Who actively covers for a corrupt co-worker? (employees, job, company)

[buenos]

Hi,

Who actively covers for a corrupt co-worker?
I am wondering how common this is.
In corrupt I don't mean someone committing a big crime, just for example not cooperating with co-workers out of laziness, not doing his job properly, or being overly incompetent and screwing up even the most basic stuff, lying and blaming all on others. With this type of misconduct, the co-worker can seriously screw up the performance metrics of someone else's (victim) work, and can cause damage to the company.

The person who is in a position to judge/resolve the issue, is looking the other way and denying to acknowledge the evidence presented. The misconduct does not get reported up on the food chain (as it would go through the manager), and he even blames it on the person who is the victim of this.
The person who is doing the misconduct typically has done some good work at the company in his/her first few years of employment, but after that he/she gave up doing proper work and lives off his connections and solid status. This status can be upheld for years, as other people in key positions are covering for him/her, and probably he/she covers for them too. They are normally lower level managers, low enough to stay out of sight, and high enough to avid suspicion (at many places if something goes wrong they blame it on the guy with the lowest status, and not suspecting people with status).

I have seen this before, it is not a unique case.
So, have you witnessed something like this? Do these get resolved? What you do?
I don't want to give any details of where it came from, lets just keep the conversation purely theoretical. Any stories or anecdotes?

[elyn02]

Yes, I have heard this before from my family members. These issues have been resolved in various ways. Managers were eventually transferred or fired. Employees were eventually fired but along the way, good employees either quit or were targeted or fired, especially those who rocked the boat. It is the culture that is the problem and until that culture is removed, you will always have people who are there because of who they know and not what they know or do.

ETA: Another possible reason is that the company may not have a good plan on how to evaluate its employees.

[ukrkoz]

Envious? I smell at least a bit of it in your post...
Funny thing is, most of us have been through this. Then we, eventually, land in about same position. for practical purposes, it is matter of where you in what you called food chain, or hierarchy ladder.
I have a movie for you to watch, Office Space. It's devastating truth about corporate America. Not even funny, it's so true. Watch it. Good food for brains.
As of how you resolve this? You won't. Corporations do not like whistle blowers or "complainers". Corporations are like sick people - they know they do wrong things, but refuse to acknowledge them and take action, as taking action is always more dangerous, inconvenient, than not taking it. Bad corporations, which are most. Good ones would have never had such situation to start with.
So, basic choice is - find a better job. You raise your voice against superior, even if you were right, you will fall under "complainer" stigma anyway. Even if they listen to you and sat fire the person. It's same mentality as using a traitor for one's purpose, then ridding of him, once job is done. He he betrayed once, will betray again. He who complained once.. You got it, right?
And please, leave me out of all the "rights and freedom of speech" BS conversation. Keep that for naive ones.

[buenos]

In a product development department, this behaviour basically sabotages the deliver or the quality of a new product. One might think that the company would not want to be embarrassed by recalling products or delaying product launch and let the competition launch before us, missing out on huge (multi million dollar) business deals. Maybe all this does not matter, just hang out in the office and sip our coffee.