The Incompetent Colleague Nobody Fires: A Team Burden

The Incompetent Colleague Nobody Fires: A Team Burden

There is a type of person on the team who has been there for four months. He arrived from another project, apparently requesting the change himself. The suspicion, never confirmed, is that he was simply passed along. Since then, the team juggles to prevent him from causing chaos. Meanwhile, he continues as usual: confusing a backup with a restoration, launching poorly written commands that generate hour-long errors, and completely ignoring planned tasks with other groups. He is an engineer. His colleagues, mostly vocational training graduates, outperform him effortlessly. This case is shared by a fed-up employee who has already spoken with the coordinator and threatens to escalate to the manager.

The problem isn't just his incompetence; it's that the system doesn't expel him. The team has tried everything: explaining things patiently, asking him to take notes, supervising every operation, assigning only the simplest tasks, providing training. Nothing works. The response is always the same: "That wasn't explained to me," even if it was explained three times. The workload is distributed among the rest, who also have to fix his blunders. In a critical service, every mistake affects everyone and multiplies resolution time.

Why not fire him if he's so bad?

This question runs through the debate from top to bottom. The most repeated answer is the most cynical: because they don't want to. Or because they can't. Dismissal for poor performance is a chimera in Spain; it requires documenting absences, delays, or serious misconduct, not simple incapacity. If the subject doesn't steal or insult, the company swallows it whole. Some suggest he must have connections: a relative, a friend, someone with power. There is no proof, but the hypothesis fits his move from one project to another without consequences.

Another school of thought holds that the problem lies within the organization itself. If the team absorbs his errors, the company has no incentive to act. As long as someone fixes the mess, the incompetent keeps getting paid and the boss looks the other way. It's the law of the workplace jungle: those who strive carry double the load. Those who don't, settle in.

The strategy of neglect: let him crash alone

The most proposed solution is controlled abandonment. Stop helping him, stop fixing anything for him, stop supervising him. Let his errors be visible to management. If the service goes down, let it go down with his name on the report. The idea is that the cost of keeping him exceeds the cost of firing him. The problem: in a critical service, the cost is paid by clients and the rest of the team, who get the blame first.

Another tactic is bureaucratization. Everything in writing. Every request, instruction, and error documented and copied to superiors. Thus, when the time comes to justify a dismissal or transfer, there is material. It's slow, but it's the only thing that works in companies where verbal promises miccionan nothing.

The profile: neither stupid nor lazy, simply useless

The portrait that emerges is of someone with no learning capacity. It's not that he doesn't want to learn; it's that he can't. He doesn't retain procedures, trinc instructions, or take notes. One colleague says he explained the same thing ten times and he still made mistakes. Another says he was assigned the simplest task and still messed it up. There is no malice, just an incompetence so deep it borders on the comic. The idiot is an engineer, ironically notes the original poster, who cannot hide his astonishment.

Some mention ADHD as a possible explanation. Without diagnosis, it's just a label. What is clear is that the educational system doesn't filter out the incompetent: a university degree guarantees nothing. The phrase "he's an engineer" is repeated like a lament. Not out of contempt for the profession, but because it breaks the prejudice that more education equals more competence.

What can the team do? Options and costs

The available exits are few and none good. Talking to the manager is the most obvious, but also the riskiest: whoever complains gets marked. HR doesn't want problems; an employee reporting another for poor performance is a problem. The other option is group pressure, making it clear this isn't a personal grudge, but a unanimous opinion. If lucky, they relocate the subject. If not, the team breaks.

The nuclear option is leaving. Several messages suggest it: if the company tolerates this, it's not worth staying. The original poster is already considering it: he received a €35,000 offer via LinkedIn and is thinking about it. If I get the right fit, I'll tell them all to screw off, he writes. It's the most repeated conclusion: the useless stay, the good ones leave. And meanwhile, the company stays the same.

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The unsettling fact: in some cases, the incompetent doesn't just stay, he gets promoted. One participant shares that theirs moved to another project with a better position. Incompetence, well managed, is a successful career. Or at least, a survival strategy.