What does it take to be completely untouchable at work?

[PithyMintFawn]

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?

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)

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.

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

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.

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.

Hello there!

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 😊

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Identify as trans, although that may be changing.

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.

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.

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

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