Most incompetent person you ever worked with/hired

[Medsy]

I've got a new colleague, he has been here for 2 months and I 100% understand it takes time to be eased/trained into a new role, but this is next level. It's actually making me wonder whether he lied on his CV or at interview. There are really, really basic aspects to the industry he doesn't seem to have heard of, the other day he was struggling to use a simple Word feature, and one of the requirements was a foreign language which he said he was proficient in.
Ultimately I am going to have to work with him as a pair and I am trying to be as helpful and generous as I can but a part of me thinks why have they hired him?@
Opening the floor....Have you ever worked with or hired someone where it went beyond just incompetence and you thought "WTF is going on!".

before a medical procedure , the nurse asked me about any medication I take. I told her “ only HRT “. Her reply ? “ what’s that “ ?

Your managers should be putting her on a performance plan.

At least my ex MIL had the decency to retire when they brought in a new system which she said she wouldn't be able to use. She is a complete technophobe and wouldn't even attempt the training so handed her notice in.

So you are aware of your limitations and are trying your best, which most (not all) of the people described are definitely not!

The person they hired as assistant manager in the shop I worked in aged 24. I’ll call her Ann.

It was a small charity shop with only 8 staff including the two Saturday girls, the manager and Ann. After three months in the job she was unable to place an order to the supplier using the computer. The manager had already written the order and all she had to do was send it. Ann also couldn’t check off an order on the computer once it came in despite apparently having excellent computer skills. Ann was unable to place an order for change with the bank which meant just phoning them up at least a day before it was needed, giving the company name and a list of what you wanted so if the manager wasn’t there it got handed to me. Ann did not understand the importance of not answering the door whilst holding a till drawer of money. Thankfully both times it was the postman but as the door is a standard wooden front door we have no way of knowing until the door is open. The keys for the till were also often left hanging in the drawer allowing anyone to open it.

Ann had a boyfriend who was a nasty piece of work and liked verbal put downs. One day he dumped her and she spent the day outside his office begging him to take her back. It was May and though there are two Monday holidays our work place was taking one off and her boyfriends work the other one. Ann complained to the manager that is was unfair they were not allowed the same Monday off (the decision was made further up and the manager had no say) and then phoned in sick the Monday that her boyfriend was off and also phoned in sick after appearing in work to tell us she had been dumped. Ann was 27 and went clubbing with and bought alcohol for the underage Saturday girls. The manager suggested this was not appropriate but as it was taking place outside of work she could not actually prevent it. Ann did not survive probation.

May I ask which Mac @OneMoreTime23 ?
I can remember seeing the monochrome Macintosh with a floppy disc slot around ‘84 or ‘85.

So you would describe a BBC microcomputer as a 'modern computer'? OK then.

As I said, I have taught myself to use it to a degree through books and asking others. I haven't the money to self-fund a training course, and my employer certainly wouldn't fund it.

😂😂😂. Ruth Jones must get her inspiration from somewhere.

Okay, but your lesson objective needs to relate to a curriculum. You’re not just taking random stabs in the dark are you? Otherwise, there’d be no skills progression across year groups surely.

I once worked with an agency nurse who would disappear for hours at a time. We suspected she was moonlighting. She was also racist toward other nurses and antagonistic. She’d often do things outside of her scope of practice (nothing dangerous, but it compromised our standing with regulators) Eventually I asked the agency to stop sending her so she took the company to a tribunal on grounds of racism. When it became clear that wasn’t going to work, she changed the claim to being dismissed after making a health and safety disclosure.

Ahead of the tribunal I looked into her background. She had three other tribunals she’d tried to launch in similar circumstances. She’d also been struck off by the NMC for doing bank work at one trust while being off sick at another, so the agency had clearly done zero due diligence when sending her to us. The day before the tribunal she sacked her solicitor and the whole event was chaos. She spent half her time shouting at the judges about how I wear short skirts and spend too much time smoking (I don’t smoke for starters) and threatened to report our medical lead to the GMC when cross examining him.

If she spent half as much time dedicating herself to her profession as she did launching tribunals when caught doing wrong I suspect she’d make a fantastic nurse.

@TheLogicalSong "The thing is, no one in their mid 40s or older would have grown up with a computer in the remotely modern sense of the word"

You don't seem to get that people are challenging the first half of your statement - the bit about "no one in their mid 40s or older ... " - as it is an inaccurate generalisation.

The modern computers that we were using in the1980s were modern for their time, and a whole lot more complicated to use than "modern" computers. They included word processing, accountancy packages and spreadsheet programmes even then - basic office funtionality that hasn't really changed in the last 30 years. They just were not called Microsoft Word and didn't come in a Microsoft Office package or run on Windows. Granted, thousands of other applications and programmes were yet to be developed, but email and internet shopping have also been around for 30 years now, so I'll repeat my earlier comment - anyone who was using these when they were in their 20s would today be well past your "mid-40s" cut off point - some by another 20 years or more.

We're now facing this issue at my trust.

Lack of competence is being palmed off as 'other staff are racist' and its now such a thing that colleagues feel unable to speak up for their patients at risk of being labelled racist.

Surgical spirit will remove permanent marker - cheap and effective

Bless!

Did he take his blankie and sippy cup?

Although I could probably use afternoon naps myself I'm not 'junior'!

I'm a paraprofessional in America (like a TA in England). There was once another Para there that once told the kids to color the stripes on the US Flag red, white and blue. Even the kids knew that was wrong AND there was a flag hanging in the room that she could have looked at. This same woman could also not remember that 1 x 1 = 1 and NOT 2 (I'm completely serious about this). Needless to say she did not last very long at the job.

Government. My first job was in civl service fast stream so I was on rotation. They put me in prison service IT which wasn't exactly my strong suit. But it was such a mess. The senior civil servants literally knew nothing about It - the woman in charge of the whole project didn't even use a computer!!!! It was awful because I remember reading the report on the failed Probation Service £400m installation and looking around me thinking - this is happening again! Even down to using the same suppliers EDS and PWC. I left the civil service shortly after, I didn't want to work somewhere where people could be that incompetent with public money - and Zaid Mubarek had just died from being placed in a cell with a man with a swastika on his head - exactly the kind of thing the IT was designed to solve.

@Tribblesarelovely unless of an age, or a nurse prescriber (she wouldn’t be), many wouldn’t know tbh, especially if newly qualified. That’s not incompetence.

I have to say , I frequently use word but don’t really do track changes.

The modern computers that we were using in the1980s were modern for their time

Everything was modern when it was first built, for goodness sake. You might as well describe a rotary dial phone as a 'modern phone' because it was modern in 1932 or whenever.

anyone who was using these when they were in their 20s would today be well past your "mid-40s" cut off point.

I said 'grown up with' - not 'used as an adult'.

LOL this reminds me of the people who've done fake sign language on news conferences.

Well, I said I can make sign language not that anyone else could understand it. True, I suppose!

Scribbling over the permanent marker with a whiteboard marker will also work 😉

You have my every sympathy on that front. It becomes such a horribly time-consuming and expensive process too once the solicitors’ fees are brought into it.

I've had to show someone how to use a big standard hole punch before now. Didn't get the concept of the slide page size thing at the side

Worked with someone who cried anytime you told her to do anything. Because she was worried she'd screw up a fairly common sense thing.

Worked with a who didn't do their actual job but lots of extraneous stuff. Who knew the office Christmas do at a restaurant where they do everything took so much organising. Book table, get meal orders and pay deposit done. Nope days dedicated to it

I could go on

I've worked with a few people who are astonished to find they weren't just hired to sit around and think of ideas, they had to execute them as well. I'm not sure if the problem arises because of them, or the person hiring.

Also, this one is not incompetent as such, just out of touch. She was an intern who was the daughter of a very rich client. One day she was asked to get files down from a top shelf to work on. She brought them to me, asking what was on their covers. It was dust. She had never seen dust before.

I had a temp work for me who really wasn’t up to the job - I should have realised on day 1 when she took several attempts to create a new password and kept getting it wrong. I put it down to nerves but it was actually a very accurate measure of her overall competence 😬

You may need to work on your reading comprehension as well as anger issues, because my text was saying that I would expect the employee to whom you referred to be able to find 10% without a calculator: why you thought this was directed at you is,and for for all I care will remain, a mystery to me.