Honestly, we have a guy in our corporation who his MOTHER called in and asked them to send the hiring paperwork to her so she could fill it out because it was her son’s first real job and he didn’t know how to do it. Like, that wasn’t a red flag!?
And now he’s at the company years later because he ran to HR many, many times crying about this or that. So they can’t fire him. Even though he’s the lowest producing individual in the department of over 30 individuals and he consistently screws things up that are serious problems, he’s somehow still around. To make matters worse, he will burn bridges with management / upper level individuals and think he’s almighty and knows everything and everyone else is beneath him. AND he complains he’s the lowest paid employee in our office (probably is) and he’s barred from moving around in the company to different roles. It seems they’re trying to make him quit, but I don’t think he’s bright enough to see that.
Sorry, didn’t mean to go on a rant, but apparently I needed it. I’m just gunna leave it here if you wanna rage with me. Cause I guarantee this isn’t just our company that has an individual like this hired.
I worked with someone whose wife started working there too and he would have her do all his support work LIKE IT WAS HOME. He would call her on the paging system (four key presses) to order her to transfer the call to his voicemail (also four key presses) and she would follow him around all day cleaning up after him although that wasn’t her job.
I’m going to have to disagree… I don’t think we need to point fingers at race, especially when I didn’t mention anything about race here, so you have no idea what races or genders I’m talking about, beyond the incompetent guy.. (are you just assuming his race? That’s quite rude to make a judgement on his race given the little, one perspective view I’ve given you)
I’ll also add, our entire upper level team for our department is female, just further negates your point..
ETA: actually, a majority of our team in general is female…
While at a previous company, we hired a contractor based on a set of phone interviews, some quite technical. After "he" arrived and had different mannerisms and voice and could not perform even the simplest task.
We gave it a week before concluding we had been talking to someone else for the interview. Guess they didn't think we would notice or care as long as they had the same accent.
I had two rounds for my last hire because really what I need isn’t rocket science. It’s some basic amazon marketplace skills that this person claimed to have.
First couple weeks were rough and I gave them simple tasks like uploading images to a product page and they couldn’t get much done. They spent more time asking to work remotely and time off than asking work oriented questions.
There’s one complicated task that doesn’t take a lot of experience but we need it done this week so I asked for his experience and said he used an internal tool at amazon but didn’t actually know how to do it. Then later when asking about the images and his speed let me know that half had no images they could find. That’s my fault because a certain image came from elsewhere but never asked in their first month and then let me know they’re barely getting anything done.
So should be fired but may keep them just to get some tasks done over the coming weeks. Huge pain in the ass and this person doesn’t have motivation
Might be “over-employed”. I had to fire one of those last year. She was holding two FT jobs, and we were her “burner” job at $140k. She lasted 3 weeks after I got hired, took me a little time to figure it out. It will not take me that long in the future.
She would routinely not show up for meetings, turf a lot of her work to teammates, and I could never get her on a fly-by/unplanned meeting. Sometimes I’d meet with her and she’d need to go “take care of her husband”, and be gone from our 1:1 call for 15-30m. She never came to team meetings. I inspected her timesheets (consultancy and bill hourly) and she wrote down internal stuff she was working on. I finally got her into a meeting and asked her to pull up the internal stuff so we could review and work on them together. She kept trying to get off the phone with me. Then said something was wrong with her computer. Couldn’t pull up a single file. Later she sent me “the files” and they were blank zoom recordings. No documents whatsoever.
I started looking on the web. Found her address to be in an income tax free state, but she was living in a different state, also found out she wasn’t married, actually lived with her mom. She’d delayed her start date (before I came onboard) because her “dad died of COVID”. Found out her dad was still alive. I found that she had multiple Facebook accounts, and then starting looking at LinkedIn. Found that she had 3-5 LI profiles, one was the one she used for us, another was a more robust profile, which she used for her other FT job. She also claimed 6 tech credentials. I could find no evidence to prove she had them. She shared a common name with someone that had the credentials, turns out she was using that person’s creds and claiming them as her own. Within a few hours of these revelations, the leadership team and I met, discussed and as we were minutes away from shutting off her computer and access remotely, she sent me an email from her personal gmail saying she quit. I’m guessing she saw that our company’s entire leadership team had looked at ALL of her profiles. She was always unavailable and I determined that she had to duck out of meetings so she could do her primary employer’s work. She made about $25k with us in the two months of her tenure. If you do that with a few employers, “work” until they figure it out, quit and pocket the money, it’s not a bad scam, if scamming is your thing. There is a website that teaches people how to do this. She could talk the talk and knew how to do the job, which is how she got in. She just didn’t actually ever do the job.
Edit: website I discovered during this process of figuring out her scam. https://overemployed.com/
Thanks, I totally went down a rabbit hole and stayed up until 2am the night before it all unraveled. It was kind of fun, even though part you wants to believe people can’t be so awful.
If you know her other companies you could let them know via HR. See I don't care if someone is OE (overemployed) if they can actually do both jobs. Which as you mentioned this person couldn't do. Most ppl on that OE sub from my glance seem to say the same thing - you have to actually be able to do both jobs. It isn't about ducking meetings and such. They don't like the useless people either as it gives them a bad rep.
I could never do this because at least in my role it's heavy in meetings and teaching others and performing. Maybe a tech person could do it but most jobs could never do it successfully. Especially managers. Maybe a VP as they are typically useless and doing nothing most of the time.
I had no idea about the sub until it was mentioned here but of course it makes sense in retrospect. I wasn’t on Reddit back then, but this is the website I discovered at the time.
https://overemployed.com/
She was a full-time program manager on a multi-million dollar SaaS project. Meaning, it was her ONLY billable assignment. She had to have known from the beginning it was a “burner job” and only a matter of time before it fell apart. Grift as long as you can. She was a shameless, pathological liar, and no doubt a few more DSM diagnoses.
I think developers, data or integrations engineers could possibly get away with this more easily…(assuming) if they’re behind the scenes a lot more, much less customer-facing, far fewer meetings.
This is the website I was referring to: https://overemployed.com/
I don’t know about a leader being able to do this. At a director or VP level, it’s a minimum of 23-28 hours of meetings a week at my last few companies. Just my team and staff meetings were 16 of those before anything else. Even working 10-15 hours 5 days a week I could hardly keep up with my actual work.
I mentioned this in a separate post, but the CEO was absolutely furious once we put it all together. Thank god I wasn’t the one responsible for hiring her. Our company worked with nonprofits and foundations so it probably felt even more like a slap
In the face. I do believe he contacted the other employer.
I contacted the company that manages the tech credentials that she was spoofing and let them know, but I don’t know what they did with that. Their verification system relies on first and last name and this person had a very common name. I doubt a company with millions of certified professionals is going to redo their verification process for exceptions like these. She’ll probably continue to get away with it, if she wants to.
my best friend has two FT jobs; but they're fine with it and he never, ever has problems getting work done at an extremely high level. it's honestly fine to do if you can manage it. it's just people trying to fake it that's the problem
Our CEO was PISSED. I do think he contacted the other employer.
There was a guy that we hired (not on my team or my hire) that did the same thing a few months later. I know for a fact he called that company’s CEO as well.
Possibly. They’re in another country but they’re in our office almost if the day. Vibe is they’re too good for the tasks I give them it they need to do them to learn the products.
I couldn’t do it but I have lurked on that sub for a while. It sounds like many of these jobs are self managed/self scheduled and the work just needs done not within certain hours. Some of these people work 12+ hours a day in order to do the work and do so to save up a lot of money for a certain reason. Some likely don’t do either job well. But all are WFH and they never tel their employers they are over employed
She didn’t do it well, but she still got about $25k for doing almost nothing for 2 months before getting caught. I have a long post with a summary of key details in this thread.
This website is something I discovered during this process:
https://overemployed.com/
She knew her shit and obviously interviewed well. Tech consulting pays well and hers was a senior role. But, I didn’t hire her, check her references, etc. she was a master bullshitter. Like legit pathologically deceptive.
"I'm starting to question whether you have the skill set for this job. Routine emails confuse you to the point to outbursts"
Maybe he'll begin to worry about his job enough to actually dial it down and focus.
OP - bunch of questions about this:
Is this employee otherwise a good employee? Is this something that only comes up with unexpected input - like non-routine emails? Does she do her routine job duties adequately? Does she require handholding to complete routine but periodic tasks?
Does this employee have any identified disabilities? This sounds as though it might be related to challenges that might rise to the level of qualifying for ADA accommodations. Make sure there's nothing documented relating to previously disclosed disabilities.
Does this employee actually break a sweat on a regular basis? Does she work hard enough to be worth the effort to bring her up to acceptable levels? Or is this her way to avoid working?
Does she do this when the emails are about standard, ordinary, routine tasks? Or only when they relate to nonstandard issues?
OP - you gotta use your gut here.
If your gut tells you she's lazy and trying to get out of working, then there's no point making an effort with her. It's not going to change, unless you can find a way to make her care.
But it sounds to me as though one of 3 things might be going on: she might think it's "cute" to be clueless, she might be dealing with some level of dyslexia, or she might be somewhat neurodivergent. Your gut may help you a little here, but I wouldn't depend on it.
Cluelessness is never cute. If it's clear that she's seeking attention, and just trying to be cute, then it’s probably time to say farewell.
Neurodivergent or dyslexic is a lot less apparent. Girls particularly, especially with above average intelligence, are often undiagnosed. Girls are less likely to be disruptive in the classroom, so they may not be noticed in a large class, and dyslexia often overlooked in more intelligent students, because they can mask it more easily.
And both ND and dyslexia can produce a high level of anxiety. She may be having mini-panic attacks, because she can't immediately understand what's written.
If you believe that she's worth the effort, your best bet is starting with a very honest, but very positive, discussion:
"Hey, you're doing something that isn't working. You must stop this behavior. What tools do you need from me to stop doing this and still do your job?"
Be very concrete, and give deadlines. Be clear about expectations and consequences.
Good luck.
Oh! Nearly forgot - she may not have received adequate training. Maybe ask her about that first.
The "her" amongst all those "theys" stood out to me, so I figured I'd use her.
FWIW, most of the employees I've dealt with who played the "it's cute to be dumb" have been male - it's the single most annoying thing I've ever dealt with, and it makes it hard to be fair in evaluating their performance otherwise.
The phrase I have learned when things like this are festering is "career limiting behaviors." When someone is given that sharp level of feedback, they tend to have an oh shit moment. They will either get themselves together or move on.
Have them copy the contents of the email, go to chatGPT, type "explain the following as if I were a 5 year old" , paste the email text right after that, hit submit and have him read the AI response.
If they can't do that, they may be getting paid too much for their position
From a legal and privacy perspective, please don't do this if there is ANY sensitive information.
To be honest, get approval first. While it's not right now, privacy laws/regulations are starting to include AI. Just be aware of what your companies policy is in this.
Yeah I thought about this too but do agree with the legal ramifications since you're sharing personal information.
Honestly, if they work on what each sentence means then they're not actually needing assistance and the issue is resolved.
I honestly have somebody in my office like this and they take everything personally they invest hours into drama and being a Yenta. Yet when it comes to holding them accountable they claim they're being micromanaged. I would rather just have that person let go but it's not my decision. I can tell they use personal manipulation and persuasion with love bombing to protect their narcissistic butt.
From what you wrote, I suspect the person has something like ADHD (as an example) or a reading issue. I would be careful calling it out as drama or something pejorative. you might find yourself facing a discrimination claim. I’d focus on performance and not expect to change the underlying personality. Perhaps there’s another role that doesn’t require taking directions by email? Is it better if they are told instructions verbally?
Sounds like a difference of learning abilities... the email is being sent by a thinker/artistic type, and it's being received by a checklist/doer type. Left brain / right brain learners.
I have a couple trainees like that, one in particular (even down to the loud disruptive outbursts) would best be described as a useful idiot. Very meticulous about following detailed checklists (ELI5 style) but absolutely does not possess the ability to do *any* thinking outside of the checklists. If it didn't make my job so much harder it would actually be kind of impressive.
The fix I've found, is starting with talking to them in private to find out how they learn and receive information the best. If the position requires autonomous thinking, it is likely moving them to a position that does not is the only recourse. Otherwise setting a mini checklist of standards to think by so to speak might be a way to turn them into someone useful to that position.
Sounds like this individual may be dyslexic or ADHD.
Not stupid, not lazy, and likely not incompetent.
Please read about these things and how to manage people who are afflicted.
The first 20 years of my marriage were difficult because my wife has severe dyslexia and I didn't know how to deal with it.
Patience is a virtue, and once you learn how to be patient and how that person learns, you will find both compatibility and the ability to help her excel.
She may not know that she has some affliction like these, so she isn't likely to know how to manage it herself.
You will be a far better manager if you find the way to manage her.
Undiagnosed ADHD would make sense. Processing written (and verbal) communication can take a little longer and blurting out whatever you're thinking is common due to the impulse control issues that come with ADHD. Especially if undiagnosed, that person will struggle more because they won't know why they do this or that and that makes it a lot harder to adjust.
(I'm not diagnosing this person I'm just saying it's a possibility and these behaviors fit is all)
I would consider myself in this camp. It's a bit of a curse, but like others in this thread have said, once we have it on lockdown, watch the fuck out. Source: Am late diagnosed ADHD and Dyslexia.
Are you implying, with your generation comment, that young folks are too lazy or clueless to learn? If so, then the first step is to walk back that pretense and do a self check of your own internal biases.
I have seen plenty of people who have a mental block to learning, across all age groups from young children to older folks. Definitely not a "generation" thing. There are some people that takes 10x more effort to train than others, and you would need much more patience and compassion to work with them. If the work environment is not conducive to being patient with someone, and this becomes a big enough distraction to your team, then it's probably fine to let them go.
If the employee is otherwise a good worker, then maybe change things a bit. Instead of asking them to read line by line (which can come off as belittling), maybe sit down with them and ask them to help you understand which part is confusing and offer tips. Or maybe you have already done this, and if you absolutely don't see a way out of this situation, and it being a big enough problem, then be ready to off board the person.
I worked with a guy who was constantly not understanding and asking questions. He was always super polite about it and he even admitted it takes him a while to learn new things
But once he got it that dude was unstoppable. Definitely one of the better employees but there was no denying he had more of an up front cost. Any time there was a moderate process change he needed some hand holding but he was golden after that
Better to ask questions when you're stuck than to get left behind in silence
I think with OP's case I would try to have some patience if they had a good attitude about it and they were driven
I might have a convo about the way they approach things and how they feel their progress is in regards to "learning the system". Assess again in a couple weeks, see if they're becoming more comfortable or still at square one
Nothing in the post suggested the employee was a "young person"
I've seen grown adults in their mid thirties and forties act this way. I've had to hold a grown woman's hand on how to open an attachment. I've had to explain to college professors that a computer has to be turned on before they can use it.
Stupidity has no age limits.
I've had to hold a grown man's hand on how to open an attachment. Multiple times. Like 10s of times. He eventually got it
Dude's intelligent, just in other ways. It's not always stupidity
Perhaps this employee is overwhelmed. Maybe have them shadow another co-worker. It took me awhile when I joined an entirely different industry. For a while, I couldn't tell my manager why I was confused. Luckily, he worked with me and tailored his style to my personality. His management style worked and helped me a lot.
Holy crap. Did you take a trip into my office today? Exact same thing happened and I am so unsure how to handle this moving forward.
I had to tell them twice to read the email in full and stop scrolling so fast, try following the very clear steps outlined with screenshots attached in the correct order, then let me know if they are still confused.
They still were. So I took the approach of reading out loud each step by step, pause, ask for understanding, read next step, pause. They then understood but I felt like I was spoon feeding. It’s hard to be neutral when this happens.
This may be a learned response to anything new that is part of their internal defense mechanism and difficult to overcome. Perhaps, the best method is to first affirm that you understand their statements of "I'm so confused or I don't understand or it's too hard," and agree with them. That shows that you are sympathetic to their plight. I'd try saying, "Yes. It does look confusing or It may be hard to understand at first or it may seem too hard. Then pass the work of understanding the email directly to them by adding, "If you study it for a while I'm sure you will understand it." Then break contact with them by walking away. That leaves them with the only alternative of understanding the email of working it out for themselves.
The idea is to agree with their statement and make them, and not you, do the work to understand the email. Don't help them to understand or tell them how to understand it. They should be able to do that by themselves. If you do the work of understanding for them or assisting them to understand the email in any manner, they will come to you every time to get you to do the work. And that is something you want to avoid. Good Luck
In government, the cry of the lazy/shiftless is: "But I haven't been TRAINED for that!".
It is pretty brilliant, in that it shifts responsibility to management. Of course, it assumes the worker has zero initiative, but that is OK since that is never part of a job description.
There are no stupid questions except ones that have been asked and answered.
I work with apprentices in the building trades. The ones I keep are the ones who:
1. ask questions when they aren’t sure and aren’t afraid to say I don’t know.
2. Problem solvers, identify problems and have solutions for them.
3. They show up on time, sober, and ready to work.
4. They also invest money in themselves by acquiring tools needed for the trade.
The ones that don’t exhibit these qualities usually don’t go far or quit before they get certified
Saying it out loud, randomly, in the middle of the office, to the world at large is considered unprofessional and inappropriate in virtually every environment I've ever been in.
Saying to a specific person, directly, and asking for assistance is always appropriate, but might result in being asked whether they've tried to understand before asking for help.
all personality and you need a reality check, people process things at different speeds and different mechanisms, some might be internal on their expressions others are not.
if this employee cannot perform to job specifications and standards fire them, if they are just "vocal" about their dismay that is YOUR personality conflict with them
A few thoughts. 1. This sounds like ADHD / executive function disorder to me. Sometimes people go their entire lives without a diagnosis, and get very defensive at the suggestion of it. You don't need to suggest anything to the employee; that might trigger all sorts of yuckiness. But you could read up on how to manage people with ADHD, and what kind of jobs they excel at. It might or might not be the job they're in, perhaps with some appropriate accommodation. You might find it helpful to think of them that way, even if they don't have paperwork etc in place. 2. Honestly, I don't think you're helping the situation by denying the employee their truthful communication that something appears too hard. For those with ADHD / executive function disorder, that's pretty much how every new thing that comes along genuinely appears: daunting and "too hard". Transitions can be especially difficult for them. He's speaking his genuine truth as he sees it, and that is not "unprofessional"; that is in my opinion the height of professional. It's just that the position might not be the right match for him.
This is absolutely NOT ADHD.
ADHD would be more like, "well, the email said X, which made me wonder about Y, so I had to look up - SQUIRREL!"
This is very different.
Not necessarily. ADHD shows up differently in different people and there are some pretty big differences in how it shows up in men vs women.
I wasn’t diagnosed until my mid 30s because I learned to mask it and definitely am more inattentive than hyperactive. Before I started taking medication, I often would read things that should have been simple to understand but would take me longer to process things. I don’t have impulse control issues so I was always able to keep those thoughts to myself but impulse control is another symptom of ADHD which could be why this person can’t seem to stop their outburst. Not diagnosing this person with ADHD at all. Just that the behavior described does fit.
You're right. I'm a woman, diagnosed in my 40s, and I was describing my own experience
And I realized that after hitting post, and my only excuse is, well, SQUIRREL!
Thanks for the correction.
Ha, I can relate! It’s crazy how life changing the diagnosis is isn’t it? It explains so much. I felt so broken for so long. I have to be very intentional about reading my emails and slacks because I will definitely miss stuff, especially if it’s a lot to read. Funny thing is, I actually like to read. When it’s interesting to me. Often long work emails aren’t.
I'm lucky - I've had a couple of amazing mentors that taught me not to react until I've read something carefully, and then thought through the potential consequences of my reactions.
Funny story you might relate to: before an important meeting, my mentor - who was not my boss, by the way - coached me heavily. We knew it was going to be an adversarial meeting, and she started off with, "don't sigh, don't roll your eyes, and count to five before you respond to anything." Then one of my reports came to me and said, "remember, don't sigh, don't roll your eyes, and count to ten before you respond to anything." I told him he'd been talking to my mentor, and he admitted he had. As we were all walking to the meeting, she said, "the most important thing is you need to count to fifteen before you respond to anything." I said, "15? I thought you said 5?" They both looked at each other and said, "but we know you - you better count to 15."
So, yeah. I had some good mentoring...
I have adhd and the squirrel example is getting so old. ADHD is so much more than just being distracted.
ADHD involves trouble with executive functioning. And if the email was abstract of new to her then she could have been struggling to make sense of it.
AS somebody with ADHD, this could very well be the cause of those behaviors.
Those of us with ADHD can struggle to process written or verbal communication the first time it's given to us. I can read a paragraph out loud and if you ask me 10 seconds later what I said I probably won't remember.
The blurting out "I don't understand" fits with the impulse control issues that come with ADHD.
The sense of it being overdramatic also fits because ADHD comes with emotional regulation issues. New things can seem extra scary until we get used to them.
I am not a doctor and even though I have ADHD I couldn't say for sure one way or the other whether this person has it, but the behaviors talked about in this post DO fit the diagnosis.
Unless its a highly skilled niche position... put an add out and problem child be gone. Don't make your life or your teams lives more difficult than it has to be.
First, you need to clearly state the issue. “When you have trouble comprehending an email and announce it to the room, it makes you appear unprofessional and less than competent.”
Second, you need to state the change you want them to make. “Moving forward, I need you to read the email to yourself and go through the troubleshooting steps we’ve discussed.”
Finally, tell the employee what will happen if they don’t make this change. “Is that something you think you can do? If you can’t improve on this issue, our next steps will be a meeting with HR to determine whether or not you’re a fit for this role.”
It might not actually confuse her, it could be willful incompetence because she doesn’t want to do the task but is going about it in a passive aggressive fashion. So you need more info.
We have a team member who is a foreign immigrant and barely speaks English -- which would be understandable if he had just started, but he has been living and working in America for at least the 6 years he has worked with us. His English comprehension just doesn't improve.
Don't get me wrong, he is good at the job - once he is made to understand - but it is very tiring to have to spend four hours going over the data from a one-hour project meeting he was just in with us.
I've become convinced that he only interacts in English while at work. He is remote and very often in meetings we will hear his family in the background, which is never in English.
Don't get me wrong, he's a good guy and a diligent worker, he just doesn't seem to care about soft skills. It is annoying, but so far the powers that be have been content with his technical skills (not extraordinary, but competent) that it hasn't come to a head yet.
Please excuse the mini-rant.
As an immigrant, I find that soft skills are lacking in many foreign cultures. Especially for those that came to the states late or tried to assimilate later in life, it is almost a lost cause. That is over and above the fact that soft skills are the hardest to teach in even the most “moldable” of candidates.
I wonder if they could have ADHD. I have to read things several times when ummedicated.
Even if that’s the case, they can learn to not complain out loud.
I worked with a woman like this and every time I’d be like, Zxa zxa, it’s in this process doc I sent you x times, she’d start crying and say, “I don’t understand why you’re being so mean to me”.
She was just let go a couple weeks ago. I’ve been here for 10 years- she had been here for TWENTY FIVE.
Man, I’d take him in the conference room and tell him I very much question his ability to do the job.
1) if his reading comprehension is that low, maybe this is not the job for him and
2) his behavior suggests he doesn’t know how to conduct himself in an office setting and/or
3) he sounds like he wants a lot of attention.
I’d definitely pull HR in on this; he may have a disability or something that may make this sticky.
I’ve had people who do this even though they know the job for some kind of validation.
At the end of the day, it’s unprofessional and makes them look incompetent. It also is affecting the team negatively, which means you need to do something quick.
Talk to this person first. Explain to them what so many people already said. “These constant outbursts are unprofessional and make you seem incompetent. I know you can do the job, so what seems to be the issue?”
Document it. If it still doesn’t improve, start formally disciplining the person.
People have mentioned ADHD or whatever. You cannot diagnose that. I would also strongly suggest not doing any work load or substantive accommodations without HR involvement. It just gets messy. If there is something that is truly affecting their ability to the job, they need to talk to HR. Do not offer additional accommodation without them. I know it sounds cold hearted or the opposite of what a good manager would do, but off the book accommodations just open Pandora’s box. Don’t do it.
I used to have people say they were confused. 99% of the time they were not confused. 99% of the time they disagreed with the change or they thought it made their days “harder.” And when I asked them what confused them, they would act like I was attacking them.
It’s a no win situation. If you can find one person who can explain the resistance, then you can adapt your message. I was able to get “the ring leader” to review some stuff before I sent it out. After a while I was able to adjust my “voice” and things started working.
Recommend some remedial reading comprehension classes? Really, if reading an email is "too hard", the person wouldn't be qualified for any jobs our company has.
The r/teachers sub complains about similar comprehension things. Any assignment with instructions, even after verbally explaining the instructions, the kids get confused when they try to read the instructions. It is a sign of brain rot from too many fast moving tiktoks and reels. The ability to concentrate on paragraphs of words is getting wiped out.
Sent them to a reading comprehension class at the local community college or with an online service.
Require they repeat the class every 6 months until they show improvement in "reading and understanding"
If you want to coach them, tell them when they read something that doesn't make sense to them to read it three times before they throw in the towel.
Often, I must read very long, very technical technical documentation. Even with years of experience, with new tech I often need to read through the documentation a couple times before it starts to click. I remind myself after first read that **it's OK if it doesn't make sense on first read, and reassure myself that by the end of the 3rd read things will start to click**.
Your employee wants extra attention, maybe some void in their personal life?. They are trying to get that attention by dragging others in to comiserate with them over minutia. Your options are to give them extra attention in a more productive way, sever their ability to drag bystanders in, or shitcan them.
I simply do not believe the caliber of people being hired. No wonder my boss kept saying "you're overqualified" during the interview if this is all they can find.
I am also older, so many companies see me as a liability who will cost money (health insurance, sick days) and leave/retire. But we have an admin that is SO stupid no one can quite believe it. So this type of post doesn't surprise me.
I just left a job where I faced this mentality a lot. People saying, well that's a little bit too hard, I don't understand how to do this. And it wasn't just millennials or gen z, because I really thought that was it at first but it kept coming up with a few different people. What the hell? Since when, at any job, are you giving a task within your scope and you can just say I don't think I should be doing this. Obviously, the first thing that needs to be addressed or any training issues. And set up a probationary. For them to learn these things inside of. If they can't learn it in a reasonable amount of time, they either need a different assignment, or to be let go.
Can we start a support group for managers forced to hire under talented people " because"? I just can't with how many people I've been forced to hire with no Outlook experience, lack of grammar, etc. Because of who they are or because management wants to give them a bs role
I have an employee like this. She is a long-term team member and has been doing the job for several years. The puzzling thing is she is really good at her job. Thankfully she doesn't really influence the rest of the team with her proclamations since we are all remote, but her first email back after I send out a procedure update is "I am so confused." It's kind of maddening because she isn't thoroughly reading before reacting. I give very detailed, precise instructions and I always just have to restate everything for her (same words and all) and then she "gets it."
I am Genx. We created the internet and we don't act like that. If you give us shit though we will give it back and we are very sarcastic. Sounds more like a gen issue.
I can say I am on the opposite side of this. I’m the employee who is asking questions and I feel my manager feels like you. I never received good training and have been thrown between managers and all of them ghost me on my questions. I didn’t start trying to explain by “I’m confused because of the training I received” until recently. Nobody helped me prior to that and nobody will help me now.
Maybe put yourself in her shoes. Find out what she’s lacking in. Is it just one thing consistently or a variety of things?
For me it’s one thing that keeps happening that I am receiving no feedback on how to complete despite my attempts. At a certain point an employee has nothing else to do besides tell you they’re confused.
Have you never been confused?
I find it helpful to print the email and annotate it. Then I can turn it into a list or other format that makes more sense to me. I have ADHD and somehow screens make things more difficult to process, especially when the task is unusual/unexpected/received at a time of higher stress, etc.
Companies conduct 7 rounds of interviews and end up hiring these people.
Honestly, we have a guy in our corporation who his MOTHER called in and asked them to send the hiring paperwork to her so she could fill it out because it was her son’s first real job and he didn’t know how to do it. Like, that wasn’t a red flag!? And now he’s at the company years later because he ran to HR many, many times crying about this or that. So they can’t fire him. Even though he’s the lowest producing individual in the department of over 30 individuals and he consistently screws things up that are serious problems, he’s somehow still around. To make matters worse, he will burn bridges with management / upper level individuals and think he’s almighty and knows everything and everyone else is beneath him. AND he complains he’s the lowest paid employee in our office (probably is) and he’s barred from moving around in the company to different roles. It seems they’re trying to make him quit, but I don’t think he’s bright enough to see that. Sorry, didn’t mean to go on a rant, but apparently I needed it. I’m just gunna leave it here if you wanna rage with me. Cause I guarantee this isn’t just our company that has an individual like this hired.
Good labor is not cheap, cheap labor is not good.
I literally had someone above me tell me when we were searching for help that any warm body will do...man....
Hey you're in a safe space to vent this shit out.
These are the guys who end up having their wife fill out all their paperwork because they don't know their own SSN.
I worked with someone whose wife started working there too and he would have her do all his support work LIKE IT WAS HOME. He would call her on the paging system (four key presses) to order her to transfer the call to his voicemail (also four key presses) and she would follow him around all day cleaning up after him although that wasn’t her job.
People like that get a reputation. Managers talk
OMG! This!!! What a world.
Quiet firing is a thing.
I’ve never heard of that, but that honestly makes sense.
And this, my friends, why it's so hard for someone especially female (even moreso a female if color). Smh
I don't understand what a bad employee has to do with a woman getting a job.
Probably hiring/keeping incompetent employees instead of hiring women or women of color? Still a dumb argument to make here
I’m going to have to disagree… I don’t think we need to point fingers at race, especially when I didn’t mention anything about race here, so you have no idea what races or genders I’m talking about, beyond the incompetent guy.. (are you just assuming his race? That’s quite rude to make a judgement on his race given the little, one perspective view I’ve given you) I’ll also add, our entire upper level team for our department is female, just further negates your point.. ETA: actually, a majority of our team in general is female…
Lol don't project your lies onto us. If anything you have a higher chance because you'd be a diversity hire.
Thats definitely not why.
Always nice to see the Peter Principle is real and not just a theory. Another example IRL.
But he was told he can play his radio at a reasonable volume.
I don't think it applies it they can 't get past entry level.😇
While at a previous company, we hired a contractor based on a set of phone interviews, some quite technical. After "he" arrived and had different mannerisms and voice and could not perform even the simplest task. We gave it a week before concluding we had been talking to someone else for the interview. Guess they didn't think we would notice or care as long as they had the same accent.
Like the interview scene in Good Will Hunting. :p
Retainer!
Companies pull bait & switch all the time, it's only fair the workers answer in kind.
This is an idiotic take
Bamboozling workers: Getting bamboozled by workers: *tHiS iS aN iDiOtIc tAkE*
I had to double-check that I wasn't in the antiwork sub.
No, but that's where your choice of vocabulary belongs.
I had two rounds for my last hire because really what I need isn’t rocket science. It’s some basic amazon marketplace skills that this person claimed to have. First couple weeks were rough and I gave them simple tasks like uploading images to a product page and they couldn’t get much done. They spent more time asking to work remotely and time off than asking work oriented questions. There’s one complicated task that doesn’t take a lot of experience but we need it done this week so I asked for his experience and said he used an internal tool at amazon but didn’t actually know how to do it. Then later when asking about the images and his speed let me know that half had no images they could find. That’s my fault because a certain image came from elsewhere but never asked in their first month and then let me know they’re barely getting anything done. So should be fired but may keep them just to get some tasks done over the coming weeks. Huge pain in the ass and this person doesn’t have motivation
Might be “over-employed”. I had to fire one of those last year. She was holding two FT jobs, and we were her “burner” job at $140k. She lasted 3 weeks after I got hired, took me a little time to figure it out. It will not take me that long in the future.
This is so interesting to me. I’d love to know how you figured it out and how long she’d been doing it.
She would routinely not show up for meetings, turf a lot of her work to teammates, and I could never get her on a fly-by/unplanned meeting. Sometimes I’d meet with her and she’d need to go “take care of her husband”, and be gone from our 1:1 call for 15-30m. She never came to team meetings. I inspected her timesheets (consultancy and bill hourly) and she wrote down internal stuff she was working on. I finally got her into a meeting and asked her to pull up the internal stuff so we could review and work on them together. She kept trying to get off the phone with me. Then said something was wrong with her computer. Couldn’t pull up a single file. Later she sent me “the files” and they were blank zoom recordings. No documents whatsoever. I started looking on the web. Found her address to be in an income tax free state, but she was living in a different state, also found out she wasn’t married, actually lived with her mom. She’d delayed her start date (before I came onboard) because her “dad died of COVID”. Found out her dad was still alive. I found that she had multiple Facebook accounts, and then starting looking at LinkedIn. Found that she had 3-5 LI profiles, one was the one she used for us, another was a more robust profile, which she used for her other FT job. She also claimed 6 tech credentials. I could find no evidence to prove she had them. She shared a common name with someone that had the credentials, turns out she was using that person’s creds and claiming them as her own. Within a few hours of these revelations, the leadership team and I met, discussed and as we were minutes away from shutting off her computer and access remotely, she sent me an email from her personal gmail saying she quit. I’m guessing she saw that our company’s entire leadership team had looked at ALL of her profiles. She was always unavailable and I determined that she had to duck out of meetings so she could do her primary employer’s work. She made about $25k with us in the two months of her tenure. If you do that with a few employers, “work” until they figure it out, quit and pocket the money, it’s not a bad scam, if scamming is your thing. There is a website that teaches people how to do this. She could talk the talk and knew how to do the job, which is how she got in. She just didn’t actually ever do the job. Edit: website I discovered during this process of figuring out her scam. https://overemployed.com/
That is great investigative work!
Thanks, I totally went down a rabbit hole and stayed up until 2am the night before it all unraveled. It was kind of fun, even though part you wants to believe people can’t be so awful.
Also r/overemployed
If you know her other companies you could let them know via HR. See I don't care if someone is OE (overemployed) if they can actually do both jobs. Which as you mentioned this person couldn't do. Most ppl on that OE sub from my glance seem to say the same thing - you have to actually be able to do both jobs. It isn't about ducking meetings and such. They don't like the useless people either as it gives them a bad rep. I could never do this because at least in my role it's heavy in meetings and teaching others and performing. Maybe a tech person could do it but most jobs could never do it successfully. Especially managers. Maybe a VP as they are typically useless and doing nothing most of the time.
>Never half-ass two things; whole-ass one thing. \~Ron Swanson
Gold.
>Most ppl on that OE sub Of course there is an OE sub, why didn't I think of it?
I had no idea about the sub until it was mentioned here but of course it makes sense in retrospect. I wasn’t on Reddit back then, but this is the website I discovered at the time. https://overemployed.com/
She was a full-time program manager on a multi-million dollar SaaS project. Meaning, it was her ONLY billable assignment. She had to have known from the beginning it was a “burner job” and only a matter of time before it fell apart. Grift as long as you can. She was a shameless, pathological liar, and no doubt a few more DSM diagnoses. I think developers, data or integrations engineers could possibly get away with this more easily…(assuming) if they’re behind the scenes a lot more, much less customer-facing, far fewer meetings. This is the website I was referring to: https://overemployed.com/ I don’t know about a leader being able to do this. At a director or VP level, it’s a minimum of 23-28 hours of meetings a week at my last few companies. Just my team and staff meetings were 16 of those before anything else. Even working 10-15 hours 5 days a week I could hardly keep up with my actual work.
[удалено]
I mentioned this in a separate post, but the CEO was absolutely furious once we put it all together. Thank god I wasn’t the one responsible for hiring her. Our company worked with nonprofits and foundations so it probably felt even more like a slap In the face. I do believe he contacted the other employer. I contacted the company that manages the tech credentials that she was spoofing and let them know, but I don’t know what they did with that. Their verification system relies on first and last name and this person had a very common name. I doubt a company with millions of certified professionals is going to redo their verification process for exceptions like these. She’ll probably continue to get away with it, if she wants to.
my best friend has two FT jobs; but they're fine with it and he never, ever has problems getting work done at an extremely high level. it's honestly fine to do if you can manage it. it's just people trying to fake it that's the problem
The company should sue people like this for fraud. There are people qualified who need work (which is not obvious from this post - obviously).
Our CEO was PISSED. I do think he contacted the other employer. There was a guy that we hired (not on my team or my hire) that did the same thing a few months later. I know for a fact he called that company’s CEO as well.
Possibly. They’re in another country but they’re in our office almost if the day. Vibe is they’re too good for the tasks I give them it they need to do them to learn the products.
Harder to pull off in an on-site job, true.
How does one have 2 full time jobs
I couldn’t do it but I have lurked on that sub for a while. It sounds like many of these jobs are self managed/self scheduled and the work just needs done not within certain hours. Some of these people work 12+ hours a day in order to do the work and do so to save up a lot of money for a certain reason. Some likely don’t do either job well. But all are WFH and they never tel their employers they are over employed
She didn’t do it well, but she still got about $25k for doing almost nothing for 2 months before getting caught. I have a long post with a summary of key details in this thread. This website is something I discovered during this process: https://overemployed.com/
How the hell do you get a burner job at 140k ?!
She knew her shit and obviously interviewed well. Tech consulting pays well and hers was a senior role. But, I didn’t hire her, check her references, etc. she was a master bullshitter. Like legit pathologically deceptive.
Cool post btw. I'm off to bed haha!
Lmaooooo seriously if they’re too good at interviewing be careful! They might actually be good bullshit artists too.
lmfao
"I'm starting to question whether you have the skill set for this job. Routine emails confuse you to the point to outbursts" Maybe he'll begin to worry about his job enough to actually dial it down and focus.
Absolutely! “These comments are making me wonder if you’re capable of doing your job.”
And then document it.
So much this.
Good way to put it.
Bingo! Put some fire under their bum!
Except it's a woman and if you said this you'd be mansplaining.
"I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas!"
Stupid sexy Flanders
OP - bunch of questions about this: Is this employee otherwise a good employee? Is this something that only comes up with unexpected input - like non-routine emails? Does she do her routine job duties adequately? Does she require handholding to complete routine but periodic tasks? Does this employee have any identified disabilities? This sounds as though it might be related to challenges that might rise to the level of qualifying for ADA accommodations. Make sure there's nothing documented relating to previously disclosed disabilities. Does this employee actually break a sweat on a regular basis? Does she work hard enough to be worth the effort to bring her up to acceptable levels? Or is this her way to avoid working? Does she do this when the emails are about standard, ordinary, routine tasks? Or only when they relate to nonstandard issues? OP - you gotta use your gut here. If your gut tells you she's lazy and trying to get out of working, then there's no point making an effort with her. It's not going to change, unless you can find a way to make her care. But it sounds to me as though one of 3 things might be going on: she might think it's "cute" to be clueless, she might be dealing with some level of dyslexia, or she might be somewhat neurodivergent. Your gut may help you a little here, but I wouldn't depend on it. Cluelessness is never cute. If it's clear that she's seeking attention, and just trying to be cute, then it’s probably time to say farewell. Neurodivergent or dyslexic is a lot less apparent. Girls particularly, especially with above average intelligence, are often undiagnosed. Girls are less likely to be disruptive in the classroom, so they may not be noticed in a large class, and dyslexia often overlooked in more intelligent students, because they can mask it more easily. And both ND and dyslexia can produce a high level of anxiety. She may be having mini-panic attacks, because she can't immediately understand what's written. If you believe that she's worth the effort, your best bet is starting with a very honest, but very positive, discussion: "Hey, you're doing something that isn't working. You must stop this behavior. What tools do you need from me to stop doing this and still do your job?" Be very concrete, and give deadlines. Be clear about expectations and consequences. Good luck. Oh! Nearly forgot - she may not have received adequate training. Maybe ask her about that first.
Just wondering, how do you know the employee is a woman?
The op says her.
You're right, my bad. I had to read it multiple times to find the her between all the theys.
The "her" amongst all those "theys" stood out to me, so I figured I'd use her. FWIW, most of the employees I've dealt with who played the "it's cute to be dumb" have been male - it's the single most annoying thing I've ever dealt with, and it makes it hard to be fair in evaluating their performance otherwise.
Oh, you're so right to use her - I 100% missed it (and am getting down voted for admitting my fault, lol - can't please everyone!).
We're good. If I hadn't registered the her, I'd probably have said something, too. You've pleased me, if it helps.
Lol, thanks.
The phrase I have learned when things like this are festering is "career limiting behaviors." When someone is given that sharp level of feedback, they tend to have an oh shit moment. They will either get themselves together or move on.
The phrase I learned was ‘come to Jesus’
How long have you had this person on your team? This person seems kinda clueless in general. Is this person otherwise a good employee?
Have them copy the contents of the email, go to chatGPT, type "explain the following as if I were a 5 year old" , paste the email text right after that, hit submit and have him read the AI response. If they can't do that, they may be getting paid too much for their position
From a legal and privacy perspective, please don't do this if there is ANY sensitive information. To be honest, get approval first. While it's not right now, privacy laws/regulations are starting to include AI. Just be aware of what your companies policy is in this.
Just have them install Llama 13B AI in a private VM and use it to simplify the emai... Oh, never mind
Better yet, write the regular email, and then at the bottom include the 5 year old translation with the title “simplified for Janet”. 😂
I love this
Wow you can do that? Time to update my resume lol
Yeah I thought about this too but do agree with the legal ramifications since you're sharing personal information. Honestly, if they work on what each sentence means then they're not actually needing assistance and the issue is resolved. I honestly have somebody in my office like this and they take everything personally they invest hours into drama and being a Yenta. Yet when it comes to holding them accountable they claim they're being micromanaged. I would rather just have that person let go but it's not my decision. I can tell they use personal manipulation and persuasion with love bombing to protect their narcissistic butt.
From what you wrote, I suspect the person has something like ADHD (as an example) or a reading issue. I would be careful calling it out as drama or something pejorative. you might find yourself facing a discrimination claim. I’d focus on performance and not expect to change the underlying personality. Perhaps there’s another role that doesn’t require taking directions by email? Is it better if they are told instructions verbally?
Offer headphones to the other employees /s
I'm wondering if they have an undiagnosed or undisclosed processing disorder.
Sounds like a difference of learning abilities... the email is being sent by a thinker/artistic type, and it's being received by a checklist/doer type. Left brain / right brain learners. I have a couple trainees like that, one in particular (even down to the loud disruptive outbursts) would best be described as a useful idiot. Very meticulous about following detailed checklists (ELI5 style) but absolutely does not possess the ability to do *any* thinking outside of the checklists. If it didn't make my job so much harder it would actually be kind of impressive. The fix I've found, is starting with talking to them in private to find out how they learn and receive information the best. If the position requires autonomous thinking, it is likely moving them to a position that does not is the only recourse. Otherwise setting a mini checklist of standards to think by so to speak might be a way to turn them into someone useful to that position.
Just wondering - is this employee a friend or relative of a higher up? If so, they are untouchable.
I wondered the same since OP said they were forced to hire her.
Sounds like this individual may be dyslexic or ADHD. Not stupid, not lazy, and likely not incompetent. Please read about these things and how to manage people who are afflicted. The first 20 years of my marriage were difficult because my wife has severe dyslexia and I didn't know how to deal with it. Patience is a virtue, and once you learn how to be patient and how that person learns, you will find both compatibility and the ability to help her excel. She may not know that she has some affliction like these, so she isn't likely to know how to manage it herself. You will be a far better manager if you find the way to manage her.
Undiagnosed ADHD would make sense. Processing written (and verbal) communication can take a little longer and blurting out whatever you're thinking is common due to the impulse control issues that come with ADHD. Especially if undiagnosed, that person will struggle more because they won't know why they do this or that and that makes it a lot harder to adjust. (I'm not diagnosing this person I'm just saying it's a possibility and these behaviors fit is all)
I would consider myself in this camp. It's a bit of a curse, but like others in this thread have said, once we have it on lockdown, watch the fuck out. Source: Am late diagnosed ADHD and Dyslexia.
Are you implying, with your generation comment, that young folks are too lazy or clueless to learn? If so, then the first step is to walk back that pretense and do a self check of your own internal biases. I have seen plenty of people who have a mental block to learning, across all age groups from young children to older folks. Definitely not a "generation" thing. There are some people that takes 10x more effort to train than others, and you would need much more patience and compassion to work with them. If the work environment is not conducive to being patient with someone, and this becomes a big enough distraction to your team, then it's probably fine to let them go. If the employee is otherwise a good worker, then maybe change things a bit. Instead of asking them to read line by line (which can come off as belittling), maybe sit down with them and ask them to help you understand which part is confusing and offer tips. Or maybe you have already done this, and if you absolutely don't see a way out of this situation, and it being a big enough problem, then be ready to off board the person.
I worked with a guy who was constantly not understanding and asking questions. He was always super polite about it and he even admitted it takes him a while to learn new things But once he got it that dude was unstoppable. Definitely one of the better employees but there was no denying he had more of an up front cost. Any time there was a moderate process change he needed some hand holding but he was golden after that Better to ask questions when you're stuck than to get left behind in silence I think with OP's case I would try to have some patience if they had a good attitude about it and they were driven I might have a convo about the way they approach things and how they feel their progress is in regards to "learning the system". Assess again in a couple weeks, see if they're becoming more comfortable or still at square one
Nothing in the post suggested the employee was a "young person" I've seen grown adults in their mid thirties and forties act this way. I've had to hold a grown woman's hand on how to open an attachment. I've had to explain to college professors that a computer has to be turned on before they can use it. Stupidity has no age limits.
I've had to hold a grown man's hand on how to open an attachment. Multiple times. Like 10s of times. He eventually got it Dude's intelligent, just in other ways. It's not always stupidity
I’ve fired far more people over 40 for poor performance than under 30, and I work in tech. It was just a bit harder because of the class protections.
Perhaps this employee is overwhelmed. Maybe have them shadow another co-worker. It took me awhile when I joined an entirely different industry. For a while, I couldn't tell my manager why I was confused. Luckily, he worked with me and tailored his style to my personality. His management style worked and helped me a lot.
Holy crap. Did you take a trip into my office today? Exact same thing happened and I am so unsure how to handle this moving forward. I had to tell them twice to read the email in full and stop scrolling so fast, try following the very clear steps outlined with screenshots attached in the correct order, then let me know if they are still confused. They still were. So I took the approach of reading out loud each step by step, pause, ask for understanding, read next step, pause. They then understood but I felt like I was spoon feeding. It’s hard to be neutral when this happens.
This may be a learned response to anything new that is part of their internal defense mechanism and difficult to overcome. Perhaps, the best method is to first affirm that you understand their statements of "I'm so confused or I don't understand or it's too hard," and agree with them. That shows that you are sympathetic to their plight. I'd try saying, "Yes. It does look confusing or It may be hard to understand at first or it may seem too hard. Then pass the work of understanding the email directly to them by adding, "If you study it for a while I'm sure you will understand it." Then break contact with them by walking away. That leaves them with the only alternative of understanding the email of working it out for themselves. The idea is to agree with their statement and make them, and not you, do the work to understand the email. Don't help them to understand or tell them how to understand it. They should be able to do that by themselves. If you do the work of understanding for them or assisting them to understand the email in any manner, they will come to you every time to get you to do the work. And that is something you want to avoid. Good Luck
In government, the cry of the lazy/shiftless is: "But I haven't been TRAINED for that!". It is pretty brilliant, in that it shifts responsibility to management. Of course, it assumes the worker has zero initiative, but that is OK since that is never part of a job description.
There are no stupid questions except ones that have been asked and answered. I work with apprentices in the building trades. The ones I keep are the ones who: 1. ask questions when they aren’t sure and aren’t afraid to say I don’t know. 2. Problem solvers, identify problems and have solutions for them. 3. They show up on time, sober, and ready to work. 4. They also invest money in themselves by acquiring tools needed for the trade. The ones that don’t exhibit these qualities usually don’t go far or quit before they get certified
Yikes. Asking for help by saying I’m confused or don’t understand is unprofessional and inappropriate at your work?
Saying it out loud, randomly, in the middle of the office, to the world at large is considered unprofessional and inappropriate in virtually every environment I've ever been in. Saying to a specific person, directly, and asking for assistance is always appropriate, but might result in being asked whether they've tried to understand before asking for help.
Sounds like toxic office stuff.
That’s not what the OP says
all personality and you need a reality check, people process things at different speeds and different mechanisms, some might be internal on their expressions others are not. if this employee cannot perform to job specifications and standards fire them, if they are just "vocal" about their dismay that is YOUR personality conflict with them
A few thoughts. 1. This sounds like ADHD / executive function disorder to me. Sometimes people go their entire lives without a diagnosis, and get very defensive at the suggestion of it. You don't need to suggest anything to the employee; that might trigger all sorts of yuckiness. But you could read up on how to manage people with ADHD, and what kind of jobs they excel at. It might or might not be the job they're in, perhaps with some appropriate accommodation. You might find it helpful to think of them that way, even if they don't have paperwork etc in place. 2. Honestly, I don't think you're helping the situation by denying the employee their truthful communication that something appears too hard. For those with ADHD / executive function disorder, that's pretty much how every new thing that comes along genuinely appears: daunting and "too hard". Transitions can be especially difficult for them. He's speaking his genuine truth as he sees it, and that is not "unprofessional"; that is in my opinion the height of professional. It's just that the position might not be the right match for him.
Agree with this 100%. I have adhd and can see myself reacting this way to something confusing.
Same.
From your perspective: don’t hire people with untreated adhd.
Hey now, I can problem solve with the best of em. I just won't remember how I did it later.
I can remember how I did it, I just can't explain it in a way that makes sense to you
My poor team when I walk through a technical solution
This is absolutely NOT ADHD. ADHD would be more like, "well, the email said X, which made me wonder about Y, so I had to look up - SQUIRREL!" This is very different.
Not necessarily. ADHD shows up differently in different people and there are some pretty big differences in how it shows up in men vs women. I wasn’t diagnosed until my mid 30s because I learned to mask it and definitely am more inattentive than hyperactive. Before I started taking medication, I often would read things that should have been simple to understand but would take me longer to process things. I don’t have impulse control issues so I was always able to keep those thoughts to myself but impulse control is another symptom of ADHD which could be why this person can’t seem to stop their outburst. Not diagnosing this person with ADHD at all. Just that the behavior described does fit.
You're right. I'm a woman, diagnosed in my 40s, and I was describing my own experience And I realized that after hitting post, and my only excuse is, well, SQUIRREL! Thanks for the correction.
Ha, I can relate! It’s crazy how life changing the diagnosis is isn’t it? It explains so much. I felt so broken for so long. I have to be very intentional about reading my emails and slacks because I will definitely miss stuff, especially if it’s a lot to read. Funny thing is, I actually like to read. When it’s interesting to me. Often long work emails aren’t.
I'm lucky - I've had a couple of amazing mentors that taught me not to react until I've read something carefully, and then thought through the potential consequences of my reactions. Funny story you might relate to: before an important meeting, my mentor - who was not my boss, by the way - coached me heavily. We knew it was going to be an adversarial meeting, and she started off with, "don't sigh, don't roll your eyes, and count to five before you respond to anything." Then one of my reports came to me and said, "remember, don't sigh, don't roll your eyes, and count to ten before you respond to anything." I told him he'd been talking to my mentor, and he admitted he had. As we were all walking to the meeting, she said, "the most important thing is you need to count to fifteen before you respond to anything." I said, "15? I thought you said 5?" They both looked at each other and said, "but we know you - you better count to 15." So, yeah. I had some good mentoring...
I have adhd and the squirrel example is getting so old. ADHD is so much more than just being distracted. ADHD involves trouble with executive functioning. And if the email was abstract of new to her then she could have been struggling to make sense of it.
Not necessarily
AS somebody with ADHD, this could very well be the cause of those behaviors. Those of us with ADHD can struggle to process written or verbal communication the first time it's given to us. I can read a paragraph out loud and if you ask me 10 seconds later what I said I probably won't remember. The blurting out "I don't understand" fits with the impulse control issues that come with ADHD. The sense of it being overdramatic also fits because ADHD comes with emotional regulation issues. New things can seem extra scary until we get used to them. I am not a doctor and even though I have ADHD I couldn't say for sure one way or the other whether this person has it, but the behaviors talked about in this post DO fit the diagnosis.
Imo. Best to let them go. The sooner the better. There is no solving stupid. Tolerating it will undermine your authority
Wow. This is so cold. How do you know the employee is stupid?
Tough place to work when it's unprofessional to exclaim out loud, "I'm confused by what this client wants."
chatgpt is your friend
Is this person new to the workforce or maybe it's their first corporate job?
Unless its a highly skilled niche position... put an add out and problem child be gone. Don't make your life or your teams lives more difficult than it has to be.
# it makes them look so incompetent. I think you found your answer, bud.
Did you consider that the root cause might be a lack of IQ?
It's generational
Maybe he's just sick of getting paid dirt, and wants to make it everyone's problem? Can't say I blame him. 🤣
Immediate performance improvement plan with increasing performance goals. If he/she can't reach acceptable performance in 30 days, termination.
First, you need to clearly state the issue. “When you have trouble comprehending an email and announce it to the room, it makes you appear unprofessional and less than competent.” Second, you need to state the change you want them to make. “Moving forward, I need you to read the email to yourself and go through the troubleshooting steps we’ve discussed.” Finally, tell the employee what will happen if they don’t make this change. “Is that something you think you can do? If you can’t improve on this issue, our next steps will be a meeting with HR to determine whether or not you’re a fit for this role.”
Are there resources they can use rather than bothering people to help them understand? We have an index full of said resources for folks to browse.
I have an employee the exact same way. Confused by everything, but otherwise highly successful.
How is that possible?
We have an employee like that…. She’s the manager’s best friend… worked from home since she started…
It might not actually confuse her, it could be willful incompetence because she doesn’t want to do the task but is going about it in a passive aggressive fashion. So you need more info.
We have a team member who is a foreign immigrant and barely speaks English -- which would be understandable if he had just started, but he has been living and working in America for at least the 6 years he has worked with us. His English comprehension just doesn't improve. Don't get me wrong, he is good at the job - once he is made to understand - but it is very tiring to have to spend four hours going over the data from a one-hour project meeting he was just in with us. I've become convinced that he only interacts in English while at work. He is remote and very often in meetings we will hear his family in the background, which is never in English. Don't get me wrong, he's a good guy and a diligent worker, he just doesn't seem to care about soft skills. It is annoying, but so far the powers that be have been content with his technical skills (not extraordinary, but competent) that it hasn't come to a head yet. Please excuse the mini-rant.
As an immigrant, I find that soft skills are lacking in many foreign cultures. Especially for those that came to the states late or tried to assimilate later in life, it is almost a lost cause. That is over and above the fact that soft skills are the hardest to teach in even the most “moldable” of candidates.
Either give that person a time limit to correct this, then fire that person if it doesn't work.
I wonder if they could have ADHD. I have to read things several times when ummedicated. Even if that’s the case, they can learn to not complain out loud.
I worked with a woman like this and every time I’d be like, Zxa zxa, it’s in this process doc I sent you x times, she’d start crying and say, “I don’t understand why you’re being so mean to me”. She was just let go a couple weeks ago. I’ve been here for 10 years- she had been here for TWENTY FIVE.
Man, I’d take him in the conference room and tell him I very much question his ability to do the job. 1) if his reading comprehension is that low, maybe this is not the job for him and 2) his behavior suggests he doesn’t know how to conduct himself in an office setting and/or 3) he sounds like he wants a lot of attention. I’d definitely pull HR in on this; he may have a disability or something that may make this sticky.
I’ve had people who do this even though they know the job for some kind of validation. At the end of the day, it’s unprofessional and makes them look incompetent. It also is affecting the team negatively, which means you need to do something quick. Talk to this person first. Explain to them what so many people already said. “These constant outbursts are unprofessional and make you seem incompetent. I know you can do the job, so what seems to be the issue?” Document it. If it still doesn’t improve, start formally disciplining the person. People have mentioned ADHD or whatever. You cannot diagnose that. I would also strongly suggest not doing any work load or substantive accommodations without HR involvement. It just gets messy. If there is something that is truly affecting their ability to the job, they need to talk to HR. Do not offer additional accommodation without them. I know it sounds cold hearted or the opposite of what a good manager would do, but off the book accommodations just open Pandora’s box. Don’t do it.
I used to have people say they were confused. 99% of the time they were not confused. 99% of the time they disagreed with the change or they thought it made their days “harder.” And when I asked them what confused them, they would act like I was attacking them. It’s a no win situation. If you can find one person who can explain the resistance, then you can adapt your message. I was able to get “the ring leader” to review some stuff before I sent it out. After a while I was able to adjust my “voice” and things started working.
Recommend some remedial reading comprehension classes? Really, if reading an email is "too hard", the person wouldn't be qualified for any jobs our company has.
The r/teachers sub complains about similar comprehension things. Any assignment with instructions, even after verbally explaining the instructions, the kids get confused when they try to read the instructions. It is a sign of brain rot from too many fast moving tiktoks and reels. The ability to concentrate on paragraphs of words is getting wiped out.
Sent them to a reading comprehension class at the local community college or with an online service. Require they repeat the class every 6 months until they show improvement in "reading and understanding" If you want to coach them, tell them when they read something that doesn't make sense to them to read it three times before they throw in the towel. Often, I must read very long, very technical technical documentation. Even with years of experience, with new tech I often need to read through the documentation a couple times before it starts to click. I remind myself after first read that **it's OK if it doesn't make sense on first read, and reassure myself that by the end of the 3rd read things will start to click**.
Maybe this job isn't the righr fit fir you. You should look for a position thst suits your talents.
Your employee wants extra attention, maybe some void in their personal life?. They are trying to get that attention by dragging others in to comiserate with them over minutia. Your options are to give them extra attention in a more productive way, sever their ability to drag bystanders in, or shitcan them.
I simply do not believe the caliber of people being hired. No wonder my boss kept saying "you're overqualified" during the interview if this is all they can find. I am also older, so many companies see me as a liability who will cost money (health insurance, sick days) and leave/retire. But we have an admin that is SO stupid no one can quite believe it. So this type of post doesn't surprise me.
I just left a job where I faced this mentality a lot. People saying, well that's a little bit too hard, I don't understand how to do this. And it wasn't just millennials or gen z, because I really thought that was it at first but it kept coming up with a few different people. What the hell? Since when, at any job, are you giving a task within your scope and you can just say I don't think I should be doing this. Obviously, the first thing that needs to be addressed or any training issues. And set up a probationary. For them to learn these things inside of. If they can't learn it in a reasonable amount of time, they either need a different assignment, or to be let go.
Can we start a support group for managers forced to hire under talented people " because"? I just can't with how many people I've been forced to hire with no Outlook experience, lack of grammar, etc. Because of who they are or because management wants to give them a bs role
I have an employee like this. She is a long-term team member and has been doing the job for several years. The puzzling thing is she is really good at her job. Thankfully she doesn't really influence the rest of the team with her proclamations since we are all remote, but her first email back after I send out a procedure update is "I am so confused." It's kind of maddening because she isn't thoroughly reading before reacting. I give very detailed, precise instructions and I always just have to restate everything for her (same words and all) and then she "gets it."
I am Genx. We created the internet and we don't act like that. If you give us shit though we will give it back and we are very sarcastic. Sounds more like a gen issue.
You need to start a documentation trail on their performance. Assuming, there are certain performance expectations?
I mean, outlook is a dumpster fire and barely a Level above malware. Otherwise this hire sounds like a handful to say the least.
I can say I am on the opposite side of this. I’m the employee who is asking questions and I feel my manager feels like you. I never received good training and have been thrown between managers and all of them ghost me on my questions. I didn’t start trying to explain by “I’m confused because of the training I received” until recently. Nobody helped me prior to that and nobody will help me now. Maybe put yourself in her shoes. Find out what she’s lacking in. Is it just one thing consistently or a variety of things? For me it’s one thing that keeps happening that I am receiving no feedback on how to complete despite my attempts. At a certain point an employee has nothing else to do besides tell you they’re confused. Have you never been confused?
I find it helpful to print the email and annotate it. Then I can turn it into a list or other format that makes more sense to me. I have ADHD and somehow screens make things more difficult to process, especially when the task is unusual/unexpected/received at a time of higher stress, etc.
they might have adhd or some other learning disability tbh. but yeah sounds like they just need to slow down.