Rewarding stupidity...

Why is it that the world seems to reward stupidity and incompetence?


Why is it that if you bust your backside to do a good job you barely get acknowledged, but if someone keeps screwing up they get put in charge?

Why is the person with the worst interpersonal skills usually put in charge?

Why is it that if you recognize a problem and bring it to the attention of management you're labled as a troublemaker? I could save myself a lot of hassle by sweeping it under the rug just like a lot of other people I work with...

WHY WHY WHY?!?


I really try to to do the best I possibly can in everything I do, but I really get frustrated when it seems that there's just no reason to. It almost seems like a lot of the people around me have already figured it out: keep a low profile, don't do anything unless you have to and keep your mouth shut--what a great example

I hear you. Once I got older and was out and in the public more I discovred something that totally blew my mind. "Normal" isn't like me. Normal isn't smart, having morals, doing the right thing, working hard, etc. Normal is following trends, being dumb, being bad, etc it's cool and in to be a looser. It is frustrating at a job or some place where you are just trying to improve and help the place along.

Only advice is get in a job where you are the one doing all the work for your specific task. Do it right and a good job, but don't take your job too seriously because someone will always complain about something. I dunno I'm tired and rambling now.

For many of these reasons I have always done better working with things than I have working with people.

Familiarity often does breed contempt in my experience.

I worked as a telemarketer for a year with MCI back when they were still the big deal and not working out a huge scandal issue...

It was a sleezy job but I tried to perform it with as much integrity as possible. I did not lie or hide the truth from customers about anything, which was very rare, and my managers did not like my methods. It's really sad that a job well done was frowned upon. They wanted me to spend less time per call, make more calls faster. The funny thing was, I was one of their best sellers on the floor, and yet, it didn't matter, they didn't want me telling customers the truth about hidden fees, $1/min phone cards, transfer fees etc, they just wanted me to quickly get the sale closed and move on.

When I left, I went out with a bang, I went right to the regional manager who was visiting and told him to his face. "You're job is toast in 6 months if you let this place keep running like this, you'll be exposed." I told several other of my managers the same thing- It ended up taking 8 months, but the call center is history, and aparantly, the call center was not the only place where devious acts ond misrepresentation of the truth was going on, the whole company fell flat on it's face about that same time.

I look back and laugh at all of them, they didn't want to take my example of proper workmanship, screw them.

I do miss making $3000/month working only 25 hours a week though.

Certainly this is one of the major things that is wrong with modern American society.

I TRY to pretend that doing a good job and that pride in one's 'craftsmanship' is it's own reward.....

But I realize I'm deceiving myself.

Last 'real job' I had: I was the most productive person in my department (EDM 'machinist')... Literally Four times the production rate of the next most productive person in the department and a 0% finished part rejection ratio. Yet I was the lowest paid person in the department.

When I asked for a shift change (from 'Graveyard' ) and not even asking for a raise, after a year and a half of proving myself... My supervisor (who was himself promoted to supervisor after he proved himself incompetent in the production end of the job) said "NO" even after I told him I'd quit if I couldn't change to a day or evening shift.

They lost a ~$20 million dollar annual contract after I left because they couldn't turn out the parts fast enough or accurate enough once I left.....

Yet my department supervisor got promoted to overall production manager, even though they lost a very important contract because of his foolishness.

Not that I was really all that great a machine operator... I was mediocre at best... just ten times better than their average operator, (most of whom complained to me that I was screwing up a good deal by being reasonably productive).

Stupidity is not always rewarded. Sometimes the stupid folks suffer from their actions.

Case in point; The idiot who "fixes" his computer by formating his hard drive. He suffers through all the lost files and losty productivity.

Then there's the idiot who says "Hey! wahtch this!" and end up in the emergency room.

In business, there's a tendancy to reward those that do memorable things. I work by the philosophy that it's best to prevent problems. When I do a really, really good job no one realizes that I do anything. The hotshot down the hall, on the other hand, is always taking chances and always tweaking things that are working perfectly well. He's always there late into the evening trying to make something work. Several times a year he breaks things really bad due to poor planning and has to spend all day and all night fixing it. At bonus time his management remembers that he was the one that was there all night. They don't remember me.

But at the end of the day I go home feeling good, knowing that I did a good job I sleep soundly at night. He drops by the bar whith his boss and cronies and bitches about how bad his day was.

Stupidity IS it's own reward. Words to live by.

Daniel

Oh! I almost forgot. Most inept people think they are above average. They don't improve because they think they are good enough already. Somewhere I have a link to the study that discovered that. Most inept management does not realize it either, and they hire people they can identify with. Thus the cycle continues.

Sad thing is that society nowadays is based on appearances more than substance. Employers seem to want people who "look busy" rather than people who actually do a good job. The relative lack of performance of their average worker gives them an excuse to keep wages low. It also results in decent workers being penalized. First off, chances are a decent worker could do what takes most workers 8 hours in half that. However, will management let you leave early once you finish? Usually not, and even if they did since many jobs pay by the hour instead of by productivity you would be losing out. The end result is that a competent worker is usually bored. They have to stretch 3 or 4 hours of work to fill eight. If they want promotions they have to stretch it even more so they stay late (which management seems to love). Usually what happens is decent workers realize its all a stupid game and just leave. Management is probably happy to get rid of them because they're no longer upsetting the status quo. Their coworkers are glad they're gone because the competent worker made them look bad (even though management never seemed to notice).

I've often said if I were ever put in charge of a business I would start paying workers by productivity, and would allow them to leave early once they completed their job. This would reward the better workers, and probably eventually weed out the incompetents who would have to work twice as long to make what they did before. The problem that exists today definitely comes from those in charge. It seems productivity and achievement are no longer rewarded as they once were. This in turn is because of a dearth in leadership. As I once heard in a movie- "He may be an a**hole, but he is in charge".

P.S. I love it when incompetence or stupidity finally catches up with someone. The old company I used to work for closed its New York office, which incidentally had some of the better people. My former supervisor bought the shop from the company. A few years later the main office in Virginia closed. My friend is still in business after over 16 years.

I can TOTALLY relate!

I believe we are in similar careers, so we likely see similar issues.
I am part of a pain service: we start, run, troubleshoot and maintain epidurals, PCA's, intrapleurals, peripheral nerve caths, blocks, and intrathecal pumps/trials. Our service is designed for speed: a nurse/MD can page us, and we can enact a safe intervention within minutes.

There is a loudmouth nurse on 8C, a unit we lovingly call the "outpatient floor". It is actually a standard surgical floor, taking mostly general abdominal surgeries, plastics and derm. We call it "outpatient", bcause patients cometimes go all night without vitals, etc. Well, they aren't charted, anyway.
Not to sound rude, but many of these nurses are clueless, so we are cautious--monitoring the 8C patients carefully.

I am creating some education to address these issues.

Back to the loudmouth. He has been whining about certain practices to the point that he was placed on the Pain and Sedation Committee...to shut him up. I am not kidding when I say that this guy has no clue as to our practice, and pain control in general. He is a freaking moron.
The problem is that he now has some influence upon my practice!

This moron is actually hurting patient care by using wild scare tactics, therefore creating more hurdles to patient care--all in the name of allegedly "increasing safety". These hurdles do NOT create more safety--there is NO data to support his statements, but the committee is spooked into action. Simple logic is against him, but the emotion of fear is on his side.

The hurdles are resulting in delays in patient care--when a person is in SEVERE acute pain! How would you like it if you had a family member in severe pain, only to learn that an intervention, which could have occured in less than 5 minutes, has been delayed 20-30 minutes due to the actions of a person that has no knowlege in pain control?
Watch your wife, child or a parent writhe and cry in pain, and you will get my point.

Every time I see the freaking idiot, my BP skyrockets. He follows me around, trying to discuss "issues".
One time, he saw me in the hall, and stated "Just the person I wanted to see! Let me get a sheet of paper!!!"
When he went to get the paper, I RAN down two flights to get away from him.

Anyway, I intend to give him and others, a very, very hard time. I write scathing mails and reports, taking ablique shots at these obstructive idiots. I also intend to gain seats on some of the committees, which would allow more involvement. (I avoided them because they tend to be bureaucratic gripe-sessions, which rarely solve anything)
It blows me away that there are people making decisions on things that they simply do not understand.

Bob

Thanks for your replies everyone--it makes me feel a little better that I'm not the only one that sees this kind of stuff and doesn't flip out.


IsaacHayes hit the mark with what normal is. I've found that most of the people on this forum are abnormal--and that's a good thing.


Bob, are you sure that you're not working at my hospital? I think that loudmouth is running around the upstairs floor




Incompentence and micro-management are my two biggest pet peeves right now--and I seem to be swimming in them at work.

pedalinbob said:

I also intend to gain seats on some of the committees, which would allow more involvement. (I avoided them because they tend to be bureaucratic gripe-sessions, which rarely solve anything) It blows me away that there are people making decisions on things that they simply do not understand.

Click to expand...

I think Bob has just hit upon one( one of many) of the reasons that stupidity is rampant. Stupid people don't mind wasting their time on endless debates in committee meetings. That makes them more visible and therefore more valued. Of course, if the commitee can influence the rules and practices they tend to make rules that favor themselves.

And so it continues.

Daniel

Amazing! Almost every post is something I might have written. To maintain my sanity I have adopted the IDGAS attitude; I am glad that I don't work as a nurse or physician in the hospital situations that were described.

Sadly, I have to agree with whats been said here, and relate to everyone's experiences. :sigh: There are times when I wonder if the world is crazy, or if its just me.

Silviron, sad to say it isn't "modern American society". Coming from the other side of the world I can tell you it's just as bad over there. We seem to live in an age where ignorance and apathy... well I don't know if I should say "run rampant" or "are celebrated."

And people wonder why I'm so cynical...

flownosaj said:

Why is it that the world seems to reward stupidity and incompetence?


Why is it that if you bust your backside to do a good job you barely get acknowledged, but if someone keeps screwing up they get put in charge?

Why is the person with the worst interpersonal skills usually put in charge?

Why is it that if you recognize a problem and bring it to the attention of management you're labled as a troublemaker? I could save myself a lot of hassle by sweeping it under the rug just like a lot of other people I work with...

WHY WHY WHY?!?


I really try to to do the best I possibly can in everything I do, but I really get frustrated when it seems that there's just no reason to. It almost seems like a lot of the people around me have already figured it out: keep a low profile, don't do anything unless you have to and keep your mouth shut--what a great example

Click to expand...

I would change my questions if I were in your shoes. I'd start them with, What can, or How can.

I know it would be hard to do this but if I could, I would think of only 'postive' empowering questions to replace the why questions in order to turn my thinking around and build contructive forward momentum.

JM2C

I never really knew that dilbert comics actually represented the real world!

offroadcmpr said:

I never really knew that dilbert comics actually represented the real world!

Click to expand...

Well, since I worked with Scott Adams * (sort of) at the phone company, I can assure you that it is, really, based on his experiences and those that have been told to him.

I never did figure out which person was the pointy haired boss.

Daniel

* His cubicle was 20 feet from mine, but he was almost never ever there. He'd gotten famous enough that he was on leave most of the time pushing book sales. His girlfriend was a manager in my group. I think I saw him 3 or 4 times in the year I was in that group.

I never really knew that dilbert comics actually represented the real world!

Click to expand...

What goes on where I work goes well beyond the Dilbert cartoons.

Here is a quote I keep in my PDA, that sums up how I see things going on quite nicely.

"It's been my experience that foolish people often rise to a position beyond their abilities. The tendency in this country to set aside common sense in favor of dubious and pervasive policies that reward a rather odd kind of conformity is upsetting."
Homer Hickman NASA rocket scientist.

Ras_Thavas said:

Here is a quote I keep in my PDA, that sums up how I see things going on quite nicely.

"It's been my experience that foolish people often rise to a position beyond their abilities. The tendency in this country to set aside common sense in favor of dubious and pervasive policies that reward a rather odd kind of conformity is upsetting."
Homer Hickman NASA rocket scientist.

Click to expand...

Exactly! :twothumbs:

I work for a phone company, like Scott Adams did. I see where he got most of his material...