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?!

I work for the NHS and it's all based on who does the best interview, even when hiring within the department where people know your capabilities. Two people in my team went for a higher paid role. One was excellent at the job, the other was rubbish! The rubbish one got the job because he did a better interview! I'm still correcting his mistakes over 2 years later and the excellent one left as he found a better job. Its almost impossible to sack/demote people in my sector of the NHS, so they just bumble on forever in a really well paid job!

They have incompetent/ineffective managers.

I bloke I knew at a 90s call centre used to do what he called a Power Hour where he immediately hung up on every call just after it connected.

No individual caller was bothered enough to complain because they just assumed they'd been cut off by mistake and it was just one of those things, and he got to hit his calls per day target.

They interview well and are often likeable people, just crap at their job.

I often think this with a lot of shop workers, ive worked in plenty shops, i can talk to people, chat, give advice, it should be a minimum standard.
Are they really the best they could get!

I wonder this too OP. A lot of people are really good at their jobs, no question.

But others are completely useless and I have no idea how they stay employed.

And all the while we have a million well educated youngsters (and many highly skilled 50 somethings plus all the ones inbetween) who can't get jobs. My mind is truly boggled.

100% this.

When I was finishing my degree I also worked as a manager for a customer service team and left the job because it was just absolutely ridiculous. Everything was measured by speed/calls taken/getting it done in the shortest time possible rather than actually providing a good service. I had one woman on my team who was just amazing, would put so much effort and applied all of her knowledge to the calls so a customer who wanted to achieve X and needed to do Y and Z to get there, she would go through Y and Z and fully resolve the issue in that one call, always got great satisfaction scores, but the calls would be 20-25 mins rather than 3-4 mins. Most of the others on the team would just do Y, knowing that without Z X was not happening but doing the bare minimum got them off the phone fastest and onto the next call. Of course those customers then had to call up again when they realised that Z needed to be done, so it increased call volume, but according to management it was those people who were the “best” despite providing the worst service because they were getting through the highest number of calls per day and that was literally all they cared about.

She’s probably excellent at the admin side of the job.

I agree with this. A good recruitment process needs to test all the skills required for the job, really test them. An interview is often just testing how good they are at talking on a subject for a certain amount of time. Not the practical nuts and bolts of doing the job.

And then its a case of not being afraid of managing someone out if they can't do the job. So many companies/ organisations aren't willing to manage out a person who is incompetent. They faff around with offering the person more support, more training and still it makes no difference...

I think the problem is everywhere is so understaffed now that its almost impossible to do a good job. There isn't time to spend talking to the customer/patient/client. As you are always doing the job of 3 people. This is another reason so many stupid mistakes happen as the workload is unmanageable. Customers/patients and clients don't understand what the staff members job actually entails and that they are not the only person who needs help.

After 35+ years in public sector I’ve come to the conclusion that shit floats, and that shit is useful to other people

Right place, right time.

I’ve noticed that communication ability is nose diving - people don’t understand what you are saying and respond to a question you haven’t asked or they just keep repeating the wrong answers.

I presume I’m not the issue because my whole career is based in words and communications. But there have been times where I question if I’ve started speaking another language because the person serving is having a conversation with me unrelated to the one I am having with them.

I don’t know when it happened either. Maybe when AI started writing people’s cover letters?

The Peter Principal. People are promoted to the point of incompetence.

Poor management. There are an awful lot of very poor managers around.

It is very very difficult to get rid of staff once they have been there over 2 years.

Poor performance measuring metrics used by the company. The call centre examples PP have given are an example of poor performance measuring metrics - number of calls vs. quality of service and issues actually solved. Many many businesses with lots and lots of incompetent employees have poor performance measuring metrics.

Some people are also very good at interviews, saying the right things and doing "just enough" to coast along in performance reviews.

Others are incredibly good at longing out the system - getting a warning for performance, bring up "personal issues", bring in union, consult with HR, consult with OT, go off sick, sign off with stress, come back on plan, go back off sick with stress, more consults with HR, more consults with OT ect, do just enough to come off plan, repeat. This can go on and on and on for months or even years on end. One workplace I worked at had a woman in a parallel team to ours, she was absolutely awful at her job and ridiculously incompetent. She had been playing the system for over 8 years, she had 4 years left till retirement and it was pretty much an open secret that the company had decided to just wait until she retired rather than try and move her on.

Totally agree with this. Especially on the inadequate recruitment processes.

Conversely, there's a wealth of very competent people who never get the job because they interview badly. They are the meticulous ones who'd do a great job but lack the bluster of those who can bullshit their way through.

At a firm where I used to work, we took on a middle aged receptionist who was the most grumpy unhelpful person I've ever met. She'd spend all her time trying to find reasons not to do her job - in fact it took her more effort to think up ways of not doing it than it would have done just to do it. After a couple of weeks, they let her go much to everyone else's relief.

Fast forward a couple of years, and there she was, working as a receptionist in our local GP surgery. Again, true to form, completely bloody useless, unhelpful and put obstacles in the way. Even going in and asking for something quick and simple like a urine sample bottle was met with heavy sighs, lots of huffing and puffing, etc., and they had a box of them right next to her on her desk! Simplest thing in the World, just to pick one up and hand it over, but she made out I'd asked her to sacrifice her first born! Same when I phoned for an appointment or repeat prescription (before online apps etc) - she'd just put obstacles in the way, and even then she'd bugger it up like ticking the wrong drug box on the screen for the repeat prescription. The other receptionists were the opposite and were really pleasant, helpful and efficient - they never got the repeat prescriptions wrong. Trouble was she was there for years - the management must have known she was useless, but didn't get rid. I started to get to the stage where I'd put the phone down if she answered it and I'd try again later in the hope of someone else and occasionally, I'd go in, see her at the desk and walk out again to go back another day.

A relative had a receptionist at their work like this - really miserable, and over retirement age. They made her role redundant in the end, after covid, and she still moaned lots about losing the job..

It’s shocking. Our local council is a case in point. After much discussion and numerous complaints, I finally had a Teams meeting with a head of service and his sidekick this week. The issue was something that had a huge knock on effect not running to time. The two clowns I was meeting with asked me how many times this particular service was delivered late. I’m the customer! Don’t they have their own records?! They seemed put out when I said that with respect, they should have had their own data to hand ready and prepared for our meeting - I mean, given this was the sole subject of discussion and all! Clearly did not give a shiny shit, even when what they deliver is a legal requirement!

I have no idea. I find that people who care about the job and their work and their role often burn out and its the shit that stays.

I worked in a role where there were 2 of us sharing an Executive assistant. This woman could not be relied upon to put the correct letter into the correct envelope for a client. She simply, could not reliably read the address on the letter and the address on the pre-printed envelope and match them.

One time I was in my office with a client and a closed door because I was telling him that it was extremely likely he would be going to jail for the stuff that had been found on his computer. This woman opened the door, wandered in, shoved her phone in my face and said 'Look at this picture of a swan i took' then wandered out again.

management wouldn't sack her- because they had no balls- so we all worked to pre-empt her messing up stuff. It was fuckin embarrassing.

That's the most recent example, but in my experience people do fail upwards because HR or their managers are too embarrassed to have the hard conversations or make the hard decisions.

I’ve had customer service so halfwitted you wonder how they get to work and feed themselves.

Strongly suspect a lot of companies deliberately hire shit. Crap staff put their customers off asking for anything that costs the company money eg refunds on faulty goods.

The firm has to have a point of contact by law, but it knows it can dodge the rest of its legal obligations if the customer flees in despair.

They don’t hire shit sales staff.

I would love to be a Jobcentre advisor. But didn't get past the first (weird, online, pre-recorded) interview. It was really odd just speaking to a computer screen trying to sell myself according to their specific criteria, rather than having normal human interaction.

A shame, because I think I'd be quite suited to the job. Frustrating that people wildly unsuited get through the interview process!

I don't think you are one of those people.
For a start, you're aware enough to realise you're not on top form at the moment.
You are also capable of being competent, as you acknowledge. I suspect you are being hard on yourself and are still much more competent than you imagine.

If it's your job that has made you feel so rubbish, then getting a different job is clearly the way out. This thread has shown how widely spread the incompetent but confident people are - you are someone who's competent, just need to find a way to channel confidence!

I really hope things improve for you soon x

Thank you.

As several people have said, it's often because managers are bound by a lot of procedures that make it hard to get rid of an underperformer. Oddly, people choose not to declare their poor childcare arrangements, fear of leaving the house, problematic family relationships, lack of life skills, neurotic pets and coke habits at interview. If you work in an organisation like mine then you don't even have the luxury of a probabtion period to rely on... because why wouldnt you trust a complete stranger from day 1?

By the time you do the gentle chats, then the formal chats, then the structured 1-1s and hr have made sure that they have covered their arses sufficiently, you finally get to a Pip and as predictably as clockwork two things happen. Person goes off with "work stress" or tells hr they are being bullied. This spawns a whole new round of procedures. Often strung out til the final day of paid sick leave whereupon they suddenly decide the role isn't for them. Meanwhile, the rest of team suck up the slack for no thanks and we all have to pretend that the poor performer will come back when they have had enough of day time tv.

So, although I'd dearly love to sack these people on the spot, I just can't and sometimes having 1 person working at 75% is easier on the whole team than running a whole person down for 6 months while the charade plays out.

But also OP, sometimes you get poor service when you're the 50th dick of the day who thinks they can talk to trained monkeys like crap.

I feel that lots of those problems can be due to poor management/structural/policy decisions and the preference for doing everything on the cheap. So cutting everything to the bare bones. Often the staff in the front-facing role know that how they're operating isn't optimal in terms of what customer service should be, but their hands are totally tied by things outside of their control.

Often they have to cover for incompetence or mismanagement or just general chaos further up. Not always their fault. People in customer-facing roles raise issues affecting their ability to do their job well all the time, but because they are generally low-paid roles they are not listened to by their line manager. Their opinions are not respected.

Then you've got middle managers who do want to listen to their team members and take stuff back to their own manager and are just told no.

I'm counting down to retirement. I'm so sick of working life. If you WANT to do a good job no matter what your grade, but are prevented from doing so, it's very frustrating. Eventually people just shrug and stop caring about it. Because there is nothing they can do about it.

I think that’s very accurate - also many company’s get taken over or bought by others who only care about the bottom line at all times, no forward thinking, little long term planning . There are few left with a ‘personal interest ‘ in a good name or reputation - after a while it is ‘just a job’ to most people at all levels including the CEO in many cases. I know several PLCs like this too .