[geeks] addressing incompetence in the workplace

[Mike Meredith]

On Thursday 21 March 2002 17:45, you wrote:
> we have a solaris admin here who insists that to change a machine's
> hostname and ip address, the OS (solaris 8) needs to be reinstalled.

Any chance he's only been trained on some other Unix, and this is his 
way of saying "Hey! Some Solaris training would be helpful!" ?

> is there a way to suggest to upper management that an employee who
> has been around for greater than ten years might not be the right
> person for the job?

What's wrong with being around for greater than 10 years ? That's no 
guarantee of incompetance.

I'd be very wary indeed of getting involved with pointing out someone's 
incompetance if you aren't in the same team as they are. Team managers 
will frequently (and should) automatically defend members of their 
team. System administrators can be subject to vindictive personal 
attacks, and a manager who has any experience may see any criticism of 
an admin's competance as such.

Incompetance will become obvious over time.