You ever had a coworker

[RedinTexas]

In my time in the Air Force I was once assigned to a hard crew (a crew where you fly with the same people every time) for a period of about 2 months with one of the worst copilots I ever flew with. Our first mission was a 20 minute flight on which he tried to land at the wrong airport and then tried to land on the wrong runway at the right airport. In both instances I was the one that saw the problem and told him what he was attempting to do. The volume at which I was starting to yell at him was increasing the closer we got to runway until the aircraft commander finally realized that I was right. After getting on the ground he denied that he had done anything wrong and claimed that he would have figured things out on his own.

This was just my first flight with him in that period of time and it was a signal of what was to come over the next couple months. He was an awful pilot and worse yet, he was convinced that he was very, very good. He was also convinced that navigators were stupid. What he didn't know was that the DO (the man effectively the vice commander of the squadron) had specifically put me on that crew because they were a problem. His instructions in private to me were that I was to fix that crew as he didn't want to hear of any more incidents.

After returning home a couple months later the DO came to me and told me that he assumed everything had gone just fine since he hadn't heard anything since. I told him that he was mistaken and met with him for about 30 minutes behind closed doors where I told him that the copilot was an accident waiting to happen and they should never, under any circumstances, let him upgrade to an aircraft commander. The DO took me seriously and they surreptitiously started keeping an eye on him. A couple months later they shipped him out to an assignment that only went to people as either punishment, or for seriously bad pilots.

[GabyKeepsMeWarm]

Originally Posted by RedinTexas

This was just my first flight with him in that period of time and it was a signal of what was to come over the next couple months. He was an awful pilot and worse yet, he was convinced that he was very, very good. He was also convinced that navigators were stupid. What he didn't know was that the DO (the man effectively the vice commander of the squadron) had specifically put me on that crew because they were a problem. His instructions in private to me were that I was to fix that crew as he didn't want to hear of any more incidents.

These are the most dangerous people in life and at the workplace. The arrogance, bravado and ego only adds to their already scary level of ineptitude because they are in fact delusional about their abilities. If it only affected them, hey, no harm no foul. But when others depend on them, it's at these moments you pray other safeguards are in place to prevent disaster.

[RedinTexas]

Originally Posted by GabyKeepsMeWarm

These are the most dangerous people in life and at the workplace. The arrogance, bravado and ego only adds to their already scary level of ineptitude because they are in fact delusional about their abilities. If it only affected them, hey, no harm no foul. But when others depend on them, it's at these moments you pray other safeguards are in place to prevent disaster.

Oh so very true.