Incompetence In Workplace

[John]

Duringan insightful discussion, Rose Cartolari challenged the use of weaponised incompetence as an expression that may further the divide between the giver and the receiver of the action. Instead, she offered the less violent and loaded term learned helplessness for reflection.

Being an empathetic person makes us vulnerable at times towards such situations.

You have put-forth really good points in this article

I will try to inculcate the strategies mentioned to deal with such events.

In households, this can look like a partner handing off laundry, cooking or dishwashing to the other because they claim they are worse at it or unable to do that task. In workplaces, it often happens when someone fails to learn certain technology platforms and their functions and consistently palms them off on a colleague.

And this tendency to use (usually younger) coworkers as a go-to for fixing tech issues or papering over other basic tech knowledge gaps, is causing frustration among some. And many have taken to TikTok and other social media platforms to vent about it.

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Unfortunately, my female colleagues and I are not unique. Studies show that women spend on average 200 hours more a year than men on non-promotable tasks*. Non-promotable tasks (NPT) are things that are important to the organisation but will not help advance your career. They are usually non-revenue generating, not recognised in performance reviews, and do not rely on specialised skills. An NPT is, in summary, dead-end work.

The online examples of this are as sad as they are hilarious. I was simultaneously laughing and crying watching the #weaponizedincompetence Instagram reels, drawing parallels to my own home and work life.

According to a recent study, approximately 70% of people have been negatively affected by workplace toxicity, and weaponized incompetence plays a significant role in this. This behavior, often overlooked, is an alarming trend where certain individuals strategically feign or amplify their inability to execute tasks, thereby unfairly shifting their responsibilities onto others.

This troublesome practice disrupts workplace dynamics, creates an undue burden on colleagues, and contributes to a toxic work culture that negatively impacts mental health. The World Health Organization has found that work-related stress, often stemming from such toxic cultures, is a major risk factor for depression and anxiety disorders.

Through her work, Kate is not only increasing awareness of weaponized incompetence and its impact on workplace mental health but also providing practical solutions for both employees and employers. The popularity of her content serves as a stark reminder of how much we need this conversation and how much we can achieve by recognizing and addressing toxic workplace behaviors. Together, we can create a healthier, more supportive, and more productive work.

Founded in 2005 by Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen, Give an Hour is a national organization dedicated to transforming mental health by building strong and healthy individuals and communities. We specifically provide mental health support to people impacted by humanmade trauma through an innovative approach that empowers those we help to actively take part in their own mental health journey.Give an Hour, PO Box 1532, Clarksburg, MD 20871

In twenty years of bartending, I never once made a frozen drink. Mysteriously, every blender was broken. What, someone made you one using it at lunch? It broke an hour ago. Sorry. In all seriousness, I first worked at a bar that was always standing room only and frequent in charge of serving over a hundred people. And a lot of bachelorette parties. If there are two bartenders and 300 to 400 people in need of liquid courage for karaoke night, there would have been riots if I took the time to make frozen drinks.

Maaaaaany years ago, back when rocks were soft and dirty was new, I took a bartending course. The instructor specifically taught that when a bar gets busy, things get broken. Friday night? Sorry, the blender is broken. I can get you one on the rocks.

What I really dislike about the current machines is how there is only one dispenser, instead of one per flavor. You end up with plain shake base at the bottom of the shake, instead of all chocolate or whatever.

Not sure why, but I always enjoyed changing the soda boxes when I worked in fast food. Then again, it was never during a massive rush, because multiple people kept an eye on it, and almost always had a box ready for hookup on the extra shelf management had just for this purpose.

Oh you just reminded me of the summer I spent cleaning dorms on campus. When we got to the apartments, which housed 4 students and had full-sized fridges, I would volunteer to clean the fridge, and everyone else would get the rest of the apartment done by the time I finished with the fridge. It was great because I hated cleaning the bathtubs.

Yep. I follow the instructions. I download the manual from the internet and follow the *advanced* instructions. I carefully open and close every user-serviceable drawer and latch to check for jams or to see if that magically fixes it. And sometimes it still insists there is a jam where no jam exists.

My home printer routinely decides it does not recognize my computer and I frequently get the pop-up saying Error: Document Did Not Print (or something like that), yet there is my document, all nice and printed.

Tiny hands definitely help! I have bigger hands for a woman, and when I worked in the library in college, getting a hand chewed on by a copier, printer, or (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth) microfiche reader was a weekly part of the otherwise awesome job. Ugh.

I worked in an office as a temp as a summer job when I was in high school and back then the toner for the photocopier had those huge strips you had to carefully pull out. After spraying ink all over myself and the floor several times, I was banned from this task. Still avoid photocopier ink cartridges like the plague now.

I came back for some in-person meetings and my manager scolded me for not sending out the instructions to order printer cartridges, how it was unacceptable and irresponsible that they had to ask me to do it remotely, etc.

Our printers have super secret drawers for paper, which often results in people going bonkers trying to figure out why their print jobs are coming out on weird paper, when they just filled the drawer with plain white letter-size paper.

Heck, even when it runs out of staples and you need to run to the school secretary to get a new cartridge of them. Some teachers would go for weeks without stapled assignments just to avoid walking to the office, asking for (and getting) an new cartridge and putting it in. Even walking to the other building on campus and getting them I could replace the cartridge and be happily copying in under 5 minutes.

Our copier is also a printer/scanner. I know how to change the paper on it, how to copy in color, how to copy multiple pages, how to scan multiple pages. I have never had to change the toner and that is fine with me!

I had a coworker who would literally bang on the copier with her fists, as if it were an old tv that if you banged the side of it enough the picture would come back to the screen, and my cube being next to the copy room made it great. Except one day she took it too far and the menu screen had a crack in it that made it inoperable. It was a paper jam but you would have thought the thing asked her for a divorce. She also quietly backed away and strangely did not have an answer when the CEO asked what happened to our copier.

We had a worker whose cubicle was closest to the printer room. I seriously told her to take the Xerox course and become a repair person and make five times what she was currently making, since she ended up being stuck doing the unjamming and easy repairs.

(In my private life, I am quite capable of making coffee, as my parents considered making good coffee an essential life skill for everyone. But I never do, as there are no coffee drinkers or coffeemakers in my household.)

I detest the smell of coffee and hate being next to anyone drinking coffee, especially the dreadful stuff that was provided for work meetings and kept in large thermos flasks. At least for the last 25 years there was hot water in flasks with tea bags, so at least the tea was fresh.

I like reaaaaaally strong coffee. Like, I will happily drink cold brew concentrate or espresso shots neat. Office coffee pots are never punchy enough so I just bring a thermos from home.

In a new workplace I usually get asked to make the coffee exactly once.

Pretty sure this is what would happen if my mom worked in an office and were asked to make the coffee. (She has worked almost her whole life, but never in a 9-5 office environment.) Her coffee is well known to kill cows at 20 paces.

I did it by putting too much ground coffee on it. My colleagues forbade me from going near it for fear i was gonna give someone a cardiac arrest from strong coffee eventualy.

I giggled at the history of the two lovelocked tea shakers.

I worked as a receptionist in an office where one person made coffee much, much stronger than everybody else did. Part of my unofficial job was noticing if he made coffee and warning people as they went past me toward the kitchen so they could water it down.

Hah, as a notorious coffee-loather in the Army, I at one time was a member of that Church. The missionaries, while preparing me for baptism, commented that they had never had a soldier have so few problems with adapting to Church policies of no coffee, tea, alcohol, or cigarettes. I loved being a member because previously fellow soldiers thought I was being a judgmental snob when I simply politely declined to join in. Apparently, once I could say it was a religious restriction, then it was totally fine!

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