10 Worst Ever First Officers In Star Trek

In a way, Hobson isn't the worst offender on this list by a country mile. As he said himself, it wasn't that he was a bad first officer, it was more that he was a bad first officer for Data. When the android took command of the Sutherland, as part of Starfleet's blockade of the Klingon-Romulan border, Hobson requested a transfer, which was quickly denied.

While there is sympathetic aspects to Hobson, his attitude to Data during the mission is harder to excuse. There is a time and a place for questioning the commander of a vessel, and mid-crisis is not that time. 

Data, acting on his robotic intuitions, ordered several actions to be taken that Hobson disagreed with. One action could have resulted in crew injuries, though Data was both aware of this and agreed with Hobson's plans to safeguard those crew. The main issue was the time it took for Hobson to carry out Data's orders. The second such event came at a more crucial time. Data, convinced as he was that there were cloaked Romulan Warbirds nearby, ordered the Sutherland to ignore Picard's command to regroup, then reprogrammed torpedoes to expose those ships. 

Though of course Data felt no emotion, he was forced to feign rage to convince Hobson to obey the order. A first officer in this case should not have to be told twice - Hobson truly showed himself up.