Promoted beyond his competence.
Bloke on the team had been passed around from pillar to post by a company who were held to ransom by the union. Apparently he could not be fired, so he was just moved around. Ended up in our team.

Whilst being the cleverest guy to have ever been unfairly denied a promotion (his words) his skills had a highly developed specific application, getting paid for doing no work.

Despite the fact that immediately prior to coming to us he had been milking the elusive 'bad back' for 2 months and 30 days, and coming back to work only 1 day before a medical certificate was due (getting paid to be a professional Sick Person was one of his traits), we thought he might at least be able to find some use about the place.

"Mick, could you go to the other site, take a laptop, plug it into the test bed and take some readings please?"

"Sure, No Problem, be back after lunch."

He returned with 20 minutes until knocking off time, having been gone for the whole day.

"Did you get those readings then?"

"Ah no, I got all the way there and then found I didn't have the comms interface box with me."

"OK, Can you try again tomorrow. And not take so long"

Next day, same farce, returning at the last minute "Sorry, I didn't have the software installed on my laptop."

Next day, "Sorry, the security licence expired on the software."

Next day, "The battery went dead on the laptop and I didn't have the charger with me."

Next day, "The files on the laptop were corrupted."

Next day, I had EVERYTHING going just fine but I forgot my glasses and couldn't read the screen."

And yet, when I accompanied him to make sure the job got done, he swaggered into the office on the other site grinning and saying out loud to the resident team "Don't worry boys, we're here to solve all your problems!"

"We". Yeah.

*EDIT to make it perfectly clear, I have always been and will always be a front line tech. I have no management interests and don't wish to be promoted past MY shortcomings. I was only requesting him to do stuff as I was his technocratic superior, not an outranking bod. Also, Sproutsy has probably correctly divined that bullshitters are not the same as fantasists. Sorry. I hope it was nonetheless an entertaining read.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Mon 9 Jun 2014, 9:55, 2 replies)

"held to ransom by the union"
was the fantasy of whoever was managing this person, right?
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Mon 9 Jun 2014, 10:14, closed)

You remember British Leyland in the 1970s?
The culture had not entirely gone to rest.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Mon 9 Jun 2014, 10:16, closed)

not really the union's fault by then though
that's just a big company being incompetent at dealing with clueless employees
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 9 Jun 2014, 11:30, closed)

There was a purge about 10 years ago
Lots of old school useless people who were only there because 'time-served equalled regular promotions' were offered very handsome retirement packages just to fuck off and stop cluttering up the place . Sort of a chicken shit way of sorting out the problem but possibly cheaper than trying to performance manage people who go off on the sick with stress the minute they are found out to be contributing nothing but hot air at meetings.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Mon 9 Jun 2014, 15:54, closed)

I know a household name US company whose solution to this problem was to close an entire office and re-hire the handful of useful staff
which is both chickenshit and clearly illegal. They basically counted on the duffers to be so dufferish that they wouldn't make a fuss. Half of them are probably still turning up to work not realising they're no longer being paid for the work they're not doing.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 9 Jun 2014, 16:30, closed)

I'd read it as unicorn.

(Tuftedshag, Tue 10 Jun 2014, 7:08, closed)