On my team there is one guy who just does not get it, ever. Every single task you have to hold his hand and answer a Bajillion questions before he can even get started. As the least important person (currently) on my team my co-workers basically pulled me aside and said "your new job is to just keep him out of our hair". I though "easy peasy. Ive got infinite patience and nothing better to do..."

 Boy was I wrong! While he is blasting me with emails and IMs and phone calls he is doing the same to every other person on my team and we cannot get him to stop. His excuse was "well you didnt answer my 18,000 questions in 3.4 seconds so I went looking for someone else who knew the answer.. which in his mind means ask everyone every question.


Obviously hyperbole but the worst part is he has NO idea how bad his behaviour is. His boss is telling him on a weekly basis to dial it back but he just doesn't get it.  Like a brick wall. This week is performance reviews and I cannot imagine how blindsided he is going to feel when they basically start the paperwork for firing him then and there. He just doesn't get it...

I loathe having to do micromanagement, but as "manager" is in my title sometimes it's still a necessary evil, and I consider the fact I'm getting more compensation to be a trade off for it.

That said, I hope your organization is quick on the uptake in terms of trimming away such inefficiency when all other remedies have failed.  I'm all for going the extra mile to try and help people succeed and put forward the resources to transform someone into a well functioning cog in the machine, but sometimes you just have to know when to cut your losses and hopefully be able to point someone in the proper direction even when that direction is out your door and to someone else's.

He has been around about a year. A YEAR! And he still asks just bizarre questions :(

Schools, counseling, and RL is where bad behaviors should be addressed. The subject learns corrected/good behaviors, or he does not.

Work is not a proper venue to address bad behaviors. Managers and co-workers rarely have the skills nor the training to address them, it's rarely a part of their job descriptions, and they are not compensated for it.

Is this person a relative or friend? As someone who worked in Employment Security for 43 1/3 years, it's better to get rid of them sooner rather than have the discontent spread.

He sounds like my nephew.

Fire him.

What he sounds like is someone with an Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder aided and abetted by Adult ADHD.  He should probably seek evaluation and medical/psychiatric treatment.

In reply to horus (msg # 6):

There is certainly some spectrum at play, by the sounds of it...

ADHD only goes so far, but from the sound of it he has some form of memory problems to. People like that never hold jobs or seem to learn from their mistakes. They tend to make bad employee's and have a hard time going through life because of this mental limitation.
Does not sound like OCD however just really short attention span and no understanding that he can't have everything Now - which is a sign of someone who was very spoiled as a child and never grew out of it as an adult, to the point of it becoming a form of mental illness. (the wanting things Now part - the above is more about the ability to remember things and act on them.)