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?!

Friends in high places. Some people have amazing 'people skills'.

"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."

Why aren't you replacing the sick person?
Are they still employed by the employer at this stage or on statutory sick pay?
What's the issue with getting a replacement. Colleagues shouldn't be covering long term and that's the management's fault, not the sick person's.

This.

Not just businesses. I deal daily with HMRC and Companies House and both are a sodding fiasco with staff who havn't a clue but instead of admitting that, they tell you they've done what you've asked, but don't, and the problem remains unresolved so you have to phone again, again, and again, hoping to finally speak to someone who is competent. It drives me mad, and clients don't understand/accept higher bills due to the amount of time I have to spend/waste on dealing with institutional incompetence.

Also, a big yes to another poster who mentioned being an executor and dealing with banks, pension & insurance firms, probate office, etc. Even the "big" banks who have dedicated "death" depts set up to deal with estates, probate, next of kin, etc often have incompetent staff who don't know anything about probate nor estates! Tell you a load of crap, give false instructions, etc., and these are supposed to be "specialists" in dealing with dead clients! One of the worst was Halifax building society, but Post office bank is also up there for being among the worst - phone call after phone call, letter after letter, losing death certificates, losing probate certificates, telling you probate wasn't required then changing their mind and saying it was, wrongly telling you about loads of hoops to jump through for something simple like getting a joint account changed to the sole account of the surviving spouse etc. I had one case where it took Post Office over a year to release funds in an ISA account - they had the death certificate, they had probate, they had full details of the executors and had done the ID proof etc., but they still couldn't bring themselves to actually pay the money, which was a trifling amount, under £10k, but it really delayed the closure of the estate and final payments, etc. - that was after they took six months to give a value of the ISA account for probate, due to the interest accrued but not actually added at that time. I had to keep sending them extracts from their own website about what they had to do - they denied it, even when they saw their own website!

Because the hundreds of people searching are probably even more incompetant.

Its harsh to say - but the vast majority of job seekers are unemployable. I did a stint working in a role where I was responsible for hiring people to do a pretty basic role. It was essentially unskilled labor - but they needed someone who could also chat to a customer/supplier occasionally.

The majority of the people arriving to interview clearly just did it to tick a box on their job seekers form. The others started, then decided that it was too much like hard work and constantly called in sick. It meant that anyone who was barely passable - and by passable im literally talking; they turned up to work on time/didnt punch anyone on shift/didnt make wildly offensive remarks/could wash themselves got to stay on... it was like a scene from night of the living dead some days - but they were the best of the best apparently.

I worked with someone like this.
constantly asking for help but making out to management that she’s doing everything herself.
very nice so you felt bad for speaking up.

im very much with you on HMRC and companies house too - it took me 6 long calls to companies house get to the bottom of my Hs issue with regards to the new ID registration thing and the allocated personal ID -actually the issue wasn’t complicated when eventually I got someone with a brain and revolved around me using one email address to access both my Hs limited and my limited on gov.uk - I will add in a complete absence of relevant training being an issue across the board -

The level of incompetence certainly seems to be rising. Is it down to lower IQ or laziness?

That is a fair point - a lot of people are completely frazzled.

They are not unemployable. There are a load of well educated graduates who need a bit of training and would then be great. And a load of 50 somethings with years of experience who younger recruiters don't want to employ in case they make them look bad. In both cases they'd be excellent at the job but employers are just too stupid and biased to know it.

I have no idea and question this on a daily basis. We have a team leader who has worked at the company for 6 years now, has no product knowledge. Has had multiple people complain about her, official reports... nothing. No matter who you speak to no one likes her. Just yesterday she put a near miss in against me and I hadnt even touched anything, cctv proved otherwise that it was actually her department who caused the issue and she now wants to "leave it at that" and do nothing.

Couldn't agree more

We have three middle managers a our place, 'managing' a team of 15 🧐

All they really do is dish out the work and update a not-fit-for-purpose Excel tracker

A lot of the time it's not what you know, it's who you know

This is fine, but a lot of customer facing roles are "bottom rung on the corporate ladder" stuff

I've seen horrific picks for jobs moved sideways from other roles in the same organisation - utterly incompetent in one role, 'encouraged' to apply for other roles and then moved to another low level position where they become a liability all over again

Somehow, they keep passing the interviews with relatively shrewd people I respect as managers and balls it up

The latest has worked out that if you show up for work and leave early because you "feel unwell", that doesn't count as a day of sickness

She's in a probation period from another part of our organisation

I do also wonder whether incompetent people come with glowing references because their previous organisation is just pleased to see the back of them..

I know this has been mentioned but just to follow up that, in customer service, what works for the customer is not what works for the employer. In the best companies, they will see that great customer service is a form of business development and retention and will build KPIs with a strong service measure. In the majority of companies it is all about time - how quickly can we get this person off the phone regardless of whether we’ve helped them. This is becoming even worse now that CSAs have to work through conversational AI which is supposed to help them but actually means they’ve even less time to be genuinely helpful. Of course some people are properly incompetent, but there’s also a lot of misalignment between customer service and what the company wants.

I also agree with @Instructions about people who seem to excel at interviews but not at the follow-through.
Appointment to a teaching post involves not only the interview part which goes with any job, but being observed in action taking lessons, observed by a member of SLT, usually the real decider.
But on at least one occasion, the rest of the staff were put under tremendous strain picking up the slack from a colleague; one such, at interview was described as "head and shoulders above" the other candidates by a head teacher who was not usually gullible, but disastrously lacking in common sense and the day-to-day sustained effort needed to be part of the team.
As for dispensing with his services; this was in the independent sector, and the contract that the first year should be considered to be probationary. In most cases, this was a pure formality, but in this case, he was told that his services were no longer required when the school year ended. I doubt that a school in the state sector would be allowed to set such stipulations.

Totally agree - many many years ago I stuck 2 days at a job where it was scripted - long before AI and it was designed basically to fleece people - I learnt quickly it wasn’t about customer service, it was about cash , no ifs , no buts, no refunds - an awful lot of here today, gone tomorrow rinse the cash businesses out there

Yes, definitely talking the talk at interviews but woefully inadequate at work. I’m currently in a situation where my line manager is totally unprofessional and out of their depth. Unfortunately the manager above her turns a blind eye to it despite people raising serious issues. It’s frustrating for the staff team and quite dangerous in my line of work. Sadly, in the public sector, not many people seem to be sacked.

A former colleague was so bad at her job, she's been gone 18 months & her name is still brought up as an explanation as to why something was f'ed up. I fixed something serious just last week. The explanation was purely the person's name, and everyone nodded. This person 'trained' me, which consisted of an eye roll & 'give it a crack'. I still fix so many of her mistakes, I am shocked no clients were seriously affected. I am also fixing the things current staff do when implementing clients' tasks, as they don't update the system properly & it's all wrong. Some just do nothing all day but watch YouTube or chat.

On the plus side, I had my staff review last week, and went in prepped for their usual negative feedback, and instead had 30 minutes of hearing how incredible I am, from both the manager & partners. Thing is, I could offer a lot more given the chance and I'm just doing the job properly. I'm not even going above & beyond.

I have a client who seems quite blasé about checking details. They quite frequently get information wrong, even if weve asked them to find out or check. Its good for us because we get to do the job again and charge again for it, ive no idea how much money they must waste.

I work with someone like this, they've been there years. It's utterly corrosive for the others on the team who are competent and constantly having to help/support/clean up behind them even though they are nominally the manager of the team. In this case, it seems to be because of weak, incompetent management. It was abundantly clear to the team within a couple of weeks that they were hopeless but management signed off on probation anyway. Years later, the team are still raising concerns but nothing ever happens.

I also think the lower paid workers feel less obliged to work for basic minimum salary for large faceless companies (many of which pollute and sell us junk that negatively impacts our health). Service roles are often underpaid, low skill and dull as hell and people who have degrees are now doing jobs school leavers of 16 would have done in the 80's.

As my FIL often says to me - 50% of the population is below average. Which means a huge proportion just isn’t very good at any one thing. Whether that’s work, or singing, or art, or anything.

Not the woman at Charlton Lido by any chance? Angriest woman on the planet? Complexion of a cremated raisin from all the sunbeds?