‘Who’s the most hilariously unqualified person you’ve ever seen in a job they had no business doing?’ – 21 worrying workplace tales

Karen Dickinson. Updated March 12th, 2025

12.

‘People who write website content in areas they know nothing about (myself included).

In the past, my job has involved writing medical, financial, legal content – I don’t have a clue about it and Google serves it up like it’s gospel! Now I’m self employed, I only write content on topics I’m well versed in but people put way too much stock in ‘Google’s’ answers when they’re usually written by an SEO or (more recently) AI.’
–Petrichor_ness

13.

‘My friend’s CEO where he works. His boss is called Terrifying Trevor behind his back. He micromanages, doesn’t understand the company and sometimes decides the curtains are the wrong shade of beige or the desks all have to be the same height. He only has the job because his dad owns the company.’
–AyanaRei

14.

‘A large software company I worked for once employed a new salesman. He had recently left the army as a major and he was public school and Sandhurst educated. The assumption was that he would have lots of contacts and influence at the MOD.

He didn’t. In fact he had no understanding or knowledge of the products we were selling, couldn’t tell a computer from a fax machine and didn’t really like talking to customers. Nice bloke (ish) but a complete waste of money.’
–Tacklestiffener

15.

‘I have worked with various graduates who have been given huge jobs at companies purely because they went to Oxford or Cambridge. They had never worked in an actual job before, yet are somehow able to give us all insight into ‘strategy’ and ‘continuous improvement’ with zero work experience.’
–Labionda20

16.

‘Me, when I used to work for an insurance firm in my early twenties. Seriously, I was terrible. A one man union. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and would pick up a stack of papers and go for a wander around the building for an hour. I became really good at hiding. That was until I got caught hiding in a broom cupboard. I was offered voluntary redundancy in the end, probably because I was pally with a union rep. I’m a park keeper these days. They say that water eventually finds it’s level. I’ve never been happier.’
–Puzzled_Caregiver_46

17.

‘I work with health comms and had to explain to a supposedly more experienced professional that HIV and AIDS aren’t the same thing.’
–alivingstereo

18.

‘One of my maths teachers, who also happened to be the head of department, who marked 0.5 and 1/2 as wrong (the question was which decimal and fraction are equal to one half), then argued with us for quarter of an hour, only to come back the next time saying she was distracted because of GCSE exams she was preparing her class for.’
–Ok_Journalist_2303

19.

‘I had a boss once that had the awful habit of hiring people for remote sales positions after meeting them sitting next to them on airplanes Then I would be stuck training them. One guy had never used a computer in his life and lived in the middle of nowhere with only dial up.’
–Radiant-Turnover8512

20.

‘My old Manager. She’d worked for this huge company for over 30 years, but she didn’t have a clue about the job. You couldn’t ask her anything, as she would look at you blankly. On the day I left, I asked her how she had managed to blag her way to a top job, and she said ‘I’m here to manage people, not to know anything about the business’.’
–TulipTattsyrup99

21.

‘Me, completing an online TEFL qualification and then standing in front of a classroom of 30 14-year-olds in Thailand. The worst thing was I was super-respected just by being a native English speaker but yet was 21 and had no teaching experience.’
–ExcitementWooden4668

Source r/AskUK Image Screenshot

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