2005.02.19
Incompetent People
Many years ago and, who knows, maybe still to this day my brother always railed against incompetence. I don’t remember him calling anyone stupid, or an idiot, just incompetent. Somehow coming from him it was just as effective and yet avoided the rudeness that is so easy to dismiss. Calling someone incompetent, especially if they are the least bit intelligent, is far more insulting.
We are all incompetent at some things, but the key is to at least admit it. For the things we are supposed to be good at, though, we’d best be able to prove we aren’t incompetent or we don’t deserve to be doing whatever it is we do. If you are an elevator inspector I really don’t care if you pretend to play chess well but don’t, but if you inspect an elevator that then breaks, falls and hurts or kills someone you are incompetent. Worse, in that case: negligent.
I think I’ll revive my brother’s saying. I’ve thought it many times but I’ve not actually spoken it. It will be a nice counterpoint to Mookee’s obsessive usage of telling people they are idiots.
You can follow any responses to this entry with a RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
