Working with idiots

Have you ever sat at your desk, filled with a mix of anger and amazement, as someone hit "Reply All" to a company-wide e-mail to proudly announce that no, they don't need vegan options at the Christmas party? Has your coworker ever pushed a release to production so buggy you weren't sure if you should call an exterminator or an exorcist? Or, you know, pretty much anything in a similar vein?

Well, congratulations, you have, at some point, worked with people.

"But listen, this person is really an idiot." "They're all so stupid." "You don't understand, I work with Kevin."

I know.

I know it can be frustrating when people miss obvious solutions when they fuck up or half-ass their work.

I once took over an hour of very expensive time from an admin at my previous job. You see, I came to work one day only to find out I couldn't access any of the company tools in the browser. "Are you logged in under your company account?" Buddy, of course, I'm not stupid. I have never logged into another Gmail account in this browser.

It turns out I was, indeed, not logged in under the company account. The Friday before, I wanted to order dinner through a delivery site because we had to babysit a deployment (I know, I know). I stayed in late with the engineers. I had to use my personal account since I wanted to treat them to some pancakes and happened to have a discount coupon. With all the stress around that release, I simply forgot about this by Monday.

Just as our poor admin was about to raise hell on Google itself, as he had complete trust in my claim of having everything set up correctly, I had to do a little walk of shame to his desk. "So, funny thing, it was my personal account this whole time..."

I’m sure, in that moment, he thought I was an idiot. And honestly? Fair enough.

People don't like making mistakes. People hate being wrong - it makes you question whether you’re even competent. Whether it's hitting 'reply all' or suddenly being faced with the reality of your own closed-minded thinking. On a fundamental level, it feels bad. Sometimes you flash your Facebook on a boring screen-share call (yes, it was me. yes, around 30 people saw). But mistakes are how we learn - assuming you’re not completely allergic to thinking.

Are the idiots at your work genuinely hopeless, or...are they just people? Have they been adequately trained on their job? Are they under so much stress and workload they might start slipping up? Are they interns that need to fuck up a few times to learn? Are they old and so experienced that they forgot the world didn't stop spinning in the 1960s?

I know you don't have to ask those questions; I know you're not paid to bring kindness to the table. Unless you're a manager, I have bad news for you, turns out we gotta do it, HR says so.

Chances are, when you call someone stupid, you’re reacting to a mistake, not a lost cause. It might have been caused by carelessness or a lack of knowledge. You'll already be at a point when you've tossed the entire person in the trash, negatively coloring all your future experiences with them.

So, I'd like to implore you to only start throwing the word 'idiot' around in specific cases.

Let's face it, some people don't learn. They will receive valid, actionable feedback, yet somehow still continue tossing themselves at a wall, screeching that it's everyone else who's wrong.

Even then, there are things you (or, you know, someone with a higher paycheck who's supposed to be coaching their employees into critical thinking) can do, even if it’s just asking your work bestie for a fake smoke break to groan in annoyance for five minutes.

We can't change people's minds; we can only change how we deal with the frustration their behavior brings.

This, of course, comes with the caveat that there are genuinely malicious people in this world. People who will unabashedly try to cause harm with bigoted opinions and acts. But I'm pretty sure my tiny Substack audience is aware of the difference between being slower to come to conclusions and speedrunning the sexual harassment 'don't do this' checklist.

Listen, I'm not your manager. I'm not your mom. I'm not the idiot police (sadly).

You're free to say and think whatever you want.

Just try not to be a dick immediately.

It's easier to weed out idiots that way.