This week in the pm-clinic discussion forum:

A handful of managers that have worked together for years are good friends. One of them, the one with the least competent reputation, left over a year ago, and is now being hired back into the company as a perennial contractor (product manager).

Every time my team has interacted with him, across various contracts and on different projects, we’ve had some kind of performance problem. However given his connections, despite feedback to the contrary, he keeps getting rehired (generally with different teams each time).

What can I do, as a manager myself, to exorcise this ghost employee from my world?

– Signed, Haunted by a ghost employee