Can you fire a peer?

Dear Bob …

How does one get rid of an incompetent coworker?

I like my job (the work I do), and enjoy the fact that I feel that I contribute to the stability of the workstation platform that I support.

There is another fellow on my team that is a major problem. My assessment is that he wants to be a “somebody” or a leader very badly (I like to call him a “somebody wannabe”).

His strong desire for a leadership position causes him to eschew any attempts by others to train him on new procedures, or following documented team standards of performance.

That could all be tolerable, except that he also is technically insufficient. Mostly he “just doesn’t get it” (he’s in the wrong line of work, frankly). The result is that all of his peers end up having to clean up after him, to avoid letting our end users suffer.

Yet, he manages to skate by through a combination of bravado, putting on a great game face that seems to snow our manager, and (lucky for him), a fairly rapid succession of management turnover.

Things are getting to the point where valuable people on the team are looking for transfers because of this guy, but I don’t think my management team is aware of either his incompetence, nor the assets that are looking for transfers out.

Is there any way to clue in my manager and/or his boss (actually, I think I have a better ear with my manager’s boss, but their both relatively knew to the team), without tarnishing or outright killing my career? I don’t want to transfer, I’d rather stay with an otherwise solid team, if only to get rid of this one guy.

That final twist is that I have not made myself busy gathering objective documentation of failures to follow process, nor any objective measures of poor quality. So, if I bring things up now, I have only my own subjective observations to report.

– Cleaning up and not liking it

Dear Cleaning …

This is one of the most difficult choices an employee has to make. There’s no great answer, either. There might just be one that’s acceptable, though.

One option you might consider is discussing the situation with your manager without naming names. Explain the situation, how you end up doing someone else’s work in addition to your own, and ask what the right course of action is. The biggest advantages to this approach are that it prevents your appearing to be a backstabber and it develops a course of action that will be effective with the individual responsible for doing something about employee performance – the person in charge.

If, for one reason or another, you’re uncomfortable taking this approach, here’s another alternative: Stop cleaning up after the guy, and persuade your colleagues to stop cleaning up after him as well. Yes, the end-users will suffer a bit in the short term, but if nobody follows behind to make sure the work is done well, his deficiencies will become visible to your manager.

It’s possible your manager will spread the blame around. If he does, you have your opportunity to say, in a clear calm voice, “That wasn’t my assignment, so I can’t take responsibility for the work that was or wasn’t done.”

There are lots of variations on this theme, but they all have the same thing in common: Right now you and your colleagues are conspiring to hide the offending employee’s poor performance from your manager, but you don’t like the result. The answer is clear: One way or another, you have to create an environment in which the poor performance is evident without pointing to it yourself.

– Bob

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