To wonder how incompetent/ineffective people have jobs whilst others don't?

[FieldOfBluebells]

Had to speak to someone from a customer services department today. It made me ponder again something I have wondered for ages - how do incompetent people manage to get/keep jobs?

I have repeatedly come across ineffectiveness and incompetence so many times. Not just call centres - in fact, rarely call centres - but any kind of job that involves interfacing with the public. Odd conversations where one thing doesn't follow another, information recorded wildly inaccurately, people unaware of procedures but adamant about things they're completely wrong about, rather than saying "I'll need to check/look into that". Assurances that they are taking the next step but then nothing is done. (Of course this sort of incompetence might be everywhere, but it's the customer facing roles I have contact with as a member of the public!)

I get that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. But we are in a situation where the job market is dire. People are desperately applying for jobs way below their skillset, trying to find ANY job, finding hundreds of applicants per job for things like supermarket work, being given 0 hour contracts and then barely any shifts. I know how bad it is as a jobseeker myself! It's infuriating to think "I would happily do your job, how have you got it and not me?!"

So how on earth are these people getting jobs, whilst more competent people struggle to find work?!

The Peter Principle?

Quite often it isn’t incompetence it is eg policy from management that they don’t refund in x case and similar.

I have met a lot of people who are really good at applications and interviews but appallingly bad at actually doing the job. I don't think most recruitment processes are fit for purpose. The people best able to complete an application form and perform at interview are so rarely the people best able to undertake the work the job requires.

Also, once people are in, getting them out can be an absolute ovary ache. It is so much easier from the perspective of some bosses to just accommodate the inadequate employee and put up with them then to take action to advise them of their failings, work with them to try and improve, dismiss them if they don't...

Yes I wonder the same. I have a colleague who gets away with doing so little in her job role that whilst she has been off for the past six weeks off sick no-one has really had to cover any of her work ! It's bizarre how she still has a job when there is no real job role there. When she does occasionally have to cover for someone else when they are on leave or sick she just fobs clients off. I am soon to be let go as my fixed term contract is ending and yet I do huge amounts of work and go the extra mile for people yet people like this cling onto their jobs as it's a permanent position.

People are promoted up to the point at which they are no longer competent.

I had a mental health visitor once who had to write long reports about our visits on formal, NHS headed paper, signed off by the doctor. The copies of the reports when they came through were absolutely unreadable and read like they had been written by a six year old. Possible dyslexia but even still, that wouldn't explain how badly these things were written. Why was she in that role, where writing important documents was a big part of her job? Why did no one stop them from going out in that state? Why did no one care? I wish I had an answer to those questions.

ETA The reports were also full of factual errors.

In the last job I worked in before my previous job there was a really incompetent person who cost vulnerable client's hundreds of pounds by giving poor advice ( benefits work). The manager had previously had to go through a huge process to sack someone else and openly admitted that they could not face it again. I left that role because I could not continue to watch him make such a mess of things but I believe he was eventually sacked when a new manager came in.

It's rare someone will hire someone smarter and more competent than themself. Imagine the cascade effect in a large organisation.

Honestly having been a manager myself and having had exposure to these type of people across my career, its because it is incredibly time consuming, emotionally shit and difficult to manage performance. (Or at least to do it well!)
In my experience, HR dont drive these things, so managers are stumbling around in the dark with a few policies and chats.
You have to manage your emotions and support the employee even when they are very upset, or very angry, or insistent they've done nothing wrong or that you should overlook it, even when you have evidence.
You might have to deal with them raising a grievance against you, which derails any other processes.
You might have to deal with them turning people against you at work, because they will speak about their side (even though they arent supposed to, but noone will dob them in) but you DEFINITELY cant give your side.
You might have to deal with navigating around health conditions/mental health/ND. You are expected to be an expert in these things.
You have to gather the evidence, arrange the support, write up everything that's happened, every conversation.
You are checking a lot with HR about whay you can and cant say.
You often have to explai
People often go off sick during performance measures, which then adds more paperwork and conversations and stress. And then you still have to deal with the performance stuff when you get back, and unfortunately a lot of people think if they go off sick that means their performance issues have gone away.
You can do everything right, everything possible in your power to support the person, you can try and hold HR off, give them passes, give them 4th and 5th chances, look the other way, and them still hate you as an individual.
It is incredibly time consuming and you often have your day job and multiple other people to manage.

Its shit. Its more shit being on the receiving end of performance measures obviouslu, but if you're someone who actually gives a shit its shit being on the other side too. You are the bad guy no matter what. Makes me so angry when I hear about arsehole managers not supporting people in their performance or through a tough time, not holding up their end of the bargain, not being clear, not being decent human beings, because it makes it harder for the rest of us who do actually give a shit to actually help people keep their jobs. So I can see why a lot of managers do their best to look the other way.

Managers threatened by competency of some staff so choose to get rid of them over the incompetent.

Individuals with protected characteristics are kept over the most competent.

High earners. It's cheaper for companies to let them go and instead replace them with a conveyor belt of incompetent cheap labour.

Incompetent managers swayed by brown nose staff.

Please note I do not agree with these points, just answering the question.

A couple of years ago I claimed UC due to low hours/wages. This meant I had to have a meeting with them face to face.
Honestly the advisor was bloody useless… I knew more about the process just from a quick look on the government website than he did! And he had no people skills whatsoever. I remember thinking I could do the job so much better.
A while back on a job website they were advertising for more advisors. I had a look at the job description and you practically had to be an Oxford educated member of Mensa!
I has no idea how he got the job in the first place 🤷🏻‍♀️

It seems some of the people in the Jobcentre were offered jobs there simply by being unemployed long enough, they got to qualify. Not the worst job by any means.

It's true there are many firms or sectors out there where those in charge didn't build it, they are simply custodians if that. So they have less grasp of a bunch of chancers in their firm taking the mickey, it's less personal or vexing for them.

I went for a fairly plebeian job recently in customer service and there were a couple of tough-nut questions that seemed to go over the pay grade, if you see what I mean - and I can't see how any situation requiring those skills would come up. Perhaps they only ask those questions to weed out those they don't like the look of? Those employed there are nice but I can't imagine they'd have known how to answer them.

Some fools have an aura in the workplace, of un-sackability, it's like sex appeal or something, you can't rationalise it.

I agree. Personally I spend so much of my time chasing up a letter or phone call that was promised , an email that was meant to be sent, an appointment that was meant to be booked, a refund that was meant to be actioned…I mean I could go on and on, the list is endless. It’s tiring, as if people don’t have enough to do. I really struggle with it, because if I tell you I’m doing something, then I’m doing it 🤷‍♀️

I used to work in the third sector and I have has so many rubbish directors and CEOs, so it is not just entry level/low paid jobs.

I think managers tend to promote and hire people who they think will not outshine them.

There is a tendency to reward oeople who make a lot of noise about their supposed achievements in interviews and when in the job rather than value the staff who actually get on with doing their job well without showing off...

A lot of these mysteries melt away when you realise that what you think someones job is may have no relation to what it actually is.

And those secrets lie buried in what companies use to determine "success".

In customer service since the 90s, a proxy for "performance" has been calls-per-period. So that's what gets prioritised.

If you can make that quantum leap, all of a sudden modern life - and it's shitness - makes logical sense.

Who knows. In recent years I have met and known people who have PhDs, who I really do wonder how on earth they have managed it. Possibly the field...

I'm one of those people right now. I was very competent but working where I am now has dragged my mental health so far down that my brain no longer works properly. And I daren't go anywhere else - yes it might improve but it will take time and I'll be without the two years+ protection i have now. Soil get to be miserable and incompetent at minimum wage but at least it's a job.

Sometimes they're just the best candidate on the day - it frustrates me no end to try to deal with someone in a customer facing role that hates dealing with people...?! I do agree with a PP that mentioned people who interview well but perform badly in post, some people interview poorly because of nerves etc but could be perfect for the job...

I agree. There is a woman on reception at our local leisure centre who is the grumpiest and most sour faced, miserable woman on the planet. It’s utterly baffling that a) she applied to work in a customer facing role, b) that the interviewer thought she was the best candidate for the role, and c) that she manages to keep her job.

In lesser level jobs in terms of salary and status people will often hire a certain type of person whose expectations are low because they will stay in the job, whereas people applying for jobs well below their capabilities will be carrying on looking around for something better - quite naturally too, so would I

Sometimes they're just the best candidate on the day

It's almost axiomatic that the longer and more intense the recruitment process, the worse the successful applicant will be.

I had a manager like this a while back. In the CS.
She was the laziest, most incompetent manager, lied, blagged and was utterly useless. Plus she was scruffy and unwashed a lot of the time.

She apparently ‘talked the talk’ and used all the correct buzz words that score well in CS interviews.

She went on mat leave and didn’t return. The relief was felt by the whole team.

No answers to the question, OP, but I could have written your exact post word for word so many times over the last few years - and I've got the time to do so because I cannot land a job of any description for love nor money. I absolutely resent having to spend money we've scraped together on people who just don't do their jobs.

This week, I have had to make a regulated complaint about a solicitor who lost a relative's Will, and I've had to rebut almost the entire investigation into a complaint I made about a civil service department. Part of that was a call handler who declined to do what I asked, but logged that she did it. She also promised she would do something else, did not log that, and didn't do it anyway.

That woman is taking taxpayers' money and not providing the service. I have stated that I want to know what is being done about her and that if it is anything short of disciplinary action I'll have it referred to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, which my MP has already agreed to sponsor. Fight back!

Failing upwards. It’s a thing - google it! I find it less with lower paid workers but it’s rampant amongst those raking it in, sad but true.

Oh op I really feel your pain. I’m an executor for a relative who sadly passed away at the end of last year.
So far I have contacted 43 different organisations in regard to his affairs and with two notable exceptions the service I have received has varied between poor and absolutely dire.
You can’t get through on the phones, staff can’t speak English, they do nothing or give you incorrect information and nobody ever gets back to you without constant chasing.

This applies to both public and private sector organisations, they are both as bad.
Thanks for the chance to vent op, hope you get everything sorted.