Unconsciously competent; how to cope with the unconsciously incompetent?

[SimpleLife]

I'm reminded yet again, of a training program I went through for work a few years ago, where I recognized that I was the guy in the video, always frustrated with management and coworkers who were unconsciously incompetent (UI). He was unconsciously competent and experienced extreme frustration when his predictions and recommendations were not acted upon, and when things fell apart management and his co-workers had to have him to extra work to fix it.

I've found that with any industry I've worked in, I quickly rise to the top/become UC. During the training, the instructors and the tests we took showed me my frustrations were because I was UC. As a result, dealing with UI people is extremely frustrating to me.

Not just on the job, but in life in general. I have multiple rental properties, ranging from 150K to 625K, and every time I turn a rental I am shocked by how dumb people are. I have people for all the properties, regardless of price/neighborhood, who think that they can tell me what to do, or scam me. For example, you can't tell me whether I have a dog or not, you can't have a key, you can't do this/that, I have my own house and know the law.

So here I am, standing in front of a person who missed it in the listing, missed it when I asked via email before the showing and they didn't say anything, and makes minimum wage or close to it, with a HS diploma, telling someone who makes 154K a year just from his job that they have their own house and know the law, when it turns out they are renting a room out of someones house with a bunch of other people...

It's painful. Sometimes I just want to tell these people my income vs. theirs and call them names because I honestly think they are too stupid to understand. Of course this won't win friends or influence people, just raise my blood pressure and make enemies. But sometimes it's hard to keep it in.

Same thing at work. All the time. Stupid management and incompetent co-workers. They're everywhere, and no matter how many times you are proven right at any place, it seems the people are so stupid they can't remember or see a pattern.

I'm FI many times over, and don't have to deal with it, but surely there is a way to cope with this?

Note: I'm going to try to find the workbook for the course because I'm sure it had some tips on this, but how to cope with it in general when it seems to be the case everywhere and just constant? I've stopped expecting someone to stand up and say, "Hey SL, you know, you were right the last 800 times you said XYZ, and you ended up doing extra work to fix our bad decisions due to our incompetence, so we're going to listen to you this time."

Beyond work and my rentals, it happens everywhere. Last few times at the mechanics who couldn't solve the problem, a quick google search turned up the solutions. I go to the store, same thing. It's like we live in a world where most people are complete idiots and those of us with intelligence are subject to their stupidity, which often decides our livelihood.

[BRUTE]

huh. while brute has had such experiences, they're rare. brute would say <10% of all people, they definitely stand out to him when he encounters them. maybe this is due to brute being not as wickedly smart as SmartLife.

the worst is secretaries who can't touch type. sitting at the doctors office and the lady can't type half as fast as brute can spell his name. it feels a lot like the scene with the DMV from that animal pixar movie trailer recently, between the bunny and the sloth.

brute recommends going to places more where these types of people don't occur. this might mean changing jobs, retiring. brute is unsure.

[Sclass]

Time to chill out. Getting mad at the clowns who surround you is going to make you well, mad.

do you really want everyone around you to be as good as you are? I find a lot of things get easier with weaker competition. They say you only get better playing with people who are better than you are. But I've often used a strategy of choosing an easy game or weak competitors to more easily win.

I guess the problem with taking candy from babies is you only get candy.

coworkers are kind of competitors and teammates at the same time. It can be frustrating yoked to weak ones, but in the end you need to ask yourself what you want out of this whole,thing. Your F level teammate may create work for you but if you're working for job security that may be a good thing. Sucks cleaning up somebody's mess though.

[jacob]

Read Cipolla's Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.

See: viewtopic.php?t=5824

[7Wannabe5]

Sometimes it isn't that other people are really stupid. It's just that they don't give a damn about your priorities or your realms of expertise. For instance, if you remind your girlfriend three times about the most efficient way to load the dishwasher, but then you observe her doing it a different way for the 4th time, it might be because she would rather daydream about general systems theory and old-fashioned candy recipes, and NOT pay exacting attention to how she is placing dishes in the dishwasher. Then if you allow your blood pressure to rise, and you lose your temper, and say something like "Are you stupid?", she might smile and ruthlessly (like a bandit!) proceed to demonstrate her greater intelligence in a manner that may not prove to be in alignment with your long-term self-interest.

[BRUTE]

For instance, if you remind your girlfriend three times about the most efficient way to load the dishwasher, but then you observe her doing it a different way for the 4th time, it might be because she would rather daydream about general systems theory and old-fashioned candy recipes, and NOT pay exacting attention to how she is placing dishes in the dishwasher.

jeez brute HATES when people use suboptimal methods to achieve goals.

[Did]

I used to think like this when I was in my early 20s. It's not really a nice way to see the world. It's a narrow way to see the world. Conveniently, for you, you seem to be rating everyone in the world on IQ, which you seem to be by chance born with a bag of. Unfortunately that is only a very small part of what makes for an interesting, decent or successful person. This can be difficult to see at first.

Do you struggle in other situations, social ones perhaps, but just dismiss every beautiful person in the room because they are stupid? They probably dismiss all the nerds in the room as ugly or socially retarded. It's just perspective, and people tend to mistake what they are good at for what everyone should be good at. That way they win.

I earned over A$600k in the year before I quit. Does that make you stupid? My salary is now under A$30. Does that make me stupid? It's a silly and immature prism through which to see the world, which is beautiful in its diversity. You will miss out on a lot, and be a very angry and boring ant, if you judge everyone as incompetent compared with yourself.

[7Wannabe5]

ffj said: Understand that imbalance creates opportunities.

True. So, if you have established a domain, and there are some efficient, highly driven people who frequently pass through your domain, the challenge is how to best harvest that energy with as little waste of resources, inclusive of your labor, as possible. For instance, if you have a mid-management position with some choice in hiring, and the yield you wish to obtain is something like "free time to leaf through gardening magazines during your work day", then it makes very good sense to hire very efficient, driven individuals for your team, and then get as much work out of them as possible before taking a moment to write the very good review that will allow them to be promoted to positions above you. Everybody gets what they want. Everybody is happy : ) ! If you randomly encounter one of those people 3 years later in a grocery store, they will smile and maybe even give you a hug.

OTOH, if you are an efficient, highly driven individual yourself, and you hope to "train" those on your team to become efficient and highly driven too, you will likely find yourself eventually either losing your temper or crying in your place of employment, and that will not look very good on your permanent record or blood pressure reading. Therefore, IMO, it is best to adopt the perspective that other human beings are like the wind or squirrels, and it is better to construct turbines and sand-filled nut traps, than build ever more rigid walls and be on constant alert with your BB-gun.

[Papers of Indenture]

Get over it. You'll be dead soon. Go for a run. Wrestle a gator. Dance around your house butt ass naked like the monkey you are. Maybe even stop and smell your farts.

[Tyler9000]

Just because people think and do things differently doesn't make them stupid or incompetent. Everyone has different motivations, and a little emotional intelligence goes a long way in helping one productively interact with others.

And remember, walling yourself off in an intellectual tower is not only very lonely for you but also extremely irritating for everyone else. When everyone around you seems unresponsive, perhaps they've just tuned you out. Figuring out how to graciously work with others may be really hard at first, but eventually I wager it will make you a lot happier. It's worth the effort.

[ThisDinosaur]

Tyler astutely brought up emotional intelligence. Perceiving people's motivation when there's conflict does not come naturally to me, but it can help assessing incompetence vs. indifference. I share SimpleLife's EQ deficit, but I think I'm more self aware on the matter.

Case in point; I am not closely familiar with tenant rights laws, but if my landlord ever entered my residence without my permission, I would be furious.



Also, Did said: "people tend to mistake what they are good at for what everyone should be good at." <--wisdom

[JamesR]

The problem is you think you're smart, successful, etc. It's irrelevant.

So when you're dealing with someone that doesn't really care about appearing smart, doesn't really know how to fake being smart as well as you do, and doesn't care enough to lie properly about whatever bullshit, and wastes your time and theirs... well that's got nothing to do with you!

Your cultivated characteristics versus their cultivated characteristics are apples and oranges, don't even waste your time comparing them.

[denise]

Salary does not equate intelligence.

If they're that incompetent, you're actually quite lucky that you don't have much competition in your immediate realm of influence. As someone else mentioned, there are a lot of opportunities available to you because of it.

Take a vacation and find a way to appreciate your current situation.