Dead wood:

People in a group or organization who are not useful any more and who need to be removed.

– The Free Dictionary

You know the type. That guy that arrives 15 minutes late, and leaves 15 minutes early. The first application he opens each morning is his browser. And how does he spend the first hour on the job? Hint: it’s not the functional specification he’s meant to be writing.

He’s the guy who sorts out his insurance, personal appointments and personal todo items on the phone/online before he even thinks about what he’s paid to do.

Every time you catch a glimpse of his screen he’s reading a BBC news article, or checking the cricket scores on ESPN. He’s also the guy who grabbed the desk in the corner as soon as it was available so fewer people were able to see his screen and know what he’s [not] doing all day.

He’s pretty darn confident of himself when it comes to the daily stand-up, convincing even himself that he’s been working through some hard-to-solve problems. It will be another day or two of clarification and working through issues before he produces anything though. But he’s not blocked. And he’s the one that will sap time from others, asking questions he could answer himself if he actually bothered to spend some time thinking and not multi-tabbing between news sites.

He thinks he’s funny. And he could well be. But you find it difficult to see past the fake.

And then as gets up to leave — early or bang on time — he chats as if he’s deserved a break for the evening; that it’s been another long day. He asks you a few chit-chat questions about your evening/weekend. You wonder whether he can sense what you’re thinking…

I haven’t got time for you. Take your fake home with you. You’re dead wood.

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