my employee doesn’t have what it takes to do the job he wants

by Alison Green on August 5, 2024

A reader writes:

I’m in a tricky spot with a long-time employee, “Bob,” and I need advice on how to deliver a potentially devastating piece of feedback: “You just don’t have what it takes to succeed in this role.”

Bob is interested in growing from his current position into a more senior role. He has studied the field for about two years, including taking a few training courses paid for by the company. He’s been provided with mentors through a network of industry contacts.

As part of his learning process, we have given Bob oversight of several small projects. He works hard, but there are a few problems we keep coming back to, including a lack of communication skills – he frequently mishears or misunderstands initial requirements, which means that he spreads misinformation and leaves the rest of the team playing catch-up – and difficulty understanding how to prioritize.

Bob also struggles to receive feedback, even mild course corrections. Each coaching session, no matter how focused on concrete requests, leads him to a spiral of anxiety and irritability, which ends up impacting the team. Bob has damaged relationships to the point that a few coworkers refuse to work with him.

Bottom-line: as eager as Bob is to learn this role and develop his skills, he’s bad at this stuff. He lacks many of the innate skills that the requires, hasn’t shown any improvement, and I spend many hours per week clarifying his messages and dealing with conflicts he’s created. That, plus the inability to respond professionally to feedback, makes me think that he’s fundamentally unsuited for this role. We can’t spend more resources trying to train him.

How do I tell Bob that this is not a role he can excel at, at least in our company? How do I say, kindly but truthfully, “I’ve stuck my neck out for you as far as I’m willing and unfortunately, you just don’t measure up. Find another goal”?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

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{ 68 comments }

{ 68 comments… read them below }

  1. Trout 'Waver*

    Oof. I’ve been in this situation and it just never goes well. In my field its scientists and technicians. And you have to have the right mentality to be a scientist. There’s no direct path from one to the other. A technician who thinks they should be (or are) a scientist is a recipe for frustration from everyone.

    Does Bob have a way to advance without getting promoted to this senior role? That “up or out” mentality is the driver behind these conflicts. In my field, if you value the work technicians do and give them advancement within their careers, you don’t wind up with the conflict.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      I really wish I had a time machine to tell my younger self I suck at research before I spent so much time making myself miserable trying to do it. It’s just that every advancement opportunity was either research or management, and I at least had the self-awareness to realize the latter was a terrible idea for me.

      1. JelloStapler*

        Same with me and management- I am good at it apparently, but I intensely dislike it, and it is not good for my mental health.

    2. Daydre*

      Given that Bob has issues with communication and accepting feedback, it seems unlikely that he’d be able to advance in any role, unless he seriously improves. Those are pretty fundamental skills for just about any job.

      1. Trout 'Waver*

        I disagree. There are lots of jobs for people who are bad at communication and accepting feedback. Obviously those aren’t positives or qualifications. But, the Bobs of the world can be high performers if you carve out a lane for them and let them stay in it.

        1. ScottW*

          Yes! I have known people like Bob. In some ways I have *been* a Bob. You need to figure out what they do well and then let them do it. I remember one person many years ago who just drove me nuts for his Bob-likeness. And not just me. He enraged all sorts of people to the point where people tried to get him removed from projects. He would literally talk and people would see red. But he was also exceptionally bright and his manager found a role for him at which he’s excelled. Ironically, I ran into him again not too long ago and he’s also become better at communicating and taking feedback. I don’t know how that happened, if it was coaching or what, but somehow he’s made major progress and he seems to begetting the sorts of roles he was refused years ago. I suspect that giving him a role he could succeed at helped.

          1. Astor*

            Oh, that makes sense to me about that kind of improvement! Once you’re no longer struggling with the more basic parts of the job, you not only have the mental bandwidth to improve your skills in communication and taking feedback, but it becomes much clearer how to improve those skills because they now have context!

        2. fhqwhgads*

          Sounds like he’s poorly suited to the promotion he wants AND his current role though. So with Bob it’s more like….find some other role that meets your skills and go excel at that. But the stuff you want to be doing right now? Notsomuch.

    3. Observer*

      Does Bob have a way to advance without getting promoted to this senior role?

      I went and found the original email, and the LW gave an example of one issue that had cropped up that day. And it’s a bit of a doozy. It also indicates that he is *totally* not management material. Not even “team lead”, “informal management of small projects” or “help a new employee get up to speed” levels of pre-management.

      1. Velawciraptor*

        I have to agree with you here. Looking at the LW’s remarks (you can find them easily if you search The LW in the original letter), Bob hears X in one specific context , projects Y and Z onto X (despite that not being a rational projection), and then makes it someone else’s problem while attaching a sense of urgency to the situation that the original context utterly lacked.

        That’s a concerning pattern that I’d have serious hesitation about advancing.

      2. Anna*

        For anyone else who was annoyed because Observer didn’t post or link to the example issue mentioned in the original letter –

        The original LW wrote:
        “For example, a non-urgent request was tacked on toward the end of Bob’s current project. It was made clear when the request was sent that it was out of scope for our current targets, but that it should be addressed by the end of next quarter. Bob immediately rounded up several team members, phrased this as an urgent request, and asked them to step away from their current tasks to ensure that this request was completed within the week. I received several confused and panicked questions from team members asking for additional resources, overtime, and so on.”

    4. Rocket Raccoon*

      This is the way. I am a terrible scientist but a *great* (according to my colleagues) technician. However I left lab work because I could no longer advance and wasn’t willing to earn the same salary for the rest of my career.

  2. NurseThis*

    Key point for me was that Bob had been given way too long to prove his worth. When other employees see this guy floundering and management continuing to invest in him, it’s a morale killer.

    1. Pool Noodle Barnacle Pen0s*

      THIS. People are refusing to work with him, not just because he’s a jerk, but because they’re sick and tired of seeing help, attention, and resources continually get poured into someone who’s fundamentally incompetent and not improving. I would not be surprised if multiple good people had already left over this.

    2. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      This. Reading the headline, I expected to discover OP trying to tell a successful individual contributor that he has reached his potential with the company. He cannot do the job he “wants.” Bob cannot do the job he has. That is the conversation OP needs to have. OP writes about fixing all the issues his inability or unwillingness to hear what people ask him to do is causing. OP writes that people solve their own problems with him by refusing to work with him.
      Why does he have the position he has now is the question, not “how can we keep Bob happily destroying the functionality, the reputation and the morale of the team instead of promoting him?”

      1. Antilles*

        Especially with the items listed. Lack of communication skills, refusal to accept even mild criticism, and creating conflicts on the team are major problems at all levels, not just the next-step-up project management role.

      2. Observer*

        Bob cannot do the job he has.

        That’s not actually the case. The LW responded in the comments to say that Bob is actually good at the job he has, but terrible at the job he wants. Fortunately, he spends most of his time on the job he has. What is not clear is whether he has burned relationships with people who need needs to work with in his primary role.

        1. Kay*

          Part of everyone’s job is receiving feedback in a professional manner, it seems like in at least one area he can’t do the job he has.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            I’m surprised, because I expected Bob to be, well, Bobbing across the board, but the comments on the original letter make it sound like Bob is an excellent individual contributor who can take feedback on his work and communicates well enough for his role.

            Unfortunately, they’ve been running a *2 year* experiment where they give him training, mentoring, projects and feedback in his dream job of project management. Pretty much 100% of that feedback has been “You’re really not good at project management,” but instead of taking that as a sign to give up, he’s just gotten worse and worse at taking feedback on the project management side.

            At this point, it’s unclear if he’s burned too many relationships to continue as an individual contributor. I don’t think we got an update, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to pursue his dream of project management elsewhere.

            1. Kay*

              Wait what!? LOL I wasn’t expecting that one! Thank you for that bizarrely confusing tidbit. That is just so so weird! We so need an update here.

        2. Not Tom, Just Petty*

          I see the difference I missed in the letter in your statement. So, it is true that when Bob has been given the leadership role, he’s not been successful. So his trial run will not lead to a promotion. OK. But how long have they given him that there are people who refuse to work with him? That’s not a one-time, bad experience response.
          It seems like he’s been in this trial role to the point he is a go-to team leader, so OP and others jump into “prepare for Bob:” Don’t assign Jane or Tom, meet with stakeholders and find out what they really want so somebody knows the goal, plan time to meet with Bob to give feedback and hear his pushback.
          And he doesn’t have the job yet?
          This is just to see if he can do it?
          OP the question is why did it get this far? Which people are setting themselves on fire to keep Bob warm after this much time?

        3. fhqwhgads*

          It’s odd though that he’s bad enough at what he’s doing that some people refuse to work with him? Was it just the few try-out projects that went so badly that turned those people off? Or were they letting him try at way too much of this stuff that he’s so bad at? Cuz it sounds like he must be bad at least at some of his current job or he wouldn’t have had sufficient opportunity to burn people this badly. Or maybe once was a big enough mess.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            It sounds like some of the specific things he did (i.e. telling team members that they had 1 week to complete a task that they actually had a month to complete, forcing them to drop other projects or request overtime) were so egregious that they started ignoring his requests or requiring confirmation from Bob’s manager before they’d work on them.

    3. Insert Pun Here*

      Eh, there are jobs/industries where it might be reasonable. If the product you’re working on has a very long production cycle, it might take a year or two to really assess someone’s capabilities. Though obviously in this situation you’d want to see some improvements (or at least some self awareness of how they could improve) during that time.

      1. Peanut Hamper*

        That’s the thing though—there’s usually a ramp-up in both responsibilities and skills. Bob is not ramping up. They should have realized that after the first year.

      2. MigraineMonth*

        If it takes you *2 years* to figure out whether someone is doing a good job, I guess you could set it up where they either get a bonus or demoted/fired at that point, but it isn’t reasonable to leave a job offer hanging that long. Outside of some apprenticeships or medical residency, that’s not usually how jobs work. It’s like those companies that want you to work at the senior level for 6 months before you get a pay raise; it sucks for the worker taking on the extra work and blurs the lines as to who has what authority. It’s also pretty unfair for internal hires if external ones are allowed to enter at the higher level.

        If you think Bob would do well in the PM role, promote him. If you don’t (and there’s pretty strong evidence why not), stop giving him PM projects as soon as it’s clear he won’t!

    4. SheLooksFamiliar*

      ‘When other employees see this guy floundering and management continuing to invest in him, it’s a morale killer.’

      Exactly. Even if Bob was handling his feelings and behavior appropriately, his skillset and inclination are not the foundation for his success in the role he wants. Investing more time, resources, and energy in his development – with no improvement on Bob’s part – sends a bad message to his colleagues.

      Heck, there’s a Bobbette on a team that sits adjacent to me, but at least she’s pleasant. However, she is so very bad at being a manager of a function, of which she has a bare-bones understanding. Despite lots of LinkedIn Learning sessions and our own company LMS, she simply hasn’t demonstrated the level of strategic thinking her peers have. I’ve been in meetings with her on group projects, and she is slightly better with functional understanding, but as for the rest? She’s still painfully inept.

      Why is she still here? Well, she publicly praises her boss so people speculate that she’s ‘under the protection of’ or being ‘mothered by’ said boss, who seems to confuse ‘nice’ with ‘competent.’ But rer peers avoid her, and her direct reports just smile on the outside, and ask me if I’ll be their reference as they look for a new job.

      1. Elle*

        Ugh, the LinkedIn learning step. I have a similar employee and no amount of LinkedIn sessions is going to help her understand what’s going on. I didn’t promote her and HR had me add LinkedIn to the plan to help get her to a place where she could be promoted. She still can’t follow meeting content.

        1. SheLooksFamiliar*

          I hear you, Elle. Some of the function-specific content in LinkedIn Learning is pretty helpful, the function for Bobbette included. But when someone is at the remedial stage with said content, they need more than pre-recorded content and quizzes.

      2. goddessoftransitory*

        This. Work capital isn’t just something you can earn/spend with higher ups. Your peers and reports generate just as much, and widespread avoidance and distrust are…not doing that.

    5. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      If I were a colleague of Bob I’d be thinking “wow, he’s being given all these opportunities? So the company thinks he has potential then? Well, if ability like his is the kind of thing they are looking for to promote someone to the next level, this isn’t a company I want to continue to work at. Good work isn’t recognised or valued here.”

  3. Somehow I Manage*

    I think if Bob does end up leaving, it is probably for the best. Not only have you invested two years in training – which, IMO is far too long – you’ve done so in someone who is not receptive to feedback. If you’re going to invest in someone and they actually want to get better, you’ll need someone who is open to feedback, constructive criticism, because how else are they actually going to get better? Your team is probably very frustrated with Bob, his lack of progress and his poor attitude toward getting better. I hope OP had a direct conversation and Bob either figured it out, or he took the opportunity to make a move.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      Definitely. We’re at the point that people on the team are refusing to work with him, which… shouldn’t happen at a functional workplace. Problems with Bob needed to have been addressed well before it got to that point, and “I refuse to work with my teammate” shouldn’t be an option!

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Agreed! His reactions to constructive feedback alone were worth addressing before the company paid for training and gave him stretch projects. If he has such a bad attitude with normal work interactions, he should not have remained employed there for so long.

        I want an update for this one!

    2. el l*

      Agree, that’s where this conversation really should lead to. “If that’s what you really want, you may succeed at it elsewhere – but not here. That’s not what we need.”

      And as it’s fundamentally a breakup conversation, suggest like a good breakup conversation keeping it as short as possible!

  4. Wintermute*

    I think this one doesn’t have to be that fraught. The problem is people usually don’t go in saying “how do I fix my bob problem” they go “how do I fix my bob problem without making him leave for a place that will let him do the job he wants to do because he doesn’t want this one”.

    To that, you cannot, a competitor might give him that job and he may leave. You have to be sure that in that situation it’s the competitor making the mistake, not you.

  5. Daydreamer*

    Given that Bob has problems with communication and accepting feedback, it seems unlikely that he would be able to advance in any capacity, unless he seriously improves. Those are pretty fundamental skills for any job. I question whether Bob is actually good at the job he has now, or just barely acceptable. He’s been so difficult that people have refused to work with him!

    2. Heart&Vine*

      Exactly this. It sounds like a lot of time, energy, and money has been spent getting Bob the hard skills that he needs to advance but no attention has been paid to the soft skills he’s sorely lacking. ‘Attention to detail’, ‘Thoroughness’, and ‘People Skills’ are tough things to teach. You can certainly give regular feedback on these things (which it sounds like OP has overlooked), but in the end, you can only have so many conversations about paying better attention and not irrationally lashing out at coworkers before you have to start having more serious conversations about possible termination. I think Alison is right that, sans time machine, the best thing you can do now is be transparent about halting any advancement for Bob within the company and then adding what changes he needs to make if he even wants to stay in his current position. That might be an express ticket to Bob leaving but, honestly, that sounds like it might be a blessing.

      1. RVA Cat*

        I also have to wonder if the colleagues Bob doesn’t listen to and/or who won’t work with him skew female or some other demographic different from Bob. I’m also wondering if they have more aptitude for promotion but aren’t getting the same opportunities.

        1. sparkle emoji*

          LW did say in the comments on the original post that this level of professional development and investment is very standard at their company, and they thought Bob might have become discouraged watching so many other people already move up from painter to their desired dept/role. I agree there was too much runway given here, but giving the opportunities from Bob doesn’t seem to have prevented others from having similar chances for growth at least.

  6. H.Regalis*

    I worked with someone (same department, different team) who was really bad at their job. They weren’t a jerk—they were actually very nice—but they could not do their job, not even a little bit.

    It got to the point where only about 10% of my team would work with them, and that 10% was all new people who Bad Job hadn’t massively annoyed yet. Everyone would either refuse to take on work that involved collaborating with them, or they would take the project but completely go around them because it was the only way you could get anything done. It was a relief when they quit. Now we have people who are much more capable and we get so much more done.

    2. allathian*

      I’ve had the misfortune of working around a missing stair at a previous job. It was a relief when they finally decided to quit, and to the amazement of our management, our productivity went up by about 25 percent in spite of being one team member short (6 originally) and without working longer hours. The improvement in productivity came as no suprise to any front-line employees on the team because we’d wasted so much time working around the missing chair and correcting their errors.

      This person was pleasant and friendly but basically incompetent at the job. They didn’t protest or argue when they were given corrective feedback, at least not when their mentors gave it, and I can’t imagine they argued with feedback from our manager, either. The trouble was that they accepted the feedback but never implemented it and kept making the same errors in spite of the feedback. I can’t decide which is worse, a pleasant but incompetent coworker or an unpleasant rockstar.

      First our manager tried to get our missing stair to improve by assigning all of us as their mentor to spread the load. When we got sick of that, we started CC:ing our manager on every email. That was when she realized how much of our time was taken up by the mentoring. I suspect that our manager then had a “come to Jesus” talk with the missing stair who resigned not long afterwards. When they resigned, they were paid for their notice period, but they were asked to leave the same day. My whole team (except the boss) went out to celebrate after work on the first Friday after the missing stair left.

      The telling thing was that everyone else got a sendoff with coffee and cake on their last day, but the missing chair handed in their notice while all of us were out of the office on our lunch break (our job was the sort of internal admin service that didn’t require coverage, so we usually took our lunch breaks together, although the missing stair opted out more often than not), and got walked out by our manager not long afterwards. We were happy to be spared the embarrassment of trying to say something kind to a departing coworker when we were all thinking “good riddance” and trying to remain professional about it.

      That said, when we came back from lunch, we saw our manager doing the happy dance in her office (glass internal walls with the privacy blinds up). Maybe not the most professional reaction, but understandable to us when we went back to our desks and saw the email informing us that the missing chair had resigned and left. We wasted a few minutes on high fives to celebrate. It has to be said that we were all recent college graduates and our manager wasn’t much older than we were. It was my first non-retail job and I wasn’t alone in that.

      Morale improved dramatically after the missing stair left. Our manager must’ve been under a lot of stress trying to deal with the missing stair because she certainly seemed a lot more relaxed and even smiled at us much more often than before. But even she was surprised by our productivity gain. The C-suite was very happy too, and we basically got the missing stair’s salary that they would’ve been paid if they’d stayed for the whole year as the year-end bonus that year, as well as raises in the next round of evals. They never hired a replacement for the missing stair.

  7. Former Lab Rat*

    Huge red flag is that Bob misunderstands the initial project/goal and does not give proper guidance to his team. Second red flag is that he takes feedback poorly. Third red flag is that even after hearing feedback he does not improve. Giant red flag is people refusing to work with him. That’s way too many negatives to keep investing time and resources for someone that is totally unsuited for the job.

    Was there ever an update on this?

    1. Banana Pyjamas*

      “ Huge red flag is that Bob misunderstands the initial project/goal and does not give proper guidance to his team.”

      Maybe. However, communication is a two way street. In Bob’s case it seems he IS, in fact, deficient, but in general if an employee is misunderstanding the same one or two people regularly, it’s worth looking at whether THOSE people are communicating what they want clearly.

      Two examples from the same previous management team.

      The management team told me to do X because the eventual goal was to do y. I did x, and they asked why I hadn’t done y. I reminded them they indicated x was phase 1 and y was phase 2.

      Another time they assigned a project and when I sent the rough draft to my immediate supervisor she came to see me.

      Manager: That’s not what we wanted. Why didn’t you ask for clarification if you didn’t understand the assignment?

      Me: Because I thought I understood the assignment.

      Manager:

      Me:

      Manager:

      Me: Well what did I misunderstand?

      Manager: Well we asked for y, and you did x.

      Me: Y depends on x. These calculations solve x, these calculations use x to solve y.

      Manager: Oh. Let’s reconvene on this.

      It took 3 attempts to get this project where they wanted. The management was notorious for exacting expectations and vague instructions. I learned to ask plenty of questions to get what they wanted, starting with let me make sure I understand [paraphrase].

  8. CommanderBanana*

    he frequently mishears or misunderstands initial requirements, which means that he spreads misinformation and leaves the rest of the team playing catch-up – and difficulty understanding how to prioritize…also struggles to receive feedback, even mild course corrections. Each coaching session, no matter how focused on concrete requests, leads him to a spiral of anxiety and irritability, which ends up impacting the team. Bob has damaged relationships to the point that a few coworkers refuse to work with him.

    Two years is a LOT of time and effort to put into an employee that 1. can’t get initial requirements straight 2. can’t prioritize 3. gets the team off-track 4. can’t receive even mild feedback 5. is anxious and irritable 4. has damaged relationships to the point that you have coworkers who won’t work with him.

    1. Peanut Hamper*

      That caught my eye, as well. He’s not just off track himself, but he’s taking other people off track as well. I would have given him six months top.

      Sometimes people look at a leaking pipe and hope that it will just stop leaking. But guess what? They never do. They just leak more.

  9. CoffeeandDonuts*

    Oh man… at least you’re realizing it and taking action. I worked with one Project Manager who was absolutely terrible at her job, but somehow kept getting promoted. The reason her projects didn’t implode is because the rest of the team fixed all her mistakes in the background. On paper it seems like she was succeeding, but I’ve never met a more miserable person. Everyone hated working with her and would actively exclude her from meetings and team building events. She’s totally stuck now because there’s no way she could move to another organization in the same position (level) and last. I honestly felt really bad for her – in a role she can’t do successfully at an organization where everyone hates her – and she can’t leave. That’s her life now. My point is that it’s a kindness to give him this information no matter how badly he may take it in the moment. In the long run he’ll see the truth.

  10. Sloanicota*

    This is an interesting one. I’d be interested to hear if the boss has done post-mortems on Bob’s past failures, as these things seem pretty actionable. “Bob, at the outset of this project you were told to build an arc of 75 cubits. I see you told the team we needed to build 75 arc of one cubit each. Can you walk me through how that happened? Where did it go wrong?” I’d be curious to hear what he’d say exactly. Is it reading comprehension, nerves, what? Also, the criticism thing should be easy to point to. I’d flag that one first, let him react, and then follow up with the ‘not moving forward’ after he’s demonstrated exactly why.

    1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      I’d also be interested to see if such post-mortems expose flaws in the process or communications that are snagging Bob but others are able to “correct,” gloss over, etc, through experience or intuition. E.g. I’ve had peers who hard-fail Scrum by turning it into a soliloquy, and it’s easy to punish them as “just don’t get it;” but even casual digging into the minutiae exposes that “we haven’t actually defined what a significant issue or significant time-consumption are.”

      1. Observer*

        Look at the original post and the comments.

        The LW (posting that way) provided some examples of the issues, and it’s really clear that he’s just not getting it.

        Even your example does not show that the problem is the process. Sure, the process seems broken. But responding by making the scrum meeting into a soliloquy still don’t understand Scrum, or they would have probably reacted differently.

        1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

          They’re not mutually exclusive. Bob may not get it and his failure can be exposing flaws in the process.

          1. Observer*

            True. But that’s not really relevant to the question being asked. The question is what to do about Bob, and the unequivocal answer there is to clearly and unambiguously tell him that he’s not getting any more training etc. for the position he wants.

            Normally, I would say that once that is done, it would not hurt to give a loot at the processes in place, but based on what the LW wrote, the only thing I think they need to look at is why they spent so long trying to get Bob up to speed.

  11. Dandylions*

    I know this is an old letter but in case it helps others: I would do a few things with Bob.

    First I’d have a reset on feedback and say that part of being able to move into the new role is becoming amiacable to feedback.

    Then share the feedback he’s short on to move up into the role and tell him to build a development plan.

    None of the skills listed are “innate” by the way. They are all coachable. Some people are naturally good at it but all soft skills are coachable.

  12. Rick Tq*

    The communication issues mishearing initial requirements may be a sign Bob has lost some hearing. He hears something, fills in the blanks himself, and then never does a back-check email confirming the plan going forward.

    His inability to take correction means he doubles down on his error which just makes the problem worse.

  13. ELT*

    I think the framing of Allison’s response is spot on. The focus is on the company not continuing to invest in the development towards their goal; NOT the person is never going to achieve the goal. They’re kind of the same thing, but I do think the nuance is critical. In the first, it’s focused on the company’s resources (objective); in the second, it’s focused on the individual’s future (very subjective, personal, and possibly up for debate).

  14. Paint N Drip*

    I have to imagine that Bob being in this situation.. is not at his best. I’m sure he’s gotten the memo that people aren’t keen on working with him, that his projects go sideways more often and more aggressively than others, that he is constantly getting feedback to change X or Y – whether he’s grasped ‘I’m not doing well at this stretch/goal job’ I am SURE he is feeling ‘things aren’t going great at work’. Being the person who isn’t getting it makes for a rough work environment and he probably isn’t going to magically improve now that he’s under even more stress. Just a bummer of a situation.

    1. CommanderBanana*

      True, but having worked with some Bobs and Bobettes in my career, they generally don’t have the self-awareness to realize that they’re the problem. And it’s just not worth the collateral damage of having a team destroyed because of a Bob or Bobette.

      1. MathBandit*

        In this case Bob is outstanding in his actual role, though, so it’s not as simple as him being a bad employee overall.

  15. Having a Scrummy Week*

    We just had a “Bob” finally leave the company after fumbling a multimillion dollar project, having the whole team go to HR with their concerns about his performance, only for leadership to ignore everyone’s concerns and keep him on. We lost some good people in that process due to their concerns being brushed aside.

    Please, you MUST tell Bob. This is a complete morale killer.

  16. NforKnowledge*

    Wow, you should not be investing further in someone who can’t take feedback! What a waste of effort

  17. ThatOtherClare*

    FYI for those new to the work world who are now worrying: “I struggle to receive feedback! It makes me feel horrible and I just want the ground to swallow me up! Am I unpromotable‽‽”

    Please don’t stress. When we say so-and-so struggles to receive feedback, what we actually mean is so-and-so struggles to implement feedback and behave appropriately after receiving it. If you don’t sulk and you make an effort to improve after receiving feedback, you’re not a Bob.

  19. Anonymous For Now*

    I agree with everyone who commented on how this is bad for morale or similar.

    Imaging being a solid employee who gets the job done having to work with Bob and then be part of the team scrambling to fix things and get the project completed on time after Bob mismanaged things.

    I’d be wondering a lot of things, mainly who is Bob related to that management has spent 2 years trying to get him up to speed while the rest of us have to follow him around with a mop and bucket to clean up his messes!

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