Incompetent Coworkers

[Kjata]

They are a fact of life. The only way you've never had any is if you've never had a job. Sometimes, they can be quite amusing, provided you aren't currently working with them.

Anyway, for some background, I work in a restaraunt. Things get pretty hellish during the dinner rush. If somebody asks you for something, it means "I work be able to do this for another 5 minutes, and that's way too damn long, so can you help me?"

So, this girl I work with moves slowly, and doesn't do much even when she is in the situation where she could. Plus, when you ask her to do something, she's like "Yeah, in a minute," and goes back to whatever she was doing before (i.e. jack ****). So today, I asked her to scoop some sour cream, and she looks at me incredulously. "Right now?"

...No, tomorrow. Of course right now, we have a full house and I need you to do SOMETHING, FFS.:smallfurious:

Of course, i'm sure there are way better stories out there, so let's hear them.

[Malak'ai]

Reminds me of when I was duty manager at a bar/restaurant a few years back.
The bar and restaurants had their own chefs, working in the same kitchen.
This one night the bar was getting slammed for meals (and drinks so I was already run off my feet) and the restaurant had a single diner.
The bar chef asked the restaurant chef to help him out and take over cooking the steaks so he could concentrate on the other meals.
Sounds reasonable right? Well apparently not!

So here I am, pouring 3 drinks at once (who ever designed pint glasses with handles was a genius!) while taking another order and the kitchen hand comes out and tells me the chefs are fighting.
Thinking they were arguing (like they normally did anyway), I head out there... What I found in the back kitchen was both chefs pounding each other in the head/gut/side/where ever they could get a punch in.
I eventually got them split up and asked what had caused them to act like this when the bar chef told me all he had done was ask for help.
The restaurant chef then went on a rant about how "cooking bar food was beneath him" and "my talents are employed to cook for those who want good food and not the s*%t this p$#a (he was Brazillian) served".

Needless to say I felt like kicking his butt! In the end, I told him to go home and put an apron on myself... Then got yelled at the next day by the boss because I left the bar "unsupervised".

[Traab]

"In case you havent noticed nobody WANTS your "good" food tonight, they want bar food. So get your arrogant ass over there and start cooking." Seriously, was this some sort of fancy pants restaurant? Or did that moron just suffer from delusions of grandeur as he puts together the fairly standard restaurant menu items you can get pretty much anywhere? If he objects too much, remind him he now has TWO people more than willing to beat his ass like a rented drum.

*EDIT* Hmm, I have worked with tons of incompetent people, but I am having a hard time coming up with an interesting story beyond, "We were both doing piece work and I manage to daily do 3x as much as he does" type of stuff. Most of the places I work tend to fire the idiots fast, so the worst we get are the ones working just barely fast enough to stay employed and thats it.

[Malak'ai]

"In case you havent noticed nobody WANTS your "good" food tonight, they want bar food. So get your arrogant ass over there and start cooking." Seriously, was this some sort of fancy pants restaurant? Or did that moron just suffer from delusions of grandeur as he puts together the fairly standard restaurant menu items you can get pretty much anywhere? If he objects too much, remind him he now has TWO people more than willing to beat his ass like a rented drum.

*EDIT* Hmm, I have worked with tons of incompetent people, but I am having a hard time coming up with an interesting story beyond, "We were both doing piece work and I manage to daily do 3x as much as he does" type of stuff. Most of the places I work tend to fire the idiots fast, so the worst we get are the ones working just barely fast enough to stay employed and thats it.

No, not a 'fancy pants' place. Just a moron who thought he was too good to cook steak, eggs and chips or fish & chips... He tried it again another night when the boss was actually on... Didn't turn out very well from what I heard :smallbiggrin:.

[INoKnowNames]

I really shouldn't complain, given I'm certainly not the best employee ever, but at least if I make a mistake, I own up to it, and immediately try to fix it. And I never jump into a situation that needs help and make it worse. And God knows you'd have to be an ass to jump in when you aren't needed, make stuff worse by messing things up or droping stuff, then blame the person you were originally trying to help and tell them to clean it up.

This all wouldn't be so terrible IF IT WASN'T A FREAKING MANAGER SCREWING THINGS UP AND GETTING MAD AT -US- FOR HIS FAILINGS! :smallfurious:

Edit: SERIOUSLY, HE STANDS AROUND WATCHING US, MAKING RUDE COMMENTS THAT DON'T RELATE TO WORK, ONLY GETTING HIS HANDS DIRTY WHEN THERE'S ANOTHER BOSS THAT RANKS ABOVE HIM, AND HE -ALWAYS- NEEDS HELP! I'm still not sure how he's even maintaining his job...

[Kelb_Panthera]

I really shouldn't complain, given I'm certainly not the best employee ever, but at least if I make a mistake, I own up to it, and immediately try to fix it. And I never jump into a situation that needs help and make it worse. And God knows you'd have to be an ass to jump in when you aren't needed, make stuff worse by messing things up or droping stuff, then blame the person you were originally trying to help and tell them to clean it up.

This all wouldn't be so terrible IF IT WASN'T A FREAKING MANAGER SCREWING THINGS UP AND GETTING MAD AT -US- FOR HIS FAILINGS! :smallfurious:

Edit: SERIOUSLY, HE STANDS AROUND WATCHING US, MAKING RUDE COMMENTS THAT DON'T RELATE TO WORK, ONLY GETTING HIS HANDS DIRTY WHEN THERE'S ANOTHER BOSS THAT RANKS ABOVE HIM, AND HE -ALWAYS- NEEDS HELP! I'm still not sure how he's even maintaining his job...


Reminds me of when I was duty manager at a bar/restaurant a few years back.
The bar and restaurants had their own chefs, working in the same kitchen.
This one night the bar was getting slammed for meals (and drinks so I was already run off my feet) and the restaurant had a single diner.
The bar chef asked the restaurant chef to help him out and take over cooking the steaks so he could concentrate on the other meals.
Sounds reasonable right? Well apparently not!

So here I am, pouring 3 drinks at once (who ever designed pint glasses with handles was a genius!) while taking another order and the kitchen hand comes out and tells me the chefs are fighting.
Thinking they were arguing (like they normally did anyway), I head out there... What I found in the back kitchen was both chefs pounding each other in the head/gut/side/where ever they could get a punch in.
I eventually got them split up and asked what had caused them to act like this when the bar chef told me all he had done was ask for help.
The restaurant chef then went on a rant about how "cooking bar food was beneath him" and "my talents are employed to cook for those who want good food and not the s*%t this p$#a (he was Brazillian) served".

Needless to say I felt like kicking his butt! In the end, I told him to go home and put an apron on myself... Then got yelled at the next day by the boss because I left the bar "unsupervised".

Lucky me, I've had to work with both of these. Thankfully not at the same time (I'd probably be in jail by now if that had been the case.)

I get the impression that a lot of chefs are like that. I don't know why, but they just seem to turn into complete d-bags after a few years in the kitchen. It's because of chefs that I'll never again work in food service, even if it means I'll starve. I'd steal food before making it for a living again.

The incompetent manager was a convenience store job. Technically he was the assistant manager, but its largely the same. When he wasn't doing nothing, he was doing something poorly or ordering one of the other people on the clock to do something, so he could resume doing nothing. ' came within a stone's throw of cursing him out and rage-quitting. Fortunately, he was transfered to some other unfortunate store. I'd go back to working for a neighborhood convenience store though. I found serving mostly the same people every day surprisingly tolerable.

ATM, I'd settle for any job (except food-service. I was serious at the end of that first paragraph.)

[Katana_Geldar]

I find this site is a riot

http://notalwaysworking.com/

And there goes the rest of your day!

[Jay R]

It's worth remembering that there's usually one more incompetent coworker than you can see.

So when things aren't going well, and people are doing things (or not doing things) that are causing difficulties for you, it's good to stop for a second and consider whether you are also doing something (or not doing something) that's causing difficulties for them.


The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet's dream. It is a most depressing and humiliating reality.
-- Oscar Wilde

[INoKnowNames]

I find this site is a riot

http://notalwaysworking.com/

And there goes the rest of your day!

GOSH DARN IT, GELDAR!

I probably just lost my plans for a week...

[GolemsVoice]

I am afraid sometimes I am the demons the incompetent coworker, but certainly not because I don't try.
I work in a restaurant, but only on a 400€ basis, a small job next to my university life, and everybody there seems to know everything better and do everything faster, likely because they DO everything better and faster :smallbiggrin:

It's just so that they have worked for over 20 years, sometimes, and I have started about a month ago. Still, nobody likes making mistakes, and I hate costing them time and patience.

[Traab]

I find this site is a riot

http://notalwaysworking.com/

And there goes the rest of your day!

Damn you, im on page 45 right now.

[WarKitty]

I am afraid sometimes I am the demons the incompetent coworker, but certainly not because I don't try.
I work in a restaurant, but only on a 400€ basis, a small job next to my university life, and everybody there seems to know everything better and do everything faster, likely because they DO everything better and faster :smallbiggrin:

It's just so that they have worked for over 20 years, sometimes, and I have started about a month ago. Still, nobody likes making mistakes, and I hate costing them time and patience.

Eh, I've found that doesn't bother people as much. When I worked cleaning - the new kid that kept having the crappy vacuum break on her? Sure, whatever, it happens if you don't know just how to do it. Not a big deal.

Now, what we all hated was the guy who would just do the easy bits of his section and call it done. Even after being told to knock it off so someone else didn't have to clean up after him.

[Velaryon]

I don't have any particularly fun stories to add, but I did have a similar situation about ten years ago. I got a job doing inventory and stock at a Walmart, which meant keeping shelves stocked, helping unload the truck every afternoon, and helping customers whenever they approached to ask for something.

First problem was, at least once every other day I would get sent outside to retrieve carts from the parking lot. This was not my job. They had people hired to do specifically this and nothing else, but somehow I had to go and do it at least two or three times a week.

Beyond that though, there was a guy in my department whom I never saw do any work whatsoever the entire time I was at the job. I quit after only five weeks when I got another job that didn't suck horribly, but a friend of mine started working at Walmart right after I left and he said the same thing - somehow this guy never did anything. He was there for most of his shift, though he would sometimes come in early, leave late, and/or take longer breaks and lunches than he was supposed to. But even when he was around, he didn't do anything. At all. Not even once. I have no idea how he got away with it for so long.

[Traab]

I don't have any particularly fun stories to add, but I did have a similar situation about ten years ago. I got a job doing inventory and stock at a Walmart, which meant keeping shelves stocked, helping unload the truck every afternoon, and helping customers whenever they approached to ask for something.

First problem was, at least once every other day I would get sent outside to retrieve carts from the parking lot. This was not my job. They had people hired to do specifically this and nothing else, but somehow I had to go and do it at least two or three times a week.

Beyond that though, there was a guy in my department whom I never saw do any work whatsoever the entire time I was at the job. I quit after only five weeks when I got another job that didn't suck horribly, but a friend of mine started working at Walmart right after I left and he said the same thing - somehow this guy never did anything. He was there for most of his shift, though he would sometimes come in early, leave late, and/or take longer breaks and lunches than he was supposed to. But even when he was around, he didn't do anything. At all. Not even once. I have no idea how he got away with it for so long.

Big store, lazy supervisors most likely. He stays in an area that doesnt see much manager traffic and he can basically hang out there. There are a number of sections in most walmarts that dont see a lot of visitors, so you dont even get roped into helping out a customer. Or get roped into having to exert yourself to fob the customer off on someone else.

[hawkboy772042]

I'm currently working with a guy that always shows up late for work and considered the most annoying person at my company. It wouldn't matter so much for me if I didn't have work along side him in order to finish the project which I assigned to in order to help him finish it. The project could've been finished a month ago and now I'm worried that both of us may end up on the firing line. Sounds scary, but I'm actually a very skilled worker in my area of expertise so I don't have a problem finding a job. The only limiting factor is that I'm going to school part time so it makes me slightly less desirable for employers. Hopefully, we get the project finished by the end of the week so that I can move on to bigger and better things in the company. Otherwise, I may have to dust off my resume again.

[razorback]

INoKnowNames, there are those that kiss up to those above them and **** on those below them. I still haven't been able to figure out how they manage to keep out of the firing line, even when they report to intelligent and competent people.
The VP of the company I work for hired her best friend, a data analyst, to be the manager of purchasing and IT. With no experience. And, after 3 years, they have gone through about a dozen purchasing supervisors. I don't understand how the president, who started the company (granted, he is on the verge of retiring and has been slowly extracting himself from the day to day stuff) or corporate have singled out this manager as being the problem. She had someone steal somewhere between $100k-$250k worth over material over the coarse of a year (copper wire, which he sold to some scrap yards), amongst other shows of incompetence. I mean, the VP can shield her to some extant but after 3 years of this kind of (mis)managment, I don't know how anyone can keep her there.
[As a side note, the whole corporation was just sold recently and after this manager did an audit, which inventory came in at $1.8 million upside, we have a new team of auditors inventory to get a real take on the situation. Hopefully the VP and the manager will be out on their rears because of it]

[Mr.C]

One of my first jobs was running the snack bar at a bowling alley. Pretty much a one person operation, sold sodas & candy, ran a small grill & deep fryer for burgers & fries.

They hired a girl to work there who had absolutely no multitasking ability. If she got an order for, say, two burger baskets, she would make one burger, then drop one order of fries & wait until it was done then make the second burger and then the second order of fries.

Nobody, from me to the owner, could get her to do things any differently and she was let go after a couple months (the boss was a sweetheart & bated firing people). Hilarious in hindsight, but so frustrating at the time...

[Talanic]

I do pizza delivery and I've got a few whoppers. One guy managed to keep the job only a few days because he was so bad at reading the tags on the food that said where it went. Apparently he looked for the instructions (i.e. "back door" or "front door") instead of the address - so if there were two different places getting a delivery to the front door, there was going to be trouble.

The bigger issue last Saturday, though, came from a coworker who's competent, but appears to have nearly no regard for anyone else at the store.

Since we're paid in tips, drivers tend to like taking larger orders, as customers are more likely to tip more when they're shelling out for $200 worth of food. Likewise, if people have specified an exact time when they'd like their food, they've been waiting for it longer and are often better tippers. However, when such a timed order is on the board, the driver's supposed to ignore it unless it's within half an hour of when it's supposed to be delivered. If anything was on the board before the timed order got to thirty minutes left, the other orders are higher priority. It sounds odd but it's really simple.

This coworker went to the board and saw a few regular orders up and a large timed order that was over thirty minutes from delivery time. He punched out the timed order anyway, simply because he wanted it and had apparently decided he 'deserved' it. When the driver manager called him on it, he kicked up a fuss, punched out (in the middle of a rush, without permission), went to the bar, and sulked for the rest of the night.

[Triscuitable]

Not so much a story of incompetent coworkers as it is incompetent classmates, but I'll bite.

Freshman year! Turns out that one subject I absolutely loathe (math) is a cakewalk (and it continues to be such)! Needless to say, through the constant cycle of students at our table, on only three occasions were any decent students at the same table as myself. Otherwise it was your standard "like oh my gosh this and that" teenage girls, the "party hard" archetypes with bloodshot eyes and a penchant for telling tales about substance and alcohol abuse (apparently that's funny now, according to them), or the absolute slackers who did nothing.

On those three instances I mentioned, there were 2 out of 4 people at our table putting forth an honest effort, myself included. On any other occasion, it was only ever myself solving the problems for our table (unless the teacher told me not to work, which due to my constant overworking to get my table through was quite often).

This process continued to the next (this) year, in which I've found Algebra 2 is full of Juniors who are trying (but uninformed), Seniors who couldn't give less of a crap (and thus fit the "like oh my gosh" and slacker archetypes), and the Sophomores who got in because they put forth an honest effort.

I'm in the latter group, and lately I've been asked by people at different tables if I could show them the process to solve standard-form (that's ax+by=c) systems (two standard-form equations) with the process of substitution (convert the standard-form equation without a coefficient into slope-intercept form, then solve for 'x' to start. Then solve for 'y'. Sometimes graphing the solution is also required), followed by (usually) graphing the result.

Now imagine doing this for all the seniors who weren't paying attention (this tends to be a lot of seniors). Then understand I've been reading 11/22/63 the whole time, and I still go through the process more effectively (I'm good at taking notes while reading a book).

[Razgriez]

In my years working in the restaurant industry I've dealt with a number of idiots.

-A lazy Busser who was often late, no shows, would smoke e-cigs inside the wash room (against restaurant policy), When he touched some hot silverware right out of the washer, rather than rinsing them down with cold water, he sprayed them with the industrial table surface cleaner he carried (I made sure personally that particular set of silverware got rewashed. He would often disappear for long periods of time, and looked half time like he was high on something or another. He got booted a few months after starting.

-Another busser who once tried to start a fight with me by calling me "retarded" (in a malicious manner mind you) because he figured that since I work primarily as a food prep and portioning, as well as a busser and someone who often fetches ingredients and what's not from storage, that the reason I worked the positions was because I was mentally handicapped (I'm not). When I told him what he should be doing instead (Read: working) he tried to further goad me into attacking him. Instead, I told him quite bluntly that I didn't have time to deal with his insults and goading and went back to work.

After dinner service, I reported the incident to the managers on duty. End result, the guy got suspended for that for a bit. A few weeks latter, he sealed his fate when he mouthed off to a visiting District manager, and physically pushed the DM because the DM was going to send him home for failing to do his job. Three guesses how well that went, first two don't count.

[RCgothic]

Today has been a bad day at the office.:smallfrown:

A competent and well-liked senior engineer just got fired to cover up a senior management **** up, and nobody's happy about it. The CEO's behavior has been utterly unacceptable - she talks over people, wastes hours going over a point that could have been summed up on one powerpoint slide, talks dismissively about people to others in their company, chews people out in public, complains that we don't work hard enough and should come in on weekends unpaid, always seeks to place blame even when there is none or it's hers, etc.

She seems to have no understanding of people. The guy she fired was the best friend of her other chief engineer. I doubt she realises how close she is to losing her entire engineering team. Based on contracts outstanding that might just bring down the entire company.

[Brother Oni]

She seems to have no understanding of people.

Of course she doesn't, that's why she's the CEO.

[The Glyphstone]

Peter Principle ahoy.

[Archonic Energy]

Peter Principle ahoy.
I was more thinking of the Dilbert Principle. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dilbert_principle)


conversation i just had at work with the "new guy"

M(oron): Hi [Redacted],
A(rchonic): Hi.
M: erm you know the weekly tape change?
A: yes.
M: they ask for 8 tapes to go into the tape loader
A: okay...
M: I only have 5, What should i do?
A: put them in an..
M: but they said put 8 in.
A: but you only have 5 so put them in and tel...
M: but they asked for 8?
A: But you only have 5 and unless you can make another 3 appear from thin air that's all you are going to have.
M: but they asked for 8.
A: ... o... k... call the customer and tell them only 5 tapes were delivered this week.
M: i'll just tell Service Desk.
*hang up*

A: *headdesk*
:smallsigh:

why...

[Traab]

Conversations like that remind me of dealing with my niece when she asks for advice. Of course, she is 10 so while annoying its forgivable. Seriously, I hate people that ask you for help, then proceed to utterly ignore everything you say. Why did you ask me for help if you were going to ignore it and do whatever you wanted anyways?

[EtherianBlade]

How about incompetent customers?

Years back, I was a manager with Sears. A guy comes in with his desktop computer sticking half out of a box, saying he needs it serviced. I ask him what's wrong with it.

Man: "The cup holder broke."
Me: "The cup holder?"
Man: "Yeah, you know. The cup holder."
Me: "Sir, your computer doesn't have a cup holder on it. No computer does."
Man: "Don't know what you call it, but I call it a cup holder and it's broke."
Me: "Can you show me the cup holder, sir?"
So we hook up the computer and turn it on. He pushes a button.
Man: "See? the cup holder's broke."
Me: (Heavy sigh) "That's not a cup holder, sir. That's your CD-ROM drive."
Man: "Whatever. It's still broke."

Sometimes, you just wanna smack somebody . . . .

[Brother Oni]

CD ROM cup holder story

Always thought this one was a bit of an urban legend.

You didn't work somewhere in rural America by any chance?

[pffh]

Always thought this one was a bit of an urban legend.

I've worked with a woman that used the cd drive as a cup holder. She stopped after she forgot to remove her cup of coffee before turning the computer off and the drive automatically closed, crushing the styrofoam cup and getting coffee into the machine.

[TheThan]

This is why I strongly recommend an office (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzToNo7A-94) Linebacker (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aZMS6st3D4&feature=fvwrel).

most of my stories deal with topics that are inaproprate for these forums. But i do have one i can talk about.

i once worked at one of those chain dollar stores (you know where everything is a dollar). Well the manager there played "tom petty and the heartbreakers greatest hits" through the building's sound system ALL DAY LONG. not only do i hate that band, i have their songs memorized...

[EtherianBlade]

Always thought this one was a bit of an urban legend.

You didn't work somewhere in rural America by any chance?

Milwaukee.

I've heard this re-told several times both in person and on other chat forums. I know there are plenty of idiots in the world and I'm sure I didn't meet the only one who used their disk drive as a cup holder.

[Karoht]

I was senior staff at a bank. Specifically the busiest location in town.
It was bad enough that I was running central treasury (an open to close task on it's own) and getting my other work caught up (I would be returning calls and counting money, and never miss a penny!), and giving the junior tellers authorizations for transactions, and doing the clearing (cheques) in batches of 250.

But when everyone went on lunch/bathroom/coffee break at pretty much the same time and left an entire lineup of customers with no one at the teller line?

I logged on to two workstations, took two clients at a time, and did gangbuster sales/referals at the same time, and managed to stay caught up on all my central treasury duties.

The manager found all of them in the back, wondered who was out front, found me tanking the entire line myself. This was not an entirely irregular occurance for me.
In this particular instance, not only did she bake me a cake that night, she scolded the others.
Now that sounds dandy right?

So I go for a promotion, and get turned down. Why? Because I wasn't enough like the rest of the tellers, I apparently was not as productive as they were, etc.

Oh well. The momentary justice was still kind of cool.
And that, among many other reasons, is why I don't work at the bank anymore.

[Saskia]

So I go for a promotion, and get turned down. Why? Because I wasn't enough like the rest of the tellers

That's messed up.

When I started with my current company one of the guys I worked with was if I'm being charitable, not pleasant. The most glaring citation I can make is that he tied a live mouse to an iron bar with four inches of dangling string once and was trying to find a way to make the bar spin in one of our centrifuges and swing the mouse around. Why? He wanted to see whether the mouse or the string would break first. Really. I got mad, he got loud (because apparently trying to see how much it takes to rip a live mouse in half is a defensible "scientific experiment" in a chemical lab), and then he ended up getting fired because 1) that's just screwed up, and 2) he willfully damaged a seven thousand dollar machine for the sole reason that he wanted to hurt an animal. The centrifuge actually needed replacement.

My current boss is as flaky and socially incompetent as you get, to a frustrating, if darkly amusing degree. He'll schedule meetings and not show up, he talks crap about people in emails and sometimes sends them to the wrong people... I think he does it on purpose. He's also got a massive humor tumor; a few weeks ago he wanted to fire one of my chemists for telling me "get on my level, scrub!" when he rigged a broken broom handle back together with a piece of rubber pipe and clamps. I told him it wasn't worth the effort, but it took him like a minute and a half to do. It was funny and we laughed, but my boss wanted to fire him for it. I don't even...

The CEO seems like he's a good guy but it's not like I answer to him or deal with him often, and it's as if everybody I've got to deal with in between is an idiot or a Hun. Not even productive Huns like Attila, the kind of Huns who play too much Call of Duty and call their subordinate commanders pansies for not attacking Rome with three geriatric horsemen and a butter knife.