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Hello,

I’ve been working for a large company for just 3 months and have 2yrs experience in SharePoint 2013, 2016 & O365. I was an admin professional for 11 yrs and piggyback off of IT skills I acquired as needed. Plus, I’m studying for the MCSA in O365.

There is a new employee, let’s call him John. John is elderly and claims to have 15 experience in all things SharePoint. He dominates our team projects, yet he doesn’t know what he’s doing or how to do it himself. I found myself helping him navigating through SP16 and shown him how to convert it to “classic” mode (SP13). He doesn’t know his way around SP13. My colleague & I had to help him navigate through InfoPath and SP Designer. I asked John if he knows PowerShell. “No” he replied. Hummm-15 yrs eh?

Yesterday, we were tasked to create flowcharts. I finished mine in a couple of hours, while John got on the phone. I overheard him talking to his grandkid, judging from the way he was talking. My colleague & I were nearly done with our flowcharts. He walked over to my colleague’s computer & saw her work. Then, he walk over to my computer & asked me to “share” it with him, suggesting that he doesn’t know how to create a flowchart. I replied, “You have 15 yrs exp., you should know PPTX and know how to create a flowchart.” John walked away and an “Oh”. My colleague & I exchange glances with the realization that this guy doesn’t know PPTX.

Question: I feel compelled to notify someone, HR/ethics, that this guy probably knows old tech SP03, SP07 & SP10, but not new tech. I realized that he’s a fraud about his current expertise. Should I notify HR/ethics?

129 Spice ups
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At most talk to your boss. It is not your job unless you are this guy’s manager.

This is his boss’s job to get the most work out of him, not yours.

I don’t think this makes you look like you are a hero, trying to save the company, it makes you come across as a narc.

228 Spice ups
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Some of this depends on your culture. Is your boss open to you telling him something like this? Some bosses might take this as a sign they screwed up and won’t like you rubbing it in their face (not a good thing, but you’re more of an expert on your business culture than we are)

21 Spice ups
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This doesn’t really surprise me. This pretty much falls under a lot of: “Well, I used $OldTech for many years, so $NewTech should be easy.” I honestly wouldn’t mention anything to your boss. I would just keep plugging away and mind your own business. If you really want to, maybe help point him in the right direction so he can learn. I’m sure some will disagree, but if you’re wiling to just sit there and watch him burn, you’re not any better than him.

134 Spice ups
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If you’re feeling nice, help the guy learn. If he’s older, he’s probably having a lot of trouble getting hired (even though that’s supposed to be illegal). If you’re feeling like you actually need to get your own work done, just sit back and wait. Eventually it will be glaringly obvious that he doesn’t know his stuff, and he’ll be let go.

80 Spice ups
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I have over 14 years experience and i cant even do a powerpoint flowchart because it was never in my job description. I could go on the web and read about it and ultimately do it if it came to that.

Powershell is the same, althought it’s powerfull, i dont know how to script, i find bits and pieces and put them together to do what i want and i’m guessing a lot of IT pros do the same.

Being a team project leader does not mean he knows everything, it means he can LEAD, my boss does not know more than me, he’s directing.

Remember that we’ll all be elderly at some point and some younger dude will have the same reasoning about you and the fact that you dont know it all

284 Spice ups
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It depends on your business culture. In most instances I would alert his boss. In all instances I would document this and let him flail.

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If you worked on old tech and were expected to know the new tech any self respecting professional would figure it out. This guy is not a professional, just a guy making a living off of other people’s work. He needs to be canned or find a different position for him.

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I read his profile on LinkedIn and saw that he’s been working on SP since 2012, using InfoPath & Designer; However, my colleague & I had to help him navigate and show him the features/functions of InfoPath & Designer. I think this guy could be a fraud.

10 Spice ups
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I agree with @sqlrage ,tell your boss if you need to, but keep in mind you could potentially be ruining this guys existence and you’ll have to live with that karma.

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33 Spice ups
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First of all, when I first met John, I liked the guy. I was friendly and helped him. But, as time waned, I noticed that he has been riding on our coat tails with work done by my colleague & I. He has contributed very little. Fraud!?!?! Phone call to ethics or talk w/ mgr?

7 Spice ups
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If John has misrepresented his skills in getting the job at most tell your manager that you and your co worker are stuck doing all the work. The new hire is not helping to alleviate the work load that he may have been hired to help with.

10 Spice ups
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Skipping over your boss is never a good idea. Talk to your manager first. It should be just a simple talk.

Accusing someone of fraud is a very serious thing. Don’t do it unless you have concrete evidence.

53 Spice ups
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Perhaps start with talking to your other colleague. Sound her about about what she thinks if his knowledge.

If both of you are in general agreement then it’s time for both of you to go to your boss with your concerns. Really because you don’t have time for a freeloader. And those people have a pretty toxic effect if they are let go unchecked.

Now it gets interesting (depending on where in the world you’re based). Your boss is going to have to decide what to do about this. Not you, your boss. And in certain countries getting rid of an incompetent person is a struggle as you have to actually prove it. If he is still in the probationary period then this becomes much easier.

But don’t go to HR without going through your boss first.

14 Spice ups
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Same here. 28 years of experience, I’ve never made a PowerPoint presentation. What does that have to do with IT? I don’t even have PowerPoint on my machine. Nothing wrong with using PowerPoint, but no amount of IT experience suggests that you would ever use it, let alone be an expert. PowerPoint is not an IT task at all, let alone a core one that “anyone” with experience would know. It’s not even a general skill. It’s not a niche skill, but there is essentially no job role in the world where making PowerPoints is a core skill that you’d automatically know… outside of being a PowerPoint designer. I’m even a conference presenter, but there are people who make my slide decks for me. I’m on the IT side, so that’s not my role.

102 Spice ups
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I’ve not made a flowchart since middles school either. Why would I make flowcharts?

58 Spice ups
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How is that fraud? He works to the level that he works. They pay him to the level that they feel he is valuable. Is he lying? Does he claim something that isn’t true? Or do you just not like that the degree that you see him working? There are a lot of variables here. And your description of why he should know things doesn’t seem reasonable to me. Maybe it is just a bad description, but I’m unclear where you feel he isn’t doing the job well.

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This could backfire, too. What if he’s REALLY pulling his weight and you just don’t realize it. What if he REALLY does a good job but doesn’t spend his days making diagrams about it?

I had this exactly thing happen to me at work once. There was a younger guy who couldn’t pull his weight so they made him into the team’s secretary. He did the diagrams, the paperwork and such while we did the engineering. Most people wanted him fired for not knowing what he was doing, I said that as long as he was doing my paperwork for me, he was worth the big salary because it let me be more productive. So I protected him for a while.

Eventually he got uppity and went to the SVP and complained that he was treated like a secretary instead of as an engineer and blamed my group for using him to do paperwork. He said it was our paperwork to do.

Yup, so we stopped defending him. They fired him. Why? Because we did the real world and he did our paperwork. He didn’t have the right operational mindset or the experience to do the real engineering, but we didn’t want the poor guy fired. But once he started getting nasty and bit the hand that fed him… that was that.

Remember, this guy might easily be very valuable and you might be there to offload work from him. I’m not there, I can’t read the situation. But from your description, that sounds very plausible.

67 Spice ups
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Tough spot to be honest.

  • Do nothing, and it could be perceived as something you did not recognize.
  • Do something, and sometimes that could backfire. Especially since you’ve been on the job for 3 months.

Hmmm…, tough one.

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Why are you using PPTX to make a flow chart in the first place? Why are you not using Visio or something designed for this purpose?

48 Spice ups