it a legal nightmare to offload him.

Huckyfell · 27/02/2025 15:09

Ddakji · 27/02/2025 13:50

A penis and/or a relation in high places.

A penis in high places......

JoyousGreyOrca · 27/02/2025 15:08

I worked in a company managing someone like this. Totally hopeless at his job, but he knew how to schmooz with the senior management who all thought he was wonderful.

AnonymousBleep · 27/02/2025 15:03

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.

I have a strong feeling I know who you're talking about!

JoshLymanSwagger · 27/02/2025 15:03

Alternatively (thinking back a couple of decades) have a decade+ long affair with your boss.

You're bullet proof.

Priddy · 27/02/2025 15:01

WorkingDay · 27/02/2025 14:34

Yes. I think the public sector is especially vulnerable to these kind of staff. And they get all of us a bad name, as well as being impossible to work with

Show quote history

For the last eight years I've been having regular contact with Natural Resources Wales regarding a local factory farming set-up near us. My point of contact is a married woman who is rarely contactable and rarely working. She takes two months off over the summer, and another two months off in January and February to go 'home' to visit her family in India. We have to make appointments with her months in advance and then she's ill on the day and we have to book for another three months. When I asked to speak to her manager and mentioned her name there was a big sigh from him and he said yes, he understood our problem — but she is the named official contact for this issue in our area and no one else covers it, so...

I knew a couple of people who took redundancy from Natural Resources Wales when it reorganised a few years ago and went on to other non-public-sector jobs. They were both shocked at how much they were actually expected to do!

ClaireEclair · 27/02/2025 15:01

We had someone like that at my old work and it turned out she was the big bosses coke supplier. When he left she was out three months later.

JoshLymanSwagger · 27/02/2025 15:01

Get elected as an MP, then you're allowed to punch someone in the face and kick and beat them on the floor.

EddyF · 27/02/2025 14:58

Racism does happen in the workplace so why is this being used as an example of people getting away with ‘everything’. It is so odd.

Jasmin71 · 27/02/2025 14:54

Nepotism, shares, masonic connections. Kompromat on the CEO.

Bushmillsbabe · 27/02/2025 14:53

WorkingDay · 27/02/2025 12:55

In my NHS experience, it is the ones who raise grievances in every role they have ever been in and have a hotline to their union. Our processes are rubbish at getting rid of poor staff. These staff members just end up being offered more and more ‘support’, shifting sideways between jobs, and everyone has to tread on eggshells around them in case they accuse people of bullying or discrimination.

100% this. We have one of these in our team. Once newish staff get comfortable enough to ask, the common question is 'what does A (lazy rude colleague) have on B (manager) that B let's A get away with so much'. Numerous bullying and patient complaints against her, but she just cruises along doing much less in her full time role than me in my part time, and I'm stuck cleaning up her messes, as the patients who complain tend to then get assigned to me as the most senior member of the team, apart from A.
When staff complaints have been raised, A claims racism and/or bullying and they seem to slide under the carpet. We have lost more than 1 excellent clinician due to being bullied and fed up of no action.

Iamnotabot · 27/02/2025 14:53

RumpledSilkSkin · 27/02/2025 13:26

If that was the case surely every one would be slacking / doing enough to get by / sailing close to the wind ? I think it's more a case of a gift of the gab .

Show quote history

Depends on the management team where they work doesn’t it? And no, not everyone slacks off just because they can.

coxesorangepippin · 27/02/2025 14:48

We have one like that in our team

I used to think she was sleeping with our boss but now I don't

She's on a much higher pay grade than most people, does less and seems to come and go as she pleases

She seems immune and I don't know why