Work Colleagues; What do you do about...

Soldato
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Leafy Cheshire
...people who are completely obsolete?

I work in statistics which means heavy usage of databases and spreadsheets, as well as a lot of specialist software both stats related and industry related.

Now i'm on a relatively low salary, this is down to the level at which i am employed to work. Most of my work is Management Information at the moment, which means taking the basic stats from SPSS and SQL reports and putting them into Access Databases and pretty coloured spreadsheets so that the management can feel good about their pretty graphs. Paint by number, almost.

So most of my work is in Excel and Access. Now, the guy who sits next to me has been here for 34 years. His salary is undoubtedly much higher than mine (he owns a nice place just down the road from me, certainly far more than i could afford by myself (he's single)).

The problem i have, is that he is completely obsolete. His work pace is the slowest i've ever seen. He spent, no joke, 8 weeks on 1 spreadsheet i could have done in a day. Instead of using Excel for what it's designed, he prints everything out on hundreds of sheets of paper, does the maths on a calculator, writes it all onto a pad of paper, does more calculator stuff, then types the results one by one into cells on a spreadsheet. I could achieve the same thing by copy and pasting the initial numbers into the spreadsheet, writing a quick formula, then double clicking the cell to apply said formula to every row. 2 minutes, done.

Now, I understand that not everybody is "computer literate" but seriously, you work in sodding statistics. Excel is not exactly difficult to learn, and it's not like he needs the more "techincal" formulas is it? Anything he can do on a calculator cannot be hard to do in Excel.

At first i tried to help him, teach him things that would make his job so much easier. i even got giving half his work because i was doing similar stuff already and it was faster for me to do it in addition to my own, than him to do it at all. I gave up trying to help him learn because it's a lost cause. He wont listen to me because he's been doing it for 34 years and im an "arrogant little sod".

Is it really that hard to get rid of someone after 34 years? I mean, he is clearly not right for this job. He is slow, inefficient, expensive... are the hands of the management tied to keeping him here because he hasn't done anything "wrong"?

Does anyone else suffer this problem? Do you work with someone who is completely redundant?
 
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~J~

~J~

Soldato
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London
mention it in your review in a nice manner. People should be paid on skill, not how long they have been employed.

They should also be employed based on how well they know the business.

Just because someone isn't skilled in todays technology doesn't make them obsolete if they are have several years experience in knowing the industry as a whole.
 
Caporegime
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Simply because he has a nicer house it does not follow that he is paid a lot more.

He's a lot older then you - so has had longer to pay off a mortgage. He's single - he has more money.
 
Soldato
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Sounds like he's smarter than you. Takes a lot longer to produce less work and gets paid more.
Start learning from him!
And don't go screwing up his job out of jealousy :p You'll only reduce your own chance of getting the same money.
 
Associate
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The guy has worked there 34 years I would feel well bad if I spoke to my manager telling him how useless this person was because they might realise and get rid of him. Not bad because he’s bad at his job bad because once he’s gone I doubt he would be able to get a job again as he seems very removed from the current market.

Problem is he is clearly old school and used to doing things his way. I would think that this is the way the business used to do things and because he’s been there so long he’s so set in his ways and wont change. Cant teach an old dog new tricks

I would say if there is a business requirement for him to do things different then approach your manager and suggest training. If there isn’t a requirement for him to change just let him get on with it in his own way and in your next pay review meeting show how much more work your doing compared to "others" hopefully getting you a payrise. This could have the knock on affect for this person being fired :p. But it depends what type of person you are and how easy you can sleep at night.
 
Soldato
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If he is that bad at his job then you need to either do something about it or shut up .


If it's a case of he can't see your way of thinking and yours is far more efficent then take it to your line mananger and see what he thinks ?

Oher than that you need to keep quiet as he is still there for one of two reasons

1.His origonal contract would cost a kings randsom for the company to get rid of him, and there is no way they are going to sack him after 34 years service for his inabilty to not do the job , it would be the shortest tribuanl pay out in history .

2. 34 years experience in the work place can count for a huge amount of the job in some peoples eyes , I for one would want a mix of both old and young peolpe in the work place.

You either need to concentrate on what you are doing and make sure your superiors know or look for a new job .
 
Soldato
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Just work as you are and leave it for the management to make up thier own mind. If the management are any good they will realise and hopefully give you a payrise as your work output is better than the guy thats been there for 34 years. If you put a downer on him they cannot use him as a benchmark to evalutate your work output. sing his praises and do better than him - that way it makes you look even better! :D
 
Soldato
OP
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Leafy Cheshire
Yeah i guess you all have valid points. It's not a personal thing, it's not that i dont like the guy... it's just that sometimes i feel like his being here is slightly pointless. We've hired new staff recently and they've all taken to the job like ducks to water. I appreciate that he has 34 years of experience with Private Car Underwriting, which is something that's a little sparse up here as we're more experienced in motorcycle, commericial vehicle, agriculture, building and marine.

I dont think it's jealousy, my salary is insubstantial enough that any office-based job would start at the same level so i could always find something else, and i dont want him to be screwed over... it's just sometimes I can't see why you'd want someone who is quite obviously so innefficient.

I found myself being wound up by it this morning, so i thought i'd seek out other people's opinions. Live and let live then i suppose! Perhaps i'll drop the idea of some "refresher courses" for everyone to my boss next time we have a review, perhaps it might help.
 
Soldato
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Southampton
Yeah i guess you all have valid points. It's not a personal thing, it's not that i dont like the guy... it's just that sometimes i feel like his being here is slightly pointless. We've hired new staff recently and they've all taken to the job like ducks to water. I appreciate that he has 34 years of experience with Private Car Underwriting, which is something that's a little sparse up here as we're more experienced in motorcycle, commericial vehicle, agriculture, building and marine.

I dont think it's jealousy, my salary is insubstantial enough that any office-based job would start at the same level so i could always find something else, and i dont want him to be screwed over... it's just sometimes I can't see why you'd want someone who is quite obviously so innefficient.

I found myself being wound up by it this morning, so i thought i'd seek out other people's opinions. Live and let live then i suppose! Perhaps i'll drop the idea of some "refresher courses" for everyone to my boss next time we have a review, perhaps it might help.


What you are saying it is defies logic, if you are like me I don't see the point in it and try to understand how it has come about. But tbh I would just leave it as it is
 
Associate
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1.His origonal contract would cost a kings randsom for the company to get rid of him, and there is no way they are going to sack him after 34 years service for his inabilty to not do the job , it would be the shortest tribuanl pay out in history .

this

You'd be amazed the number of people that are put out to pasture to save a company money. I worked in IT for a co. who centralised their IT dept. in the US, they gave me a choice to move to the US or do an utterly menial IT job. I couldn't move so I did the menial job until a couldn't bear it and left. If they made me redundant it would have cost them.
 
Soldato
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I wonder if there is a way you can broach this in which your boss understands that you can do your work loads quicker yet feel undervalued due to your small salary compared to grandpa's over there!
 
Soldato
Joined
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Cumbria
If the management are happy with his work then i don't see a problem, you will be paid more than somebody else one day and they will moan about you and your fancy digs
 
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