5 Characteristics Of Clueless Coworkers

5 characteristics of clueless coworkers This is not your ordinary career site. I help the corporate worker who toils away in the company cubicle make career transitions. You want to do your job well, following all the rules -- . The career transitions where I can help you center on three critical career areas: How to land a job, succeed in a job, and build employment security. Top 10 Posts on Categories The other night, I was talking to a friend and the subject was coworkers. I said that I’ve become far less tolerant of clueless people and I didn’t understand exactly why. After some additional discussion, my lack of toleranceâ€"the willingness to help clueless coworkers or invest in improving their workâ€"ends up coming from the ability to recognize clueless coworkers earlier and earlier in the relationship. What are those characteristics? These: Now, if someone is new on the job, they obviously won’t know everything. In my book, for example, I talk about the need of a person starting a new job to hear how things work at least three different times so that adult learning starts to kick in. But one should see progress. Like the “Eureka!” moment when you are in a meeting and someone says a complete paragraph that includes ten acronyms and, stunningly, you understand what was said and what it all meant. That’s progress. Worse is the person who has been in the job for a year and still doesn’t understand how the work gets done. Clueless. It’s one thing to have one manager not able to communicate an issue with performance by a person. People have different communications styles and having only one person explain it sometimes means the point doesn’t get across. But when multiple managers explain an issue to a coworker and they still don’t get it (or, change what they are doing to fix it), they are clueless. And you know that coworkers have already talked to the person about the issue, right? Because the impact of the issue is affecting their ability to get their work done. People need to be heard when it comes to their suggestions; no argument there. But clueless coworkers continue to argue for a solution that was decided on months ago and has been rehashed at least three times. Doesn’t matter. Facts don’t matter. As soon as some situation comes upâ€"or a new person comes on board for the teamâ€"the clueless coworker will argue for the same solution all over again. Seriously, how many times do you argue for something before moving on? Clueless people don’t have a number for that. It is one thing to understand how to do your job. It is another to also understand how what you do impacts other areas. Great employees know how their work impacts other people. That helps them both do their job better and, more importantly, what levers to pull to help get over a hump. Clueless coworkers blindingly do their work with no regard for how it impacts others. Issue a request for information, then don’t use it? That’s OK. Suggest a date for completing something and then miss it without any warning? Someone else’s fault. Change the way your work is sent on without telling anyone? Well, it was better for Clueless, so it wouldn’t make any difference to anyone else, would it? Think of the project that loses funding. To stop incurring costs, you stop work on the project. Like right now. Clueless people continue working on the canceled project because they still have stuff on their to do list for the project. The rest of the department moved on, but that old project is still beckoning clueless coworkers. One could argue that a clueless coworker has a benign impact on what you do. Perhaps when “deadwood” was a term still used in corporations to talk about workers who didn’t contribute much but were still on the payroll. Now clueless coworkers impact everyone. Clueless managers drive the people reporting to them crazy. Clueless team members mean the rest of the team has to pick up all of the slackâ€"and get totally frustrated in the process. Great employees look at clueless coworkers and simply ignore them. Get enough clueless coworkers and great employees leave because they crave their own sanity and well-being. What other characteristics do your clueless coworkers demonstrate? Photo by jerekeys A clueless worker will push me over the edge at some point.   We had a huge multi multi million dollar project at work a couple of years ago, and had to utilize all the data this person was responsible for.   Of course half of it was done, and that half was done poorly, unorganized, and illegible…. and they were just blindly importing everything they came across into the database just over riding good data with their bad data.   This person would import a blank spreadsheet into the system if someone gave it to them…I knew this was happening and approached my super about it…of course they babysit each others children so I was told to fix it and get the data up to speed.   I did and the company got the 350 million dollar check and I got a bonus and a promotion.   I then pretty much took over this persons duties.   I intercept all data that they were responsible for…   I oversee everything they do and edit it on the fly…She doesnt even know she has been made obsolete.   Then w e got sold and the new company made me manager…she has 11 more years experience then I do…of course she felt she should have been made manager. Reply Glad someone came out with this post. In the past I've given people some pretty reasonable deadlines for work…and yet they consistently turn it in like minutes before the deadline or at the deadline they ask for more time. Frustrating, isn't it? Hope this catches on…especially understanding how their work impacts others. (One of the main reasons why I prefer to work for myself these days lol) Karen, The Resume Chick (on Google or Twitter if you need me) Reply This is not your ordinary career site. I help the corporate worker who toils away in the company cubicle make career transitions. You want to do your job well, following all the rules â€" . The career transitions where I can help you center on three critical career areas: How to land a job, succeed in a job, and build employment security. policies The content on this website is my opinion and will probably not reflect the views of my various employers. 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