I've been with the company almost 25 years. I've been in five different positions. There were slackers and dead weight in most of them, but that has been pared down through attrition and layoffs.
In the group I'm in now, which is demonstrably revenue-impacting, we have no dead weight and haven't for at least five to seven years. Everyone is absolutely vital, wearing multiple hats, and working their asses off. And not just spinning their wheels in place with busy work, but actually advancing the business and bringing a lot of innovation. We have quite a few patents with more in the works. We're not in TechDev so we're not burdened by the excruciating bureaucracy there.
It amazes me that there is still dead weight walking around, though.
I'm FTO so I'm in the office every day. I have been seated by people from other groups that truly and honestly did nothing. I'm not using hyperpole and that's not a code word for "I didn't understand their jobs."
For example, there was an IT business manager that came in every day. He sat in the cubicle directly across from me, and I faced directly into his office. He'd come in, read the newspaper for a couple hours, take a nap, go out to eat lunch (he'd sit and drink beer at a nearby park), come back, read the paper some more, play solitaire on his personal tablet (I clearly saw it reflected in the window), maybe have small talk with a few co-workers, and go home early. He was about 70 years old, wore a sweatsuit and tennis shoes and quite literally did nothing. This went on for nearly two years.
Then I was relocated to another building. I forgot about this guy, assuming he would be off payroll by now. Lo and behold, he's still around. He still does nothing. He walks around chatting with people. Due to the open office plan, he no longer props his feet up on the desk while reading the paper, but goes into a corner huddle room to play Solitaire.
Now I'm tasked with laying off at least 1-2 people during the next round who are absolutely vital, and this guy is still walking around. There is absolutely no calibration between work groups as to who does work and who doesn't. How does his boss not know his daily schedule? How has this not been addressed? If any of my direct reports had his work ethic, they would have either changed or been ushered out during one of many rounds of layoffs.
I realize these are hypothetical questions, but just venting here.