Professional Incompetance

[Obsidian]

Are there two words in the english language that piss me off quite so much? Probably not.

As some of you likely know, I'm a soldier. My very life can often depend on people being competent in their profession. So not only scares me, but drives me insane when people aren't! Especially in the military. Why? 1, my life could very well be in jeapordy, and 2, people know that these other people are soldiers, and they know that these people are useless. How does that reflect on the military as a whole.

This is styming from one troop in my unit, who theoritically, is as qualified as I am medically, and has done nearly all the training I have done, and is on paper, as trained as me. But to everyone who knows her, they know she is absolutely useless, because she has been carried through every course she's been on, because no one is left behind.

ARG! It makes me so angry! I can't stand it. So we hold the same rank, but I do 3 times the work because everyone above knows that I know my job, and she doesn't. What kind of medic can't take a blood pressure? What kind of soldier forgets how to handle a rifle? God help me.
And now, we're both up for promotion, and I damn near garuntee she'll get it, because no officer has ever seen her do ANY real skills, so she just slips through the cracks.


*pant* K I'm done.

My question now is, how do I deal with this? I refuse to help her, and she and I are scheduled to go on a training course together. I morally can't make her fail, but I'll be damned if I help her pass.

[Zelgadis]

I know exactly what you're talking about, but unfortunatly the only advice I can give you is keep doing your job, don't be the one helping useless soldiers stay afloat, and hope higher up notices.

[Magrus]

I've never been in the military, however the jobs I've held, were filled with incompetance. My last manager was clueless. She actually said to me "now that my managers gone, I guess your supposed to come to me with problems you have, or if the schedules wrong or something. *sigh* More work to do."

Now, is it me, or if someone is a department manager, isn't that your job in the first place? Why are you my superior if I know what your job entails better than you do? Her manager quit because of this type of thing. My boss wasn't doing her job so it went up the chain of command and wasn't fixed so she up and left. I did the same as well. It was a little convenience store/restaurant and I cleaned the kitchen on weekeds from midnight to 8am. All day people left messes and didn't do their work properly. So, instead of them taking say, 30 minutes out of their whole day more than they normally spend on work to do their job properly I spent 3 hours more doing my work.

I had a deal with that manager that left on how things had to be done there for me to keep working there, she took care of it. When she left, everything fell apart and I told my manager to fix it and she just sort of looked at me, like she had gas or something. Completely oblivious to the fact her employees weren't trained properly and that it was her job to fix that as well.

Thats just a crappy minimum wage job too. I cannot imagine the amount of frustration you must have at your situation in the military.

Oh, another thing. The deisel pump broke, was leaking fuel all over. No one got any sort of hazard or emergency training, so we called the owner. This was roughly 4 am, let him know what was going on. He demanded to know why we had called him at 4 am, babbling about it just being water and such. We assured him it was fuel and not water and he went back to sleep. We told a cop that came in a few minutes later and HE called the owner and demanded he come down to the store for a chat. I found that somewhat gratifying.

[jopperm2]

There is this one old lady that works here that is the most incompetant person that I have ever worked with. She continually makes mistakes and does things that are downright illegal. Somehow she amazingly never gets caught by our quality assurance people who record about 2% of the calls. I suspect that it's because she used to work for them before she was demoted. The good thing is that when she does something wrong she blatantly notes it in the account. We'ce started a like of accounts she has screwed up and we plan to bring it to the program manager. rediculous.

[ik911]

You'll probably get some extra points if you encourage her to make it and get that promotion, and if you help her through problems.

Some-one has got to notice that extra effort. Else you'll have to make em notice it. "You can do it <name>! Come on! I know you can make it!" (in front of a higher rank. )

[Magrus]

[QUOTE=jopperm2]There is this one old lady that works here that is the most incompetant person that I have ever worked with. She continually makes mistakes and does things that are downright illegal. Somehow she amazingly never gets caught by our quality assurance people who record about 2% of the calls. I suspect that it's because she used to work for them before she was demoted. The good thing is that when she does something wrong she blatantly notes it in the account. We'ce started a like of accounts she has screwed up and we plan to bring it to the program manager. rediculous.[/QUOTE]

There was a lady I used to work with at my first job. I worked in a grocery store closing the bakery. My uncle managed the store, which meant since it got out we were related, I ended up doing more work than everyone else to prove he wasn't playing favorites or anything. Well, the lady in question had been tormented at another store in the same chain, and was transfered to our store. She had worked in the floral department and got stuck in ours, maybe 2 weeks before I started training.

This lady, I don't know what was wrong with her to be honest. If she had an actual disability then I feel sorry for her, but she shouldn't have been working. She had one job, to bag loaves of fresh bread and keep the bread racks full, and managed to screw that up. Daily. Why? She would go shopping on her shift. Everyday! They pulled her from every other job in our department for incompetance and stuck her with that one little job and she couldn't do it. We would package pies, you do it in a certain way. It's not hard at all. Fold box like so, put pie in box, close box, stick correct lable on box. Done right? No, she put the pies in upside down so she ruined close to 80 pies one day. Happened to do it more than once. SO, what did my manager do, set me to watch someone old enough to be my mother so she didn't waste food, or wander off anymore. I told my manager to fire her and give me an extra day or so to do her work.

I figured out between myself and one of the other guys who worked there if that lady got 30 hours a week, she might only get 5 hours of decent work in. The rest of the time she either wasn't in the department, or doing things so badly, the rest of us would be forced to take 2 hours for every 1 of hers she worked to fix the problem. That means for say 15 hours of her work a week, in addition to those hours, the rest of the department spent 30 hours redoing everything. I quit in 2002 and she still works there. Something about the Union and such. I can't believe it. Not only is she wasting merchandise, but time as well. I think hiring rats to eat the food would be more productive than her destroying whole racks full of it weekly.

[jopperm2]

If i was the management and couldn't fire her I'd find some way to get her to quit. Make her job sitting in a storage room alone all day or something. When she asks why just tell her she already screwed everything else up.

[Chanak]

Stupidity abounds, wherever one goes. @Obsidian, I've been in your boots before. There's only two remedies possible:

1. Get really pissed about things, letting it gradually erode your morale and insiduously alter your own performance and attitude for the worse. That has happened to me before, the first time being in Fort Lewis, Washington, back in 1989. I had to go through that experience many times before remedy #2 dawned on me.

2. Let it go. The truth is, no matter where you go, this kind of situation exists in one form or another. If only everyone really cared about the impact their own lack of competence has upon others, working in a team setting would be that much better. Unfortunately, nothing we can do can change that in the majority of cases. If someone is committing criminal negligence, then you can gather evidence of it and discreetly submit it to higher authority. If they simply don't pull their weight, you can attempt a calm and positive-oriented meeting with them to discuss things. Anything other than this is only going to hurt you...and the only one you have direct control over is yourself. That's who you should worry about. You want to avoid heated, emotional confrontations at all costs. Nothing is worth that.

There's an attitude my friends in the Rangers have: if you get knocked down, you get back up. If you get shot and your guts fall in the dirt, then you just pick them back up and carry on. That's all we can do: our best. We can't force anyone else to do their best, but we sure as hell can make ourselves do our best.

[Obsidian]

That's probably good advice Chanak.

But god almighty, someday someones going to die cuz of her.

As for people with disabilities, why do they persist in working in fields that they physically can't handle?

I relate this even to physical fitness. If your job requires a high degree of fitness, shouldn't you be able to perform it?

Is it grounds to be fired over in the work force if you can't physically meet the expectations of your job, but are competent in every other way?

[nael]

[QUOTE=jopperm2]If i was the management and couldn't fire her I'd find some way to get her to quit. Make her job sitting in a storage room alone all day or something. When she asks why just tell her she already screwed everything else up.[/QUOTE]

that is the problem with a lot of management today...too lazy and disinterested in their employees to take the time to document incompetence. you must set a specific performance standard and when they fail, you use progressive disciplinary measures till the person is removed.

If you can remove someone from the federal government, you can remove someone from any other line of work.

[nael]

[QUOTE=Obsidian]That's probably good advice Chanak.

But god almighty, someday someones going to die cuz of her.

As for people with disabilities, why do they persist in working in fields that they physically can't handle?

I relate this even to physical fitness. If your job requires a high degree of fitness, shouldn't you be able to perform it?

Is it grounds to be fired over in the work force if you can't physically meet the expectations of your job, but are competent in every other way?[/QUOTE]

You can absolutely remove someone for not being physically capable of performing their job.
example, a nurse hurts her back (not on the job), she can no longer provide patient care. a fitness for duty should be performed by a practitioner, and when it is documented that they are unable to perform their job, they should be removed- given that there is the reasonable assumption they will not get better.

a fireman should never be hired unless they pass their physical, if they get hurt (not on the job), then they should be seperated.

It seems cold hearted, but it must be done.

if hurt on the job, they should still be removed, but then they'll be placed on the ol' workman's comp at 75% of their pay.