To wonder if every workplace has that person who is unsackable?

[Whistleblow2024]

Because honestly one of DCs workmates seems unsackable and I'm curious if this is normal.

They are constantly late, they don't care, they make regular inappropriate comments to others they work with but also in front of clients and at training sessions.
They ignore management frequently, which has resulted in incidents which could have become much larger.
They have left things in an area with clients that shouldn't have been there which again could have been more serious.

They also did something pretty major after being not to which again could have been very serious

Trying to be intentionally vague for obvious reasons but before I worked from home I remember people like this too!

So do you have a cheeky fuck at your work and what can they get away with

Yep, we had one. Finally retired in April. Utterly useless, refused to even have Teams open as she ‘couldn’t work it’. It would have been too much hassle to manage her out. We found a load of signed customer documents in her drawer after she left that she hadn’t sent to HMRC because she hated scanning.

We had one, he would get so vicious whenever managers called out his performance that they backed away.

I had watched for years so when I became his manager I gave him a bit of time to see if he would change then started working with HR. He was absolutely nasty but I didn't see why the rest of my hardworking team should have to carry someone who did barely any work

At a place I used to do business there was a family member of the boss employed there who was completely useless and untouchable.

Needless to say I quit doing business with them when my account was handed over to them to handle. No discussion, no reason why. Just went straight somewhere else.

Your challenge is to figure out why the person is untouchable. Stealth family member, son/daughter of a long term friend of the boss. Shagging the boss. Etc.

Yes, we’ve got one who turns up late every single day, takes long lunches, does no work and doesn’t hit targets yet somehow inexplicably hasn’t been sacked.

yep.. takes more breaks than the rest of the shift entirely.. when she goes off sick, she is never shown as off sick to protect her pay and her sick record, she's useless at her job.. and yet she still remains in post!

I worked with a person who went to prison for a couple of months and was welcomed back to work as if nothing had happened. They weren't even that good at their job. I do wonder if they had some kind of dirt on someone high up.

Wow. No such thing as unsackable in a city law firm. Brutal. Your feet don’t even touch the ground as they hustle you out. I find all these stories fascinating and completely outside my frame of reference!

Not where I work now, have come across some in the past.

Conservative Central Office has at least two.

Worked with a young engineer who used to do no work all day then work overtime and get paid for it, to get the work done. Everyone knew that’s what they did. They got this gig for the country manager where they were a type of assistant to shadow the position and help with executive level reports etc as a development role. His job consisted of running to the dry cleaner, watering the boss’s plants when he was out of town, lunches and other personal errands.

we ended up on a job site together and they saw right through him, asked him not to come back after the first 3mth rotation. Did he lose his job? No. He was transferred to a lucrative gig earning shit loads and 20years later is some kind of expert in our field, travelling the world, attending and presenting at conferences and is a company director. He always said there were better people at the actual job but as he had the gift of the gab he’s managed to leapfrog everyone and end up in a very comfortable position

There's always a way to sack people, it's just useless management that is the issue.

It really shouldn't be tolerated and defines a toxic company if it's just ignored.

I've taken a bit too long to action some redundancies and I can see my staff getting so fed up and looking to me, it undermines everyone else work ethic and just spreads.

I think it's lazy management.

Yep there is one in my office who is annoying but can live with.

However I work in higher education I know someone who got fired and sued for wrongfully dismissal based on discrimination as she was female.

However the reason she was finished was for relentlessly bullying her students to the point she threw her against a wall and broke her arm.

What does playing the race card actually mean? Just confused because surely poor work performance has nothing to do with race and everything to do with being mismanaged? If there’s clear protocol and procedures in place to provide adequate training, performance reviews etc., then I’m not sure how anyone can play a race card? I’m genuinely confused.

I work in the civil service and they just get moved around. It just causes other people to leave as it’s so demotivating to get paid the same as people like that

I worked with one before I became self employed. She was often off sick,spent a lot of time on the phone to her kids and made errors that had customers ringing up to complain about and it was me who had to deal with them.
When the company was bought out,we were asked to volunteer for redundancy. I jumped at the chance,but was refused as they used the opportunity to remove Ms Useless. I was told this face to face by my manager. Ms Useless spent the rest of the time leading up to her redundancy,telling us about the garden room that she was going to have built using her pay off,so that she could start a new business.
A relative works in a school. One of the teachers there has only done 11 days work in the past 6 months. Not only that,but she's been applying for jobs whilst off sick,which is gross misconduct,but no one seems to care.

@Caffeineneedednow Surely there’s evidence to the contrary so her claims will be thrown out? Especially if there’s GBH, that’s an actual crime.

Oh yes. We have one who arrives late almost every single day, spends most of her day loudly sorting out her various life dramas on the phone, takes a long lunch and then finds an excuse to fuck off early. Nothing comes of reporting her as she is best mates with the manager.

I've given up and am just waiting for her to retire at this point.

I actually don't mind people who are unintentionally a bit crap at their job, it's laziness that drives me up the wall.

I think it is important to be careful around people off sick. I have an invisible condition that means I am immune suppressed. My line manager and HR knew, noone else needed to. So people can work damn hard and be very committed and still take a fair amount of sick leave. That's a poor example to give

Yep we've got a guy in our department who is always off work and has been for years. He seems to reappear for a day then go again. He will reappear say 'oh I will take that forward' and make loads of positive noises then not take anything forward cos he goes off sick again.

Maybe I'm supposed to be supportive but it's been this way for years and it's a pain in the arse.

Yep. We have one woman who has been there for donkey's years. Turns up late, always on her phone, skives in another department, works as slow as a snail and is apparently unsackable. My boss won't grow some and get rid. Fortunately she plans on retiring in a year or so.

Yes and the manager sucks up to her, although it’s obvious the manager is scared of her and will not stand up to her. She’s late most days and leaves early. Passes a lot of her work onto others. Spends half of her day sat on her phone watching videos or shopping. She has been the reason many staff have left due to her bullying them, one took the department to tribunal and won for constructive dismissal, another moved to different area and another has left that area of work completely as they ended up having a breakdown leading to 6 months off work and then couldn’t face returning. She’s now been given a promotion!

Yeah cheers @DoraSpenlow , throw a black woman under the bus in the meantime with your story

Presumably people will then bitch that we are 'playing the disability card' 🙄

In our tiny company of 12 employees we have someone who really isn't up to the job at all. He makes constant mistakes and really does fuck all, all day. I once witnessed him spending 2 hours ordering some white card from Amazon when he could have walked to our local branch of WH Smith, bought the card, and walked back in 20 minutes. But he's an old friend of the boss ...

A former workplace had one of these. Seemed to struggle with every single task. Was moved around various roles but never did a good job in any of them. Extremely sensitive and touchy about everything so people were conscious of not upsetting her as she was also quite a vulnerable person for whom the job was like her life. Made several monumental cock-ups. Eventually made redundant during lockdown as I suspect they felt that was an easy way out - cost cutting etc.

I'm also dealing with another now. It's taken months to sort as they have health issues; there are worries about discrimination claims etc. But there's only so long yo can underperform for.

It can be frustrating to work alongside incompetent people, but as long as we as a society require most people to work for a living, the incompetent have to be employed somewhere!