[mooreds]

I have a friend who works for a big aerospace conpany, and he keeps an eye on his team members. One in particular is "the buffer". This person is apparently not that good at tasks.

If "the buffer" ever gets laid off, my friend has to be concerned. Until then, "the buffer" is a source of comfort to my friend.

[HillRat]

It's horrible to say, but almost every manager at the tactical to low-operational level keeps people around in good times specifically to act as ablative shielding in the bad. Sometimes they're low performers who can still be useful as tape-monkey equivalents, or perhaps they're "nice to haves" who aren't of any use when everyone has buckets out and are bailing, but in either case they exist to protect everyone else from layoffs or forced-ranking herd culling. This isn't a workable strategy in eat-what-you-kill environments, but you see it all the time in midsized and large companies.

[jloughry]

HillRat, you made my day---"ablative shielding"---thank you for that phrase.

[CapitalistCartr]

More likely, they'll lay off the whole team.

[mooreds]

Or the whole location. But having someone of questionable competence helps my friend's peace of mind. Don't know how much it slows down the team, though.

[borvo]

The mere existence of this "buffer" increases the likelihood of a layoff ... oh "aerospace", might be a while.