ABU to expect work to actually do something constructive about PITA colleague?

[Songofsixpence]

Instead of constantly saying "well, you know what he's like"

He's due to retire early next year so they seem to be reluctant to discipline him as "well he won't be here much longer anyway"

Don't want to out myself so don't want to give too many examples, but he's a complete busy body and constantly interferes with things that are nothing to do with him, continually manages to offend other staff, suppliers, etc

He sets stupid tests for people to try and catch them out - last month he changed a load of figures on a spreadsheet that I had done, which could have cost the company a lot of money if I hadn't noticed. We knew full well it was him as our computer system logs which users have accessed/changed stuff.

He's constantly pulling stunts like this, but all we ever get is "oh, you know what he's like, there's no harm done". No, there's no harm done so far but only because the rest of us sort this shit out.

I'm supposed to have a week off next week, but I now have to go in for a couple of hours for a meeting tomorrow morning to sort out something that happened on Friday, due to him interfering yet again.

I'm sick of picking up the pieces behind him. I had to do some serious damage limitation a couple of weeks ago after he offended an important supplier, and tomorrow is going to be a nightmare and could have serious implications if we don't get it sorted.

We have disciplinary procedures, I just want them to bloody follow them

Laffin' at the idea that 'age discrimination goes up to a certain age', would be kind of pointless, wouldn't it?

I'm sure it used to. At some training I was on probably pre 2010 we were all shocked to learn that there was no concept of age discrimination for employment law under 16 and over 65 (I think). Someone must know what I'm talking about.

here we go

The point would be to prevent discrimination of some one aged 55 (for example) or 23.

You will be eligible for your pension at a certain age; you may or may not choose to retire when you recieve your pension. But it is against the law to "make" someone give up their job on the basis of their age. Retirement is a form of dismissal therefore it would be unfair dismissal and age discrimination.

Try letting him mess something up.

I work in an incredibly pressured industry and we regularly get incidents where people's incompetence means my team have to work all night/all weekend to keep the client happy. Appeals to higher management fall on deaf ears because there is no disruption to the business and the work is being done ... Even if that's killing my team.

After a few of these I told my team to stop covering for the idiots in question and let it fail. Cover your own arses first before you do this off, you need an email trail to prove its not you messing up.

Result? Massive panic at higher levels, and swift action taken to sort out the idiots responsible.

good luck. People like this are incredibly toxic. I had one a bit like this - alas beloved of management but she got promoted out of the way so at least I don't have to work with her any more. She's making her new colleagues lives hell...

And I was involved in a case of just that where the person was 67, the case was lost. She was bloody useless at her job but no-one dealt with her on the basis that they could get rid of her as she "should" have retired. And saying someone is "past it/too old" dosn't wash.
If they are incapable you have to deal with their incapability. If they are too ill you have to deal with them under sickness.

OP I do hope you will tell your bosses why you've had to come in, on your holiday.

I'd tell them in no uncertain terms how angry you are about this, and how let down you feel at reaching such a point.

I also agree with whoever said unthread, that you should, arrange a meeting and put in a group grievance about this man.

Nooo, don't put in a group grievance. All the laws about grievances only apply to individual grievances (odd, but true) so there is no obligation on an employer to act on them whereas there is on individual grievances.

Everyone put in an individual grievance and make sure they are worded differently and don't look like a group grievance.

I've read that link about age discrimination, it doesn't say anything about if being OK to discriminate against people over 65 or under 16.

And while the Equality Act in 2010 made the law clear, there was age discrimination legislation in 2006 and there had been plenty of case law prior to that which meant we didn't discriminate. And there was an EU Directive in 2000.

The bit of that link that talks about not employing someone within six months of age 65 is only where it has been objectively justified, which is frankly almost never. A few areas still have set retirement ages (police, pilots) but they are gradually being challenged. So no, there is no way in your average workplace that it is ever OK to discriminate due to age, be that 65, 75 or 16 (some jobs do have statutory lower age limits, ones that require driving, or serving alcohol for example, but those are justified as there is a requirement to comply with other legislation).

Thanks all!

Sorry. Didn't come back yesterday, ended up out with the kids.

Just heading into work so we'll see how it goes.

Will be talking to my manager too, they've got to take some action after this

Good luck. Dragging you in during your holiday to sort out a mess is surely enough to galvanise them.

I don't think they would tell you if he had been officially reprimanded. That's between him and his managers and they shouldn't speak to you abut it so maybe he has been officially ticked off as per company policy and you just aren't aware.

I've been on the end of something like this before and I'd just continuously log complaint after complaint every them something happened even if it were just to cover my back and those that I managed.

Good luck.

Did you read the section entitled "retirement". That certainly implies to me that it used to be legal to force retirememt - employees over 65 have the right to request to carry on working.
Anyway, none of that applies now. I'm just proving a point :) as no one seems to believe me.

Put a group grievance in and it looks like bullying. Just keep batting it back up for them to sort out.

How did it go?