let’s discuss weaponized incompetence

by Alison Green on October 5, 2023

Let’s discuss weaponized incompetence: when someone pretends not to know how to do a task well so that they won’t be asked to do it (also known as “strategic incompetence”).

Sometimes this is used for ill (like the classic example of men who can’t seem to figure out how to do their own admin work) but sometimes it’s used for good (like women deliberately not learning how to make coffee so they won’t be pigeonholed into always doing it).

So: let’s talk about times you’ve seen weaponized incompetence being used at work … or times when you’ve used it yourself. Share in the comment section!

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  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

    I’ve removed a ton of off-topic comments, on everything from the best way to order a drink at a bar to the politics of various fast food restaurant owners. Please stay reasonably on-topic!

  2. Ann O'Nemity*

    I used weaponized incompetence at my very first job at a local burger joint. I was taught how to clean the shake machine in the first week, but immediately realized it was one of the worst closing tasks. So for the next few months, every time I was assigned to clean the shake machine at closing I said that I didn’t know how to do it. So I’d get trained again, which consisted of me standing there watching someone else take apart all the complicated machine parts and clean out sticky ice cream residue.

    I should feel bad, but there were so many terrible things about that place that I just can’t muster much guilt.

    1. gnomic heresy*

      Working in fast food excuses a multitude of minor sins. You do what you have to to survive that kind of workplace, and if that one task would send you over the edge, given all the other horrible tasks you had to do that day, I don’t blame you in the least.

      1. evens*

        Well, somebody had to do it. I’m not sure why it should have been a coworker instead of Ann O’Nemity.

        1. Artemesia*

          Been there. Cleaned the shake machine. If you are a woman and do it, it will be our permanent job.

    2. Katydid*

      There is a machine at my bartending job that makes frozen drinks. This is not my main job so I just say I don’t know how to use it. I can just make you a margarita in the rocks.

      1. Sloanicota*

        Oh man I would walk out. Frozen margs is my favorite and is the reason I came in; marg on the rocks is nothing special. I feel the same way when the shake/latte machine is broken in drive-through (it’s often broken!). However, I don’t blame the employee, obviously, and I’m not rude about it. But I have often suspected it’s not broken and they just don’t want to bother haha. Vindication!!!

        1. good old days*

          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.

        2. Princess Sparklepony*

          I’m the opposite, I hate frozen drinks but love them OTR or straight up. Frozen drinks just seem icky, especially when you see that slushie machine.

      2. Donkey Hotey*

        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.

        1. Goose*

          Worked at a bar during the summer. We had so many drinks with muddled ingredients. When it was slammed, oops! No more mint to be found.

        2. Liane*

          Nope, the reason is that the shake/ice cream machine (at just about every chain) locks down when its internal programming says “Cleaning Time!” or “Heat Cycle Time!” and there is no workaround because Risk of Food Poisoning.

          (Seriously, I don’t known why folks are so into McD’s ice cream products. Even in my small rural town there is a Sonic & Baskin Robbins, both of which have a much bigger & tastier variety plus a Wal-Mart & grocery that both sell premium ice cream brands.)

          1. goddessoftransitory*

            Ironically, it may be because of the cleaning. McDonald’s has long been known for having the best tasting fountain drinks in the land, and the reason is regular and vigorous cleaning of the soda machines. It probably carries over to the shake machines as well.

            1. Artemesia*

              Glad to hear this. One time at the greasy spoon I worked in I had nothing to do and so idly took apart the spouts on the soft drink machine to clean them — found pads of well developed mossy moldy stuff — it had obviously not been cleaned in the memory of anyone working there. Been drinking bottled/canned soda ever since.

              1. miss_chevious*

                Eww! When I was a McD’s employee, the soda machines were cleaned literally every night at close.

                1. Jasmine Tea*

                  When I worked at BK we did it every night too.
                  Sometimes when business was slow we made the machine keep running to freeze the milkshakes into soft serve ice cream.

              2. Elizabeth West*

                That does not surprise me.

                When I was in high school, they had a little snack bar near the gym with fountain drinks, and twice after attending a basketball game and having a soda, I became violently ill. You’d think I would have learned after the first time, but I wasn’t sure that’s what it was, until it happened again.

            2. Guin*

              Ray Kroc started out as a milkshake-machine salesman. If you don’t know Mark Knopfler’s brilliant song, “Boom, Like That” go seek it out. Milkshake mixers, that’s my thing, yeah.

            3. LikesToSwear*

              It did when I worked at McDonald’s some 30 years ago (and cleaned said machines); we took them apart and cleaned them daily. I have heard that the machines they currently use are cleaned less often.

              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.

          2. Hannah Lee*

            There’s a whole saga out there around the McDonald’s ice cream machine issues. If you goggle it, you’ll probably come across it

            (the tldr version is the company that makes them has a locked down deal with McD’s to service them, sets them to lock until the service is done. it’s a hassle. someone has a better way, but they are being frozen out. Also, the normal cleaning process is a hassle, so they go ‘out of order’ aka employees don’t want the hassle)

        3. Grim*

          I wish I’d thought of that back when I worked at Subway. We sold smoothies, which were a bit of a pain in the ass to make, meant somebody who knew the process for making them (usually me) had to jump out of the sandwich production line to go make one and slow everything else down, and also weren’t even that good. It would’ve made life a lot easier if the blender had conveniently stopped working every day for an hour or two during the worst of the lunch rush!

      3. Baby Yoda*

        At Hardees many moons ago, to make a strawberry shake you had to start with vanilla ice cream and add strawberry syrup, then hold the cup so a metal spinner could blend it. Whoever had to make these was coated with pink syrup the rest of their shift. Everyone said they didn’t know how to do it.

        1. Elitist Semicolon*

          I hated making milkshakes the summer I worked at an ice cream parlor. Tip the cup the wrong way even by a millimeter and boom, the spinner cuts off the bottom and I’m wearing milkshake for the rest of my shift

        2. rebelwithmouseyhair*

          Well if they didn’t know how to do it and remain clean, I’d say they didn’t know how to do it. Unless they kept extra clean uniforms out the back for those who got dirty?

    3. Kimmy Schmidt*

      I definitely used this excuse to get out of changing the soda syrup boxes when I worked at a movie theater. I should feel regret but alas.

      1. Jenifer Crawford*

        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.

    4. atypical*

      Ha, I was your opposite: I loved cleaning the shake machine because I could drag it out and not have to deal with customers. Everybody else pretending that they couldn’t do it just helped me to justify taking a veeeeeeeery long time to do it!

      1. Beka Cooper*

        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.

        1. i like hound dogs*

          This reminds me of one time I wasn’t weaponizing incompetence, I was just actually incompetent. The manager of the bagel place where I had just started working asked me to do the dishes at closing. So I fastidiously began cleaning all the giant, gunked-up cream cheese tubs. Two hours later he said he’d finish up for me. When I came in the next day, someone made fun of me for how slowly I’d apparently been doing the dishes.

          But guess who never had to do the dishes again?? Kinda worked out.

        2. goddessoftransitory*

          I have no problem with this because a truly cleaned fridge is a commitment. (I assume you weren’t half heartedly wiping the handles and whistling.) When I clean the work fridge it’s good for an hour and half off the phones. Throw in the freezer and boom.

    5. Bi One, Get One*

      I had that closing task too, why were those things so greasy on the inside? I didn’t want to do things like empty the fryer grease, so I just made cleaning that machine my entire closing task. “Sorry, can’t help, still washing the shake machine parts, unless you want to switch?” No takers.

    6. Sabrena*

      So you are the reason I can never get a shake at McDs??? Machine is always down for cleaning.

      1. Liane*

        Nope, the reason is that the shake/ice cream machine (at just about every chain) locks down when its internal programming says “Cleaning Time!” or “Heat Cycle Time!” and there is no workaround because Risk of Food Poisoning.

        (Seriously, I don’t known why folks are so into McD’s ice cream products. Even in my small rural town there is a Sonic & Baskin Robbins, both of which have a much bigger & tastier variety plus a Wal-Mart & grocery that both sell premium ice cream brands.)

        1. Seeking Second Childhood*

          Worse to me is “may not legally” even though it is technically possible.

    7. Chirpy*

      I had a manager at a fast food place that always framed prep work as “but you’re so good at it”…

      I don’t know if she was just trying to get out of doing it herself or what, but it didn’t matter to me. I’d much rather spend my day chopping lettuce than making burgers or talking to people, so if she wanted to do the hard stuff while I took my time doing prep, then sure.

      1. Talks about running too much*

        I’m going to try to say this delicately……I used to work as a rehab therapist in a ward, which often involved helping patients accomplish their ‘necessary business.’ Often the patient needed both hands on a walking frame, which left my boss and I to do the rest. She was extremely competent at everything else, but always insisted that I manage the, ahem, business end of things “because you’re so much better at it.” Better at….wiping?! I always wanted to ask how she manages at home then, but I never had the nerve!

  3. Lisa*

    My favourite is the photocopier – the blank looks people will give when the paper or toner run out, and how they’ll just quietly back away when there’s a paper jam.

    1. Busy Middle Manager*

      Oh no! Some printers are horribly complicated though! I have been wrestling with one in my office and just gave up. Only certain people can connect to it. It randomly deletes users and the menus for it don’t make logical sense, like adding a user is something like “new request” and then clicking “send to” in the corner.

      1. MusicWithRocksIn*

        Maybe I should add to my resume that copiers like my smell and will let me un-jam them. The copier whisperer. Not that I need it now, it’s funny how when you work for a company that isn’t toxic all the equipment is in good repair.

        1. BookishMiss*

          I also am a copier whisperer. I firmly believe there could be more of us if people tried to learn instead of being scared.

          That said, I have had a toner cartridge decide it had a tiny bit left as I was taking it out. Let’s just say it’s a great thing I wear mostly black. So I get why folks are leery.

          1. Ally McBeal*

            I was the copier whisperer at a financial services firm that did a LOT of printing. All it entailed was (1) read the fix-it prompts on the screen and (2) follow those prompts. It’s literally so easy and I think people are just impatient.

            1. Dawn*

              Take it from somebody who works in consumer electronics, not all printers are created equal.

              Some can definitely walk you through a fix; others require a working vocabulary of Old Enochian and an active circle for safety.

              1. metadata minion*

                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.

                It took me a week to get my new label printer to work and it’s still displaying the red “no signal” error light despite happily printing out labels. The cable they first sent with the printer was either wrong or broken and caused my entire power strip to shut down out of self-defense.

                1. Sharpie*

                  Sometimes the jam is the teensiest tiniest piece torn off the corner of a previously jammed sheet. And that minute scrap might be invisible without literally deconstructing the copier or printer.

                  I used to work in IT hardware, I’ve had this more times than I can count!

                2. Bronze Betty*

                  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.

                  My trust in technology is very low.

                3. Tiny Soprano*

                  Opening and closing every hatch and drawer is one of my favourite pieces of arcane photocopier magic. It feels satisfying and it works more often than not.

                4. pandop*

                  Oh yes, even if you have cleared the jam, the printer in our office won’t work until you have opened and closed all the little doors.

              2. TX_TRUCKER*

                OMG, yes! We have a lease on a “fancy” printer that includes in-person technology support. The tech guy is here so often, we gave him his own cubicle.

              3. Lizzie Bennet*

                Are we talking salt circle here? (And maybe some form of iron. Just to be fully prepared.)

              4. Ally McBeal*

                I mean, I believe you, but the copier at this specific company had very detailed instructions and illustrations. All I did was read the directions and follow them. Sometimes I had to poke around for a minute before I found the correct button/lever/drawer/whatever, but considering I was making $65k when the rest of my coworkers were making double that, minimum, to research and analyze very complicated business models, it’s not unreasonable to hope that they could’ve used their big brains (that make them big money) to do things OTHER than just their job descriptions.

                1. Observer*

                  but considering I was making $65k when the rest of my coworkers were making double that, minimum, to research and analyze very complicated business models, it’s not unreasonable to hope that they could’ve used their big brains (that make them big money) to do things OTHER than just their job descriptions.

                  Not really – when someone is making that much money, it may be cheaper to call in a tech.

                  Add that “poking around” when you really don’t have experience with the innards of hardware of this sort can wind up with damage as well, and it’s actually sensible.

            2. AnonORama*

              Honestly, I was the copier whisperer at my old job…because I have tiny hands and could reach in and pull out the misfed paper. Which I did not enjoy, because I’d wind up coated in black powder at best and scratched at worst. But I would do it, because everyone knew I could and would make it sound like a project would tank/they’d lose their job if they couldn’t get their copies. I admit, no one has noticed my baby hands at this job and I hope they don’t! (We don’t do a ton of work on paper anyway, but we still have a copier and it still jams.)

              1. GammaGirl1908*

                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.

              2. misspiggy*

                Ohh that makes sense – I was always the paper unjammer because of my narrow and bendy Ehlers Danlos hands.

            3. Brain Flogged*

              I’m usually very good fixing thins, and had been know as a happy Follower of Manuals, but printers? Ha. They are evil and like to mess with you.
              No matter how closely you follow the damm instructions, they don’t what you to fix then, and will lie to you face.
              Once, after I tried everything in the book and found exactly zero reasons why the printer was not printing, I resorted to calling the expert, who came, touched the print button, aaand…the haunted thing just worked. At least, until the tech smug smirk walked away, at wich point, it just made a “WHIRRR” noise and stopped mid print.
              I’m still not over it.

              1. Sharpie*

                The number of times I responded to a call-out only for the tech to fix itself once I arrived…

                I think everyone who has ever worked in IT, whether hardware or software, has those stories!

                1. LikesToSwear*

                  I am perfectly willing to threaten tech with a service call if I can’t make it work, and stuff will often start working for my coworkers when I come over to see what the problem is.

                2. whingedrinking*

                  A friend of mine has said that some things are “horses”. As in, some people can simply get on a horse and go places, and other people…can’t. There just seems to be some kind of intuition or something. Besides printers, other examples include power drills, hand mixers, and sewing machines. (Can attest to the hand mixer thing. I really don’t know how to explain how to use it other than “hold it in your hand and turn on the switch”, but I’ve seen them go flying across the room.)

              2. Richard Barrell*

                Be thankful it didn’t wait until the tech was out of the building to stop working.

          2. Covert Copier Whisperer*

            I amas well, but I have made sure no one else knows that. I’ll wait till no one else is around them un-jam it. In previous jobs where everyone knew I could troubleshoot, I was always getting interrupted to help.

            1. Blocking it out*

              Same here! I sit in the cube by the copier and while I CAN solve a bunch of problems (because like someone above I actually read the directions on the copier), I will absolutely NOT stand up because of your loud wailing and moaning. I might help if you come ask me directly, but mostly I pretend I can’t hear your ongoing drama while you try to unjam those labels.

          3. goddessoftransitory*

            I think a lot of people are afraid they’re going to be held responsible for inadvertently destroying the printer–they are completely nonintuitive where I’m concerned and I have no idea if I just entered the sequence that means SELF DESTRUCT WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.

            1. Jessastory*

              at my school the admin in charge of calling for printer repairs has specifically requested everyone not try to fix jams since it’s easy to get paper shreds stuck somewhere you have to disassemble the dang thing to get them out again.

          4. Hannah Lee*

            Sometimes I feel like people just don’t have the patience for, or don’t want to be bothered to, think through the problem logically and ‘debug’ it step by step or sometimes, with newer machines, simply follow the prompts on the printer screen.

        2. Kesnit*

          I co-oped while I was in undergrad. About a dozen people with technical degrees in the office, and none of them could fix the copier. I always joked that if the students couldn’t get a job in our field, we could all become Xerox repair people…

        3. I Have RBF*

          This is me. I can unjam them, change toner without making a mess, and unscrew the print queue. Printers too. HP was good. Ricoh was good. But I can’t remember the minor brand that hated me and everyone else, no matter where I worked.

          1. Syfy Geek*

            The best printer I ever worked with was a Ricoh. We called it “Ricoh Suave” (yes, it was the 90’s) .

        5. Marzipan Dragon*

          Yes, copier whisperer is a real thing. The faculty used to call me to stand next to the copier. Not make their copies or anything, they just believed the copier loved me and it would perform it’s best if it could see me.

          1. Brain Flogged*

            Once upon a time, I tryed to befriend the machine. Gave it a name, and even printed and laminated an office badge (with an actual photo), but old “gertie” was having none of it.

        6. T'Cael Zaanidor Kilyle*

          I work with an Apple Whisperer. She doesn’t even have to DO anything; she just has to be in the general vicinity and Apple products start behaving.

      2. Jenna Webster*

        Agree!! I am the opposite of a printer-whisperer. If there is a problem, I will make it worse. I don’t know if it’s really weaponized incompetence so much as actual incompetence, but possibly, since I handle other technology just fine.

        1. RVA Cat*

          It becomes weaponized when you drag it out to a field with a baseball bat while blaring gangsta rap. “Die MFer…!”

            1. rebelwithmouseyhair*

              The guy who programmed it is a serial liar, makes sense that the machines he programmes lie too!

        2. IneffableBastard*

          It depends on the printer! I’ve had nightmarish issues with several of them, and loved two wholeheartedly — even when they misbehaved, it was something straightforward and easy to fix. Even extremely tech-savvy people (think people who can do magic with cables AND coding) have hard times with some printers.

        3. Shakti*

          Me too! Printers stop working basically instantly around me and it was especially frustrating when I was an admin and dealing with the printer was my job, I definitely might have indicated it was the individual people’s jobs to deal with the printer themselves so I wouldn’t have to lol

      3. What, what?*

        Printers are the liminal space between the real world and the digital world. Portals this powerful aren’t destined for stability.

    2. higheredadmin*

      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.

    3. A Girl Named Fred*

      Agh, the COPIERS. The number of times I’ve had to tell people, “There are really good directions on how to do that onscreen, gotta run to a meeting/finish this document/catch Jane before she heads out!” and power walk away before they can protest is too high.

      1. many bells down*

        Yeah our copier not only plays a little step by step video, but when you open the front of it, whatever toner is empty will have its little door pop open and gently slide the cartridge out so you can grab it. It is SO EASY and yet I have come back from days off to find the new cartridge sitting on the table in the copy room and the copier refusing to work because it’s out of toner.

    4. Common Sense Not Common*

      I agree wholeheartedly. Copiers/printers are not rocket ships.

      I had a manager from another department come to me to change the toner because she couldn’t do it because she “wears nice clothes.”

      She’d also often print after hours and leave the machine jammed. However the machine had a queue screen where it listed the name of the person printing. We could you of easily see it was her.

      1. Cats stole my croissant*

        Can’t remember what tv show it was, but they tested the “it’s not rocket science / brain surgery” thing. Groups of actual rocket scientists & brain surgeons were asked to photocopy a broadsheet newspaper double sided onto A4. Chaos ensued.

    5. Admin Lackey*

      Yes, in my office it’s known that the printer and I get along, like it’s a wild horse that I’ve tamed, and so I’m the one who always fixes issues and replaces supplies. I’ve tried to just wait the others out but they’re willing to wait much longer than I am.

    6. Jane Bingley*

      This is one of those jobs where I found it beneficial to become the copier wizard. They always seem to break in the middle of an incredibly important job, and becoming the person in the office who can get it up and running again right away meant people owed me many, many favours that I didn’t hesitate to cash in on!

    7. former academic*

      Ironically, when I was a graduate student there was a rule in the copy room that you basically weren’t allowed to try to fix anything on your own but had to alert the print room staffer, because otherwise there were crazy issues like someone loading the colored paper with transparency sheets and forgetting to remove them after printing. As a faculty member we did not have that rule, but staff did monitor when the noises in the copy room went from “ugh, a paper jam” to strings of profanity and step in at that point.

      1. Stay-at-Homesteader*

        Hahaha yup. As a former higher ed admin, there’s a very fine line between “you should handle that yourself,” and “please back away before you do any damage and I have to actually get a service rep in here to fix this.” Sometimes it’s weaponized incompetence, sometimes it’s just straight incompetence and it’s better for everyone if I just handle it.

    8. Ann O'Nemity*

      There is a reason that the Office Space printer smash scene resonates with so many people. Those things frustrate people to the point of destruction.

    9. FrivYeti*

      Funny story – back when I was a temp I was pretty good at my job. I got called in by the agency and told my current placement was replacing a temp who got fired by the place they were placed at, and they’d picked me specifically because I was reliable, so it was critically important to do a good job.

      It turned out that there had been a paper jam, and the previous temp had ignored the rule that you’re supposed to get a technician because “it was just a paper jam.” Fifteen minutes later, they had done $2,000 worth of damage to the machine and taken it offline for two weeks.

      I still don’t know how they managed that.

        1. FrivYeti*

          I legitimately don’t know what they did. I think it involved escalating attempts to remove parts, breaking those parts in the process, and then trying to jam them back into the printer.

      3. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        I was so mad when my office brought in this new one where an error message is sent to the copier company team and they fix it. If you touch it, the warranty is void.
        I CAN FIX IT MYSELF!

    11. Antilles*

      Oh yes the photocopier, the best argument in favor of weaponized incompetence.

      At my first professional job, I got moved from a cube into an office, the office immediately adjacent to the printer. The VERY FIRST thing someone said while I was moving my stuff into that office, so immediately that that I was still plugging in cords? Never, ever fix the printer because otherwise you’ll become the Printer Guy and always be asked to fix it. Being young and inexperienced, I took this as a joke rather than sage wisdom. A couple days later, there was a paper jam and still being young and inexperienced, I offered to help by helping to decipher the error message and following the obvious diagram showing exactly where/how to remove the jammed piece of paper. And then…yep, word got around that “he knows how to fix the printer”, I instantly was the Printer Guy, and got interrupted every single time anything went wrong with the printer. Took me several months to break everybody of that habit.

    12. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      Ha, this reminds me of a printer issue at a previous job. I went full-time remote, so I sent out instructions for the in-office tasks I did (it was all recorded in a shared, online notebook).

      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.

      So I forwarded the email with the link to the appropriate page in the shared digital notebook that we all used regularly…that I had already sent out twice.

      Oh, and since we had an actual office manager at HQ (I had been in a specialist role since I started), the instructions were pretty much, “Ask Office Manager to order what you need.” Not sure why it didn’t occur to them to contact the office manager (instead of asking me).

      I kindof regret not adding a passive-aggressive note like, “Manager let me know ya’ll missed this email twice, but you can always look in the shared notebook we all use regularly for stuff like this. Or, since it’s an office management task, you could try asking Office Manager in the future, since ordering supplies is part of his job.”

    13. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

      Or when they call IT because it’s our job to know all about the printers and thus know how to refill them.

      My personal belief is printers are evil and like to nom their own toner cartridges but they don’t require specialist help to fill them with paper. Don’t fill up our call queue with ‘the printer is saying out of paper’ unless you want a ‘PICNIC’ tag affixed to your calls.

      (Problem In Chair Not In Computer)

      3. La Triviata*

        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.

    14. Starfleet HVAC Engineering*

      This drives me crazy. Printers now have screens that will show you step-by-step how to fix the problem, yet everyone just walks away.

    15. don'tbeadork*

      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.

      And you can bet that I promoted my copy job ahead of the dolt who wasn’t there and didn’t bother to either get the staples or cancel their job so others could finish their copies.

    16. Itsa Me, Mario*

      Oh god, I lovvvvvvveeeeeeeee messing around with the copier. I don’t know if there’s any term for the opposite of weaponized incompetence (weaponized over-competence? strategic hyper-ability?), but if there is, getting the copier to work is my toxic “thing I know how to do that nobody else knows how to do”. Which isn’t particularly relevant to my job at this point, and which is probably not a good use of my time. But I love it and love being the one person in the office with the magic touch on the copiers.

    17. Too Long Til Retirement*

      EEhhhh I am a Millennial, fairly tech-savvy, and I still have issues with printers. We have a large scale plotter that refuses to print in color properly. We have had a tech out to “fix” it 3 times. He’ll get it working, and then we go to use it the very next day and it’s like he wasn’t even there. I have given up on that particular piece of equipment.

      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!

    18. Former Young Lady*

      I worked with a guy who made about twice as much money as I did, because he was presumably a super!business!genius!

      He came to my desk one day looking like he’d seen a ghost. “FYL, the printer is BROKEN!”

      I walked over to the copy room with him. It said right there on the display screen: “Load paper.”

      I asked if he’d tried to load paper. He gave me the ghost look again.

    19. Saberise*

      Our printer is fancy and shows pictures on the screen on what to open, pull out, etc to unjam it. Very easy if you do what it says yet no one can manage to do it and just walks away.

      1. Observer*

        It’s surprisingly easy to break something, even when following the instructions. Our printers have almost no moving parts – we mostly have the kind where toner and drum are one unit, so if anything does go wrong, it generally means you absolutely need a tech so just message them and save everyone some time. But they can all change paper and most people can manage the toner cartridges. (I know that having separate units are supposed to be cheaper. But dealing with the inevitable ruined drums quickly eats up all the savings and then some.)

        Our big floor standing copiers are another whole kettle of fish. Even changing paper can be a bit fraught, because at least one tray has 2 stacks of paper, so it’s surprisingly easy to not align the paper properly. Getting the toner refilled without making a mess is easy *if you know how*, and it’s not just a matter of following the instructions. As for jams ans the like? We have an ironclad rule as to who is allowed to even try. Because even if you just follow the instructions, you can mess stuff up very quickly and easily and the cost to fix it is high.

        TLDR; People not touching their printers is not necessarily weaponized incompetence, and when talking about large copiers, it’s almost certainly not incompetence at all, but rather some significant rules and training (official or experiential).

    20. Apt Nickname*

      What gets me is when people leave a printer jammed with paperwork that has their name on it!

    21. Liane*

      Back when I was a new graduate (just before That Meteor that ended the non-avian dinosaurs), I got a humor book called Welcome to Our Company. One of the cartoons was New Employee warily approaching the copier, with both thinking, “Not YOU again!”

    22. Meghan*

      I am generally someone who will add more paper, fix a jam, replace the toner, all that fun stuff. But the admin at my current job is VERY territorial over everything, including the copier. I tried to add paper during my first week here and was very explicitly told to NOT do that. So… I don’t anymore.

      (And this is just a normal copier I’ve used basically all my life. It isn’t temperamental when you try to add paper or fix a jam.)

    23. goddessoftransitory*

      I frankly am terrified of a lot of printers–I feel like Jane Fonda in that scene in 9 To 5 where the entire copy room goes Skynet on her and she’s staring in horror with no idea what’s happening.

    24. Ann*

      I’ve broken two printers at home. I am absolutely not getting in there and trying to fix a complicated office printer. I can put more paper into the tray and hope for the best – have to note one of my home printers bit the dust after a paper replacement turned into a major jam – but anything more? Nope. I’m saving everyone trouble by keeping away.

    25. anon as I've told this story at work*

      This is not a story of weaponized incompetence, unless someone at our company helpdesk was intentionally mishearing me, but I called in a problem with the “coffee machine” and got back an email saying they’d managed to solve the paper jam – someone had written down “copy machine”, which was evidently also simultaneously broken.

    26. Katherine*

      I’ve had to figure out copiers in Japanese and Chinese, so I have very little patience for people who act like replacing paper is some arcane magic.

      1. Beebis*

        We got a new one a while back and I’ve no idea why it defaulted to Turkish, but my coworkers got a crash course in the language while figuring out how to get it to display in English

    27. PCloadletter*

      I used to work with a bunch of engineers and they would print something and stand at the printer staring at it wondering where their print was. it printed in a slightly lower tray so you had to bend down to see the paper. they wouldn’t think to look for the paper, they would just stand there and stare, thinking it would magically appear on top of the printer or something I guess. so many times I had to show them where their print is…multiple times per person. like open your eyes people! and I was the one looked down upon in that company because I wasn’t an engineer.

    28. Ancient Llama*

      First job out of college at govt contractor (early 90s so normal killing trees level printing plus multi-copy 100s of pages proposals).
      Copy room staffer often had too much to do, so some of us learned enough to help keep things moving, like how to use the binder machine or some maintence tasks for the high end giant copier/printer.
      1. Incompetent and obnoxious exec: one day I come in copy room to find exec by the copier that wasn’t working just standing waiting. Staffer was on a priority thing so would be 30 mins to an hour. Was exec just going to stand (at his salary)? Yes, I believe so given other behavior by him. I look at copier, see it is an issue (probably a jam) I’ve dealt with before successfully due to screen instructions, so get to work clearing (I needed my printouts too). As I’m working the exec is making comment/suggestion/direction throughout (so he can read the instructions but chose to stand, and can reason options for copier issues but can’t actually do work). Ugh.
      -incompetent at the wrong moment: a little over a year into the job, so I had replaced the powder toner cartridges multiple times by now, the copier gave the replace toner error. Staffer on other things so I say I’ll get it. The old toner box was not in fact fully empty and I unfortunately managed to turn it over while still pulling it out (a second later and I would have cleared the copier and just dumped hard-to-clean black powder on the floor). But no, tiny black powder all through the copier that was half the size of my 88 Buick. They never told me the bill, but shortly after everyone was told ONLY the staffer could change the toner, no exceptions. I felt really bad. So not exactly malicious incompetence but now no one else had to fake they didn’t know how to (yes I’m looking at you, exec).

    29. Slovenly Braid Cultist*

      I was regarded with utter AWE at one job because my photocopies didn’t have the thick black streaks across them that everyone else’s did. (I never put wite-out on originals and knew to clean the feeder strip as well as the big glass.)

    30. PartTimeJedi*

      When I was doing my student teaching, one of the first things my mentor teacher did was teach me how to fix the copier when it jammed. 13 years in education later, and it’s still one of the most valuable skills I’ve ever learned.

    31. Elizabeth West*

      I used to threaten ours at OldExjob. If a paper jam was being particularly difficult, I would just say, “Welp, guess I’ll have to go get the forklift and take somebody outside!” The stuck piece would magically come out, lol.

    32. Mrs. Hawiggins*

      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.

      Can we also talk about the 3 millimeters of coffee someone will leave in the carafe to turn into a toxic sludge instead of making more? Or has that been done already…

    33. Reluctant Mezzo*

      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.

  4. ScruffyInternHerder*

    There’s a certain department here that seems to be incapable of the whole “you drain the pot you make new” coffee rule. Dilbert from the 90s would fit right in, and they’re all Dilbert, no signs of women anywhere in that group. Its not even a certain age demographic, as they manage to hit at least 3 different named demographics (Boomer, Gen-X, Millenial).

    Its amusing to watch them ignore the admins telling them to make their own coffee and get public coffee making lessons from the president, who cannot grasp why the group of men who consume the most coffee cannot be bothered to make it because its “women’s work”. Because said company president sees it as “coffee drinker’s work, what the h3ll do you mean “women’s work”? Women’s work means whatever they’re doing for their job, not the parts you don’t want to do.”

    1. iglwif*

      An office I used to work in had a coffee-making flowchart on the wall. The CEO made it, so it looked exactly like the “if X then Y” code flowcharts in his office!

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        I love this!

        In any job where there’s been a coffee machine, I am very clear that, as a tea drinker, I take no responsibility for coffee making.

        (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.)

        1. Kacihall*

          I tried making terrible coffee the first few times (well, rather I didn’t try to make GOOD coffee; I legitimately didn’t know how to make it) but it was for the customers, and though all 3 guys I worked with also drank a ton, if I didn’t make it the customers would complain it was out.

          1. Elaine B.*

            My first job out of college I was the only woman on a small team of other guys who were also fresh from college. They tried to get me to make the coffee. Convo went something like this:
            “Why don’t you ever make coffee?”
            “I don’t drink coffee.”
            “Well WE all drink coffee, if you made some occasionally it would be nice.”
            “Does this mean you’ll start bringing me Diet Cokes to be nice?”
            “Maybe.”
            “Okay, when that happens then maybe I’ll make a pot of coffee.”

            Never got a DC from those boys, but they never bothered me about it again either.

        2. Magenta Sky*

          One (retail) place I worked kept a pot of hot (and generally fresh) coffee for customers. It was very popular. The owner decided we should all take turns making coffee, but I really don’t know the first thing about brewing toxic bean waste (how can anything smell that good and taste that bad?). I explained that to him, but he wasn’t impressed. So I went over the procedure, as I understood it: “This container that I put the filter and the grounds in are this size for a reason. I fill it up level to the top, right?” I was excused from making coffee.

          1. misquoted*

            I work remotely now, so it doesn’t matter, but it used to: I have no idea how to make coffee, other than with a Keurig. And I refuse to learn, as I don’t drink coffee. When I worked in restaurants, I learned how to do it, but have since forgotten. No way was I going to be the one who makes it, simply because I was one of a few women in an engineering firm.

          2. Nessun*

            Oh my goodness yesss I cannot agree enough – coffee smells wonderful (especially Irish Cream imho), but it tastes AWFUL to me. I have never understood this…it gives me such cognitive dissonance.

            1. goddessoftransitory*

              Me three! I never have been able to choke down even half a cup but the smell is wonderful.

              1. Alice in Crazyland*

                Am I the only person in the universe who finds the smell of coffee redolent of used urinal odor? It actually makes me gag to even smell the foul stuff!

                1. Daily reader, rare commenter*

                  I dislike both the taste and odour of coffee. It smells like cat pee to me.

                2. EllenD*

                  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.

                3. SJ*

                  I am a lifelong coffee drinker, but when I was pregnant that was exactly how it smelled to me! I couldn’t handle being in the house when it was brewing. After I had the baby it went right back to being appealing, it was so weird!

            3. Reluctant Mezzo*

              There was an SF novel called THE MOTE IN GOD’S EYE where these tiny aliens were able to fix the coffee pot where the coffee would taste as good as it smelled. The spaceship fell apart Because Reasons, but they salvaged that coffee pot!

        3. Nina*

          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.

          1. iglwif*

            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.

            1. Techno Support*

              This is both me and my mom, and is why neither of us drink coffee not made by ourselves or my dad (who knows the drill). At work her colleagues think she doesn’t drink coffee; it’s actually just that the coffee there is so weak that she won’t touch it.

            1. whingedrinking*

              I’d ask how, but I’ve seen some surprising equipment fails. When I worked at a coffee shop, two iced tea shakers got stuck together and no one could separate them for a week. (I apparently quite impressed my supervisor by figuring out that someone had stacked them when they were still hot from the sanitizer; I just ran them through again and took them apart.)

              1. Brain Flogged*

                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.

          3. Hot Flash Gordon*

            I make very strong coffee as well. My poor dad ended up making his own when he would visit me because he would get such a stomach ache from it.

          4. Esmae*

            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.

            1. Reluctant Mezzo*

              I told my brother (retired Navy) that there was a rumor that Navy coffee was interchangeable with N0. 2 diesel. He never did give a straight answer…

        4. Your Mate in Oz*

          I took the opposite approach. I cheerfully said “I don’t drink coffee but I’m happy to learn how to clean the machine”. Somehow they never got around to teaching me.

        5. Nikki*

          Yes, same here. I drink tea only so I never make coffee in my office. Usually it’s not an issue but once in a while when the boss is busy and wants a pot for clients coming in he’ll ask someone to make it… but never me!

      2. I Have RBF*

        Ooooh, I always wanted to make one of those!

        I often made the coffee in the office. But, that was mostly fair because I was the one who drank it first thing when I got in, and the pot was either nearly empty, empty, or still in the drainer. I did get irked when men (I’m AFAB) would wait until I got in and made coffee before they would get theirs! It got so bad at one place that I would start the pot, go back to my desk for 15 minutes, and when I came back the entire pot was gone. So here I was, still uncaffeinated, making a second pot so I could actually get some.

        I started waiting for it to finish so I could get the first cup. The three guys would do the “grab while brewing” thing, and my coffee would end up being weak. I couldn’t win.

        1. Dawn*

          I made it at at least one job, but it’s because nobody else in the office could make good coffee.

    2. Soontoberetired*

      it is why I never learned to make coffee. we now have coffee for sale in the office, no more coffee pots

    3. And the Skeletons Are… Part of It*

      If making coffee is women’s work, drinking coffee is women’s drink

      2. MigraineMonth*

        “Sorry, you’ll have to come back later. I’m engaged in very important work.” *takes the world’s longest sip of coffee*

    5. skipjack*

      At my old (US-based) job, coffee making was Europeans’ work!

      Our French co-worker made the best coffee – which I realized after I started working from home was because he was making it espresso-strength.

      1. Reluctant Mezzo*

        I used to fire up the espresso machine to do taxes. This was my husband’s cue to take the kids to the movies, preferably a double feature.

    6. Elsewise*

      I used to get asked to make coffee occasionally at an old job, because “we all chip in”. People would get very confused when I’d just stare at them and say that I didn’t know how. I’m sure I could have figured it out if I’d tried hard enough, but honestly I resented being asked because I don’t drink coffee! Why should I pitch in to make the coffee I’m not going to drink? Eventually people stopped asking me and focused more on convincing the men who drank coffee that they needed to also make it.

      1. DEJ*

        I know a member of a church well known for its ‘no coffee’ policies and when he was asked to make the coffee he did make an effort, and was ultimately never asked to make the coffee again.

        1. Alice in Crazyland*

          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!

          1. Selena81*

            I’ve sometimes half-seriously thought of joining such a church just so my no-alcohol no-meat no-sex life would become brag-worthy

        2. Techno Support*

          There’s a classic story of a member of that church joining the army and being ordered to make coffee for a general. He does his best and brings it to the general, the general takes a sip, hands the coffee back and tells the private to take it to the tank maintenance crew so they can use it to lube the tanks.

      2. Maker of bad coffee*

        I think I’ve told this story before, but early in my career when I was asked to make the coffee for a big meeting at work, I told the meeting coordinator that I’d never made coffee before because I don’t drink it, so I didn’t know how. They said, don’t stress over it, just follow the instructions on the coffee can, which I did. The instructions said how many cups of coffee grounds to use for the number of servings you were making. Being young and a little naive, I assumed that by “cups,” the instructions meant the little scoop that comes in the can. Unfortunately, they actually meant measuring cups, not the coffee scoop, so I didn’t use anywhere near enough and I ended up preparing a large urn of hot brown water. I hadn’t done it on purpose, but they definitely never asked me to make coffee again.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          The first time I tried making coffee I didn’t realize the purpose of the filter. So I brewed crunchy hot brown water.

          They made the coffee-making instructions more detailed after that.

        2. Hot Flash Gordon*

          “and I ended up preparing a large urn of hot brown water”

          You’d fit right in at a Lutheran pot luck. You would be the toast of the church for your wonderful coffee making skills.

        3. WantonSeedStitch*

          It can be hard to make coffee in the morning before you’ve had coffee. I have on occasion made a pot of hot water because I’ve forgotten to put in beans (at home) or grounds (at the office) before pressing the Start button.

      3. Aggretsuko*

        I have been saying this for years. Don’t ask the non-coffee drinker to provide you with a delicious cup of coffee. I hate the smell, I don’t want to drink it, I refuse to learn.

        One of my former coworkers, who also did not drink coffee, got bitched out for this one.

        1. Chirpy*

          THIS. I used to be the one who always got asked to be the coffee maker at church for some reason, despite hating coffee, not drinking it, and not really knowing how those giant ancient percolators work. They never provided even hot water if I wanted tea, I was lucky if someone else remembered cold water. (Maybe because I was the youngest woman? IDK.)

          (I have since learned to make drinkable French press coffee, but I will never, ever let on at work or anywhere else, because I still almost never drink coffee, especially not the pre-gound nastiness most offices have.

    7. Trillian*

      For my generation of women one rule of success was “Never let them know you can type.” Unless your job was an actual admin job.

      2. I Have RBF*

        This was me. I didn’t admit I could do anything clerical, especially typing, until PCs were in use and I could charge a premium for knowing how to use the software. If they made me try, I did sloooow hunt and peck.

      3. Big Bird*

        “Games Mother Never Taught You”–I remember that book! If they ask you to make coffee make the worst coffee ever–spill the coffee if you are asked to serve it. My favorite, though, if a man gives you stuff to file and filing is not part of your job, put all the papers in a corner with a big sign saying “Fergus’ Stuff”.

        1. Not today*

          Oh my – i think i still have that book! It actually was helpful for my first post-college job, as no one in my family had ever worked in a big/office organization.

      5. Psaradactyl*

        Yep. I worked IT starting in the late 90s. I’m AFAB and was very young at the time. My boss (a man, FWIW) told me to never let on that I was a fairly quick (though still hunt & peck) typist, because I’d end up being pulled off all IT-related tasks and stuck doing transcription for the doctors, who dictate their notes and rely on transcriptionists to get those notes into the computer system. I was a hardware tech, and the LAST thing I wanted to do was end up stuck in the transcription department.

    8. Donkey Hotey*

      Two things about coffee:

      1- Old office had a sign admonishing “You stop the flow, you make some mo’!”

      2- We would have huge discussions about how strong or weak people would make the coffee. It took explaining that it is always possible to make strong coffee weaker. It is impossible to make weak coffee stronger.

      1. Magenta Sky*

        “It is impossible to make weak coffee stronger.”

        Oh, it could be done. You could boil it down, for instance. Mind you, it would be undrinkably burnt at that point (not that coffee is drinkable anyway, IMO), but it would be stronger.

        1. Dawn*

          Sure, but most offices lack the necessary equipment to boil it down unless you want to try doing it in the microwave, which I reeeeeally don’t recommend.

      3. dawbs*

        I may confess now to the college sin of adding instant coffee to coffee when I needed to be more coffee-ed.
        It was awful.
        But it was an improvement of swallowing instant coffee crystals, which we also did. (god bless the inventors of energy drinks.

        1. Hannah Lee*

          The manager at my first work study job in college did that.
          She also had a mug that seemed to be as old as she was that she never rinsed out… black coffee, triple strength (Folgers? crystals added to the brewed stuff by the scooful) day after day after day for however long she worked at that job. I think by the time I got there the mug held an ounce or two less than it used to, because there was so much staining built up on the inside.

            1. starsaphire*

              “If the spoon won’t stand up on its own in the middle of the cup, it ain’t strong enough.”

              – Master Chief Somebodyorother

        2. Nina*

          When I was in grad school my routine used to be, on arrival, go to the coffee machine in the staff lounge that we were allowed to access if we didn’t get in anyone’s way, put three shots of espresso and a little bit of hot water in a cup, go to office. Repeat two or three times over the rest of the day. I also kept and used a stash of caffeine pills because I tried the ‘eat coffee crystals’ thing and it was not for me.

          1. Richard Barrell*

            I’ve heard that chocolate coated coffee beans are also a very palatable way to get a large amount of caffeine in.

            1. Reluctant Mezzo*

              Yes. I knew one president of a local Jaycee chapter who would feed them to her board of directors. I believe they won several awards that year.

      4. Don't make me come over there*

        Our office had a sign that said “You kill the joe, you make some mo”, with a little handwritten addendum that said “unless it’s fo”, because there was a person who would come downstairs and make a full 12-cup pot of coffee at 4 in the afternoon. Then we’d dump 11 cups at 5:30.

        1. Reluctant Mezzo*

          What, you didn’t keep them for the next day? (My husband would drink the Catholic church’s Saturday bingo coffee on Mondays and Tuesdays, which probably didn’t help his blood pressure any).

    9. Anonymous Engineer*

      At a previous (manufacturing, so I was one of 2 women in the building) job my office was next to the coffee maker. I took great joy in telling every man who asked me why there wasn’t coffee made that I don’t drink coffee so I don’t care when it’s empty and don’t know how to make it.

    10. Not A Girl Boss*

      At an old job, we had mugs and a Keurig. All of us reasonable adults would put our mug in the dishwasher once we were finished with it. The admin would pop a soap pod in and start the dishwasher on her way out each day.
      The senior managers, especially CEO, insisted on drinking coffee out of the community / customer mugs, then leaving them in the sink for someone to magically clean up.

      One day, the dishwasher “broke” and the (normally highly competent) admin was somehow utterly unable to get someone in to service the dishwasher… for over 6 months. She went out and got the most awful disposable paper coffee cups imaginable for use ‘while the dishwasher was being repaired’ and then disappeared the company ceramic mugs.
      The reasonable adults switched to bringing our own mugs from home and hand washing them in the sink. The managers would stand around each day with their little crumply dissolving paper cups whining about how they missed ceramic mugs and [admin] really needed to get on with the repair.

    11. Zombeyonce*

      How are they consuming so much coffee if they aren’t making it themselves? Are admins just giving up and doing it for them? That makes me sad.

    12. Jenifer Crawford*

      Fabulous! How do we get a million more company presidents like this?

      The Dilberts you work with might learn a lesson or two if I worked there. I’m female, but don’t drink coffee. The one time I made it, our incredibly polite minister gagged it down, coffee grounds and all.

    13. Sharpie*

      I drink coffee. Instant coffee (it’s only recently that things like Nespresso and Keurig have become kinda popular in the UK). If I’m faced with an actual coffee machine, I don’t have the first clue and it’ll be horrible.

      FWIW, I don’t like filter coffee, I find it too strong and bitter.

    14. Past tense sneak*

      By the time you have an entire three generations of a team declaring a task like coffee making “women’s work” you have a deeply entrenched sexist issue.

      I’d be attacking that attitude problem very fast, the coffee machine would be part of the scorched earth ground – gift them their own coffee machine and tell them to stop using anyone else’s. Make it a three cup tiny pot.

    15. OMG, Bees!*

      As one who drinks energy drinks, I love that I get to dodge all the coffee wars on this site. I would (honestly) say “I don’t know how” if someone asked me to make coffee. I imagine any coffee I make would be like budget gas station quality.

  5. iglwif*

    I had a boss (and before that he was my grandboss) who did not know how to touch type and refused to learn, so instead of sending an email [this was before Teams and the options were email or phone] he would unexpectedly call you and ask you questions for which you were totally unprepared. He seemed to like catching people off guard like this; the rest of us did not like it.

    He also refused to learn how to annotate documents in Adobe Acrobat, use Track Changes in Word, or add comments to a PowerPoint, so when you sent him anything to review you would get it back as a scanned PDF full of illegible handwritten annotations and/or Word or PowerPoint with red and green text all through it. He was the CEO, so we gritted our teeth and dealt with it — and many other things, including his habit of asking people to “just take 15 minutes and put together” things that could not possibly be put together in less than half a workday.

    My very first encounter with weaponized incompetence, though, was long before I knew there was a name for it: my little brother didn’t like drying dishes, so to get out of it, he would drop something and break it so I would get mad and tell him to go away. (He is now a grown-ass man and no longer does that sh!t.)

      1. Barb*

        If you have to wash the dishes
        (What an awful boring chore)
        If you have to wash the dishes
        And you drop one on the floor
        Maybe they won’t let you wash the dishes anymore!
        -Shel Silverstein

        From memory, apologies if misquoted

        1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

          it’s almost perfect, but not quite.

          (Honestly, I’m not sure if you misquoted, but I wanted to share MY Shel poem that’s been living in my head since fifth grade!)

          1. Panicked*

            I very frequently think “I cannot go to school today, said little Peggy Ann McKay. I have the measles and the mumps, a gash, a rash, and purple bumps!” everytime I don’t want to go to work.

            I adore Shel’s work.

            2. Trealla*

              So do I! I always stop there, because I don’t remember the next line.

              But I also have Come In, Hug o’ War and I’m Being Eaten By A Boa Constrictor memorized.

          4. goddessoftransitory*

            There was a little girl named Abigail, who was taking a drive through the country with her parents…

            (Abigail REALLY weaponizes her ability to not live without a pony!)

        2. Really?*

          My sister tried this. My mother replaced the everyday china with melamine which was more or less indestructible.

          1. iglwif*

            Yeah I’ve often thought since that what I *should* have done was get the (melamine) camping dishes out and stop using the regular ones. For some reason 14-year-old me did not think of that!

    2. Richard Hershberger*

      I have some sympathy for not knowing how to touch type and not wanting to learn at an advanced age. I took typing in eighth grade. This was during the Carter administration. At that time, typing was still regarded as a vocational class for secretarial work. The class was not only touch typing but stuff like standard business letter format. I shudder to think what it would take to learn it at my advanced age. It would be possible, but legitimately a lot of work. This excuse wears thin with anyone under the age of sixty today. My kids were taught touch typing (which is now called “keyboarding” starting around third grade, and the kids totally understand it as being a relevant skill (as contrasted with, say, writing cursive, which the schools wisely give only a nod at).

      On the other hand, the non-typers have mostly long since discovered computers and learned a passable hunt-and-peck.

      1. Donkey Hotey*

        Reagan era middle schooler here. I still believe that my touch typing classes were the best thing I got out of those years.

          1. Runnerup*

            Co-sign. My high school required typing for maybe 5-10 years in the 80s and 90s. It was the most useful class I took.

          2. Jasmine Tea*

            One 8 week typing course in middle school has been handy my whole life! The machine was an ancient monster donated by a business and I never got to the numbers but still happy I learned. Then I moved to Taiwan and had to learn to type in Chinese! Sigh…

        2. LHN*

          Oh yes. It was the worst grade I ever got (manual typewriters with blank keys and those horrible typewriter erasers that tore through paper didn’t mesh well with my typing style), but easily the most useful skill I took out of middle school.

          Especially since handwriting was definitely not. By college I was taking all my notes on the only laptop my instructors had ever seen, a Tandy Model 100 that ran on AA batteries.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            Typing was the only class I’ve ever failed. I’m spectacularly bad at anything that has to be done fast (typing, times tables, notes for a meeting in 20 minutes, etc).

        3. Magenta Sky*

          I took typing in high school because I needed a “manual arts” credit to graduate. The only two classes that had openings for the slot I wanted were typing and a welding class that, the semester before, had welded the shop door shut from the inside, while the teacher stood there and watched (and they were getting ready to do the same to a school bus door, again from the inside, before he had second thoughts). I didn’t want to be in that class.

          Touch typing is, of course, the only thing I learned in high school that I use regularly as an adult (and in IT work, you’d *better* touch type).

          1. I Have RBF*

            … in IT work, you’d *better* touch type.

            Nope.

            I still can’t touch type, even having taken it in high school and having over 30 years of practice with computers. I do a modified hunt and peck, adapted to the fact that I only have the use of one hand. Too many different types and sizes of keyboards to adapt to.

            When I first started out in IT I was doing the thing where I went to people’s desks to help them, and they had half a dozen different types and sizes of keyboards. No touch typing was going to happen there.

            I am now a senior sysadmin, and I still don’t touch type. I only test out at 35 wpm.

            1. LabSnep*

              I learned how to touch type. I got a terrible grade. I have weird double jointed pinky fingers. Small hands. I have a bizarre three fingered typing style that is mostly accurate and fast. I go back and forth across the keyboard, but for the most part my hands start at centre.

              Someone watched me type once and they were like “You are the fastest three finger typist I’ve ever seen”.

              Everyone at work is like “HOW”

              I used to do web design, mostly CSS and HTML back in the day, so it had to be fast and accurate or it was broken.

              I like spell check because of some mild dyslexia though. Thank goodness.

            2. Verthandi*

              Long time former IT person. I hate touch typing. I took two semesters in HS (not my idea, I wanted the computer programming class instead) but I already could type just fine with my personal 6-finger method.

              It was so much faster than touch typing and I made fewer mistakes. I like to see what I’m doing, and since I don’t type from copy, I see nothing wrong with my own system. The computer course was so much more interesting when I finally got to take it. There were only two semesters of typing, so they couldn’t substitute another typing class on me after they forced Typing 2 on me. I didn’t even bother to do it their way. My way works and got me the required WPM.

              1. allathian*

                I do modified touch typing in the sense that I can find the correct keys without looking at the keyboard, but I do it 8-fingered because I don’t use my thumbs. Very occasionally I might use my right thumb to hit the space bar, but more often than not I use my right index finger for that.

            3. It's Marie - Not Maria*

              I am told watching me touch type is like watching someone play piano. All those years sitting on a piano stool practicing piano did me some good, I guess.

              1. Beebis*

                My dad always seemed amazed when he would come into the computer room to talk to me and I would have a full conversation with him while still typing AIM messages to my friends

          2. Sharpie*

            I worked in IT during my time in the British military, lo these many years ago when the world was new and all, and O Best Beloved, I cannot touch type. It’s not exactly hunt and peck either but I’m lost if I can’t see the keyboard when typing.

          3. Where’s the Orchestra?*

            “The only two classes that had openings for the slot I wanted were typing and a welding class that, the semester before, had welded the shop door shut from the inside, while the teacher stood there and watched (and they were getting ready to do the same to a school bus door, again from the inside, before he had second thoughts). I didn’t want to be in that class.”

            I don’t understand, that sounds amazing! (Sarcasm)

            How did this teacher not get fired for safety violations?

        4. goddessoftransitory*

          I too learned typing on typewriters and it is indeed the most-used skill I acquired.

          1. Where’s the Orchestra?*

            Was in HS in the late 90’s – I had that weird keyboard teacher who INSISTED you learn how to use a typewriter as well as a computer.

            I am one of two people in my current job who has said skill – and I’ve given up counting how many times I have to get pulled out of my normal work to type up this gov’t form real quick pretty please.

            The other person who knows how to use a typewriter is senior enough that she gets left alone unless I’m out of the office.

        5. ILoveLlamas*

          Oh my, one of my life regrets is not being able to apologize to my incredibly patient high school typing teacher back in 1981/82. When she was pushing touch typing on us, I arrogantly said, “I don’t plan on typing for a living. I will have other people do that for me.” Oh youth. Typing kept me employed for years. I have her to thank for learning practical skills I still use today.

        6. There You Are*

          Same. My high school was a newly-created “college prep” school and we only had two choices for an elective: Typing and (whatever the other class was; I didn’t take it and now I can’t remember what it was).

          So I spent three years in a typing class, mashing down manual keys and advancing to the next line on a sheet of paper by grabbing and shoving the huge metal handle attached to the carriage [hence why the “Enter” key was originally the “Return” key, named for the movement called a Carriage Return], because our school couldn’t afford electric typewriters.

          When computers became ubiquitous, I was miles ahead of my peers in terms of speed of typing and not having to look at the keyboard to type coherently.

        7. So they all cheap ass-rolled over and one fell out*

          I was a Reagan era middle schooler and I never learned how to properly touch type. It’s too late for me now, a couple decades as a software developer have permanently wired my brain to improperly touch type.

      2. Typing is a basic skill*

        With great respect, I think this is actually indicative of a trend of weaponized incompetence by older, higher ranked workers. Typing classes have been easily available since the 90’s and most offices have required a certain amount of typing since Y2k. Surely in the last 25-30 years there was time to figure it out. Younger workers have been complaining for years about older workers getting paid better only to push basic functions of their jobs off on any millienial or Gen X nearby, typing is just one more example.

        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          I learned touch typing by, you know, actually typing. We had a word processor (which was a thing in the 80s), and I typed my papers on it.

          But I got really, really good at it by working customer service phone lines for an insurance company. I also can tab through screens at a dizzying speed.

          Computers have been standard office equipment since the 80s. Typing is nothing new.

          Oh, and I am on Team Teach Cursive. It helps with hand-eye coordination, helps create a stronger link between writing and memory, and helps people learn how to*read* cursive or cursive-like fonts.

          1. Loredena*

            Is there any evidence that cursive improves hand eye coordination? Not being snarky, seriously asking — because I came of age when cursive was taken seriously (and I had the index finger bump!) but took five years of piano lessons in a failed attempt to improve mine. Cursive by itself certainly did not, even my printing was barely legible.

            1. Ellis Bell*

              Every student is different and should be given different experiences with sensory practices and types of movement. There are bad printers who get better when they learn cursive, but some students are better off just concentrating on their print. I have a student who had extremely poor working memory until his gross motor skills were improved in PE (his health condition had prevented these skills from happening earlier). He’s now working on his fine motor skills which includes improving his handwriting with word formation practice.

          2. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

            “Cursive” isn’t a single thing, though. I’m old enough that they taught us a style where the capital Q’s look like fancy 2’s, and the capital G looks nothing like a “print” upper- or lower-case G.

            I did a bunch of transcribing of Civil War soldiers’ records that were written in that style–the project was having trouble finding volunteers who recognized the characters. I did occasionally have to look at the provided reference, but only occasionally.

            1. Charlotte Lucas*

              Ahhh… copperplate. It’s beautiful but can be hard to read.

              IRL, I have a capital T in my name, and I love all the options cursive gives for just that one letter.

            2. iglwif*

              True!

              I learned cursive writing in Spain (sabbatical year) when I was 7/8, in Grade 1 because I didn’t speak Spanish and that’s what the school system decided was best. (It was not.) Like many European countries, Spain taught cursive writing before printing, and although it took a while for me to figure out what words I was writing, I was pretty good at it.

              In Canada in them days (early 1980s), cursive writing was taught starting in Grade 3. Guess what? According to my Grade 3 teachers, I was making at least 30% of my cursive letters wrong (lower-case f, g, and p were big offenders), so I had to learn over again.

              At various points over the years I have experimented with pretentious greek E’s, funky Q’s, various ways of writing lower-case R …

              Now I’m almost 50 and it’s anyone’s guess what my writing will look like at any given point — I’m writing for my own eyes 90% of the time so I go with whatever letterforms are easiest, but also sometimes it’s upright, sometimes it slants right, occasionally it slants left, etc. I can’t imagine being able to pick my own handwriting out of a lineup unless I remembered writing the thing in question.

            3. Tierrainney*

              My college age child had a job transcribing old mining records to an online data base. I would sometimes get texts/photos can you read this? the best was a person who made all their lower case m to look like uu. the Hamm family was easy to pick out after you realized that.

          3. goddessoftransitory*

            I can ten key like a MFing champ thanks to my CSR job–just flying fingers over those numbers!

            1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

              I did data entry for years – my IT guy kept getting me cheap keyboards and I’d bust out the keypads within four months, then request a separate heavy-duty ten-key-pad. He’d come back with another cheap keyboard, I’d threaten him with it, he’d go “but it has a double zero key!”
              GARY. THERE IS NOTHIG ON THIS FORM THAT HAS TWO ZEROS. He was just not going to get me my heavy duty pad, so I kept disintegrating cheap keyboards. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

          4. Lexi Lynn*

            Unless you are left handed, then it’s just an opportunity to provide crappy teaching and punish lefties because cursive is designed to pull the pen across page, not push it. Cursive and can die.

        2. Peanut Hamper*

          I completely agree. It’s typing, not brain surgery. If a bunch of middle school students can figure this out, there is no reason why grown ass adults shouldn’t be able to figure this out.

        3. Magenta Sky*

          I went to one of the smallest, crappiest high schools in rural Missouri in the late 70s, and the typing class was full every semester.

          Typing classes have been readily available for a longer than since the 90s.

            1. Where’s the Orchestra?*

              My dad did in the 50’s. Calligraphy as well

              Later as an engineer all the admins loved him. He could type his own stuff up – and if he just ran out of time and they had to do it for him – they never minded because it was always legible.

        4. LabSnep*

          Oh yeah, I get frustrated by computer weapons zed incompetence for people who have been working with computers their entire professional lives, and in many cases with some of the software LONGER THAN I HAVE but suddenly there is an upgrade and a very minor change and it is THE WORST.

          At a former job I had a coworker who complained constantly. My career is one where things CONSTANTLY change. I got tired of it and ended up flat out saying she needed to change with the times, stop complaining around me, or retired.

          She did the last 2.

        5. La Triviata*

          Back when computers were being used for something more than word processing, someone had a class for upper level executives to teach them how to use their desktops for financial predictions, drafting materials, and so on. One executive turned up with his secretary in tow to do the typing for him.

      3. Nea*

        The problem with not teaching cursive writing is that people are losing the ability to read cursive as well. This isn’t an issue in many jobs, but not being able to read old records and documentation is a dealbreaker in some work.

        1. Richard Hershberger*

          Sure. It is a specialized skill required for certain jobs. The same is true of reading Elizabethan secretarial hand. Seriously: it is completely illegible with specialized training. This is not an argument for teaching either cursive or Elizabethan secretarial hand to grade schoolers. It is an argument for having programs in paleography for those who need it.

          1. Sharp-dressed Boston Terrier*

            Took a course in Russian paleography during my studies in St. Petersburg back in the ’90s. There is really nothing like holding a note scribbled by Ivan the Terrible himself and being able to read it.

        2. beans*

          +1
          I write in cursive most of the time and I struggle with historical writing. It is a skill for sure.

          1. Richard Hershberger*

            I read a fair amount of 19th century writing in my early baseball research. The trick is that they actually had three ways of writing. For formal presentation documents they used that gorgeous copperplate hand: think the Declaration of Independence. Most people never used this, and it was a specialized skill. Ordinary people were trained to write legibly but not beautifully. This is what you see in letters, court filings, and so forth. If you are proficient reading cursive, this writing presents no difficulties. Writing legibly slows you down, however, so they also had illegible scrawls for personal record-keeping, not intended to be read by anyone else. So they might write out a file copy of an outgoing letter. Reading this stuff is… problematic.

          2. Jaybeetee*

            Quite beyond handwriting (which can be challenging itself), the further back you go, the more variations you’ll see on spelling, and words and phrases that no longer even exist. I work with century-old documents regularly, and sometimes older – to a modern English speaker, those are generally easy enough to parse. But once you’re in 1700s or earlier territory? You’re starting to get into completely different dialects of English, on top of the handwriting issues (not to mention if you/the documents don’t operate in the same language to start with). It’s a skill to be sure, and even for people *with* the skill it can be challenging. Fortunately for most people, not that many of us need to be able to read Middle English on a regular basis ;).

          3. goddessoftransitory*

            I see old examples of “copperplate” writing and it’s a jumble to me. When I read about Jane Austen and “crossing” letters I was blown away. How on earth people were able to make out those words…

        3. alienor*

          True, but if someone were going into a field where they would read old records and documentation, wouldn’t they seek out training on how to do that? I don’t know how to read Cyrillic because I don’t have a need to, but if I had studied Slavic languages in college so I could become a translator, then I would have learned, similar to how I learned the rudiments of Old and Middle English for my literature degree.

        4. Katherine*

          I like to think that in one generation those “live laugh love” signs and their ilk will become mysterious glyphs.

        5. goducks*

          I’m GenX, so I grew up writing everything in cursive. My teenagers did not learn cursive. However, I’ve found that it took them almost no effort to read modern-day cursive. It’s not completely foreign! Old-fashioned script is hard for both generations. I do alright with something like the Declaration of Independence because the handwriting is very tidy, but am at a loss with many things I’ve seen from more than about 100 years ago.

        6. Dawn*

          Turns out many people also can no longer practice medicine without studying the specialized skills required for their field first, we need to start teaching basic surgery in grade school again.

        7. umami*

          Yes, true! A friend of mine told a story of how his wife wrote a check to her son, and when he went to cash it, the bank teeller didn’t want to accept it because they couldn’t read what they called ‘hieroglyphics’. They could not read cursive and had never seen cursive.

          1. iglwif*

            Please don’t take this the wrong way, but my 21yo kid would also have no idea what to do with a handwritten cheque, not because she can’t read cursive (she reads mine just fine) but because people stopped writing regularly cheques when she was a tiny child. I don’t think we need to teach kids cursive writing so they can write or read cheques.

            1. Media Monkey*

              the last cheque i wrote was for antenatal classes before my daughter was born. she’s 15 now.

              1. iglwif*

                I legit cannot remember the last time I wrote a cheque, but 15-16 years ago is probably about right.

            2. umami*

              Oh sure, I wasn’t suggesting teaching kids cursive for this reason, but if you work at a bank, you should be familiar with written checks in all forms. Getting a check is par for the course at a bank!

            3. US-based renter*

              On the other hand, I write checks every month because it’s the only way to pay my rent without a $50+ fee to send it via Venmo. My landlord only accepts those two options for rent payment. Maybe this is a US vs. UK thing (based on how you’re spelling cheques)?

            1. umami*

              I mean, it happened. The bank teller called her to tell her she needed to write out another check because they did not think it was written correctly.

        8. Tupac Coachella*

          Not even just old records. I’m an older Millennial (under 40) who was taught cursive in school. My everyday handwriting is a weird cursive/print hybrid. In working with first year college students, it’s not been unusual for a student to sheepishly tell me that they can’t read my handwriting because they never learned to read cursive. I suppose that won’t be an issue in a few years because those same students never learned to write in cursive either.

        9. Rose*

          I lived in China for years and people are forgetting how to handwrite Chinese because on phones and computers you write it out phonetically and choose the correct character. They are fine on anything you normally handwrite like ingredients for hot pot or something you’d jot on a post-it but my friends were always like “wait, how do I actually write out this character?”

          1. Jasmine Tea*

            Yes! Before we had Pleco dictionary in our phones if we wanted to know how to write a character we would ask someone still in school or recently graduated. Adults write terribly! I can read a lot of characters since I’ve lived in Taiwan 31 years, but only if printed or written by someone young.

        10. Sharpie*

          I can’t write in cursive, but Indo write joined-up rather than printing every single letter individually.

          I have also worked with original documents from the eighteenth century. It is perfectly possible to learn to read such documents if you have an interest in reading them – and trust me, horrible handwriting has existed for centuries, not everyone even then had beautiful copperplate, though some people did.

      4. Indolent Libertine*

        My hub can’t touch type to save his life, but he’s amazingly fast at the three-finger hunt and peck.

        1. Lily Rowan*

          Right. My mother famously refused to learn how to type in the 60s, because she wasn’t going to be a secretary (and she wasn’t!), but when computers came in and secretaries went away, she made it work without touch-typing

        2. Not Tom, Just Petty*

          Personal question, because I’ve noticed something over the last 30 years.
          born in 1970: Gen X, typing is for “girls” or business track.
          born in 1980: phase one, X-cusp millenials, start using computers in schools regularly, but typing is still a “girl” or business track class
          born in 1990: pretty much the same
          born in 2000: kindergarten teaches “keyboarding.”
          So they’ve rebranded typing. It’s keyboarding. It’s for everyone!
          And that’s great, but there is a younger generation who fell through the cracks. 30-40 years old, touch type and that’s just what they do.
          Is this where your husband falls? Again, curious about my theory/observation. thanks

          1. A (Former) Library Person*

            As a personal anecdote, I was born in the mid-80s and first remember doing typing/keyboarding classes in fifth grade. Everyone did it and I never registered a gendered perception around it. FWIW I went to a large suburban mixed-class high school in the US, so I can imagine experiences being different in different areas, but everyone learned typing together.

            1. umami*

              Yeah, solidly Gen X here, and typing where I went to school was done in 7th grade, and everyone took it. Similar sounding school as you in the Mid-Atlantic

            2. A Person*

              This is exactly the same experience I had, born in the early 80s. Definitely no gendered perception in “computers are here, you gotta learn to type” at least in school.

            3. iglwif*

              I was born in 1974 and we were taught touch-typing in the computer lab in Grade 6. Everybody, not just girls.

              Now I will say that I disagree with the method they used: you couldn’t move on to the next lesson until you had beaten your handwriting speed, so if you wrote fast — which I did — you might end up not getting to the end of the program before the keyboarding module was over. That’s why I didn’t actually become GOOD at touch-typing until much later. My little brother, who had always struggled with printing and writing, had a very modest goal to beat, finished the program quickly, and by the time he was in junior high was typing 90wpm. He got faster from there — lots of coding and lots of data-entry jobs after high school, eventually up to 100wpm! if you’ve never heard 100wpm typing, it sounds a lot like a very quiet sewing machine.

          2. cassielfsw*

            Not Indolent Libertine but I was born in ’83, typing was not seen as “for girls” as far as I was aware, and we all took keyboarding in elementary school. My school district may have been ahead of the curve though?

          3. Andy*

            For what it’s worth, I was born in the early 80s and keyboarding was a required class in 6th through 8th grades (so, 1992-1995?). Never got the impression that it was “girls” work, though perhaps my school was an anomaly, or those attitudes showed up in high school/college instead.

          4. Properlike*

            Born in the ‘70s, in Missouri, and high school typing on IBM Selectrics was equal between the sexes. Perhaps it was because early ‘80s saw the rise of the computer (and thus, the keyboard)

            Never crossed my mind I was going to become a secretary, but we knew we’d be required to type papers in college.

          5. AceInPlainSight*

            Mid-90s; I learned “keyboarding” starting in 1st grade. Not a proficient touch typer (it was one of the classes I regularly failed due to typos and slow speed), but I only need to look down occasionally for the letters and punctuation that fall under my hands and can type (with concentration and typos) without looking at either keyboard or screen).
            Also, they had these horrible orange skins that were supposed to teach touch typing that they put over our keyboards in computer class. The skins changed the haptics of the keyboard and just got me to memorize the layout for common letters, not build up the muscle memory.

          6. AngryOctopus*

            Born late 70s, learned typing in HS on a hybrid like typewriter (had a very small computer screen, you’d type the line, it would stop when you were out of characters, and you hit enter and it typed the whole line out on paper and moved to the next line). Everyone took typing, no gender divide. Papers were expected to be typed because of access to the computer lab, but you brought in your handwritten paper and just transferred it (different of course were you lucky enough to have a home computer and dot matrix printer).

          7. Nina*

            My mum was born before 1970 (non-US), and by the time she was in college, typing was for secretaries, most people could hunt-and-peck if they had to, but the country didn’t get its first internet connection for several years, computers were rare, and unless you did an awful lot of writing as part of your job, a word processor or typewriter was a waste of money. My grandma (born 1940s, worked as a secretary and then a PA) could touch-type blazingly fast and typed Mum’s thesis for her.

            I (born 1990s) did not go to school but have lived in a house with a computer my entire life because of Dad’s job, and was taught to touch-type about the same time as I was taught to write, because Dad was adamant that no child of his would end up with a RSI from not knowing how to type ergonomically. None of my cousins of similar age, who went to normal schools, can touch-type.

          8. Dawn*

            Xennial here and we had non-gendered typing classes.

            Is this maybe a regional thing more than a broadly-accurate thing?

      5. Loredena*

        I have eye/hand coordination and/or fine muscle control issues that resulted in absolutely unreadable handwriting. Which had only worsened as I got older and so infrequently need to write

        As a result I received special permission while still in middle school to take typing at the local community school. (Since it was offered in high school students typically weren’t permitted to take a slot at the evening community class). It was and still is absolutely invaluable to me! I learned touch typing on a selectrix and was able to obtain one to write all my school papers on. For college I got a PC JR and a cheap printer after a couple years of the typewriter. I’m one finger on phones which is slow and painful despite not needing to hunt but for my day to day work I out perform all my peers for speed and accuracy

        1. Lady_Lessa*

          I remember having a selectrix in HS typing, only 1, BUT ours was not working most of the time. Normal class, just move to a different electric. Test time generally stuck with a cranky manual where I didn’t even know how to set the tabs.

          I’m a decent touch typist now, but have trouble at home. Cat and keyboard is not a good blend.

        2. Veronica Mars*

          My little brother had some issues with hand writing such that it took him FOREVER to write out essays and short answer-type questions. We’re both GenX and he was in middle school in the late 80s when home computers with dot-matrix printers were still not all that common, but we had one and writing papers on the computer was SO much easier for him. Well, he came across a teacher who did not want to allow that because how would she know he wrote it and not a parent or big sister? Same teacher also required a clean copy after all revisions were made – basically handwriting practice, torture to him. My mom, an elementary school teacher, got his learning disabilities diagnosed and the equivalent of what they call an IEP now to allow him to type his papers on a computer. He also got extra time on tests and some other accommodations that ended up really helping him. I always found it funny that this was the same woman who used to type my dad’s papers for him when they were dating in college.

      6. AcadLibrarian*

        The typing thing is weird. My father was in high school during the EISENHOWER administration and they all took typing. Boys and girls. We’re talking about a town that didn’t allow DANCING (Southern Baptist). They all learned touch typing (he said they covered the letters on the keys with masking tape until you learned not to look).

      7. mariemac*

        I’ve been reading a bunch of political memoirs from the last 20 years and it’s amazing how few politicians emailed, even into the Obama administration. Partially because they were always in meetings and getting briefed – essentially consuming content vs creating content, and partially because anything written down could get FOIA’d.

      8. iglwif*

        I do know people who can’t touch-type BUT type very quickly and efficiently using their own personal methods. I touch-type but I learned to really do that as an adult in my first office job — very clearly it was going to be a PITA to not get better at it, so I practised at home on my crappy 1991-era laptop until I got better at it.

        This guy just didn’t want to learn a different way of doing things because he was the big boss so why should he have to?

        1. Sharpie*

          I’m one of these! I have no idea how to describe what I do, but I use all my fingers though it’s absolutely not touch-typing.

          I was born in 1980, we had a computer in my classroom in junior school (when I was aged nine) and no, typing was not taught to anyone, not even when I got to secondary school (and I went to an alll-girls secondary).

          1. Not really touch-typing*

            Me too! In my case, I learned very young – I was born in the early 80s and we had a computer at home when I was 4 or 5 years old. I use most of my fingers but not necessarily on the same keys (e.g. letters in the middle are sometimes left hand and sometimes right hand). I’m definitely not consciously aware of which finger goes where, but I’m very fast (>100wpm) and easily switch between looking at the screen vs. keyboard as I go.

      9. morethantired*

        I took typing classes but never could get the hang of proper touch typing form. I still figured out my own way of typing and I have a speed of 48wpm now, which is considered fast. I still have to look at the keyboard most of the time in order to not have typos, but that’s not a problem as I’m rarely every copying down anything I’m reading on screen.
        Take a couple free online typing games and you may be surprised at how much you can improve!

      10. Artemesia*

        At my HS it was only offered as a for pay summer school class; still the most useful thing I learned. But during early working years I did not let on I knew touch typing — it is of course invaluable with computers and younger folk mostly have not learned it.

    4. Itsa Me, Mario*

      I work with lawyers and you would be surprised how often — IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2023 — the different sides go back and forth on a contract with hand-written comments that need to be scanned and converted to a PDF.

      2. NotAnotherManager!*

        One of the only upsides of the pandemic was that it was easier for a bunch of them to learn how to use effin’ track changes (FINALLY) rather than learn how to scan and email their handwritten markups without the step-by-step assistance of their admin.

        One thing I give my former firm credit for is that they really ramped up training and virtual deskside in the early days of the pandemic to help the dinosaurs evolve.

      3. miss_chevious*

        GOOD LORD. I am a lawyer and I once emailed a document over in Word and received a PDF with handwritten illegible comments back from opposing counsel. When I emailed the (older, white, male) lawyer back and asked him to provide comments back in Word, he *called me* so he could READ THEM TO ME OVER THE PHONE.

        …he did not appreciate when I told him that I was not his secretary and would not be taking down the changes he wanted.

        He did send the document back in Word eventually, although he didn’t have Track Changes on. That’s okay, though; I run a Compare on every document I get back from opposing counsel as a matter of course.

    5. Hats Are Great*

      Female lawyers in my dad’s day — when they first started getting admitted to law school in substantial numbers — all pretended they didn’t know how to type, because they’d get relegated to legal secretary roles if they could type.

      1. Glomarization, Esq.*

        Can confirm this. If you’re old enough to remember using the term “Photostat,” you might know some of these lawyers.

    6. mlem*

      When we were kids, my job was dishes and my brother’s was sweeping. This was on the Gulf Coast, so there was a lot of sand in the house, but there were a lot of dishes for a family of four. I got sick and demanded to switch to sweeping … and we spent a few days eating from dishes with crusted-on food until I caved and switched back. (All these years later, I’m annoyed that I caved and that my parents didn’t address the disgusting “dishwashing”.)

    7. Anon for this*

      I pitched a fit earlier this year. I was supposed to edit a script, but instead of using track changes, the other department just highlighted sections they wanted changed. Which told me … nothing. This because they “didn’t know how” to Track Changes. I told my manager that next time they HAVE to track changes. It’s literally clicking a button, and it is nonnegotiable. I refuse to waste my time going line-by-line to look for a comma (and it’s a script, so the comma was a cue!) just because they couldn’t be bothered to learn how to Click. A. Button. Yeah, I’m still a little peeved about that one.

    8. margaret*

      My first boss didn’t know how to type and much of my job was typing up his emails as he dictated them or trying to make sense of his literal chicken scratch handwriting on a piece of paper. I was eighteen so it was fine and I didn’t mind. Easy work.

      But while I was a fast typist, at the time I was not fast with a numberpad. There’s this online game called Tontie which is sort of a whack-a-mole thing that uses the numberpad–I got really obsessed with it around the time I started this job and it was incredible how rapidly my numberpad skills improved. Whenever I feel myself start to get rusty I go play that game again for a while. Recommended for anyone who has to do a lot of number data entry as a training tool!!

  6. Ex-prof*

    In my youth, when I spent three weeks as the only female delivery driver at a Domino’s Pizza. (I didn’t know the politics of the company then.) NOBODY could figure out how to use the washer/dryer for the uniforms.

    1. Ally McBeal*

      I appreciate your caveat, but please rest assured that no reasonable person would excoriate you for working a minimum-wage job at a politically unsavory company. I don’t even blame the kids working at Chick-Fil-A even though there are so many other fast food chains that hire teens. (I had/have several friends who were closeted as teens and used CFA’s great scholarship program to help them get out of their unwelcoming hometowns.) If you’re working for minimum wage I know you’re probably just trying to get by.

      1. I'm just here for the cats!*

        Wait! Whats the politics of dominos? I know about chick-fil-a but I haven’t heard of anything about dominos.

        1. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

          The owners at least used to be major donors to anti-abortion campaigns.

          The company also had to be taken to court to stop rewarding their drivers for driving dangerously fast and causing accidents. They knew that they couldn’t make their promised delivery times while driving legally.

          1. goddessoftransitory*

            I’d sure like to see that current “pin drop location” crap dragged into court. You might as well make an ad saying “here’s how to lure our driver to a remote locale to rob/murder them!”

  7. Caroline*

    I used to work in a supermarket on a fresh food section. All my coworkers in this section, of all ages and genders, tried to avoid doing the checks in the big fridges and freezers out back because the tasks were cold and uncomfortable. Excuses varied from “I don’t know where the book is kept”, “I don’t have a pen”, “I don’t have my warm jacket today”, “I don’t know how to fill out the checklist”. The most common excuse was “I have a bad back” (which I realize isn’t exactly weaponized incompetence) from 5 or 6 young people, who chatted about going to the gym/playing local league sport in their free time, who all apparently had back problems only at work! So I was always stuck with the unpleasant chiller and freezer checks. Fifteen years and I’m still bitter :)

    1. Kiz*

      As a 30+ year food service veteran with years of management experience I would haul their you know whats in there. However that’s now taboo because the industry has lost so many employees. In order to hold onto them you need to conform to their wishes. Not getting their hands dirty is one of them. Yes, I’m bitter.

      1. I'm A Little Teapot*

        side note – but double their pay and you’ll have an easier time retaining people.

    2. What, what?*

      My ex worked at a grocery store and adamantly refused to learn how to get a live lobster out of the tank. Sorry customer, I’m not qualified to do that.

      1. Shirley Keeldar*

        Now I’m imagining a little badge you get for being qualified to do that. Qualified Lobster Wrangler, Grade 2.

    3. anon for this*

      Not work related, but I had these same young people as housemates for a while.

      They solemnly swore that they could not load or unload the dishwasher because “bending over like that” made their backs hurt. And having bad backs meant they were disabled, how dare I expect them to do physical tasks?!?!

      So my actually-diagnosed-as-disabled ass had to clean up after them while they strolled out the house to go to one of their multiple martial arts practices (which involved a lot of bending, stretching, falling, getting up again, and other stuff I physically can no longer do).

      (No worries, I got smart and unloaded *them* as soon as I could…)

        1. Michelle Smith*

          And what if they don’t and just leave them in the sink or dishwasher anyway? Establishing rules like that unfortunately doesn’t work with unreasonable people, because the disorder, smells, and bugs will bother you long before it bothers them.

          1. anon for this*

            Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened. They just blithely ignored their messes, and pushed back at any attempt at discussion, until I gave up and did the work myself in order to stay healthy and sane.

            Weaponized disregard really, rather than weaponized incompetence, but, same results.

            (Ironically, we’d established rules about this stuff beforehand; they just ignored those too.)

    4. Hannah Lee*

      “Fifteen years and I’m still bitter :)”

      I was waiting for a “Fifteen years and I’m still frosty” :)

    5. Hot Flash Gordon*

      I worked part time for a grocery store (Grader Moe’s) and loved working in the dairy cooler or pulling frozen because I am a lady of a certain age who is ALWAYS hot.

  8. Lilac*

    I was extremely underqualified for my last job—I didn’t have any of the training or experience that’s usually the bare minimum for that type of role. (I was asked to apply by an acquaintance who was desperate to fill the position, and I really needed a job—otherwise I would never have applied.) I’m a fast learner and quickly picked up the skills I needed to do the job effectively, and I was frequently praised for how well I was doing despite my lack of training.

    That is, until the organization decided to increase my workload without increasing my pay. Then it was, “Sorry, but I’m not trained on how to do that” for anything that wasn’t actually part of my job description. Somehow it worked.

    2. Nina Bee*

      This feels like an appropriate use of weaponised incompetence (maybe some malicious compliance?)

  9. LB*

    I had a boss who hated everything we did, but wouldn’t give us actionable feedback; just waves and waves of “this is bad” and “why are you dumb and bad at this” (I’m paraphrasing, but that was very much the tone).

    My VP and I created “strategic incompetence,” because if you just PRETENDED to be bad at your job at the outset (“hey Boss, we’ve been talking and we just don’t know what direction to take the recent Llama Grooming reports. What do you think?”) he would give us the actual direction we needed to do our work well the first time.

    I told my father about this later on. He was horrified.

    2. MigraineMonth*

      When two people are talking at cross-purposes, I’m pretty good at figuring out where the disconnect is, so I try to ask the “dumb question” that clarifies things. (Which I’m concerned makes me look like I don’t understand what’s going on, but at least it clears out the logjam.)

      Person A: “This way is more efficient.”
      Person B: “No, that would be less efficient.”
      Me: “Quick question. So when you’re talking about efficiency, do you mean for the coder or the end-user?”
      Person A: “The coder.”
      Person B: “Wait, that’s what you meant? I was talking about the end-user.”

      1. Properlike*

        I do this too, and it is a superpower. If anyone could do it, we wouldn’t need to. Congratulations!

        1. J Jonah Jameson*

          This is one of my major skills, especially when tech people and not tech people are trying to communicate with each other.

      2. Hannah Lee*

        I used to do it, until I worked with a couple of impatient, know it all co-workers who would turn their irritation on me “we ALL know what we’re talking about HANNAH” …. even though it was blatantly obvious to me and anyone else who wasn’t invested in being the mostest bestest smartest most bullyingest person at the meeting they in fact were completely mis-communicating and talking past each other. All talk, no listen that crew. The value add of those meetings for them was “winning” ie talking the most, the loudest, the last instead of whatever the actual agenda items were.

        I’m so glad I no longer work at that company.

      3. all my what*

        This kind of activity takes up a great deal of my working life. I refer to it as translating English to English.

    3. ferrina*

      I turned into a shadow director for my whole department through this. The actual Department Director was beyond incompetent- she was incredibly underqualified and was a blatant nepotism promotion. I would go to her and say things like “I was thinking that it would be nice to have a training program for our team. I had a few minutes so I mocked up a couple slides on how we might model this this program- of course, feel free to use these however you want or ignore me completely!” (she would always use whatever I gave her in its entirety, because she had no idea how to actually do the things).

      I would also volunteer to handle big aspects of her job “I know you’re super busy- would it be helpful if I mocked up a draft for you?” She wasn’t busy, but she was more than happy to farm off her responsibilities. Then she would magnanimously allow me to present my work to the team (though if it went to the higher-ups, she was always the one to present it). She never contradicted anything I wanted to do, so I was basically able to model the entire department how I wanted. Several people knew what I was doing, but no one ever said anything because they knew that I was way better at her job than she was.

      So I guess I weaponized her incompetence?

      1. Workerbee*

        If you got salary/recognition/promotions etc. for doing her job for her, then yes, you weaponized her incompetence for the betterment of your career & well-being!

  10. V*

    I ran a meeting in which minutes were taken by a different person each week. The team had agreed that this system worked for us in terms of distributing labor. This team was coincidentally made up of women. A man joined the team and when it was his turn to do the minutes he refused point blank, saying that he “wasn’t any good” at minute taking.

    He absolutely would not budge on his refusal and my estimation of him declined. But I couldn’t really afford the political capital of standing over him like a schoolchild until he did his homework.

    1. I edit everything*

      Oof. I’d have just suggested everyone take their own notes when it was his turn, and not distribute them afterwards.

    2. maybenotrelevant*

      I am legitimately* bad at taking notes. Nobody would want what I created.

      *I had a HS teacher who hated that I didn’t take notes in his class. He spent 3 weeks teaching me to take notes. At the end of 3 weeks he told me to stop taking notes because my performance/retention of what he said had gone down. Apparently I can listen or write, but I can not do both.

      1. Trillian*

        The teachers/lecturers I dreaded were the ones who insisted “You don’t have to take notes.” They were invested in handouts and ~listening~. Taking my own notes were how I retained material.

        1. maybenotrelevant*

          I wish I could be better at taking notes. They are helpful! I am so envious of the people who can take fluid notes in a meeting. At the moment I start writing, my ears no longer deliver information to my brain. Typing is marginally better than writing by hand.

          The best I can manage is some memory jog notes like

          llama 3pm blue
          Sue – Priority coat qual

          And hopefully I get a chance to convert to full sentences as soon as the meeting is over.

          1. mlem*

            It’s so individual! I retain information by writing … something … down; the process helps my brain. But whatever I write is usually entirely useless later; it’s all fragments and squiggles. If I’m focusing on taking *coherent* notes, I’m not processing what’s going on otherwise.

            1. goddessoftransitory*

              I used to lavishly illustrate my notes back in school–for some reason the little drawings did a lot to help me retain info. It’s weird because I’m not much of an artist/drawing person in regular life.

              1. KathyG*

                When my sister was in a middle school program for the Academicly Talented, her teacher TAUGHT THEM ALL to doodle as a concentration aid.

      2. daffodil*

        now it’s a common accommodation in classes that a student can be given notes from a peer or record class for exactly this reason. As someone who uses note-taking to aid focus, it’s hard for me to understand, but I know it’s real!

        1. Usurper Cranberries*

          As someone like you, I loved that accommodation – in college I got paid to drop off copies of my notes to the disability office when someone needed them! Cash for what I was already doing to learn myself, plus helping someone for whom that doesn’t come naturally is the best win-win in my book! (And I have no idea who or how many people used them – the office did great at preserving privacy.)

      3. Magenta Sky*

        I never took notes in high school, and never needed to (honor role student the whole time). The one exception was a teacher who graded notebooks. So, about the third day of class, I had figured out how she was doing things, and read ahead in the textbook and took notes for the next several weeks. Then worked on homework for other classes during the lecture (getting straight A grades the whole time, in both classes).

        She figured it out when we skipped a chapter, and took my notebook away. She’d give me one sheet of paper at a time and watch to see if I was writing on it. It’s amazing how *large* one can write, and fill up a sheet of paper with a handful of words. “This page is full, I need another sheet” – several times per session. That lasted a couple of sessions, and she gave up and decided actually learning the material was more important than the process of taking notes. (Still graded the notebook, but stopped caring it was several chapters ahead of the class. For all I know, she might have planned her lectures based on my notes.)

        (Note: I was a senior in a sophomore class that I had to have to graduate. Geography was something of an interest anyway, so I knew about 99.9% of the material better than the teacher, who mainly taught other subjects.)

        1. Verthandi*

          I hated it when notebooks were collected at the end of the year. We were never told ahead of time and not all teachers did that.

          I’m a doodler. If I’m drawing pictures or making snide commentary on the lesson, I retained the info better than if I just copied what was written on the board. Sometimes, I’d take notes in another language so I could get in some practice. And then…. turn in your notebooks time. Eeep! Redact redact redact. After I got burned once, I made sure I had a thick black marker with me at all times.

          1. Magenta Sky*

            I was known throughout high school to be . . . academically gifted (at least in subjects I was interested in). Most of the teachers left me alone as long as I aced the tests (and I always did).

            I had a physics class (where I was actually going to learn new stuff!) where I often sat in the front row with my head down on the desk, looking for all the world like I was asleep (and taking zero notes). The first day, the teacher called me out on it, asking what he’d just covered on the chalkboard. I recited his lecture back, word for word, for the last several minutes. That was that. (Because he had extra credit questions on the test, I ended the semester with over 100% on my total grade.)

            There was only one teacher who ever collected notebooks, and we basically hated each other’s guts.

          2. Your Mate in Oz*

            Do they give the notebooks back afterwards? I’d be really annoyed if I lost my record of what was taught.

            1. Verthandi*

              They did, but I hated that they’d collect them and grade you on note-taking. So much of mine wouldn’t have counted as they were never meant for anyone else.

        2. Teacher's nightmare*

          This reminds me of a teacher I had in high school! I was also the honours class kid, and this teacher (in grade 9) decided she was going to teach us how to take properly formatted notes. Unfortunately for her, my grade 5 teacher taught me that because I was bored in his class, and so I’d already been using and honing my note taking skill for 4 years.

          The teacher said that we had to hand in the notes so she could see that we had the formatting right, but didn’t care much about the content. She also wouldn’t let me do other homework, read novels, or listen to music when I finished my work quickly. So one day I decided to create a cipher alphabet to use to take notes so it would slow me down.

          Boy, was she unimpressed when I handed in a full units worth of beautifully formatted, tidy notes, that I had used to very successfully study for my test, in an alphabet she couldn’t read. 14 year old me stared her dead in the eye and said, well, you told me you’re grading format not content. You can see my format is correct.

          (We had a meeting with both my parents and the counselor. I think my dad was trying not to laugh the whole time.)

      4. Totally Minnie*

        This is how my brain works too. I can do one words-based task at a time. I can be writing words or I can be listening and understanding words. I cannot do both at once.

        1. Properlike*

          Common enough that, as mentioned, it’s a school accommodation. Uncommon enough that convincing people who need it to use it (my kid) is another story.

          The Dunning-Kruger strain of weaponized incompetence.

      5. Gila Monster*

        I know someone who was diagnosed with a graphomotor learning disability around 1995. (I have no idea if they still call it that.) He could either write or process auditory information, not both. So he was issued a word processor, in middle school, and the quality of his notes went way up.

      6. iglwif*

        I am excellent at note-taking (provided I’m not also running the meeting) and am happy to be the note-taker because it helps me focus.

        What I cannot do is listen to what is being said and make eye contact with the person speaking at the same time. An astounding number of people do not understand this.

        Brains are fun!!

    3. so anonymous for this one*

      This happened to me in a DE&I-related workgroup I was in. We started having people volunteer to take notes, which ended up going in this order: 1) more junior women; 2) senior women; 3) no men. We literally got to a point where every woman in the group had taken notes, but no man had.

      When I pointed out that it was wild that in a DE&I group no men had volunteered to take notes, all of them said “but I’m not good at notes.”

      Our executive sponsor said “Well, there’s only one way to get better at something. Practice.”

      1. Arya Parya*

        I once worked somewhere where I was the only woman and was also the youngest. When we got a new manager, he decided we would rotate taking notes. (The manager before him would just take notes himself).

        One colleague asked me once if I could take all the notes, seeing as I was so good at it. I told him that if he wasn’t good at it, he should take all the notes, because he could you the practice more than me.

        1. Toxic Workplace Survivor*

          Gold star. I see and appreciate some of the upthread conversation about people who genuinely struggle with note taking. Since we are talking about weaponized incompetence though I think “(Mostly) men who refuse to do task because they aren’t good at it” is high on that list. I love everyone who had the guts to call it out by asking them to practice!

      2. N C Kiddle*

        That reminds me of my dad’s favourite Morton’s Fork for household chores. He would ask if I was good at some task. If I said yes, he’d tell me to do it. If I said no, he’d say I clearly needed more practice and tell me to do it.

    4. Brain the Brian*

      I am a man who is very good at taking minutes — but only if I finish them the same day. If I wait even one overnight, my mind just cannot make sense of my notes well enough to whip them into some semblance of shape that other people can understand. Is anyone else like this? I genuinely don’t mind minute-taking!

      1. daffodil*

        I’m a woman and I do best when I’m typing the minutes in real time, or as you said, if I can finish them up immediately after the meeting. I CAN do it later, but it’s much harder. I’ve been the chair in most meetings I sit in lately, and I also can’t manage the meeting and take minutes well at the same time. Different types of attention.

      2. Decima Dewey*

        Me. I have illegible handwriting and lousy short term memory. The act of taking notes gets the material into my brain, but forget about reading it afterward.

        When I did try to read my notes, I found that if I forgot to write a word, or if the word came out completely unreadable, it was the key word in the sentence.

        1. Michelle Smith*

          I’ve just got lousy memory period. I don’t remember a thing that was said in a meeting after it’s over, unless I’ve written it down. And I do generally have to reread or at least re-skim the notes to remind myself.

      3. AngryOctopus*

        Oh yes. I would take notes on scratch pads in college and then rewrite them nicely and put them in a binder, because it helped me retain information. But if I waited a day or two–half the time I couldn’t read my writing because I was going too fast, or I made a shorthand notation that I didn’t recall what it meant, or I’d draw arrows indicating…something…that was clear to me when I did it, but not two days later. I would ultimately end up with something others probably could understand, but I also probably missed a whole lot by waiting.

    5. SarahKay*

      Early in my career at my current company (15-ish years ago) I was asked to join a new cross-department group, and in the first meeting it was agreed we’d need to take minutes. I’m in a heavily male-dominated industry so in that group of 12 I was the only woman; the meeting leader asked me to do it.
      Luckily I knew my (male) manager would have my back on this if needed so I said in my most ‘surprised-and-surely-not!’ tone of voice “You’re not giving the task of doing minutes to the only woman here are you?”
      At least he wasn’t a total fool because at this (and possibly seeing the determined this-is-a-hill-I-will-die-on glint in my eye) he rapidly back-tracked and said “no, of course not, we’ll rotate it so everyone gets a turn.”
      As their turns came around several of the men claimed they were poor at it; the meeting leader told them they’d cope. Some of them were indeed dreadful but other than making sure I knew what my actions were I determinedly wrote *nothing* when I wasn’t the minute-taker.

    6. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

      “Oh, perfect- this is a great opportunity for you to learn. You can do it each week so you get the practice!”

      Seriously, note taking is not hard.

      1. Llama Identity Thief*

        I’m sorry, but yes, note taking is hard for me! I’ve learned to do it decently well, especially in meetings where I don’t have much direct input to provide, and my notes quality is pretty good…but then I retain basically 0% of the information, even after reading over the notes 10 times. I need to be spending time in meetings slotting new information into my network of connections, asking questions about context pieces I don’t have that will make things come together, in order for it to all sit in my mind. I can either engage heavily in the meeting, or take solid notes others will be able to use well downline, but I continue to fail at doing both in the same meeting!

        1. TechWorker*

          Okay, but if you have a meeting full of those people (or even people who can take notes but it will impact how *much* they can contribute to the meeting – which tbh is probably most of us); then it’s still not fair to not take turns. Once every 8 times or whatever you won’t really be able to contribute. But that might be the cost of having notes. If you really wanted to, you could choose to participate in the meeting & record it, & then listen back & make notes at that point.

    7. Peanut Hamper*

      “I don’t know how to pay attention and write the important things down” may be the most pathetic excuse I have ever heard.

      1. Loredena*

        It’s a processing issue. I’ve worked with some men who were simply amazing note takers. Captured everything, bulleted and organized.

        My notes generally work for me but no one else so I take full advantage of recording transcripts and also try to expand upon them immediately after meetings if I need to send them out. If you want me to take detailed notes in the moment I won’t be answering questions well because it’s a different brain track.

      2. maybenotrelevant*

        For me it is not an excuse it is a reality. My brain can only handle information in a uni-directional way. If I am writing, I can not listen. If I am listening, I can not write. I’m am reading, I can not listen. If I am writing, my brain doesn’t take in what was said taking the note, so unless the whole meeting comes to a stop while I write, I will miss what is said.

        I can listen and do menial manual work like emptying the dishwasher or folding laundry, if anything it helps me focus more on what people are saying.

        1. Properlike*

          Yes. But also: look at all these (mostly men) claiming they simply “can’t” who make it seem like those with legitimate processing issues are being dishonest.

          I have the same pet peeve with “I can’t learn online.” Most likely you can, if you adjust your mindset and expectations, but there are people for whom it really is cognitive overload.

          1. Llama Identity Thief*

            Very true. I’m a man (at least according to birth records and most common presentation) in the “processing issues/you can have notes or you can have me engaging, not both,” so in a lot of the meetings where higher-level things are being discussed that I know I wouldn’t really engage in, I actively leap at the opportunity to carry the group-note-taking role. This is something my supervisor has seen and gives me a lot more grace in “I won’t take good notes about this meeting so that I can present the work you have me on this meeting specifically to present as well as I can, but I’ll still remember what happens well personally.”

      4. Ace in the Hole*

        I suggest you read the comments here talking about this as a disability accommodation issue, and then do some further research on your own to better understand it. This is a real, legitimate issue – and a fairly common one.

        I used to work in the accommodations office of a university. Note-taking assistance such as audio recording or getting lecture outlines from the teacher were one of the most common accommodations we provided.

        1. allathian*

          Yes, this. Like some forms of acquired executive dysfunction, the ability to take useful notes can also degrade with time. I don’t remember ever having any trouble taking notes in high school or college, but now at work? Forget it. Under a previous manager the responsibility for note-taking rotated. At the time, we didn’t have laptops, so you had to take notes by hand and type them up afterwards. Most of the time, my attempts at taking notes got amended later, because I’d forgotten to include key stuff.

          Now our notes basically involve updating the agenda with any decisions that were made, and it’s usually my manager who runs the meeting who makes the changes during the meeting itself.

      5. Kyrielle*

        It can be a real thing, actually, and it’s tied to some disabilities. There are cognitive tests that look at whether someone can process written and audio input at the same time, whether they can process audio input and written output, etc. I have a family member who is fine in each individual category, but listening *and* writing or listening *and* viewing tanks their scores immediately. It is a true processing disorder.

        It is also a great excuse for people who don’t want to, of course. (And it’s much less a specific diagnosis – there are a few that can include processing issues – and more just “this is a thing that exists and is sometimes tied to a disability”. I have the same diagnosis as that family member, and while I don’t find taking notes very useful for me personally, I can do it well enough.)

    8. Kayem*

      We have all-day, weeklong meetings a few times a year where one person facilitates and another takes notes. Last year, my note-taker was fantastic, I love him. Sadly, he was not my note-taker this year. We were short handed, so we took turns taking notes for each other. I was unfortunately paired up with Mark the Mansplainer, who has a clear idea of where women should be on the employment hierarchy. His notes for my meeting were atrocious and so sparse, they were useless to me. Fortunately, I discovered this by lunch time on the first day, so I spent the rest of the week taking my own notes while I was also facilitating.

      I later discovered he had copied and pasted all of my notes from my files into his note-taking form that was submitted to our boss. Except, I took all my notes in Notepad++ using tabs as the delimiter and the form he had to use was an Excel spreadsheet that was not compatible. He blindly copied and pasted, didn’t bother to check the formatting when he tried to pass off my work as his own. I took great pleasure in explaining to my boss why Mark’s notes were jumbled and the data mismatched.

        1. Kayem*

          She said she could tell right away he copied my notes and when she reverted his file to a previous version, saw what a terrible job he did initially. I don’t know what she said to him, but he was really quiet afterwards and I was assigned a different notetaker.

    9. MDinMD*

      This is why as a woman in a male dominated field I always forget a pencil.

      My weaponized incompetence

  11. Richard Hershberger*

    I feel no obligation to display competence at stuff that is entirely irrelevant to my job, such as the endless mandatory fun activities. Just how much incompetence may depend on how annoyed I am. I am, on my best day, a mediocre bowler. In a mandatory fun setting, this may turn into an endless string of gutter balls. Strategic incompetence on an actual job function is another matter entirely, as this is simply foisting work onto someone else.

    1. HR Friend*

      This is more malicious compliance than weaponized incompetence, since no one – presumably – becomes responsible for your bowling score when you perform badly.

      Genuine question: does it make you feel better to tank activities on purpose? Like.. I get it. Mandatory fun can be annoying. But isn’t it *more* work to be salty or petty about it than to go with the flow?

      1. Salty Sally*

        Nope! It’s cathartic, satisfying and makes me feel better about having to go through the bullcrap that HR and management foist on us in a vain effort to justify their existence. Compliance makes me feel helpless and miserable.

      2. Richard Hershberger*

        Absolutely! It is a way to remove myself from any sense of competitiveness. Tossing gutter balls is quick and easy. Ideally, if the mandatory fun format allows the involuntary participants to self-organize, then I will be at a lane with similarly indifferent folks.

        1. HR Friend*

          “Ideally, if the mandatory fun format allows the involuntary participants to self-organize, then I will be at a lane with similarly indifferent folks.” <<OK that sounds like the place to be lol

      3. Magenta Sky*

        I wouldn’t need to tank bowling on purpose. I’m genuinely terrible at it. (Though the first time I ever tried, I got a 7-10 split, don’t ask me how, and had a total score for the game of 47.)

      4. Totally Minnie*

        For me, yes, it makes me feel better. My office has an annual tournament for a commonly played lawn party game. I’m not great at anything sports adjacent and I’d rather be standing on the sidelines cheering and drinking a soda or something than actually playing, but everybody is required to participate. So I usually try to sign up for one of the earliest matches and get my defeat over with so I can enjoy the rest of the day.

        1. Elitist Semicolon*

          Ooh, is it Jarts? If my workplace tried that, someone would end up impaled before the first round was over. (Fortunately, metal-tipped Jarts have been illegal for decades, I believe.)

    2. Tired*

      For some reason this made me laugh! I’m a gutterball queen even when I try my best.

      I also dislike mandatory “fun” unless it is on the clock during the typical workday. The last thing I want to do is hang out with work people in my free time. I already see too much of them during the week!

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        Yes! I want it to be on work time, unless it’s select coworkers who I would hang with anyway.

      2. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

        Pre-pandemic, Old Job, that never had had after hours events before, suggested we have an after hours event at an axe throwing joint. I laughed and said, “You’re going to put us all in a room with weapons that someone teaches us to throw effectively?”

        Apparently that- and the pandemic- put an end to the idea real quick.

      3. Stuckinacrazyjob*

        The fact that I’m being observed by my coworkers naturally makes my skill level gutter. I want to do well, but I look stupid at every activity

    3. Cmdrshprd*

      “I am, on my best day, a mediocre bowler. In a mandatory fun setting, this may turn into an endless string of gutter balls.”

      Just curious is this purposeful gutter balls like you aim for the gutter, or is it more your skill just naturally decreases because you are annoyed/don’t want to be there/are not really trying?

    4. mariemac*

      One of the best things I ever learned from an old boss was to schedule a meeting during the time our department put up decorations for the holidays. I got roped into it because I was a junior employee and a woman (shockingly, the same demographics of everyone who decorated) and I hate decorating, see very little need to do it at the office and don’t want to participate. She told me she always scheduled a meeting during the decorating time because she felt the same way I did.

    5. goddessoftransitory*

      OMG, THIS.

      I have the hand-eye coordination of a drunken giraffe. I couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a catapult and a dead cow. I am the very, very last person you want on any team needing any kind of athletic ability, period. The idea of being on a bowling or softball team is horrific to me and will only make the rest of my teammates get increasingly snarly as I single handedly lose us the game.

    6. Irish Teacher.*

      This reminds me of when I was in 1st year at secondary school (12-13 years old) and as a sort of “team building” thing, the Transition Years (15-16 year olds) organised a basketball tournament for us, which meant you got to give up your lunchbreaks to play basketball and we were given no choice about this. Cue teams cheering when they lost and got knocked out of the tournament so they didn’t need to give up any more lunchbreaks.

      I mean, SERIOUSLY! Kids are now in school for nearly an hour longer than in primary school and are adjusting to having different teachers for each class and starting new subjects and are probably getting more homework than ever before. Hey, this is how to help them adjust: let’s remove some of their lunchbreaks and use them for “mandatory fun.” I guess the point was to ensure the kids from country towns who might be the only one coming from their primary school (we had one girl from a town so small, she’d been the only kid in her year in primary school) were put on teams where they would be included, but…heck, do it during P.E. classes or take the kids out of class. They are already significantly down on their free time between secondary ending 45 minutes later than primary, usually giving significantly more homework and some kids now coming to school by bus so they may have a long commute each way when their primary was likely within walking distance.

    7. Safety First*

      If you really want to get excused from the mandatory fun, try to end up on the team with the organizers (who are probably enthusiastic bowlers) and just roll the ball really slowly in addition to your gutter balls.

  12. AnonForThisOne*

    I used to have a coworker who would send me (and other junior women on the team) emails about a particular task– basically, just filling out a non-time-sensitive, non-essential form. These forms were not assigned to any particular person, so usually folks would do them themselves when the need arose– because they took like 5 minutes. It took him longer to email us asking us to do them than it would have taken to just do them himself. It was wild.

    1. A Girl Named Fred*

      I had a colleague who would do this with things that needed to be mailed. Instead of putting it in an envelope and addressing it herself, she’d write me a note with the address it needed to go to and when it needed to be sent by. She could’ve easily done it herself and put it in my “take to the post office” box in the same (or less!) amount of time.

      1. Pointy's in the North Tower*

        I handle the mail for my building. I had someone do that to me. I gave it back and said, “Post office won’t accept this.” Why, yes, I AM that petty, and yes, it only happened once.

    2. iglwif*

      Ooooh you just reminded me of something that happened a couple weeks ago!

      I have a leadership role in my religious community and someone emailed me to say “so-and-so asked me to send my committee an email about such-and-such. Is that really part of my job as chair?” I wrote back being like, well, this isn’t strictly related to your committee’s mandate so if you don’t want to do it you don’t have to, the message will get out in other ways … but in my head all I could think was “How did you have time to send THIS email but not THAT one?”

      1. Dr. Vibrissae*

        In college, a professor I worked with liked to send me emails asking for specific information or answers to questions from other people. These weren’t people I knew or worked and the information wasn’t needed for my project, although it was often tangential. Usually, I would then forward her original email to the person named with a short note copying us both on the reply. I could never figure out why she emailed me instead of just sending the question to the person directly (or including them on the original email). It felt like the email version of “Let me Google that for you.”

  13. JEB*

    I am not a coffee drinker so I don’t make it at work or at home! My husband used to complain so much about getting the trash ready that I just took it over… now I don’t have to listen to him complain!

    1. Choggy*

      I don’t drink coffee either, so if forced to do so, would mess it up so badly (not on purpose, mostly) that no one would ever want me to make coffee ever again! :)

    2. londonedit*

      I don’t drink tea, but you don’t get very far in Britain without being able to make a decent cup of tea, so I can (apparently) make very good cuppa and often do so for my family and friends. I also wouldn’t mind doing a tea round at work (these are the fabric of British office life). But in a work situation, if it was always me being asked, or if I realised it was only ever women being asked, I’d definitely use the ‘Sorry, don’t drink tea!’ excuse.

      1. R C*

        If someone were to ask me to make tea, they would get a pitcher of my ultra-sweet, southern iced tea. While it starts out hot (to make the base) it doesn’t stay that way long.

        1. Magenta Sky*

          My father learned the best (in his opinion) way to make tea when he was working in Saudi Arabia. They’d take a Coke bottle and stuff it *full* of rock sugar, then pour boiling hot in to create a tea/sugar slurry.

      1. Kevin Sours*

        I am a coffee drinker so I definitely choose to never touch the work coffee pot. Not because I have any reluctance to make/clean up after coffee, but holy crap is office coffee terrible.

    4. Joielle*

      I do drink coffee but I make myself individual cups with a pour-over because I want absolutely nothing to do with the coffee maker cleaning or maintenance. I’m in a role where people ask me about a lot of random stuff and I have been dodging all coffee-maker-related questions for years. “I’m not sure, sorry, I’ve never used the thing!”

    5. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

      Oh, I don’t take out the trash, either. It’s not weaponized incompetence though, it’s just that I do so much of the Stuff that I just refuse to do the couple of things I hate the most.

  14. Llama Llama*

    I honestly feel this is my daily life. I am accountant and should do accounting things. However the system I work in to have all the accounting things happen is broken. The system support team to fix all my issues make me want to scream. I have literally tickets that cause millions of dollars in issues. This is to the point that my manager and are taking official courses so we can be experts in coding in said system so we can fix stuff ourselves.

    1. Warrior Princess Xena*

      Oh I feel you – I haaaaate having to go through our official IT, because we use a very specific and very finicky program to collate our work and you have to get to tier three support before they can actually effectively troubleshoot. I understand why the tiering system exists the way it does but it took me nearly 5 hours across a week to get there last time for an issue that, as it turned out, could be fixed in under 15 minutes.

  15. They Might Be A Giant*

    I am a software engineer and a former academic scientist. Early in my current career, I got a reputation of being too honest to be allowed to speak directly to customers. I understand the game better now, but I’ve continued to leverage that reputation in order to get out of pesky customer interactions unless absolutely necessary.

    1. jellied brains*

      My boss is the same way. She gleefully told me that the higher ups banned her from talking to clients.

    3. Anonymask*

      I did this to get out of auditing purchase card transactions at work (it’s not my job, I was just pulled in because the team that was in charge of it was drowning in work and I’m known to be very efficient/a fast worker with little to no training). I did not like doing this.

      Company policy is that any employee with a purchasing card must provide all receipts of transactions, and if receipts are missing too many times the card will be revoked. (ex: missing one $5 receipt in the span of 6 months will just be a gentle warning, while consistently not having receipts ESPECIALLY for bigger purchases will definitely get the card revoked, with a sliding scale between the two points; there was also an approved vendor policy, no alcohol policy, etc.)

      The CEOs expense report landed on my desk. It was missing tons of receipts, with random high-cost expenses without explanation (think $3000 at a sports arena in alcohol and food and ticket costs). I took my red pen to that thing and attached company policy to it. Said it couldn’t be processed because of missing items, highlighted that it was turned in late too. I had already done similar things to the VPs and CFO. They’re the ones that made the policies, they should be examples of how to abide by it, right?

      I was politely informed that I would no longer be doing this work after the CEO came down on the CFO and VP for allowing someone to step to him because he couldn’t do the simple thing and provide his receipts =]

          1. Anonymask*

            We were also under audit at the time, so anything missing was heavily scrutinized. I was not going to put my name on something and get dragged down as well. The CEO was well aware that the audit was happening too, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise…

        1. Kevin Sours*

          In this case the person asking the question wanted the answer. Management, however, would have preferred a less bluntly stated response to the customer.

      2. MigraineMonth*

        Like computers, they also have a bad habit of doing exactly what you tell them to, rather than what you want or need them to do.

        I’ve gotten a lot of kudos just for being a tech person who figures out what’s actually needed, rather than just fulfilling requests.

    5. MigraineMonth*

      I had a coworker who was a great individual contributor but banned from management or talking to customers. Given the way he continued to speak to colleagues, I’m not sure that was an effective solution.

      1. They Might Be A Giant*

        That’s not what I meant at all! I wasn’t a jerk to anybody. It’s just that in science, you’re supposed to openly discuss your work’s limitations, drawbacks, and uncertainty. Whereas in business you’re really not supposed to do that, at least not outside the team.

        1. Hrodvitnir*

          Yes! I hate that technically competent + awkward and/or direct is weaponised (ironically) into “is a jerk” so often it’s probably thought of before just being disinclined to soften things adequately.

    6. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      Heh, at my place there’s an unwritten list of people who aren’t allowed to go on client calls unsupervised or respond directly on client facing tickets (when their role would otherwise involve doing that) because of their history with saying inappropriate things etc.

    7. Jenifer Crawford*

      One of the anchors on major network news (possibly Dan Rather, but not certain), typed every story via the hunt-and-peck method. Seeing that it worked so well for him, why aren’t the rest of us following his lead?

  16. Busy Middle Manager*

    I work heavily with coding/software type work and it’s pretty common for someone to drag out a project to make it seem more complicated. Some work is easy, but a lot of experience went into making it appear easy. So you don’t want to purposefully make it seem easy.

    On the flip side, some coding projects that sound easy are actually hard, given the database (for example, a database that has lots of duplicate or triplicate records for basically the same thing, or there are multiple records and sometimes you want the maximum ones and sometimes you want the first one, or you’re not sure whether to round a field up or down, or data is just missing for some customers), so you don’t want to rush the difficult sounding stuff but get stuck on easy sounding stuff. Because then the “suits” will think you don’t know what you’re doing.

    You also don’t want to make it look too easy, or people will ask you for constant changes and think they’re all equally as easy and also worth your time to do, and worth releasing immediately.

    1. ThursdaysGeek*

      Sure, but we often don’t even know how hard it will be until we get into it. That’s why it’s normal to estimate about twice the time we think at first, because too often that double estimate turns out to still be too little time to finish. But when it turns out to be easy, then we look super good – we got it done in half the time we estimated!

      1. R C*

        That’s called the “Scotty Principle” from Star Trek’s Montgomery Scott. When the captain asks how long something will take, make a quick estimate and double (or triple) it. When you come in under your estimate, you’re the hero.

        1. I Have RBF*

          The fact is, we usually need to. We look at a thing, think it should be easy, turn in a Scotty estimate, and then are glad we did because there was an unexpected complication in going from A to B. Only about 5% of the time can we make it work in the time allowed. Yes, I suck at estimating coding tasks.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            I think every programmer, in their heart of hearts, believe they can accomplish anything in a long weekend with no interruptions.

            Sort of like how, no matter how many bugs are found in previous projects, a programmer believes that the code they’re currently writing will have zero bugs.

          2. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

            As part of my role I have to review other people’s estimates as input to my projects. I have a mental “adjustment factor” that varies by person/team that I apply to their estimates…

            1. Cedrus Libani*

              What’s the difference between an engineer and a scientist? When an engineer tells you how long something should take, you should double whatever number they give you. When a scientist tells you how long it should take, you should double the number…and increment the units!

            2. Brain Flogged*

              I dread when people ask me to do something saying “it’s just a easy quick fix!”. It aways end not being easy, nor quick. People are REALLY bad at estimates about coding in general.

        2. Analog Mayhem*

          Scotty Principle all day, every day. Beyond coding, if it is writing, estimate all the last-minute feedback that will come in, plus the need to collate edits and go back and forth to determine which edit wins.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        User: “Can you put a drop-down list here?”
        Me: “Sure, give me a couple hours.”
        User: “Can you put a checkbox here?”
        Me: “Sure, give me a couple hours.”
        User: “Can you put a radio button here?”
        Me: “No.”
        User: “…no?”
        Me: “I $@#* hate radio buttons.”

      2. magc*

        I just went off to find that very xkcd — it’s what I use at work to illustrate how difficult it is to know, well, how difficult something will be.

        When I can’t show that, I’ll say that changing existing code is like remodeling a really old house: you never know what’s involved until you taking things apart.

    3. Mainer*

      I learned that last lesson the hard way. I whipped up a program for someone because it was interesting and I had a couple of unusually slow days. Suddenly, change after change was requested even though it was complete. When I quoted a normal timeframe for a complex one, the person was clearly unhappy and bugged me every day or so!

      The person was such a pest that I got fed up and made the project billable. I would’ve just done it as a courtesy had they been respectful of my time and schedule!

      The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but the loudest rooster gets the ax.

  17. Marna Nightingale*

    I briefly worked as a roadie and set carpenter, in a big city with great transit, and the strategic incompetence I remember best is “do NOT get a driver’s license or don’t admit to having one if you have one. And if you get caught having a license, do NOT get an air-brake endorsement even if work offers to pay for it.”

    If you have a driver’s license they make you drive the truck. If you have an AZ or DZ they make you drive the BIG truck.

    Nobody wants to drive the truck because driving the truck in the city is awful AND after it’s unloaded you have to take it back to the rental office and then get the night bus home.

    The only sure way out is to be unable to drive the truck. The Talent can hire a driver.

      1. Marna Nightingale*

        NON- strategic incompetence related to that: roadies and former roadies aren’t just trying to avoid work when we say we don’t understand your sound system. Commercial sound systems are so incredibly unstandardized. It’s a whole new planet. I mean we can flail at it, but we’re not a lot better than you are.

        And do NOT ask us to do wiring. Wiring that’s going to be permanent and maybe go behind a wall has entirely different rules and we know just enough that it SCARES us.

        We will, however, build you basic structures out of wood, help you paint your walls, and happily crawl behind your desk and organize your cables. Possibly without being asked, in that last case. Tangled cabling makes us twitch, do you people not KNOW about zip-ties?

        1. Magenta Sky*

          I know all about zip ties. Any time I work on a computer for a neat freak, the first thing I have to do is spend 10 minutes cutting all the zip ties away so I can get to what I need. (I don’t complain about it, mind you, I’m only there for an hour, they have to live with it. And I’m pretty sure at least some of them get a great deal of satisfaction from dressing the cables all over again.)

          1. I Have RBF*

            I prefer the hook-and-loop cable ties. For one, they don’t damage the cables like zip-ties can. For another, they are easier to remove and then put back.

            When I was doing a lot of cabling work I bought rolls of half inch, two sided hook-and-loop, so I could cut to length what I needed.

    2. Not Totally Subclinical*

      Long ago when Spouse was a mechanic in the USAF, another airman in his crew was told that he couldn’t drive base vehicles because he didn’t have the right drivers license. He did have a driver’s license, but because of his dad’s job he’d been living in Canada when he learned to drive; a Canadian (provincial?) license wasn’t qualification to drive the vehicles.

      At first the airman considered getting a US-based license, but he quickly realized that he didn’t have to do some really annoying driving pickup jobs due to lack of US-based license, so he didn’t get one until he was out of the Air Force and living in the States.

    3. BlueberryGirl*

      This is genius and I am super impressed. I was given similar advice when I was working with a local theater doing lighting work about not admitting to know anything about hard wiring. Could I rewire a light? Sure, but anything that went behind drywall, I knew nothing about. (Never-mind that I was literally in training with the IBEW as my other job at the time.)

    5. Nelalvai*

      My first job out of college trained me and paid for a commercial driver’s license so I could plow snow in a giant Mack truck. I hated pushing snow so much that when I moved on I let my commercial license lapse. The chances of my current job asking me to push snow is slim to none, but I’m not gambling on it.

  18. The Cosmic Avenger*

    I don’t know if this counts, but not only did we have the diner-style coffee machine, with open carafes and hot plates to sit them on*, the burners were turned way too high and the coffee tasted burnt within minutes. Our office manager “couldn’t taste the difference”, so she also always ordered the absolute cheapest coffee you could buy. (I liked her a lot, actually, even though we never agreed on this.) For a while I had a coffee machine in my office, and then I discovered the Melitta pour over coffee maker; I’ll let you Google it rather than get stuck in moderation, but suffice it to say it makes one cup at a time. Even the office coffee tasted passable with it, although I started bringing my own. This was as much because of how often I found myself making coffee and soaking carafes with burnt coffee at the bottom as because of the taste. I certainly wasn’t going to clean up after people who use all but a few drops of coffee and then put the nearly empty carafe back on the burner without turning it off!

    *Wow, I just Googled “diner coffee maker”, and apparently while they still make this style, the carafes aren’t as wide-mouthed, so they probably don’t evaporate as fast as they used to.

      1. I Have RBF*

        When I was young and broke, I couldn’t afford a coffee maker like Mr. Coffee. I used a Melitta plastic cone and paper filters. People would steal the coffee I brought in right out of my thermos.

        Nowadays? Coffee houses charge a premium for a “hand pour” coffee.

        (For reference, see https://www.peets.com/pages/brew-guide-pour-over The only thing I didn’t do was rinse the filter first in my poverty coffee brewing.)

        1. TCPA*

          This is how we make coffee in our household every day! No coffee maker necessary :) We have the cones and a French press for when we have guests, but that’s it! Love the simplicity of it.

    2. The Dude Abides*

      The major manufacturer of those is based in my city, and our HQ has one on every floor. When I worked at HQ, we had a double-burner, and whoever got there first would make two pots so everyone had some from the jump. Those who need more than one cup are responsible for making more once it goes empty.

    3. Lucy P*

      We used to have a sign on the coffee machine that said if the coffee level went below the silver band on the carafe, turn off the coffee pot. The sign didn’t work.

    4. Ann*

      Oh, so it’s the burners? I’ve been wondering for years why the office coffee always tastes a little burned. This is a lightbulb moment for me.

  19. AnonandAnon*

    I have a co-worker whose favorite line, in response to being tasked to do something, is “I’ve never done that before, is there documentation?” This person is a seasoned professional, and the rest of the team have all had the same training and are all proactive in either figuring out how to do something or using other resources. I’ve told him time and time again not everything will be documented and to try to figure it out on his own. I always redirect him and will never take anything off his plate because he “doesn’t know how to do it”. And yes, he usually does things poorly and when questioned reiterates that he did not know how to do it correctly, there was no documentation. We are also all supposed to create documentation for the rest of the team, his documents are never anything he has created himself, but documents he’s just gathered from others and put his name on. When he does actually add something himself, the difference between what he puts out versus the rest of the team is night and day. He has been the worst from the day he started 9 years ago and has not changed. Three managers have not been able to get rid of him because management sucks. His face should be next to the dictionary definition of Weaponized Incompetence.

    1. SpecialSpecialist*

      I had a program coordinator who told me she wasn’t going to fill out a form until she was trained on how to fill it out. It was a self-explanitory form.

    3. House On The Rock*

      He sounds like the twin of a former employee of mine who always responded to coaching and error correction with “no one ever told me that” or “I wasn’t trained on that”. This was a theoretical professional with decades of experience. He responded this way, with no shame, to things that were core parts of his job he claimed to know when he was hired. Think a Project Manager claiming he “hadn’t been trained” on how to create a status document for customers, or a project plan or how to schedule a meeting in Outlook.

    4. Another Academic Librarian too*

      I was hired to a new position and inherited an assistant.
      She literally did nothing. Yes there was a job description.
      Every time time I asked her to do something like create an excel spreadsheet for an inventory, she would say-
      I wasn’t trained to do that or no one told me how to do that.
      And perhaps incompetence would get her out of answering the office phone- she would not write down who called or their phone number.
      When I started the PIP with HR, I discovered that she had completed and had certificates for training in Word, Excel, and the all the basic tasks of the job.

      1. AnonandAnon*

        And I’m sure she thought she was doing a great job, just like my coworker, he’s baffled that our boss is (finally!) cracking down on his incompetence. He thought he has been doing a stellar job. Again, management failure, they also used the path of least resistance (me) to get things done when he could (did) not. I am so glad I’m not long for this job. Retirement take me away!

      2. Ace in the Hole*

        I had a coworker who tried to pull something like this. Claimed he didn’t know how to do certain things because he hadn’t been trained. Which I knew was false because I trained him.

        Came to a head when he used the excuse to his boss to get out of doing Task X. Boss emailed me saying he needed me to set up training for Coworker on Task X. My response: “He gave me the certificate for his Task X annual refresher training last month. Was there an incident indicating a need for remedial training? If so I’ll need specifics so I can ensure we cover the necessary points.”

        Miraculously, coworker remembered how to do it the very next day with no additional training! Complete coincidence I’m sure.

    5. Emmy*

      Ah yes, lack of training. My coworker’s excuse for sticking the rest of us with a task for a YEAR has been that he “couldn’t figure out how to get access to the system,” and now that he doesn’t know how to do the task that uses the system because he hasn’t had to do it.
      My old boss manages to be a supervisor who refuses to learn how to use multiple necessary computer systems for more than basic tasks, rendering her utterly unable to help with any of our technical questions or anything that requires supervisor review. If it wasn’t so frustrating, it would be admirable how she manages to get people paid half her salary with 2 years experience to her 30 to do things so she doesn’t have to.
      And the coworker who emailed me today to ask me to send an email, after I sent the email address and explanation of what he needed to do to him.
      Another manager who just ignores emails asking him to do things until you go over his head.
      There’s a lot of this at my job.

    6. Max*

      Having a coworker like this. He got the job because he is friend of my boss. She brought him in to be my supervisor and I have to do my jobs along with babysitting him coz he is completely useless.

  20. H*

    As an assistant editor at a magazine, had one of the sales reps constantly ask me to print off documents for him before his meetings because he was constantly “in a hurry and just didn’t have the time!!!” I maybe did it once expecting it to be a one-off thing, but once it kept happening I just said something along the lines of “I’m on a deadline, so no.”

  21. gnomic heresy*

    Getting accused of this is a big fear of mine. I have (increasingly severe) ADHD. Things I can do tolerably well one day, when the meds are working, I’ve slept and eaten well, and my emotional state is balanced, will be completely impossible a few days later. For example, one day I can be on the ball and get the kids packed up and ready to go out the door for my partner before I start work, with a packed lunch, fed breakfast, given meds and vitamins, and in clean clothes and with brushed hair and teeth. The next day I might be slightly tired and it throws off my balance and all of this feels like an impossible task, and I can’t even think through the fog about where to start.

    I’m a person of decent intellectual ability, which enables me to cover well for my ADHD under certain circumstances, but when things get too much it sometimes happens that I fall apart emotionally. I imagine that what this looks like from the outside is a capable person getting complacent and sliding into dicking around, and then getting overemotional and taking it personally when they are called on it, and falling back on the excuse of ADHD.

    How do you tell when someone is weaponizing incompetence to avoid doing things they don’t feel like doing, or has a mental health condition that sometimes prevents them from working at full capacity?

    1. V*

      As a fellow adhder you do your best, have the difficult conversations about what that looks like with your partner, and maybe figure out accommodations for bad days. Like – kids will not die from lunchables. Maybe clean clothes can be simplified somehow. I literally send my laundry out and it comes back clean and folded because I can feel guilty about not being able to do laundry or I can use money to get clean clothes.

      1. Marna Nightingale*

        Also YOU GUYS. A friend recommended kC Davis’ How To Keep House While Drowning to me recently and it is A REVELATION.

        Her website, podcast, and other work on what she calls “struggle care” is the best thing I’ve found in YEARS.

        2. Doc McCracken*

          Also adhd here. Dana K White’s books How to Manage Your House Without Losing Your Mind and Decluttering at the Speed of Life are amazing! She has a podcast and YouTube channel too. It’s called A Slob Comes Clean. Found her super helpful even before being diagnosed as an adult.

        4. Usurper Cranberries*

          Unfuck Your Habitat (website and book, though honestly I prefer reading through the now-defunct Tumblr because it includes real before-and-after pictures) is also excellent for advice on working with yourself on bad days. Obviously not for those who don’t like profanity.

      2. I Have RBF*

        Once my mentor at one company and I were discussing time saving methods, and I mentioned using a laundry service. His response? “Absolutely! Fluff and Fold is awesome. That’s the only way my laundry gets done.

        For years I lived in a house that didn’t have laundry machines. I went to a laundromat, and paid the people there to wash, dry, and fold my clothes. It was worth the cost to not to have to spend a day recovering from doing laundry.

      3. goddessoftransitory*

        I forget which YouTuber it is, but my husband watches one who says “ADHDrs live life on Hard Mode,” and he says that’s exactly it.

    2. Marna Nightingale*

      As a fellow person with ADHD:

      Strategic incompetence always turns out to be convenient for the incompetent person and a pain in the neck for someone else. Also, the people who wield it don’t usually do helpful things for others on their good days.

      ADHD-fail is at best an even split of being a pain for everyone, and often way more trouble to you than to the other person, for whom it’s a trivial task. And you almost certainly help your coworkers when they’re having a bad day and you aren’t.

      So odds are this is something you don’t have to worry about.

      Also, fwiw maybe look up “rejection-sensitive dysphoria”, which is a known facet of ADHD. In short, people are generally judging us a lot more generously than we think they are.
      Knowing this doesn’t FIX it, but it’s helpful.

      1. FrogEngineer*

        wow, I had never heard of RSD and… yeah, now I understand why job searching is so hard for me.

      2. Aggretsuko*

        Yes, but people with ADHD are always being critiqued and told they’re wrong (ask me how I know), so having RSD is just…what you get for being non-typical. Unfortunately, I’m well aware that people are judging me on a very harsh basis, because I keep causing problems with my brain :/

        1. Michelle Smith*

          Then, respectfully, the people around you suck. You deserve compassion and grace, especially as you are trying your best to navigate a world that wasn’t designed for you. My friends and my bosses/coworkers have always been supportive of me and how my brain works. I hope you can find and surround yourself with people who do the same for you.

      3. Smithy*

        Absolutely this – but also, having people in your corner – be it family, friends, therapist, who can help you identify when you’re doing this to yourself.

        I was recently at a work happy hour with board members, and found myself talking about my scope of work in a way that I’m sure would not have made my boss’ “top 10 list” of things she’d want me to tell a board member. I left questioning whether I’d drank too much, if I was in trouble, if I needed to tell my grandboss who was with the board, etc etc etc.

        Reality was that while I know I was a bit more informal that I would be if I could have done it over again, I wasn’t rude or inappropriate. I talked about a less positive aspect of my work, but in an upbeat manner. So while again, not a topic my boss would have wanted me to bring up, she probably also wouldn’t have wanted me to fart but wouldn’t have been angry about either.

        But it wasn’t until I told a friend and talked it through that I could emotionally accept I wasn’t in trouble and could let go of that anxiety. And it was holding onto that anxiety and fear that can be a lot more damaging in reinforcing a belief of needing to be perfect to compensate for any other shortcoming. Because the reality is that level of anxiety rarely leads to preventing new mistakes, but rather just more anxiety of making new mistakes.

      4. O'Bun*

        Marrna, thank you for the pointer to RSD. It’s terrifically helpful.

        I believe this is the first time I’ve responded on here to a person I know IRL. Fortunately, I also know you won’t judge me harshly.

    3. Sloanicota*

      Well, the whole *point* of weaponized incompetence is that it’s not the first thing most people jump to – the first thing they assume is that you’re somewhat incompetent, or otherwise unable to do the thing. It generally doesn’t occur to them right away that you’re perfectly capable but Prefer Not To. I’m not sure that helps you but …

    4. PaperclipsPlease*

      I’m not sure about telling when another coworker is doing this, but as someone with ADHD (and close to my team) I can just say something like “I’m sorry, my brain isn’t cooperating today. Can we push XYZ to tomorrow instead?” and usually it’s fine.

      I think coworkers are open to it when you don’t make a big deal out of it or act like you can get away with anything because of ADHD, for example. I have a coworker who blames everything on her ADHD and I’m like, I get it, I have the same problems. But let’s talk about strategies to support you and allow you to get your work done.

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        I think that sums it up really well: people can tell the difference between coping and blaming. If the person is coping, they’re trying to find a workaround. If the person is blaming, they jump straight to “can’t do it” and stay there.

    5. I edit everything*

      This sounds so familiar to me. Some days I can edit like a maniac, and other days, I just sit and stare at the same sentence for an hour, broken by intermittent forays to Facebook or something else around the house, followed by frustration and utter bewilderment at how I could have gotten so little done that day.

      1. gnomic heresy*

        OMG me. I write and edit curriculum, and somedays I write like the wind, and some days I sit and stare at it for very long-seeming stretches of five minutes at a time broken by 20 minute stretches of “research”.

    6. New B Lurker*

      “If you could do your best every day it wouldn’t be your best.” Sounds obvious but actually it’s been a little life-changing for me to accept this. Stop holding yourself to an impossible standard and try to make peace with being just-okay at many of your daily tasks.

      (My partner’s version of this is “anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”)

      1. Sedna*

        Oof, this is a great phrase. Borrowing it for when I get in my own head about not always being perfect.

      2. Sloanicota*

        These are such great reminders for kids like me raised on “give 110% every time!!” sports stuff. Even at the time, I was like, “wait, isn’t the whole point of that phrase the fact that it’s *not possible*??”

      4. EmF*

        My general equivalent is “best is a variable target”

        Some days my best is “I have answered two emails, go me!”
        Other days it’s “I’ve conducted a bunch of case audits, done data cleanup on that spreadsheet with seventy thousand rows, designed some reporting that’s gonna be really handy, automated something I’ve been doing manually, and answered two emails, go me!”

        Those were both my best at the time.

        1. Michelle Smith*

          This is exactly it. There’s a graphic I saw recently that showed different circles for different days. Some days were filled in at about 10% and some were closer to 100%. The caption was something along the lines of this is what giving 100% actually looks like. It’s not 100% every single day, it’s the best you can do on a given day, whether that’s 10% or 70%.

      5. goddessoftransitory*

        I find this really helpful in cooking*: if you’re out of Hungarian paprika it’s okay to use regular. Bottled lemon juice is fine if you don’t have the wherewithal to squeeze a dozen fresh ones. I personally am never going to hand make noodles or jam; that is what the grocery store is for. It’s okay to not produce a gourmet feast for the gods on a Tuesday night.

        *I would not recommend this for baking: proportion and correct ingredients are vital to most baked goods.

        1. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

          That is so true, about baking. Cooking is an art, but baking is a science.

          Come to think of it, one reason I like baking more is because there’s less guesswork. As long as I have a reliable recipe and follow it to the letter using quality ingredients, I know I’ll probably get good results. Most of the time, anyway!

      6. FromCanada*

        My friend recently said this to me – “anything worth doing is worth doing badly”. It was a revelation. I was so struck by it. I probably have ADHD (not diagnosed but my child does) and I struggle with these kinds of things talked about in this thread.

        I’m now adding your “If you could do your best every day it wouldn’t be your best” to my toolbox. Thank you @New B Lurker!

    7. Warrior Princess Xena*

      A big part of it is consistency at what you’re incompetent at. If you have up days and down days that affect everything you touch, that’s one thing. If you happen to become incompetent every single time you touch a task, despite being competent elsewhere, especially if it’s a relatively unfun one or there’s a bias (see all the men being pants at so-call women’s work in the threads already), then people start wondering.

    8. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

      I don’t have ADHD but do have practically every other mental condition and here’s how I judge whether my actions are deliberate incompetent or not:

      If I make excuses for it and expect others to go ‘oh that’s ok then’.

      That’s not alright and I am guilty of it – ‘I’m allowed to be nasty to people when my pain level is at a solid 9’ feels good to say but it’s not alright.

      Whereas if I say ‘sorry for being completely out of it yesterday, I’m on new medications and I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t happen again’ then that’s okay.

    9. M*

      I hope that reading through some of the other examples in this thread help calm your fears a bit. I do implementations/operations at a big university am very often on the receiving end of weaponized incompetence and the word “weaponized” makes all the difference here! I can absolutely tell the difference between someone who is unable to do something for whatever myriad of reasons versus someone who does not have respect for me and what I’m doing!

    10. Double A*

      My husband has ADHD and I know some days will be better than others. When I get frustrated with him is when he won’t engage in coming up with systems to help mitigate the disorganization. And obviously every system can fail and some days just go sideways no matter what, but being able to be proactive to anticipate what needs to be done and have systems to make it go more smoothly is key to feeling like someone is doing their best and trying.

      1. Grim*

        Oof, I know this feeling. I have ADHD, and used to be in a fairly serious relationship and semi-cohabitating with a fellow ADHDer. And yet somehow the majority of the chores (like grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning, making plans and organising logistics for anything we did together as a couple, etc) seemed to somehow fall on me. I guess I’d just managed to come up with more effective strategies for staying somewhat organised, remembering important tasks, and making myself actually do things even when they seemed boring or unpleasant. But it did get frustrating to feel like I was the only one making an effort to manage my symptoms!

    11. Beth*

      The surest sign is when the person can do anything they actually want to do, and can never do anything they don’t want to do, even if they have been trained in it, it’s part of their job, it’s been part of their job for a long time, and they demonstrate full consistent competence at other tasks.

      Other elements of the pattern can include:
      – the person is a guy (not always, but usually)
      – it’s a task that’s seen as “properly” belonging to lower-status workers, especially women
      – they usually try to get someone else to do it, who they see as lower status, even if the person is not lower status
      – once they’ve gotten someone else to do it, they will never ever be able to do it themselves
      – they make a bigger deal of not being able to do the task than seems reasonable, or they make an oversized joke about it that isn’t funny

      Someone in your situation is really unlikely to fit this pattern, although I certainly understand why you’re worried that it might happen. Everyone has off days; off days make it harder to do everything, not just the specific task that That One Guy never does and always tries to get someone else to do.

      At least for me, a big part of the resentment isn’t the task itself, which is often minor, even petty; it’s the arrogance of the person who’s playing incompetent, and the fact that they’re willing to put so much effort into the system of performative lying — more time and effort than the task itself would require. This is not what you do, and it’s not who you are, and people can tell the difference. You’re ok!

      (Full disclosure: I had an ex who was bad at everything that he didn’t want to do, across most areas of basic adulthood. He taught his son to be just like him.)

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        Oh, the arrogance and time investment in NOT doing a simple task: that is the exact thing that infuriates me! You aren’t too good to learn to make coffee or change toner or do inventory, and I AM too good to be subject to your Rube Goldberg-ian workarounds that you clearly have all the time and energy in the world to build!

    12. ADHD Partner*

      I was just thinking about my partner’s ADHD while reading this thread. He does well at work (tech support) even without his meds (he went off because of the shortage) and tries to do a lot at home, but the last step or two of something is never finished and he just doesn’t remember it. If he sees me doing it, he gets frustrated with himself because he didn’t mean to not finish. For example, he’ll take out the trash and forget to put a bag in or feed the cats and leave the cat food cans on the counter and not refill their dry food because he gets distracted by their water fountain, etc. It’s not weaponized incompetence – it’s just his brain moving onto a different thing before finishing up. I don’t mind finishing the last parts of tasks. It’s not on purpose so it’s not the same thing, though I know he sometimes feels insecure that I see it that way (I assure him I don’t and I appreciate all that he does to help out). I know what helps him at work is alarms on his phone, documenting the steps of each task so he has a reference and can make sure he finishes all of the tasks at hand, and taking notes to make sure he doesn’t forget what step he’s on with the person he’s tech supporting. He can’t do the same with every chore we have so I know why there’s a difference in his work performance and home performance.

      1. Michelle Smith*

        Why can’t he do the same with every chore? I’m genuinely asking because this is how I manage my symptoms and I don’t have anyone to come behind me and help me finish if I forget. Checklists help a ton (when I use them!) and I bought a laminating machine for like $50 that lets me make them all nice and neat looking. The only reason I suggest trying it, even for some chores if not all, is because he’s feeling a certain type of way about not remembering all the steps. If it would help him feel more secure and happy about his contributions to the household, just try it! Even for just a few of the bigger tasks he takes on, it could just help him feel more accomplished. And if putting signs up around the house feels like too much/too embarrassing, a binder in each room could work too. Just don’t forget to put putting the binder away as the last step lol.

      2. Premium Hot Towel Warmer Replacement Bulb*

        I don’t have diagnosed ADHD but I not infrequently forget some follow-up step. Like putting all the hand towels in the wash but forgetting to put up new hand towels. It drives my wife nuts, but why can’t she just put up a new hand towel herself? It would take less time and be more effective than finding me and snapping at me about it. :(
        Similarly if I accidentally leave a light on, just turn it off. None of the thousand previous reminders have trained me not to do that, one more isn’t going to be the tipping point. I put LED bulbs in practically all our fixtures, they can be left on for like 4 hours at the cost of a penny.

        1. Amanda*

          With the hand towels, she’s likely discovering that you forgot to put up a towel when she has dripping wet hands which is annoying. She’ll have to walk to the closet or dryer and grab a new towel with wet hands, then back to the washroom. Or wipe her hands on her pants until you remember to put a towel back. If you know this is a pattern and want to break it, I bet you can learn to remember it. Her snapping at you clearly isn’t working, but if you want to do a small kindness for your wife I think you could learn this if you really try.

        2. Observer*

          . It drives my wife nuts, but why can’t she just put up a new hand towel herself? It would take less time and be more effective than finding me and snapping at me about it. :(

          I think that if you flip the question, you can see the answer. Like “I know that it drives him nuts when I come after him, but why can’t he just put up a new towel instead of causing me to have to deal with stuff with wet hands?”

          And to be honest, the question makes me wonder if you *forget* or if you “forget” because “well she can just as easily put the new towels in when she sees it”. I’ll take your word for it that you are actually forgetting, but it’s surely a thought that has occurred to your wife. *Especially* if you say this to her. Or if you have ever boasted about how much house work you do. Because what you are describing sounds like a lot of deliberate strategic incompetence.

          1. Premium Hot Towel Warmer Replacement Bulb*

            Strategic incompetence would be if I were deliberately trying to get out of laundry duty with this tactic. I am not and it does not.

    13. Becca*

      I know this is not what you asked for but my sister and I recently discovered you can freeze peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and it’s been lifechanging for both of our families.

    14. Jaybeetee*

      As someone who has ADHD, has been on the receiving end of weaponized incompetence, and, if I’m brutally honest, has probably weaponized incompetence myself at times – the people close to you can tell the difference between executive dysfunction and weaponized incompetence.

      WI tends to be more targeted to specific tasks, there tends to be a resistance to learning how to do the task better (or at all), and they tend to be tasks that reasonably, most people can learn how to competently do, but aren’t particularly pleasant. For example, making coffee or doing the dishes. Anyone can screw up sometimes, but the difference is between “I know how to make coffee, today I got distracted and screwed X up” vs “Coffee-making is a mystifying skill that I have never mastered, so you must be the one to do it.”

      I have an ex who had executive dysfunction issues, but also tended to do the weaponized incompetence thing with household chores. Executive dysfunction tends to impact nearly everything, including things you want to do or have no problem doing. WI tends to be an oddly specific inability to figure out how to clean a bathroom no matter how many times someone holds your hand through it.

    15. Hashtag Destigmatize Therapy*

      Oh my gosh, this sounds exactly like you’re describing me (I also have ADHD).

      Riddle me this: when you have executive dysfunction, what even *is* the difference between things you don’t feel like doing and things you’re unable to do because of a mental health condition?

      1. Admin of Sys*

        People w/out executive function issues still don’t want to clean the house, they just want the house to be clean and that triggers cleaning the house. Sure, some folks enjoy doing the dishes or whatever, but afaict the vast majority of people without DAVE riding them do things the don’t want to all the time. The issue is where the ‘I don’t like doing the thing’ and ‘I am unhappy with the state of things’ intersects.
        In someone without issues, when they get to ‘I am unhappy with the state of things’, then unless they absolutely detest doing the thing, it gets done anyway. Trash is full, we like having space to throw out trash, so trash gets emptied. You don’t enjoy taking out the trash, you just do it because it needs done to achieve not-having-trash-around. And if you abjectly hate touching trash, you find ways to get around that – it becomes the partner’s job, you get a compactor, you wear gloves, whatever.
        But if DAVE is around, it ends up being ‘I want trash to be emptied. Trash is not emptied. I must not want trash to be empty enough to do it. If I eventually /really want/ the trash to be emptied, I will empty it, but since I am currently not emptying the trash, I must not want it enough. And then the trash stays around until it gets so overwhelming you empty it because the other option is actually horrific.

  22. Lainey L. L-C*

    Let’s see:

    1. We had a copier that another department would also use. The amount of people (male and female) who didn’t understand how it worked was astounding. “It says it’s out of paper, what do I do?” “It says there’s a paper jam, what do I do?” “It says it’s out of toner what does that mean?” And, if no one would do it for them, they had no qualms about walking off and leaving the problem for the next person who needed to use it to deal with. I unfortunately sat right next to the copier so guess who was constantly asked and/or had to fix it?

    2. I had a male co-worker who couldn’t understand how to print documents. No matter how many times people showed him.

    3. Another male co-worker would basically refuse to do his job! He had an advanced degree (supposedly?) in the field he was in. But when it came time for him to groom the llamas, he would claim the llamas he was assigned couldn’t be found, so he didn’t groom them. This went on for years until he was assigned a new boss and several noticeable llamas that he was assigned were not groomed. He tried to claim that he couldn’t find them at the time and the llama’s owners claimed no, he never picked up the llamas from them. He got reassigned to alpaca grooming, which was less intense, but made a million mistakes that he somehow also blamed on the alpaca owners. How he still has a job is beyond me.

    2. Peanut Hamper*

      2. I had a male co-worker who couldn’t understand how to print documents. No matter how many times people showed him.

      At my last job, we let a coworker go, and I got to clean out her desk. She had a sheet labeled “How to print” tacked up on her bulletin board, and it was literally “Microsoft Word > File menu > Print” and “Adobe > File menu > Print” for all of the different software packages we used (there were about eight of them, in total).

      I kind of wish I had kept that sheet.

      1. Lainey L. L-C*

        I wish he had made those notes. He would just get mad that no one would “help” him because we all got tired of explaining it over and over again and would just ignore him.

        1. JB*

          How is Ctrl+P difficult to remember? That’s why those shortcuts are so ubiquitous, they’re intuitive to learn, retain and use.

          1. Michelle Smith*

            Even if you have a memory problem and can’t remember, you honestly don’t need to. It would be very difficult to find an office where the computers assigned to the office worker is not connected to the internet. I forget how to do things in Foxit (we don’t use Adobe) all. the. time. I Google them. The answers for basic questions like that are not hard to find!

      2. goddessoftransitory*

        I mean, that’s what I’d do, no lie. I can’t retain tech info unless I use it all day, every day until it’s automatic.

  23. And the Skeletons Are… Part of It*

    Shoutout to everyone who like me learned the concept of weaponized incompetence as a kid from the Calvin and Hobbes strip where he shovels the snow in little discrete holes instead of one long path. “If you do something badly enough, he won’t be asked to do it again.”

    1. Dust Bunny*

      Calvin obviously did not have my parents. Trying this would get us an extra-uncomfortable intensive training session. One of my brothers attempted to be bad at mowing the lawn and my mother made sure we had the best-looking lawn in the neighborhood all summer long, including edging and hand-trimming around the trees and fenceposts. Brother quickly learned that it was faster and easier to do it right the first time.

      1. UnicornUnicorn*

        Lawn mowing was the *one* chore I got out of by using weaponized incompetence. My dad was incredibly anal about the yard, and I really, really, REALLY did not want to mow it, so I did a really bad job and he got so frustrated that he just did it himself and didn’t ask me again.

        It didn’t work for dusting or doing dishes or cleaning my room, but for some reason, screwing up the yard pushed him over the edge.

        To this day I’ve never mown a lawn. One of the benefits of apartment living.

      2. AceInPlainSight*

        Lawnmowing- it wasn’t weaponized incompetence, it was just plain incompetence/ bad luck. The first time I mowed the lawn as a teenager, I threw up a piece of gravel and broke a basement window. Never had to do it again (and now I live in an apartment)

  24. Exhausted Electricity*

    “I was never trained on this software!!! And now all my work keeps autodeleting!!!”

    I sat and trained this man for 24 business hours in how this software worked. I wrote painstakingly detailed process documents. I screen-recorded videos of how to design projects, complete with subtitles!
    And I thought it was my fault that he didn’t know what I was trying to teach him until the interns came, watched 1 video, had 1 tiny question here or there, and sure they crashed the software once or twice, it happens. But they never had to start over “from scratch” because “the program deleted everything”…

    Turns out he was sitting at home doing literally nothing, or talking to people in other departments, and he’d figured out if he waited just long enough that I’d get assigned to do his work because I could finish his projects in less than a business day.

    1. Exhausted Electricity*

      he ended up calling me “condescending” for explaining that the client wanted us to use spout Y for the teapot and not spout A because…he’d asked me if I “was sure, and why do we want to use that one” (client preference written in the scope???)
      like, buddy boy, you asked, and I ended up needing to have our manager sit in the last remedial training I ran for him about the software to prove I was running it properly so THAT was fun.

    2. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      > Turns out he was sitting at home doing literally nothing

      This didn’t surprise me at all, perhaps I’ve been around too many of this type of person but I knew as soon as “all his work was autodeleted” that the work had never existed. Wouldn’t it have been easier for him to just do it – although maybe not if he’s wfh so could just watch Netflix or whatever.

    3. Decima Dewey*

      “I was never trained on this software!!! And now all my work keeps autodeleting!!!”

      “Hmmm. Have you tried SAVING IT??”

  25. Anita Burner*

    While not exactly weaponized incompetence, I have fought against cultural norms of women being the note takers in meetings. I am a woman in a technical field and I refuse to do any admin related tasks. When I was new the team I joined assigned me to keep the meeting notes – fine, as the FNG, that role fell to me. However, the very second a new person (a man) joined our team, I made it a huge point to publicly, at the start of a meeting “bestow” upon him the duty of capturing meetings notes “as that job falls to the person newest to the group.” Even when the notes weren’t great and sent out late, I stood firm and did not take the task back over.

    I’ve also allowed incredibly long moments of awkward silence to linger when the team assumed that I would be taking on a task that was previously “mine” given my previous place in the org chart. To the extent that when I finally spoke up (literally a full two minutes later) and stated that “I [would] not be doing X, but am here if anyone has questions, as it’s time someone else learn X so that we aren’t setting up a single point of failure” a team member actually said “Oh, I was hoping that you would do it like the last few times this came up.” Once again, I had to remind myself that if I took over when things went sideways that I was only reinforcing that incompetence or laziness was a valid excuse to get out of a task.

    1. ScruffyInternHerder*

      Yes to this!

      My department head understands fully that though I take notes in meetings (its a quirk of ADHD in my case – I write it down, I recall it), those notes are for MY use and benefit, and unless I’m asked ahead of time in the rotation of note-takers, they will NOT be shared.

      In fairness, I keep notes when assigned, as it is rotating. But those notes and the ones I otherwise take look very, very, very different.

      1. lissajous*

        Had this one the other day!
        “Ooh you’re taking notes!”
        “I’m taking notes for me, yes. Minutes are a very different thing.”
        Why yes, I am a woman in a very male dominated field. (Credit to the companies I’ve worked at though – when I’ve taken minutes it’s been because I’m in the role most suited to it. And when it should been one of the guys, they’ve done it without prompting.)

        (I always take notes, because otherwise I don’t remember things. Usually I don’t have to refer back to them much, because writing them helps lock it in the memory.
        Typing doesn’t have the same effect at all.)

    3. Tau*

      I’ve really struggled with this because I always want to be helpful – but I’ve heard enough horror stories that it’s one of my guiding rules at work to never volunteer to take notes. I sometimes pretty much sit on my hands as the silence stretches.

      At one point, it was only me and men on the team, and we had a weekly meeting where for some reason one of the guys had been roped into being the note-taker. He hated it and frequently complained about the unfairness; I’d urge him to just set up a rota, and occasionally mentioned in the meetings that we probably should, but nobody ever did anything and I was not willing to either volunteer in order to give him a break or to organise the note-taking rotation because I was too worried sexism would kick in and I’d be saddled with the job.

      …telling this story again, I find myself wondering whether he was complaining to everyone or just me. I can’t actually remember.

    4. Analog Mayhem*

      Good for you for standing up for yourself! Taking notes is part of my job, so I do it. I flat-out need them to do my work. People hate note-taking, but you wouldn’t believe how often team members (men and women) ask me for my notes regarding what decisions were made on certain tasks. When a project is in trouble, everyone loves the notes, but few people will lift a finger to take them.

    5. Mermaid of the Lunacy*

      Same here! I very publicly in a staff meeting asked why women always ended up volunteering to take notes and why didn’t a man do it this time? The awkward pause after that comment sticks with me, 12 years later.

  26. MicrowavePopcorn*

    We are 100% remote and using an AI notetaker on Zoom has eliminated the need to ask someone to take notes. (It is also a HUGE time saver)

    I don’t know if this is weaponized incompetence, but it is my all time favorite story from my last company.

    I walked into the breakroom and made eye contact with a Distinguished Engineer standing in front of the microwave looking confused.
    I asked “Is everything ok?”
    He said “I am trying to figure out how to make popcorn.”
    Me “…”
    Him “…”
    Me “there is literally a button that says popcorn.” I reached over and pressed it. Magically the microwave started up and his popcorn was popped.

    1. Firestar*

      Oh I think you told this before, right? It became the go-to phrase for something obvious in the office that someone could not seem to grasp right?

      2. goddessoftransitory*

        My dad’s phrase “Yes, Wallace” came from a similar officemate who was nepo-promoted and had no idea what he was doing: his only strategy was to wait until somebody started to do a task, and then tell them to do the task. That they were in the process of doing. “Yes, Wallace” was the standard answer to this.

    2. Expelliarmus*

      I feel like I can remember being told that the buttons on the microwave intended for various foods are notoriously unreliable and not to use them at all. Interesting to see it worked here haha

      1. Orsoneko*

        Yeah, I’ve pretty sure I have used the popcorn button without catastrophic results, but every package of microwave popcorn I’ve encountered (and I eat a lot of it) has a line in the instructions warning you not to use the button.

        But those instructions tend to be painstakingly detailed, so that probably wasn’t the thing that was tripping this guy up.

        1. Llama Identity Thief*

          In my experience, the popcorn button is the ONLY specialized button on a microwave that actually works well!

        2. ferrina*

          Me too! Most microwaves I’ve met burn the popcorn when I press the Popcorn button. I’ve met a couple that do an okay job, but honestly just punching in the desired time seems to work best (the magic time is usually 3:20)

    3. Warrior Princess Xena*

      In fairness to him, strange microwaves can sometimes be hell. I still have absolutely no idea how I or anyone else worked the microwaves on my college campus, since they didn’t have the standard keypad layout and had some sort of weird programmable button setup that varied wildly from microwave to microwave. I think we all made our food based on trial and error in there.

      2. AngryOctopus*

        One of the microwaves in our break area is old and mysterious. We all now know that you press 8, and it’ll run for 2′, and do an OK job of heating your food (I prefer to wait for one that makes sense, because I like my food at the temperature of molten lava, but that’s neither here nor there).

  27. Marna Nightingale*

    On a cheerful note, I have on multiple occasions dealt with customer service reps and bureaucrats who professed themselves absolutely unable to understand the unwritten rule about not proactively pointing out to clients the small print that said the client could in fact have what they needed.

    That is my absolute favourite kind of strategic incompetence.

    1. Firestar*

      I feel this is more weaponized “ignorance” of unethical practices and making sure they know their now legally agreed to rights.

      But yes, the best kind.

  28. Yeah, I play that game*

    As a middle-aged woman in engineering, I’m utterly baffled by the coffee machine and dishwasher. I only make coffee when I’m the first person in the office, and I make it 1.5x strength. No one has noticed that there’s fresh coffee when I’m the first person in, but I’m helpless to make it through the day. I’m also ruthless about sending people to the admins to solve their problems rather than trying to be helpful.

    1. NotRealAnonForThis*

      My favorite go-to when someone attempts to foist administrative work on me because I’m the only woman in sight:

      “I’m a very expensive administrative assistant and I can’t type worth a darn. I’m also on a deadline because that’s just what my department DOES, deadlines. You should really take it to our actual Administrative Assistant because I simply cannot.”

      I’m not telling lies, either.

    2. Voodoo Priestess*

      We are kindred spirits. At my last job, when I was asked to be on party-planning or decorating committees, I would always reply with “I have too much on my plate but you should ask [male co-workes].” They always assumed the women would do it and rarely even asked the men. Nope. Not it.

  29. Quinalla*

    Yes I’ve definitely used it for good as a woman in a male-dominated workplace on making coffee. I don’t drink coffee and while I understand how a coffee maker works, I am not great at making coffee. If I am ever asked to make coffee (doesn’t happen anymore since I WFH!) I would just say, oh I don’t drink coffee, you don’t want me to make it, I might put in too much/too little grounds or use more than one filter or something. Which is true, but if I wanted to, I’m sure I could figure out how to make reasonable coffee. But I’m never going to as (1) I don’t drink coffee and (2) It is not my job to make coffee just because I am a woman in the office.

    I have definitely seen used many times by people to get out of crappy work. “I’m not good at taking notes/minutes.” Is so annoying to me! or “I’m not sure how to set up a meeting invite in outlook, can you just do it?” or “Oh, I don’t know how to change the paper/toner/clear a paper jam.” I just always offer to walk them through it so they’ll know how cause I see right through that BS!

    1. I Have RBF*

      Some of us actually are crappy at taking notes/minutes. My notes are useless as meeting minutes, because I only jot down my key takeaways, otherwise I miss most of the meeting by trying to write it all down. There is nothing that can train my ADHD brain to do it better.

    2. Charlotte Lucas*

      I am responsible for our intranet page. Some of those comments would get people a link to where they can learn more. I am very helpful like that.

    3. Ann*

      Same. I feel like the office coffee is way too strong, but no one else complains, so I assume they just all like their coffee ten times stronger than I would make it. I really don’t want to mess it up and cause the entire department to be an undercaffeinated tired mess. Even if I come in early, I’d rather wait a bit and let the admin who always does it handle this job.

  30. Mrs Morley*

    As a young woman (early 1980s) I claimed I was unable to type (I learned to touch type age 12 and typed roughly 70 wpm) to avoid admin tasks. I was a software developer. I clearly could type.

    1. Delta Delta*

      David Mamet’s spectacular movie “State and Main” has a scene where a writer can’t type due to an injury and asks another character to type for him. She looks him straight in the eye and says, “never admit you can type.” I think about this a lot.

      Also, go watch that movie. It’s an absolute masterpiece. (if you’re into David Mamet’s style, and I am, so take it with a grain of salt)

  31. I Wrote This in the Bathroom*

    This is from way in my youth, but here goes: in high school, I ended up on my home country’s equivalent of the student council and, once on it, was put in charge of all things art – signs, posters, decorations etc around the school. Which in practice ended up being 10% me overseeing somebody else making art and 90% me making ALL THE ART. Tried to leave after a year, but was told I had to stay on and keep making the art, which I did till I graduated.

    Mentioned it to a few people when I started college and spent most of my five years there being on a team of 2-3 people responsible for making ALL THE ART in the dorm building. Signs, posters, etc. We are talking a tower 14 floors tall with 16 suites and several common areas on each floor. It got exhausting fast.

    Started my first job out of college, in an IT department of a large manufacturing plant, and not even two weeks into the job, I had two young women approach me saying that they were on the (forgot the name of it… something employee-engagement-like?) committee and did I know how to draw? DID I KNOW HOW TO DRAW? I smiled and said Nope! and that was the end of my poster-making career. I’ve done some of it in my later years, but for myself (made a sign for a protest I was attending, painted the large rocks embedded in the curb strip next to my house etc) but never was anyone able to rope me into doing it for a job or similar on a volunteer basis ever again.

    1. goddessoftransitory*

      Husband is an accomplished artist and you can bet he keeps that realllll quiet when stuff like this comes up.

  32. Fire Drill Daryl*

    I worked in a hospital registration department back when I was in college. It’s very fast-paced and sometimes you’re coordinating life flight helicopter landings and incoming casualty ambulances at the same time. Even for a small college town it was an intense job. “Daryl” worked there for about a decade by the time I was there. His mom was some high-up’s executive assistant so he couldn’t be fired. One phone line was dedicated for incoming casualties to the ER and it would literally blare an alarm, flash red, and light up the whole office. ER coordination was an in-depth task that took about 1/2 hour and required a lot of focus. It wasn’t bad and it made the day go faster. One day he just sat there while it was ringing and then walked away. When we asked him why he did that he replied “oh, I didn’t know what it was. I thought it was a fire drill so I left and went home.”

    1. I Wrote This in the Bathroom*

      Aside from the weirdness of his excuse, who the heck leaves and goes home whenever there’s a fire drill at work? You go outside and wait in your team’s designated space until you’re all allowed back in. If you notice that you are the only one walking outside or waiting in the designated spot, you realize there isn’t, in fact, a fire drill happening, and go back in.

    2. Protoa (formerly known as Firestar)*

      Well, time to have a “real” fire drill, where he is the only one who does not know it’s not a real drill, and have everyone else do the standard fire drill stuff, and if he does them too, fire him, as he could have gotten someone killed, and then lied, badly, or if he heads home, fire him for being an idiot and ignorant of fire evac procs.

      You wanna lie about fire drills Daryl? Well, put your money where you mouth is and get out for endangering someone.

  33. Midwest_Mower*

    Haha it wasn’t at work, but when my husband had back surgery last summer he got extremely twitchy about the grass getting long, so he wanted me to mow with his newer (to us) ZTR – which handled NOTHING like the riding mowers I was used to mowing on. After I ran it into a fence, the birdfeeder, and dropped half of it into the ditch, I was “banned” from using the ZTR. I love telling that story to my friends and reminding them that weaponized incompetence at household duties is not just for men ;)

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      I have my husband convinced I don’t know how to clean the kitchen floor and he’s just so good at it (and every time I compliment him on how well he does it and comment that I don’t know how he does it, I feel generations of women before me beaming down upon me).

      1. Midwest_Mower*

        *slow clap*
        I will say we’re pretty good about splitting chores generally and both pulling our weight around the house/property, but I used to spend HOURS mowing on those riding mowers and he can get the entire place done on the ZTR in under and hour and I did NOT want to get roped into that again… lol.

        Also I just wanted to say I was having a rough morning (unexpected traffic on my commute, schedule packed full of meetings, forgot my lunch at home, etc etc) and the fact that you replied to my comment just made my whole week!

      2. She of Many Hats*

        Mine is NOT turning clean laundry right side out when folding it. If you can’t do it when you dump stuff into the hamper, you can do it when you’re dressing in a hurry…..

        1. I Have RBF*

          I always turn my printed t-shirts inside out when I put them in the wash. It helps the art last longer by not getting ground around in the wash.

        2. Stormfly*

          You are actually supposed to turn most things inside out when you wash them. It increased the life of the clothes, as the pilling and friction damage occurs on the inside of the clothes where no-one can see it. And it’s pretty essential for anything with prints.

      3. learnedthehardway*

        My husband is convinced that he cannot operate the thermostat. I have fostered this belief, because as long as he is not playing around with it, I can set it at a temperature that suits me. I forgot to adjust it before leaving on a trip, and I got so many texts about the temperature while I was gone.

        I have taken to setting a couple degrees lower than I used to during the winter. Now everyone HAS to wear the sweaters and cardigans I am knitting them!

        No regrets!

      4. Distracted Procrastinator*

        I have a brother in law whose mother convinced him at a very young age that he was the very best at vacuuming. No one else could do it quite like him. My sister is very happy to reap the rewards of that early training.

      5. It's Marie - Not Maria*

        My Hubs is a rock star when it comes to laundry. I refuse to iron anything, so he does that as well.

    2. DataGirl*

      lol, I refused to learn how to use the riding mower for 10 years, even paying other people to mow the lawn if my husband was not available. Now I’m divorced so I had to learn how to use it, sadly.

    3. Brain the Brian*

      When my father couldn’t mow anymore and my mother “beheaded” a shutoff valve on their water line while mowing, my parents hired a mowing service. Best money they’ve ever spent.

    4. Bibliovore*

      OMG. I just realized when my husband proudly showed me the bathroom he cleaned, it was strategic incompetence. He did not remove ANY of the stuff on the countertop, just wiped around, did not sweep or wash the floor. I said, how about I just do this from now on.

      1. ferrina*

        My ex did this for EVERY household chore. At one point he “cleaned” our laundry room. By which he meant, he took the piles of dirty laundry off the floor and put them on top of the piles of clean laundry. But hey, the floor was clean, and why wasn’t I proud of him?

        I don’t mind being the sole owner of certain chores. But he tried to weaponize his incompetence for literally every household chore. There was only one household thing that he wanted to do, and he was actually not very good at that thing. He refused to de-weaponize his incompetence (even when I was literally in tears about the amount of chores I was doing), and that’s a big part of why he’s now my ex.

    5. Tequila & Oxford Commas*

      I take full advantage of that too! Somehow I just can’t figure out how to fill up the ice cube trays. It’s hard being a girl!

    6. Sir Nose d'Voidoffunk*

      I have the opposite take on mowing (albeit with a push mower that I know how to use quite well). Are you telling me that I get to put in my headphones and get a little exercise, AND no one asks me for anything for 90 minutes or so? Why on earth would I give that up?

      1. Roe Jo*

        As a mom of 3 boys this is literally the only time my kids will leave me ALONE. You can mow the grass when I am dead.

  34. PaperclipsPlease*

    I work in higher ed. We had some new hires in a team adjacent to mine that would always be making mistakes. Because my team was more competent and that team’s supervisor was always unavailable, we would be tasked with fixing their mistakes. Luckily, we’ve been moving to a new system. As we moved to the new system, I just say “sorry, I don’t know how to do that in NewSystem. You’ll have to ask your supervisor.”

    I did know how to do it, but it isn’t my job to know that area’s procedures. So I just pretend like I don’t know what’s going on to avoid having to do their work for no extra pay.

  35. Sloanicota*

    The times I’ve deployed it are all around defending boundaries in my pushy nonprofit, usually around things they’d like me to do on my personal phone without offering me any money. I already use my own devices for most of work, and being “unable” to get certain apps to work – either not downloading them or claiming I don’t seem to be able to work them – gets me out of more boundary-pushing (requests lately include, downloading our office’s banking app on my phone – which would now leave me as the only person who can handle checks outside of office hours (I am in communications, not finance) or being unable to take zoom meetings from my car while driving to other meetings (oh darn) or not being reachable via slack outside of hours for minutae. It’s so unfortunate that I have this crappy old phone that just doesn’t work well!!

    1. Random Bystander*

      I’m not sure if it’s weaponized incompetence or just my stubbornness, but I refuse to get a smart phone (I do have a stupid cell phone that I will use when traveling or if I need to text my son who lives across the street–he does his laundry at my house and buys all the laundry supplies, so I’ll text him when one or the other machine is done so he can move his laundry). So I really can’t load any apps on it, because it’s just not capable. I did have to break down and add one app to my ipod, but that’s for 2-factor authentication, and darn if the memory isn’t too full to add anything else (I have a lot of music from when you could still buy individual songs/albums).

    2. Wolf*

      My work phone lives in my backpack after work, so I tend to have a few “oops, didn’t hear the call” moments with coworkers who always call about non-urgent, non-important details.

  36. Whoa is me*

    I have a coworker that refuses to train new staff. She is gunning for the next open manager position. While she is capable of training (ie. doing the job) she absolutely does not want that responsibility and gets frustrated with others’ “incompetence”. I completely understand because it makes work days longer and can get in the way of doing other duties that would make her stand out more as a potential management candidate. However, the ability to train others to a satisfactory state plus having good communication to relay information and build a relationship with the other staff is critical to a leadership role.

      1. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

        I don’t think she quite knows what qualities are desirable (in most companies, anyway…) for a manager, so is optimising for the wrong thing.

  37. BellyButton*

    In the 20+ years I have been working professionally, I have seen so much. I can’t even land on one to share.

    From another prospective, I work for a relatively young company, less than 10 yrs old. Most of the employees who are not execs are young Millennials and Gen Z, and I have not once witnessed any of the men asking the women to do those sorts of “housekeeping” items or refusing to learn certain systems or tasks. I have so much hope for our future as Millennials and Gen Zs become leaders.

    Signed,
    Gen Xer

    1. Yeah, I play that game*

      Lucky you. I’m a gen-X woman in a startuup engineering company, and have absolutely seen helpless millenial, gen-Z males.

      1. BellyButton*

        I do think it is often industry specific. When I worked with a lot of engineers and software developers (all ages) I found that they just didn’t care about those things, so didn’t want to do them. They just wanted to do engineering and developing and had no interest in things like handling performance reviews for their direct reports or filling out expense forms.

        1. ferrina*

          Simple solution- don’t fill out your expense form, don’t get reimbursement.

          The performance review solution is to have someone follow up with them until it’s done. Preferably doing the follow-ups in person. Very gregariously. It actually works on a large swath of the population (in an unrelated note, my company has 100% compliance in performance reviews)

        2. Charlotte Lucas*

          Nobody wants to fill out expense reports. It’s just how much more they want reimbursement that affects whether it gets done.

      2. Eldritch Office Worker*

        I’ve found that the Gen-Z males I’m encountering now are like actually helpless and don’t know how to do basic things – but will learn, and be very proud they learned, and then do it in front of me for awhile waiting for a gold star until it becomes rote.

        At least we get there eventually.

  38. Golden Retriever*

    One of our office’s admin assistants does this to an infuriating extent… I often ask her to help with printing/copying, simple tasks that are a part of her job description. She says she’ll do it, and then when I check in with her hours later, claims that the printer is giving her trouble. Then I take a stab at it and can handle the problem within 20 minutes if not less. It’s incredibly frustrating because we have different roles, and I ask her to help because my plate is full with other tasks. It’s not like it takes me AGES to print/copy things, but it definitely helps to not have to worry about that…. only, I DO have to worry about it because our admin assistant who’s been here for two years still takes hours to print a few envelopes.

  39. Delta Delta*

    I’m an attorney. My jurisdiction recently switched to a new electronic case management and filing system. People hate it, but we’re stuck with it and it is what it is. I am also very involved with our state bar with various groups working with the court working to fix issues within the system.

    I had another attorney (younger, male) tell me he had no idea how to use the new system and wasn’t going to bother to learn because his secretary would do it for him. This person was my attorney. Representing me in a case. I was 100% the wrong person to tell he was going to refuse to learn how to do this.

    1. Richard Hershberger*

      Paralegal here. My state started the transition pre-Covid, starting with the smaller counties. Covid put it on hold, but now there is just one county left not doing it. We hated it at first, and we got a lot of filings returned for ticky-tacky reasons, but once we got the hang of it, it really is easier. When we work in that one remaining county, putting paper in envelopes seems clunky and faintly ridiculous. And say what you will about efiling, You don’t have to worry about how close you are to the statute and perhaps you need to pay a courier.

      While your colleague really should learn the system, since his secretary might be out sick some day when there is an important filing, back in the day it would be the secretary who printed the documents, pestered him to sign them, made the file copies, and put the originals in the mail. Handling the efile system is just the modern version of this.

    2. Glomarization, Esq.*

      Yikes. In the last several years in my U.S. jurisdiction, they’ve added the idea of competence with technology to our professional competence rules. So, like, you’re expected to be responsive to e-mail, and you’re expected to know your way around software well enough to do things like properly redact minors’ names and other information as necessary from electronic filings. And we have the usual rule where the buck stops with the lawyer, not their staff.

      In my jurisdiction, then, your pal’s attitude would be all fun and games until he tried to blame his secretary for some error. “Your Honor, it was my secretary who didn’t change the filename from ‘In Re Guardianship of ChildName McLastName Version 3 FINAL_for_ECF’ to ‘In Re Guardianship of C.M.’ before filing,” or, “We would have filed before the statute of limitations ran, but my secretary didn’t upload the document on time,” isn’t something our courts would buy.

      1. Richard Hershberger*

        Speaking as legal support staff, I waver between taking the blame being part of the job and being royally pissed by it. Either way, there are only a few legal deadlines that are absolute, most notably the statute of limitations. I’m not even sure a judge *can* accept the excuse in that instance, as it is a matter of whether the court has jurisdiction. For all the other deadlines, ask nice, saying “pretty please,” and you will get an extension unless you have thoroughly pissed off the judge (perhaps years earlier on another case entirely).

    3. Watry*

      Ugh, this is probably the one of the few benefits to a strongly hierarchical environment. We’re going to be rolling out an updated system soon (and probably a new one at some point) and if someone tries that with me, going to their supervisor will fix it PDQ.

  40. LB33*

    Years ago I had a summer job as a bank teller. One of the other tellers was very sweet but also a born again Christian who would ask me to go to bible studies, etc..

    I did kind of like her however and was curious why someone would do this in an office, so I pretended not to understand certain things with the system so she’d have to train me. I learned a lot in different ways!

  41. K*

    I have a colleague who will proudly announce to everybody that he doesn’t know how to use Teams.

    All of us are forced to endure conference calls on landlines with him because he just won’t learn how and will tell anyone who will listen (a dwindling group) how useless he thinks this tool that he doesn’t know how to use is.

    We’ve even offered to give him a tutorial on how, but no. He’s entirely proud of it.

    I do not understand how a grown man in a managerial role in a professional sector can be so loud and proud about not knowing how to use a basic piece of technology.

    Imagine saying “I don’t know how to use MS Word and I’m not gonna learn how!”

    1. Sloanicota*

      Oh man my boss did this to us with Google Meet. Our whole organization is set up around Google Suite, but she just “couldn’t get google meet to work” so we have to manually enter zoom info into every meeting now instead. I’m pretty sure she could get Google Meet to work if she really wanted to.

      1. BellyButton*

        It is literally no different thank clicking on a Zoom link! You open the invite and click on the link. WTF.

    2. BellyButton*

      OMG. Why hasn’t his boss called him out on it??? I will never get why people are proud to refuse to learn or use new technology. It only makes them look like a dinosaur as$ and inconveniences everyone.

      1. ferrina*

        Right?! It’s a pain to everyone around them, and obviously they can’t do this to people above them. I look forward to watching these people realize how AI is changing the business game.

    3. Nea*

      Imagine saying “I don’t know how to use MS Word and I’m not gonna learn how!”

      I actually worked with this dude. Twice! AND HE WAS A TECH WRITER!

      He loved Interleaf. Loved, loved, loved Interleaf, wrote a book about Interleaf, was an expert in Interleaf… and literally refused to use any other word processing software. EVER. Anything given to him was imported into Interleaf, edited in Interleaf, and exported out of Interleaf. Period. He literally refused to work on any other software, including MS Word, which he “didn’t know how to use and wasn’t going to learn.”

      It honestly surprised me he got one TW job; I was floored when I was hired into a different company a few years later and there he was, still refusing to use any other software as a tech writer, although he was literally the only one who knew or used Interleaf. (The boss there was starry-eyed because he’d written a book so she didn’t insist he learn the software the rest of the department used.)

    4. Beth*

      There was a period of at least 15 years when the typical (white, male) executive was more or less computer illiterate. You could sometimes land a gig where you discreetly slipped into the office and trained the CEO on how to read their email.

      It became less and less acceptable to be like that, but I’m sure there are still a few aging execs who are nearly helpless around computers.

      1. I Have RBF*

        I knew a female CFO of a small company who could NOT competently use Excel. I, an IT person, would have to come and do certain “too complicated” tasks for her. She made easily five times what I did. I’m AFAB. She just looked down on IT as flunkies.

        I don’t do low level Windows support any more. I am a power user in Excel and Word, but no longer know anything about it when it comes to helping others use it.

    5. Jaybeetee*

      … Don’t know how? Okay, I get with things like screen-sharing, etc, it can get a bit weird, but clicking “yes” on a meeting/call is… what could he possibly be stuck on?

    6. Gumby*

      I once worked for a tech startup that was acquired (sort of but for our purposes this works) by a larger company. Our office was several hundred miles from headquarters. Not an issue, they had plenty of satellite offices. But when the new CEO came for a meet and greet, one of the first things he did was proudly announce that he was terrible at the internet. Couldn’t use most websites. Found computers confusing. Etc. Literally every single brand under the parent company was a tech company of some sort. I am not sure what he was going for there, I suspect it was some point about usability and needing to make things simple, but what he actually accomplished was losing the respect of every other person in the room. Sure, fine, maybe you came into this job from a retail-based CEO position. But you aren’t even going to try? Instead you are happy about your incompetence? After almost a decade of leading the parent company? Ugh.

    7. BellaStella*

      Well the missing stair where I work announced at lunch to a table of us including the intern that “He does not do email”. W.T.F.? so yea I believe it.

  42. Kate*

    Are examples at home OK? Even if I try to load the dishwasher perfectly to Himself’s exacting standards, he will “fix it,” so I just put them in any which way to get them off the counter : )

    1. Sloanicota*

      This is the fate of chore tyrants everywhere. I’m not going to try if you are determined to criticize and redo my every effort. I guess you prefer to do it yourself sooo

      1. goducks*

        Right. That’s a different thing than weaponized incompetence. It’s not that a person can’t do a task, it’s that another person cannot cede control of how the task is done, so they win the responsibility for doing it all the time.

    2. londonedit*

      This is my mum. She’ll do it all again to her standards anyway, so you might as well just do it however you like!

      1. CreepyPaper*

        My mother too! She even criticises how I chop onions, apparently I do it ‘wrong’ so when she comes over for meals, she cuts the onion with a good deal of swearing in our native language about how ‘kids these days’ (I’m 43) don’t know how to handle a knife.

      2. workswitholdstuff*

        Hah, my Mum’s exactly the same. I’ll never clean the house to her standards….

    3. Dinwar*

      My grandfather experienced something like that…He criticized the way my grandmother vacuumed once. She let go of the vacuum, said “If you know better than me, you do it”, and walked out of the room. Grandpa was responsible for that vacuum from that day forward. I honestly believe she never so much as touched the vacuum in that house again–if it needed moved for some reason she’d have one of us boys move it.

    4. Little Bunny Foo Foo*

      He should be happy you’re putting them in there at all! When I got married I had this exact converstaion with my mother about how my husband didnt know how to load the dishwasher. The exact words out of her mouth were, “Hes doing the dishes, isnt he? Let him do them however he wants.” Got it Mom!!

      1. Jaybeetee*

        Though your “weaponized incompetence” types can weaponize this idea too. My ex, who somehow tended to turn entirely helpless around most household chores, used to occasionally try to suggest that the issue was that I was *actually* a control freak and he just couldn’t meet my high standards, and I should be grateful he was at least trying!

        Before living with him, I lived with roommates, who uniformly considered me “the messy one”. I’m a long way from being a neat freak. He legitimately was doing chores badly. Eventually I blew up and told him he wasn’t a child and I wasn’t going to pat him on the head for “trying” if the effort was so bad I literally couldn’t tell if he’d Cleaned The Thing or not, and had to redo it myself.

        That issue… never completely got better. But he at least never tried that particular line on me again.

    5. A Girl Named Fred*

      The way my boyfriend loads the dishwasher makes absolutely no sense to me, but I also will never say anything about it because hey, I didn’t have to do it that time, so it’s still a win in my book!

      1. SarahKay*

        At university I shared a flat with another woman; her boyfriend would stay over 2-3 nights each week and she would insist he washed the dishes on at least one of those nights each week. He was dreadful at it; the first time I watched him do it I lasted about three minutes then had to leave the room.
        Specifically, I left the room, found flat-mate, and asked her if she knew he wasn’t very good at it.
        “Yes,” she said, “he’s awful! That’s why I’m in here, because I can’t bear to watch. But I’m damned if I’ll let that stop him from taking his turn.”

      2. Gone*

        I don’t get it. if the dishwasher isn’t loaded properly then the dishes don’t get washed properly (food and gunk now hard-dried on) and then the tidy-upper has to do the hand dishwashing. Where’s the payoff to have the dishwasher not loaded properly?

    6. A frayed knot*

      When we moved into our new house 19 years ago, my husband saw me cleaning the shower and immediately told me I was doing it wrong.

      I have not cleaned the shower since.

      1. FreakInTheExcelSheets*

        This is similar to what my mom has done. My dad is an architect/designer and has remodeled 90% of the house himself. One of the things he did was a design that looks amazing but is a PITA to clean – the shower stall in their bathroom is all glass and they have well water, which means it leaves spots like nobody’s business. He insists you have to squeegee, then dry, then polish (? IDK he wipes it again with a second towel) the glass. My mother always takes the first shower so he can get in right after her and then clean it himself if he’s the one who insisted on this design.

    7. Potato Potato*

      Me, my partner, and her bf all moved into a new house together. All y’all could learn something from her bf- he was a master of strategic incompetence.

      Somehow, the dishwasher would never work for him. And every cabinet was labeled, but oh darn, he just couldn’t remember where anything went. Taking out the trash was complicated too- did you know that putting in a new trash bag was part of that process? He was surprised every time, as were we when we’d throw that first piece of trash into a bare can. Weirdly enough, there wasn’t a single chore that he could manage without somebody stepping in.

      Somehow, he managed to do all these kinds of tasks at work. And that was his excuse, that he worked full time and it took his energy so he shouldn’t be expected to do chores at home.

    8. SarahKay*

      Oh, my mum is like that about the dishwasher too; she is very definite that there is One Best Way to fit everything in. Some of it is obvious so if I’m visiting I’m happy to load plates, mugs and cutlery. Bowls, serving dishes, and glasses I simply stack neatly on the countertop for her to do.
      In fairness, this is exactly how I feel about my drying rack (I dislike dishwashers) so in return for me not mis-loading her dishwasher Mum knows not to wash the dishes for me when she is visiting me.
      In this case, though, we both accept that the price of our One Best Way is that we then have to do the task.

    10. mb*

      I am constantly telling my husband that he can either have me do it my way or not at all. To be fair, he has higher cleanliness standards and I suffer from allergies – so he does virtually all house cleaning and yard work. I cook some meals, do more of the dog care tasks, and the dishes and laundry – I’m also more administrative. I feel it’s a fair trade-off.

    11. Mom2ASD*

      My oldest son tried pulling the “I’m too incompetent to fold laundry” trick. To be fair, he’s got some fine motor issues, and has ZERO ability with spatial recognition. He ended up refolding laundry until he got it to a half-decent state. In the end, I decided that he could keep on folding everyone’s laundry but mine, because he was never going to get any better at it, and I wasn’t going to compromise on my standards. So that’s where we are at, several years later.

      1. EmF*

        I am terrible at folding laundry and have compensated by hanging everything that can’t just be tossed a drawer willy-nilly. T-shirts? They hang. Tank tops? They hang. Hoodies? Hang. Socks? I have twenty identical pairs, which get tossed into The Sock Drawer where I pull them out whenever I actually need to wear socks, which is infrequent.

        It has meant working out storage space so that this is actually practical, but it works beautifully for everything except sheets, which I have just accepted will be clean-but-wrinkly except for The Guest Set.

    12. IrishGirl*

      There is a reason I stay out of the kitchen when my husband cooks. I would tell him how to do things and then I would be stuck doing them. If he used 5 pans to do what would take me 2, fine, he has to clean up it all and I dont let him weaponize it.

    13. goddessoftransitory*

      Oh do NOT get me started–my favorite is the current “it’s okay to run that, it’s full” when the entire bottom has one plate in it, because we’re getting low on bowls.

  43. No one would believe I'm incompetent at anything*

    I currently have an assistant who I technically supervise but who is supposed to support the clergy (I work in a synagogue) who has successfully weaponized incompetence (or is truly, truly incompetent at):
    1. Reading & responding to rabbi’s email
    2. Scheduling appointments for the rabbi
    3. Sending thank-you notes for gifts made in honor of the clergy
    4. Doing anything mail-related

    So, you know, key elements of the job. Rabbi won’t let me fire her because she’s “in her 60s with no real skills, so how is she supposed to find another job?”

    1. iglwif*

      Oh nooooooooooooo.

      We just went through this with the company that had been providing IT support to our synagogue office for many years, and not doing it very well. The (relatively new) ED looked at what we were paying and what we were getting and asked the Board for permission to switch to someone else, we said yes go ahead, and then the owner of the company rage-quit the synagogue.

      Which, fine! If you were only paying your membership dues because we were paying you for substandard tech support, good riddance. Except then he complained to someone else, who complained to me and the ED about how this person’s exit was handled, and we had to explain that yes, he was offered an exit interview, *everyone* is offered an exit interview, etc., etc. Exhausting, and for what?

    2. Tiger Snake*

      I do think there’s value in places like churches and synagogues having social officers, separate to the admins who schedule appointments and handle mail. It’s a shame that the unwillingness to do anything related to item #3 on your list prevents us from shuffling her into a role that she’d probably enjoy more.

      Really just goes to show that, as much as we hate being on the end-side of weaponised incompetence, its ruining things for them as well.

  44. Mitford*

    My husband is a paralegal for a federal government agency and was assigned to a veteran attorney who make weaponized incompetence into an art form. She passed the bar exam and joined the agency at a time when women attorneys were few and far between and minority women attorneys even rarer. Even when computers came and everyone, male and female, began to use them, she resolutely refused to learn how. There was a dusty computer on her desk that was never turned on. As a result, DH had to print out all of her emails and she would dictate her response to them, which he would then dutifully type back to the sender, dutifully copying her on his reply: “Fergusina asked me to let you know….” It got so bad both she and DH were working till 9 or 10 at night every day to keep up with the volume of correspondence or draft her briefs. Where other attorneys in the office shared paralegals, she always had just one to keep up with the volume of dictation. DH was her last paralegal (they rotated it around the office) before she was finally persuaded to enjoy her well-deserved retirement.

    1. Glomarization, Esq.*

      What I’ve heard more than once from the women lawyers who came before me, is that if they were to start typing their own documents, they would be treated as secretaries, not lawyers. They would not be assigned a secretary, either, since clearly “they didn’t need one”. Other commenters here have mentioned the “don’t ever let them know that you know how to type,” and it was very, very real, even into the early 1990s. It could be legit risky for your career to type up your own letters and court filings.

    2. NotAnotherManager!*

      In working with lawyers for decades, the thing that I never got over was the absolute refusal to become technologically literate at even a basic level (#NotAllLawyersButAWholeLotOfThem). Many were borderline offended when you suggested that they learn anything about the word processing tool (since they write for a living), PDF conversion (since nearly all e-filing systems require PDFs and some courts have weirdly-specific PDF specs), or the e-filing system (you know, where you file the documents with the actual courts). That is, apparently, for the little people and not the Big Thinkers.

      To say nothing of treating e-discovery like it was some sort of ridiculous concept and we were being absurd for not simply print everything out for them. One of our most seasoned e-discovery people finally said to a partner who repeatedly complained about not wanting to learn about it that it was being driven by the clients using electronic resources for their business processes and we needed to keep up with the clients or find clients that only sent paper memos still. And also made him a spreadsheet showing how much it would cost to print and review all of the emails alone in his discovery collection versus processing, deduping and threading it, and putting only the unique emails it into one of the searchable review platform.

  45. Red5*

    This is a little less weaponized incompetence and more weaponized cluelessness, but I think it fits the theme. When I (f) was in my 20s, I had a coworker (m) in his 40s/50s who always tried to pawn off his admin requirements onto me. I was not an admin, and certainly not his admin. Once he left a whole stack of papers on my desk. My cube-neighbor told me that coworker left them for me to file. I picked up the stack of papers, walked them right over to coworker’s desk, and said in the brightest, friendliest, most clueless tone I could muster, “Hey, it looks like you forgot your papers on my desk. Here you go!” Dropped the stack right in front of him, turned around and walked out. Another time he was trying to pawn off his annual inventory requirement – which he had put off until it was well past due – onto me. Dial up maximum clueless/friendliness again, “Oh, I’d love to help! I have this urgent project boss gave me that has to be done right now, but I’ll be done with it in about three weeks and can absolutely help then!” The inventory requirement got pawned off elsewhere.

    1. LucyGoosy*

      Ughhhh when I was in my 20s I had a male coworker in his 40s who was like this. We had exactly the same job and he was VERY salty about it. One of his regular job functions was preparing client contracts for the upcoming week (honestly just mindlessly plugging in people’s information and printing them out–small company in the old days) and he just REFUSED to do it and/or would just drop them on my desk. I had to train myself not to pick up the slack for him, even though I knew it would make the week a disaster because the contracts wouldn’t be ready, so that everyone would finally get how worthless he was. Still took about two years for him to be fired. :(

  46. Voodoo Priestess*

    At my last job, we had a CAD technician who had been with the company for over 40 years who never learned how to use a computer. He started as a hand drafter in the pre-CAD days and when computers were adopted in the late 70s, he just never learned. I didn’t realize he didn’t use a computer until 2017-ish and I was totally baffled. We had a CAD tech who didn’t do CAD. He finally retired in 2019, after 45+ years with the company. He did a lot of shop drawing checking and was part-time for at least the last decade, but still. Amazing.

    1. Warrior Princess Xena*

      Is this my Grandpa you’re talking about? He did much the same at his job. Has absolutely no interest in all of this computing nonsense. To this day he cannot comfortably operate any electronic device more complex than the TV.

      1. Dinwar*

        I can see it. Drafting by hand is a real skill. Just sharpening the pencils is a process, and the techniques used are definitely not easy.

        And if he’s using it to check the CAD drawings it can be valuable to the company. It’s an independent verification of the accuracy of the drawings. Given that I’ve seen errors in design drawings shut down projects, and others cost millions, I would HAPPILY pay someone to verify the drawings by hand in some cases. You register a lot more when you physically move your hand compared to what you see on a computer screen. (It’s why you still see a lot of drawings in paleontology publications–photos are more accurate, but drawings help the researchers more.)

    3. WS*

      I have to pass this story on to my dad – he started out as a hand drafter and was extremely happy to move to computers, and is still highly tech-savvy though he’s nearly 80. And he taught me, as a kid, to use AutoCAD! He would never, ever have worked with someone who refused to use CAD.

    4. FreakInTheExcelSheets*

      Sounds like my dad – he knows the basics of CAD but absolutely hates it (though I think some of that is a holdover from when it was new and not as sophisticated as I’m sure it is now and didn’t like non-standard shapes). Luckily for him by the time it was ubiquitous he was senior enough to hire a CAD tech whose job was to digitize his designs.

  47. DataGirl*

    I have historically worked in IT, but in things like web development, database administration, data analysis, etc. I never thought of it as weaponized incompetence but I have made it a point to never learn anything about how to set up/troubleshoot peripheral devices like printers, scanners, etc. I also keep myself as ignorant about wifi/ internet issues as possible, because I do not want to be the person in the office (or at home) that everyone asks for help.

    1. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      Oh absolutely.

      I deliberately did not learn anything about the proliferation of video standards and cables that happened from like 1995 to 2010. “Sorry, I have no idea what the different between XGA and DIVX is”

      1. DataGirl*

        HA! Same, that’s another field I have kept myself ignorant of- anything audio/visual. Do not ask me to hook up anything requiring cables, or edit a video, or troubleshoot why you have no sound for your Zoom meeting. It’s not that I couldn’t figure it out if I wanted to /had to, but I do not want to and purposely give that kind of thing zero storage space in my brain.

    2. ferrina*

      I took the opposite approach. I enthusiastically pressed buttons. Sometimes I was lucky, sometimes I was…..not. Most people quickly decided that they would rather solve it on their own than risk my levels of pure destruction. It was amazing how people would suddenly remember how to troubleshoot when I said “I could press some buttons for you”

    3. Wombats and Tequila*

      It is very easy to troubleshoot a printer. It’s a printers, that’s what the problem is.

      Printers have had no major improvements in design for over 20 years. I guess the major companies figure, if no one else does any innovations, they’re all off the hook. No need for any pesky in-house engineers. Buy my printer. It’s a printer. Deal with it, sucker..

    4. FloralWraith*

      I work digital corporate comms, but some of our elderly academics see “website updating” as IT and ask me troubleshooting questions. It also doesn’t help that I am a South Asian male.

      I point blank refuse to any these questions anymore. There are guides! That we have emailed!

  48. Tired*

    Higher ed here. My boss “Floyd” often is incompetent in situations regarding student workers. I do not know whether if is weaponized or genuine.

    For example, we both interview applicants for student work study positions in our department (a desk job where they are available to help with basic directional questions). These interviews are relatively simple and last no longer than 30 minutes. Recently, I was unable to make one of our scheduled student interviews due to a last minute situation (which is rare for me). Instead of interviewing the student on their own, Floyd told me to contact the student applicant and reschedule the interview. I was floored that Floyd was unable to even do a simple interview!

    On a side note, Floyd also has a habit of not keeping his appointments well and then telling me about these appointments last minute. This can also cause me unnecessary stress depending on other factors.

  49. Earlk*

    I’m not sure if this counts as weaponised incompetence or if I’m being harsh. But I really struggle with people who request in-depth training on everything, not just internal processes but simple IT tasks and just won’t figure out how to help themselves. I once had to provide someone with a list of search terms for trouble shooting excel needs.

    1. Unkempt Flatware*

      This is actually not the same person as the person I wrote about below but I once had to teach someone what Google was and how to use it. She needed to know the make of a certain vehicle our grantees got years ago. I told her to Google it. She stared as if I spoke Greek. This was last year.

    2. BellyButton*

      It makes me crazy. If I don’t know how to do something I Google it, I have never not been able to find a video or step by step instructions. I rarely have to ask for help. I am able to search through all our systems to find what I need, why can’t other people??

      1. Marna Nightingale*

        Frequently, confidence, especially in older people, especially especially in older women.

        There’s a cultural shift a lot of people haven’t noticed I think. You didn’t used to be able to google it. And more importantly you didn’t used to be encouraged to.

        I started working on a computer in the early 90s and the mantra was “just call IT”. We were fairly explicitly forbidden to try to fix things ourselves, and were locked out of most of the settings.

        I also think systems used to be less generally robust. I did once take a network down by reading the help file, applying common sense and gumption, and following the onscreen prompts. I was not aware of the weird workarounds IT had resorted to to keep the system running, so I broke one.

        1. BellyButton*

          Sorry, I am 49-female, I don’t buy it. Google has been around for 25 yrs. I am not talking about fixing a complex computer system or software- something only an admin should be able to do. But more like, “how to create a pivot table”, “how to add a clickable button in Articulate” things like that.

          1. Charlotte Lucas*

            Agreed! And I am a woman who’s a few years older.

            In fact, I think some of this bothers me more than some other people, because I was raised to be independent and able to do (or figure out how to do) lots of things.

            I also used to be a trainer, so I am really good at asking, “What have you tried so far?” and giving directions without actually doing the work.

          2. Liane*

            Same here, although 60.
            I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t love being able to find instructions so easily, and have them be easy to understand – or find another video or written how-to if the first was hard to follow.
            It was life changing for me. I could edit my (personal) laptop startup; find that app/program menu option that was moved/renamed (just to annoy me!) in the last update; even make my own autofit clones for my 3d art hobby!

        2. SarahKay*

          Seriously? The plural of anecdote is not data. Let’s avoid the ageist and sexist generalisations here.

      2. Aggretsuko*

        People don’t Google any more. Seriously. My job is full of people calling us who won’t Google.

      3. Emikyu*

        Because it’s easier to ask someone else to do it.

        My ex-husband was like that (and no, it’s not an age thing – we’re both millennials). Even when I explained to him that I didn’t know the thing either and would have to Google it, he would still ask me to do that. His excuse was “I don’t even know what to search for”.

        The man could look online and find any kind of obscure music he wanted, everything in the world related to D&D, and basically anything else that he found fun and enjoyable. But something like how to get a red wine stain out of the carpet, or what documents to bring to the DMV, or whatever, was apparently far too complicated and confusing to type into a search bar.

        1. Michelle Smith*

          Maybe in an interpersonal relationship it might be easier (at least until they end it), but I generally find at work that it’s much faster to look it up myself than put in a support ticket and wait for someone to get back to me.

    3. ccsquared*

      Some people are lazy, some people overestimate how hard something is, and for some people it legit is that hard. I can brush off the first group and have compassion for the other two.

      But there occasionally are people who truly believe they’ll somehow be exempted from having to use some system or process if they persist in failing to use it, and these people are the literal worst.

  50. Unkempt Flatware*

    3 years after going Google for all applications, an admin-support co-worker will still claim she can’t find anything in Gmail and therefore cannot help you with what you are asking. I’ve gotten so sick of her excuses that I recommend she Google her problem. She hates that.

  51. In the Middle*

    I wish I had started using this in teaching before putting in all of my everything. Mostly because competence is punished with heaps more work. You really did well with that one emotionally disturbed student? You’ll get all of them from here on out! You are good at keeping the children from decending into Lord of the Flies during lunch? Welcome to lunch duty for the rest of your life!

    4. goddessoftransitory*

      That’s my sister: she’s the newest teacher at her preschool and they keep giving her the most troubled and physically violent kids because the older teachers refuse to handle them.

  52. Dinwar*

    I’ve advised it in a few cases. Specifically, I’ve told people to avoid becoming confined space entry certified, and if they ever do, DO NOT let ANYONE outside our group know it. There are only a handful of people that have that certification in our company, and the jobs they do are horrible. Dangling by a rope inside an active sewage line, for example. There are people who enjoy that work, and good on them, it’s necessary work! But if you’re working on my site you are obviously not such a person!

    The coffee thing I’ve never understood. First, it’s not hard–filter paper, grounds, water, hit button. I use it as a brain-break to think about problems, because by now it’s pretty much muscle memory. And if I make the coffee, I can make it the way I like (with due consideration for people who don’t like their coffee to dissolve the spoon when they stir it). Though our office did ban one person (now my boss) from making coffee…He apparently hadn’t had any that morning, and when he came in he forgot to put the carafe under the filter section. Then walked away. By the time he came back, an entire pot had poured out over the carpet. It wasn’t intentional, it was just a running joke for years.

      1. Dinwar*

        It’s a “Pick your poison” type situation. The people that enjoy dangling by strings in active sewer lines tend to object to working hip-deep in toxic waste in Southeastern summers for ten hours a day. We get compensated well, but there are no nice jobs due to the nature of the work.

        Mostly, it’s an issue of being shoe-horned. Since we have so few confined space staff, those that get into that world rarely get to do anything else. It can seriously damage your career prospects–you’re too useful as a grunt, so you never move up the ladder.

          1. Hrodvitnir*

            Though BOO to no advancement. I’ve got to stop replying before I read the whole thing. *face-palm*

        2. Cedrus Libani*

          In my experience, the best kind of unpleasant job to be good at is the kind that doesn’t come up enough to be anyone’s official job, just one of those things that falls under “other duties as assigned” for anyone unfortunate enough to have downtime when the need arises. If it’s twice per week, it’s just your job now. If it’s once per quarter, you can favor-shark your way out of a lot of labor-intensive grunt work in exchange for dealing with the quick and nasty thing nobody else wants to do.

          As a wet-lab biologist, I got a lot of mileage out of being incredibly non-squeamish. We’d get buckets of surgical waste, slaughterhouse scraps, etc. that we’d process into research material. It’s possible to do that sort of thing as a full-time job (and I did, during the Great Recession), but it’s much more fun when it’s a sometimes thing and your co-workers are much less desensitized than you are. I’d dive right in, and then wouldn’t have to do lab chores for quite a while.

  53. BabaYaga*

    I have used weaponized incompetence to combat sexism. I once worked in a computer assembly place and was asked by the incredibly sexist floor manager to sweep the floor. He said “You know how to sweep, right sweetheart?” so I just sweetly smiled and said “No, could you show me?”. I was not sad to leave that job.

  54. Lilo*

    I trained someone who would send me half completed work assuming one of the trainers would finish it for him. That ultimately did not work out for him.

  55. Single Parent Barbie*

    I was the only woman on the leadership team and was one of three people who directly reported to the Site manager. So the majority of the leadership team was at least one step below me.

    They would still ask me at every birthday party or retirement if I would slice the cake. I would usually ignore it until one time, I believe it was MY birthday, someone voluntold me to cut the cake and as sweet as I could I responded with “Do you really want me to have control of a sharp knife?” Me cutting the cake was never brought up again.

    I will admit it took a bit of self control in the beginning to not clean up or “fuss” when we did things.

    My ex-husband was the master of weaponized incompetence. “oh but you do it so much better than I.” I feel sorry for the women he works with.

    1. Lainey L. L-C*

      My ex too! I am not joking when I say I did everything that a grown adult must do to keep a house running EXCEPT mow the lawn and take out the trash, two things he grudgingly did and would put off constantly. I don’t think either of his much younger girlfriends liked doing it all as they both left eventually, so I get to enjoy the thought of him doing it all by himself now. Bwa-ha-ha!

      1. Single Parent Barbie*

        The last couple of years, that was my ex too. I worked, volunteered, and was primary care giver for 3 children under 12. He mowed the lawn on occasion, took the garbage out, and restacked the dishwasher after I was done (his primary task, evidently).

        One day I realized since I was doing it all anyway, I could get rid of him and have my own room and closet.

        So I did.

    2. Charlotte Lucas*

      I was always taught that whoever is being honored makes the first cut (and, therefore, chooses the size and location of their own piece). After that, it’s a free-for-all.

      1. Bugalugs*

        That’s kind of what I do for my people at work. Their birthday they make the first cut and they can either choose to keep cutting or I can take over and cut the rest of it up.

    3. ThursdaysGeek*

      My father would cut birthday cake slices that had all about the same amount, but never the same shape: triangles, parallelograms, almost anything except a square. I never thought it might be deliberate to get out of cutting the cake! If so, it didn’t work anyway — I loved seeing what shape of cake I might get, and I have learned the same skill (but rarely use it — other people really don’t like it).

    4. Wolf*

      > “oh but you do it so much better than I.”

      Oh no, then you need the training and you should do so much more of that task!

  56. Common Sense Not Common*

    Weaponized/strategic incompetence is the males in my department not being able to find or figure out how to set up the plates/cups/silverware (all disposable) for our mandatory monthly pot lucks OR bit being able to clean up afterwards because they must do XYZ immediately.

    There are labels on every drawer and cupboard. They are reminded during every pot luck to clean up…NOPE. They will not do it.

    Now the ladies make sure not to tidy up after a pot luck and sometimes things will sit for days, but we grit our teeth and hold firm.

    One dude even admonished my female colleague that his crockpot had been sitting in the sink for three days and had not been washed. She told him the soap was in the cabinet under the sink and he could wash it whenever he wanted. I hate mandatory pot lucks.

    2. M2*

      I went with my spouse to a work event where someone clearly ordered way too many gift bags, etc. When it ended my husband, me and a few other women started packing up left over gifts, name tags, etc but his male boss and another colleague who was same level also male refused to help and just left. One of them said, “I don’t know how to do it. That isn’t my job.” You don’t know how to put stuff in cardboard boxes and carry it downstairs? Another male who wasn’t an employee but a guest helped carry stuff down too! The elevator was broken for part of the way so we had to carry these large boxes down two flights of stairs to the other elevator.

    3. I edit everything*

      I’m an admin in an office of all guys–maintenance/landscaping types–and I have never touched the dishes they leave in the sink. I always wash my own, if I have any, but never the accumulation of crusty plates and silverware. Eventually one of them will do them, and the cycle starts over. To their credit, they’ve never suggested, implied, or hinted that washing their dishes is my job.

      1. Lulu*

        Once at an outdoor reception, where all staff were allowed to attend in addition to guests, I noticed that all the garbage cans were full. Being young and helpful, I started to change out the bags. Other female staff-and female guests-jumped in to help. All of the men, including the all male event department and all male custodial staff stood and watched. That was my never again turning point.

    4. Workerbee*

      So the mandatory-ness of these pot lucks sounds time- and money-consuming, and is a whole other issue in itself, but –

      What would happen if none of the ladies set out the plates & cups & silverware?
      And also – what if the “dish” you all bring in to pass is just a variation on a bag of chips/crisps?

  57. Otter Leong*

    I once struggled with a coworker who repeatedly, almost proudly, said “I don’t cook,” which was a problem because we worked at a grocery store deli! We didn’t just slice lunch meat and make sandwiches; we were making roast chickens, wings, potato wedges, and other foods requiring the oven or the fryer. I know she wasn’t actually bad at it because she’d do it when pressed by higher management, but since they couldn’t supervise us all the time, she usually stuck to serving customers and cleaning while repeating “I don’t cook, don’t ask me to cook.” We let her because we were too busy to argue, and she made up for it by doing most of the cleaning, but that could be just as frustrating because whenever I tried to clean, she’d come over and start criticizing my glass-wiping technique. She once went so far as to ask how dirty my house was, if that was how bad I was at cleaning. Luckily I wasn’t the only one having problems with her, and I only had to deal with her for five months before I found a job in my field.

    1. Busy Middle Manager*

      She sounds like a pill but huge plus if she liked helping customers! I used to work in a deli and would hypothetically love it but it gets really trying at times. People complaining thin stuff isn’t thin enough, then that it’s too thin. Wanting you to clean the slicer between each half pound of stuff even though they’re ordering five things, etc. One regular would get annoyed if I asked “anything else” and wanted me to stand there and wait for her to think up the next item. Stuff like that

      I would have loved to just do the cooking parts!

      1. Warrior Princess Xena*

        I would have traded you in a heartbeat! The times I worked the cooking shift in the deli I felt like I needed an extra four arms to keep up with everything, especially the fried and rotisserie chickens. I loved using the slicers and serving customers .

  58. IwentHojo*

    Not so much a weaponized incompetence as a “people assumed and I never corrected them,” but I did not mention to people that I spoke Spanish. I am very white, so no one assumed I spoke Spanish. Many conversations around me took place in Spanish, where I got to know things I otherwise wouldn’t have know, but I also never got asked to deal with Spanish-speaking clients or suppliers.

    1. OyHiOh*

      Similarly, many years ago, a friend of mine worked for an international company based in Germany, with a north american division. My friend was the head of the N.A. division and critical to the anecdote, not white. They cannot “speak” German, but they can understand conversational German quite well. They did not let on that they understood German language conversations. They sometimes learned things that were supposed to be held back from the N.A. division folks. They also came to understand how the former, not-entirely-apologetic Nazi owner (long since deceased owner, we’re now thirty or so years on from when friend worked for this company) felt about non-white people working for the company. Since my friend was very, very good at their job, the owner confined himself to rude remarks about my friend’s skin tone rather than just firing them, thinking friend didn’t understand.

    2. It's Marie - Not Maria*

      I am like you, I don’t look like I speak fluent Spanish, but I do. Comes in handy when I need it, but as a Senior HR Professional, absolutely put my foot down at work that I was not going to into our Call Center Phone queue and handle customer service calls from Spanish Speakers. The company doesn’t pay me enough as it is, I am not going to take on additional responsibilities which will only grew into more non-HR tasks. I know how the company operates. Nope. Nope. Nope.

      1. Chirpy*

        Yup. I do speak Spanish (though rusty, and I don’t know some vocabulary that would be highly useful at work) but if a coworker asks for a Spanish speaker, I know nothing.

        If a customer comes up to me and asks if I speak Spanish, I will, but if work wants me to be a translator, they need to pay me more.

    3. Jenifer Crawford*

      Ah, plenty of ignorant coworkers to spread around. Had one ask me and friends I was eating lunch with if we spoke Spanish, and we all replied in the negative.

      Less than a minute later I was rebuking her for a nasty commentary about us. She looked really confused, then said “But I thought you didn’t speak Spanish.” With a smile on my face, responded “Correct, but I do speak Italian, which is close enough.”

    4. I'm the Phoebe in Any Group*

      For clarfication, why was it important to you to not speak to Spanish speaking clients and suppliers? I understand not dealing with suppliers and clients at all, but why are you singling out one group you don’t want to serve?

  59. Vianne*

    My side hustle is playing coffee house type music. I have been shouted at by enough sound techs, mostly volunteer, for coiling their audio cables wrong (and they all have different techniques and strong opinions on the ONE TRUE WAY) that I pretend incompetence and let them put their own equipment away while I collect my pay and waltz out the door. byeeee!

    1. Pescadero*

      As a musician and someone who runs sounds and is very particular about cables – we’d RATHER you just leave them and let us coil them.

      1. l*

        Absolutely. I never want talent trying to “help” put away house gear! 90% of the time you end up having to re-do the work anyway.

        It’s not that artists are (necessarily) incompetent, but a guest artist generally isn’t going to be familiar with the venue and the house rules. I work at multiple places that are very specific about the size of cable coils due to storage constraints. And I’m personally a firm believer in the over-under wrap, especially for expensive cables, but the main thing is that whatever technique is used, it needs to be consistent within a particular venue.

          1. l*

            Can’t agree with this 100%, sometimes figure-eight is more appropriate (ex. for socapex or analog audio snakes), but I don’t want to get too off-topic! I do think over-under is the best choice in the majority of cases but sometimes people get obsessive about it past the point of reasonableness. An over-over wrap isn’t going to destroy a 6′ cable.

        2. I Have RBF*

          IME, video and sound techs are very particular about their gear. If I want to help, I will ask them how they want it done, and then follow their instructions. OTOH, I make custom storage bags for said equipment, to spec.

    2. Jared Leto's kombucha*

      Vianne, I feel your pain. Everyone’s way of wrapping cables is The One True Way and everyone does it a little differently.

  60. GoodCustomerServicePlease*

    It seems that large organizations weaponize incompetence all the time, in the sense that the person who picks up the phone (if they do, after the interminable wait) often doesn’t have the decision making authority or even the options on their system to actually effect what needs sorting out on the customer’s account. They’re hoping that by the time you go through the operator, the operator’s team leader, and the department manager and still can’t get a refund because no one has the authority or know-how, that you’ll give up. Now THAT’S what I call weaponized incompetence.

    1. EvilQueenRegina*

      Ha, that might explain a lot about one particular team I get landed with a lot of the calls for (which, nine times out of ten, need that team to resolve and not me…)

  61. MsMaryMary*

    There are a surprising number of people (men, in my experience) who never learned to type and are in senior or leadership positions. Or some mid-level positions! But they have 30+ years of white collar experience and type with two fingers. I know a handful who never really learned to use a computer and try to do everything on their phones or tablets.

    And folks of all genders of a similar age/experience level who either never learned or just learned the basics of Microsoft Office. Why are you doing math on your calculator and then typing it into Excel, Kevin? Diane, let me show you again how to export a Powerpoint to PDF.

    1. Potato Potato*

      I’ll confess. I’m a software developer, I can type 60wpm without looking, and I use 3 fingers. People have tried to teach me the right way, but I’ve been doing it too long.

      1. MsMaryMary*

        No shade to people who type WELL with a couple of fingers! I had a manager (who was also a programmer) and he was faster with two fingers than I am with ten.

      2. iglwif*

        If you can type 60wpm with 3 fingers, that seems like competence to me!

        I work with someone who types super fast with 2 fingers. I know (online) someone else who has written dozens of books, many of which have won awards, with 2 fingers.

    2. Warrior Princess Xena*

      My uncle is an IT architecture developer and is very good at his job. He also does not compute keyboard shortcuts. He much prefers using the mouse. Clearly it works for him, but heck if I know how.

    3. Jenifer Crawford*

      One of the anchors on major network news (possibly Dan Rather, but not certain), typed every story via the hunt-and-peck method. Seeing that it worked so well for him, why aren’t the rest of us following his lead?

  62. Cat Admin*

    I was in a support role for a team of 6. One team member was very needy and thought of me more like a personal assistant. I was very good at my job, and usually happy to help but sometimes he would ask me for the most basic things, like resending an email that I had sent to the team the day before because he’s so unorganized that he lost it already, finding something in the drive that I had linked to in that email I had just sent, how to use the snipping tool, how to see another team members calendar, etc.

    It got to a point where if he asked me something not directly related to the department or the work I was supposed to be doing, I would pretend not to know so he would have to figure it out himself. Like if he emailed me to ask if we had x holiday off, I could take 30 seconds to look it up and respond, but instead I would email back and say I don’t know, ask HR or check in company calendar.

    I eventually found a new job and quit. When I told him, he was panicking and asked if there was anything he could do to get me to stay. Shortly before I left there was a restructuring and he was laid off. I always wonder if it partly having to do with him having shown how much he can’t do basic things without me. I think he probably could have if he had to, but the rest of the team witnessed our awful dynamic and that probably didn’t help his case.

      1. Cat Admin*

        He was kind to me other ways and did appreciate my work, but I was also very relived to not work with him anymore. And my new job is much more chill and more money, yay!

  63. Alan*

    We used to have an admin person who refused to do anything for which they had not received formal training. Add paper to the printer? “I haven’t been trained on that.” They had little certificates posted for classes that they had taken, but if you needed something for which there was no class, you were SOL.

  64. H.Regalis*

    I’m currently considering deploying some weaponized incompetence at work since I just got voluntold to do a charity fundraiser for the second year in a row now. If it rotated around and I only had to do it once every five years or so, that would be fine; but our department has about fifty people, my unit has a dozen, and somehow I’m the only person who gets asked to do this. My boss promised me that he’ll find someone else for next year, but we’ll see.

    1. starsaphire*

      Can you schedule surgery for the week of the charity fundraiser? I’d be sooo tempted to do that, tbh.

  65. Itsjustanothergirl*

    I work for a company that does… let’s say Llama Grooming. Everyone at the company, be you accountant, marketer, llama groomer, does a shift every week feeding the llamas. This gives you a chance to get to know our llamas and how they behave. I used to be a llama feeding trainer. Because everyone did llama feeding, you’d get 5 weeks of training and then we offered the option for a ‘refresher’ training. Most people didn’t take us up on the refresher.
    However, one person scheduled a refresher every couple of weeks. So, basically, their feeding shift was spent letting the trainer do most of the work. They’d hit close to 30 refreshers before we caught on and they weren’t allowed any more refreshers.

  66. Academic Librarian too*

    I have not and will not ever be capable of replacing the ink cartridge in the public copy machines.
    Oh, is it out of ink? I’ll let someone know.

  67. Christina*

    haha I’m a feminist but I truly detest doing any kind of maintenance related tasks at home or at work (I managed a bed and breakfast for seven years, so things were always breaking), so I’m not ashamed to admit that I have manipulated men into doing them for me my whole life through weaponized incompetence. At the b&b, for example, if something broke, I would always ask the owner of the b&b (a man) to “show” me how to repair a toilet, or whatever, because he’d fix the whole thing under the auspices of teaching me how to do it, while I just batted my eyelashes and made interested noises until it was fixed, whereas if I had told him I just didn’t want to do it, he would have insisted that I do it. I don’t think he ever caught on to the fact that I was making him do the repairs I was supposed to be doing. Feminine wiles, what can I say. haha

    1. so anonymous for this one*

      my take on this is that as long as there’s a wage gap i’m gonna absolutely pretend i just CAN’T do household stuff like that

    2. FreakInTheExcelSheets*

      I used to do this when I had to go to the hardware store – I’d go in with a list and say ‘my dad (when I was a teenager)/husband says I need to get this – can you help me find it?’ Now that places offer buy online/pickup in store and have aisle/bay listings on the website I don’t do it nearly as often. Plus I actually do know what I’m doing in the plumbing aisle, which impressed one of the older guys that works there (I was there on a mission and when he asked if I needed help I said ‘yeah if you can grab me x and y while I get z so I can get home and fix this faster that would be great’), so now if I need anything I text him first :)

  68. Pumpkin215*

    Not a story, but I call this the “red sock” effect. As in, the guy that throws a red sock in with the whites and claims “See! I can’t do laundry! I will RUIN it!”.

    I have a girlfriend that is married to a Red Sock. This is the name we use to refer to him. The Red Sock has managed to get out of all house cleaning, cooking and financial matters because he will intentionally mess things up.

    But hey, it means he has more time to play video games!

    2. Dinwar*

      I remember in college putting a new set of dark green sheets in the wash with some white t-shirts. I got to wear teal t-shirts for the rest of the year. Wasn’t the end of the world–a few people asked where I got them!

      Another time I saw an attractive woman in the dorm going to do her laundry. I was able to save her some money, by loaning her my foldable drying rack. Ended up dating her for a while, and we’re still friends. Turns out knowing how to do household chores is a point in a man’s favor in the dating world.

    3. ThursdaysGeek*

      My husband’s white underwear was pink for a while because I might have washed it with a red blanket or towel. But I like doing laundry (as long as I don’t have to spend too much time sorting it).

    4. Gumby*

      My parents have always (in my memory) done their laundry separately. Dad would do laundry for kids with folding done by mom and whatever child was available until you hit maybe 12 or so at which point you also became responsible for your own laundry.

      So Mr. Red Sock would find himself out of clean clothes pretty quickly. And if he turned stuff red.. well, it was his own fault and he’s the one who has to wear the results so… shrug.

  69. Van*

    I have seen weaponized incompetence many times in my career. The surprising thing was pretty often, when asked why they hadn’t learned to do X, people would reply, “if you find out I know how to do X you will expect me to do it.” And they were right, I did expect them to do it. Not sure how they thought that admission would work for them…

    1. allathian*

      My attitude to weaponized incompetence really depends on if X is a core task or not. I think weaponized incompetence is absolutely fine when it’s something like making coffee and you’re a young woman who doesn’t drink coffee herself. She’ll be tasked with that job forever if she admits she knows how. But if the weaponized incompetence is something like refusing to learn to use a piece of software that the rest of the company uses, I think it should be a fireable offence.

  70. Karenin*

    We were in a workshop with a new client, and as we were getting started, a question came up re: who would take notes on the easel. One of my teammates (male) bowed out by saying that his handwriting was bad. It’s a small moment but it’s just absolutely seared into my brain.

    After the workshop, the client and I were chatting, and he acknowledged to me that my male teammates seemed to be talking over me. He was such a nice guy, I felt awful that the issues were so noticeable. Bad day for gender in the workplace!

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      I am a woman, and I would also bow out on the easel. I have argued with people that their handwriting might be bad, but mine is worse! (I am also usually too short to reach the entire easel/board/etc.)

  71. NutellaNutterson*

    My job in undergrad was in the library – the info and computer section. I mostly explained the arcane stack system or reminded people of how to right click on a mouse.

    During finals, I was mostly a printer tech, because everyone would show up needing to print their essays. (Yes this was the mid-90s.) I knew how to shake the toner cartridge, and unjam just about anything.

    Well what do you know, that skill just never made it onto my resume! Yes, it was painful to not be my helpful self, but no I was not going to reveal my knowledge and get sucked into that role. If you have a real for-profit business, you have a repair contract!

  72. Nameless Employee*

    I had a co-worker who used weaponized incompetence except the incompetence was actually genuine.

    This person had been at the job for at least several years and should have very well known how to do all of their tasks. But they didn’t, or they’d forget, or they would constantly make mistakes and need re-training. There was one or two tasks they’d refuse to perform for fear they’d mess up. Somehow they never got put on a PIP.

    But this person -knew- they were bad at their job so they claimed bullying, would report others’ mistakes to the supervisor, and threated to lie to HR all to make themselves look better. Eventually HR and the higher-ups caught on and the coworker left.

  73. nosurprisebills*

    Most of the men on my team cannot manage their own calendar. Standing meeting invites go ‘missing’ even though they’ve been sent (and re-sent) multiple times. Anytime a follow up meeting or working session is needed, one of the women has to schedule it–even if the man the one requesting the meeting. Recently, in a team meeting the team decided to put recurring deadlines on a shared calendar. I handled that, and then fielded three different questions from men on my team asking what those ‘meetings’ were about–all of whom had been in the meeting where it was decided.

    1. Tired*

      My boss “Floyd” similarly is unable to learn how to manage his own calendar despite being very smart in other areas. His lack of knowledge of his schedule leads to last minute fires I have to put out. Definitely am taking steps to get a new job!

  74. Ugh*

    Does the time a young male coordinator filled the dishwasher with Palmolive and flooded the kitchen with bubbles when he was on kitchen duty count?

    3. Guin*

      No, he gets a pass because he tried. He gets one more shot to learn the difference between dishwashing liquid and dishwasher detergent.

    4. Warrior Princess Xena*

      I think everyone’s done this at least once if they’ve got a dishwasher. I certainly did it in my mid-teens at home. Never made that mistake again!

  75. KP*

    In my teens, I pretended I wasn’t strong enough/coordinated enough to safely push the mower. My dad made my younger brother (who was bigger than me) do that chore instead.

    I feel like I got hit by the Karma train though. My husband is allergic to grass so I do all the yard work now.

    1. Skippy*

      My mom was afraid I’d run over my foot or kick up and be struck by a rock, so she never let me! And now I do it all, so maybe it was a reverse psychology thing?

  76. Statler von Waldorf*

    As a middle-aged man who works in bookkeeping, an industry that’s over 80% women, I’ve used a very different form of strategic incompetence than everything I’ve read here so far. I’ll take minutes, I’ll make coffee, I’ll do all the admin stuff cheerfully and without complaint.

    However, I absolutely play up how my back isn’t as strong as it used to be and how I’m unable to lift heavy things like I used to. This started when I had a co-worker who claimed to be unable to lift a five pound ream of blank paper out of the box, so she would interrupt me while I was working because she needed a “big strong man” to get that paper for her. I saw this woman play roller derby, so I know for a fact that she was physically capable of doing the job. She just didn’t want to do it, as she saw any physical labour as a “man’s job” the same way that some men think that any admin work is a “woman’s job.”

    So now my back isn’t what it used to be, and I’m no longer available to move every banker’s box in the building when year end rolls around. It’s absolutely strategic incompetence, and I don’t even feel guilty about it.

    3. Anakalia13*

      +1,000

      I always appreciate a man calling out double standards, no matter the context.

      ~from a woman in bookkeeping/accounting/finance

    4. SA*

      I used to work at a college. I once asked the admissions office manager why the department’s box of copy paper was still sitting in the hallway. She said she only had “girls” working that day and they couldn’t move it. I said, “You mean the student-athletes that work for you that push that giant tire around the campus during their workouts? Women are very strong – didn’t you tote your four toddlers around when they weighed 30+ lbs? If my fat, middle-aged body can move a box of copy paper, I think your athletes and other women can move it as well. If you want to be treated equally, you can’t decline to do things you think a man should do.”

      She looked appropriately embarrassed and that box of paper was moved within the hour. There’s nothing more I can’t stand than someone saying they can’t do a job traditionally done by the other gender but demand equality. Nope – doesn’t work that way. Heck, my husband is a better cook and housekeeper than I am.

  77. zanshin*

    In the wayback machine…
    my mom was the youngest of three girls. Her dad was a high end drapery designer and artisanal manufacturer. She watched her big sisters get pressured into learning to sew for the business and, as she tells it, immediately became a totally useless butterfingers.
    As a result, when I in 6th and 7th grades needed to do sewing projects for “home ec” she was indeed useless and her home sewing kit consisted of a “Buttoneer” to affix stray buttons via plastic tags.
    (I learned to sew in my 20s and had a home microbusiness for 15 years building high end custom martial arts gear)

  78. gmg22*

    I just realized I think I’ve been doing this as a coping strategy to deal with a passive-aggressive colleague who has frankly been up on a bit of a high horse of late.

    Request from her: “I’m trying to reshape this (implied kinda weedy and boring) item from your team’s newsletter to be interesting to my team’s (implied obviously MUCH more dynamic) audience, can you take a look and make sure my rewrite makes sense?”
    Reply from me: “Looks fine, thanks.”

    Operation Do Not Engage in full effect over here.

  79. This Topic Was Made For Me*

    One dysfunctional company I worked for where most of the leaders were insulated from being fired because it was family-run where if you help out with a task even once; it is then perceived as part of your everyday duties from there on out. On top of that, if you point out how something currently being done is wrong or inefficient, it then becomes your responsibility to fix and manage from there on out. This resulted in a situation where I was working 70 hour weeks and doing everything ranging from accounting, web development, marketing campaign management, sales reporting, information technology, etc. when I was brought onboard as a strategic planning analyst to analyze market opportunities potential customer segments.

    It took over 18 months of politicking to get most of those things offloaded to other people but the bottleneck was still that none of us had actual decision-making power to change the culture. After I got some semblance of work-life balance back with 50 hour weeks, I decided to play ignorant whenever someone asked me if I knew how to do something or had bandwidth to take on something from accounting, web development, etc.

  80. jane's nemesis*

    I worked with someone who pretended to be very silly and airheaded and forgetful to get out of doing harder tasks. It drove me absolutely bananas. (We were all women.)

    -4 women did the same general job; Cee (the “incompetent” one) was actually the most senior and was given a title increase and pay raise to reflect that she was Lead.)
    -batches of work would be placed in a neutral area for all 4 people to pull from. When one batch was finished, it was returned to the neutral area and the next batch was taken to be worked on.
    -it was expected that all 4 people would take from the top of the to-be-completed batches, not sift through them and look through the easiest ones.
    -There was a separate “urgent” area – those batches were to be done first before any of the other (easier) batches could be taken.

    Regularly – like, daily – Cee would skip the urgent batches and take from the bottom of the non-urgent pile. If called on it, she’d say “oh, I forgot!” And then laugh like she’d done something hilariously silly.

    Sometimes, a fifth person (me) would have to actually take Super Urgent batches directly to any of the 4 people doing the batch jobs. I tried to rotate between all 4, but when it was Cee’s turn, she would invariably say “oh, I don’t know how to do that! Can you take it to Bee or Dee?” Even though, again, she was the most senior and usually the one who had trained the others on how to do the hardest batches. And was making more money than the others! If she couldn’t feasibly pull off that she didn’t know how to do it, she’d instead claim that she was working on something else super urgent so she couldn’t take that on. I wasn’t her boss, so there was nothing I could really do about it.

    BTW, I had previously had that same role as the 4 women before I moved into the distribution role, so I knew that the batches I was trying to give her a) weren’t actually that hard, just urgent and b) she knew how to do them, she just didn’t feel like it!

    Eventually I started waiting til she wasn’t at her desk and just leaving them for her so that she couldn’t try to pressure me into taking them back.

  81. Cat Wrangler 3000*

    I had one guy who knew were the supplies were, walk by the supply room and come up to me and ask me to get him some sticky notes. When I told him he walked by the room and could have got them himself he said his foot hurt.

    No I did not get the sticky notes.

  82. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

    N.B. I’m in a non-client-facing role. The CEO, President, and JD are all in agreement that I am not in a public or client-facing role.

    My email and phone are black holes for anyone outside my organization. Emails get deleted before the inbox. My phone won’t ring if the number isn’t whitelisted. If you find my cellular number, the texts fail to route. My voicemail isn’t set up on any system. For all intents and purposes, I do not exist to the outside world.

    Any time anyone tries to pass an external person off to me, it fails miserably and they have no alternative but to do their actual job. I’ve had to demonstrate unabashed remorselessness. When asked, I simply shrug and say “All I know is that I wasn’t hired for a client-facing role.”

  83. Lizzianna*

    For a while, I was the only woman on a leadership team. We got a new grandboss, who, while also a man, was actually fairly sensitive about this kind of stuff (I later found out that his daughter was a professor at our state university’s business school and was writing a book about gender dynamics in the workplace. I guess he was listening when she talked at Thanksgiving!).

    About 2 months into his tenure, he interrupted a meeting to ask, “Is there a reason Lizzianna always gets volunteered to take notes?” After some sputtering, someone finally said, “She just takes the best notes. Ours are chicken scratch and no one else understands them when we send them out!”

    To which my grandboss said, “Well, that sounds like a developmental opportunity for you all.” And he put out a rotating schedule for note taking and specifically instructed me that I was not to volunteer to take on someone else’s week without his explicit approval.

    The note taking had been bothering me for months, but I had been choosing my battles, that wasn’t one I’d decided to take on yet. The truth is, my handwriting is also atrocious, as is my spelling, I was just taking the time to type up and edit my notes, because that’s what you do when you’re the notetaker in a meeting.

  84. Silicon Valley Girl*

    Related to weaponized or strategic incompetence — when I was in high school, my mom didn’t want me to learn touch typing bec. she feared I would be consigned to being a secretary. Her reasoning was if I didn’t know how to type very well, I could go to college & get a better job. I learned touch typing anyway, & it’s been very useful in my 30-year-long tech career ;)

    1. Proud teacher’s daughter*

      I just posted about how my mom deliberately didn’t learn to type well in the early 70s so she wouldn’t be tempted to become a secretary! It must have been a common thought process.

    2. Charlotte Lucas*

      My mother made my sister take typing (I was self taught and quite fast), so that in college she would be able to type up her papers faster. For her, it was an efficiency thing. (She was an incredibly fast, accurate typist who had worked her way up from secretary to editor.)

  85. Raisin Walking to the Moon*

    At a big national call center, they monitored our time away from the computer down to the second by timing when our mouse/keyboard wasn’t moving, and you could be written up, forced to have a manager sit behind you, or just get let go if your “unused time” was too high. Strangely, some of us had weird IT issues. The kinds of issues that can’t be put into a ticket. The kind that required us to physically walk across the center to the IT office, past the bathrooms and the vending machines. Issues like, “I couldn’t figure out how to open this file,” and “this button didn’t do anything when I clicked it before.”

  86. Nusuth*

    My boss is great, but is nearing retirement and spent most of her career in federal government service, where tech updates were not the priority. I don’t know if this is weaponized incompetence exactly, but I get away with a lot by pretending I’m just as clueless about technology as she is. For example, she mentioned not really understanding Teams and whoops, neither did I! I didn’t explain to her that if she had the app open she’d be able to see my activity status in Outlook … and now she never uses it and I can take long lunches/midday walks/etc without worrying that she’ll see that my dot went gray. Another time I was having laptop issues and couldn’t get into the office to fix it until the next day. Before I could say that I would just log in on the firm’s virtual desktop from my personal laptop, she said oh well, guess you can’t work today. I shut my mouth and said I guess not!
    (Obligatory caveat that we have a great working relationship and none of my white, incompetent lies create a burden for her – just a little more free time/a little less surveillance for me).

  87. Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom*

    When you work in Higher Education, it is rampant. But one place that was quite obvious was when an admin said in her sweetest voice ever, “Oh, I can’t advise students. I might mess up and ruin their schedule, if not their financial aid!” Students would come to her office regularly for help. Turns out, that she was using her coordinator position as a shield for her independent business selling candles.

    1. Butterfly Counter*

      Ha! My story is very similar.

      In higher ed, we’ve had a professor who refused to learn how to conduct an online class. He was also a licensed therapist and was using tenure protections to do the basic minimum and run his therapy business as his main source of income. He retired a few years ago and people in our department can literally not tell the difference in our own workloads. This professor also didn’t know how to use the copier and would just give all of his work to the department secretary/coordinator.

      My students try to pull weaponized incompetence. But lucky for them, I’m a teacher! I grade them on whether or not they’ll learn the correct systems of our technology and writing.

    2. Little Bunny Foo Foo*

      I work in higher ed and totally agree. Rampant. But, I worked in a Student Affairs Office as an admin assistant and tbh she probably shouldnt be advising students at all.

      1. Ann Onymous*

        Sometimes the admins know more than the faculty. When I was in college, a combination of misunderstanding a degree requirement and bad guidance from my academic advisor resulted in me taking a class I wasn’t prepared for and didn’t actually need to graduate. I failed that class and the workload from it caused me to fail another class that I did actually need, so I ended up taking an extra semester to finish undergrad. At the beginning of that extra semester, I was talking with our department admin about why I was back on campus and she told me I hadn’t actually needed that class. If I’d talked to her a semester earlier, I could have dropped that class and graduated on time.

        1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

          I feel your pain. Not a semester’s worth, but my grad advisor…met him before starting. Nice guy. Told me multiple times I needed four courses, the rest are elective. Great.
          Five semesters later, getting ready to finish up, am told I still need X. Thank god I asked (the difference between being a 40 year old student and a 20 year old student).
          I had to burn 8 vacation days taking half day for 16 weeks to take the class from noon to 3 pm on a Tuesday.
          (Bonus, my nieces went to school nearby. I’d drive them home and we’d have dinner.)
          But still!

        2. hereforthecomments*

          I work in higher ed, and on some things, yes, admins know more. I hated it when my former department chair would talk to students directly and tell them wrong information about what forms they need, etc. He’d also tell them to “just drop in my office and it won’t take long” to do the paperwork. I made appointments because onboarding a grad assistant could take up to two hours, even if they had everything they needed (which they usually didn’t). They always seemed to have a knack for showing up right as I was going to lunch or leaving for the day, and, of course, were peeved that I couldn’t just “take care of this right now.” I’m having flashbacks now; so glad I don’t deal with that anymore!

        3. Itsa Me, Mario*

          I think admins know a lot and can sometimes have deeper context or insider information that can be valuable to share. However, most likely, advising students isn’t that person’s job, and indeed there are probably nuances that person doesn’t have. Universities have entire academic counseling departments, and if students in that program are having trouble getting access to academic advising, that’s a larger issue than “just go pick the department admin’s brain”.

          I’m a career admin in the legal field, and while I know a lot of things, and I feel honored when people come to me with questions they can’t get answers to elsewhere, I am not a lawyer and there are many, many areas where the Dunning-Kruger effect could definitely come into play. It wouldn’t be weaponized incompetence for me to refuse to answer questions that are far outside of my training.

          1. Aggretsuko*

            Exactly. We can advise you on “you really want to do that by X” date” or “contact X office” stuff, but we can’t check your graduation progress, get you into classes, etc. Unfortunately, people constantly call us for literally any old thing and we’re not allowed to tell someone no, or I don’t know, which makes me crazy.

          2. Still an admin*

            I wish my university had an advising department! They have put it all on faculty and that is – uneven. Even I did some basic first year advising because we didn’t have enough available faculty. Tiny school. I prefer to be the one who tells the student who to talk to, rather than be their final stop.

      1. SpecialSpecialist*

        When I worked in higher ed, the faculty in my department hated that they were required to help with walk-in registration advising (not just the in-program students). They would not learn how to advise a general student and were so bad at it that the admin staff had to fix all of their advising mistakes. So…in this instance, it was the faculty using weaponized incompetence.

      3. Seltaeb*

        In education, “admin” often refers to an administrator (mid- to high-level position), rather than an administrative assistant.

        1. Dr. Doll*

          Hmmm, not in my experience. An “admin” is an assistant. An “administrator” is an evil, overpaid shill for The System who does not and never has had anyone’s interests at heart but their own and certainly has no clue about realities on the ground. All such REMFs should disappear forthwith and their salaries be given to faculty lines. (<– this is all highly sarcastic in case it wasn't obvious.)

          Fully agree that the "admin" in this case is an administrative assistant and should not be doing advising. We have professionals for that. We've even moved into reserving faculty advising for the majors finishing up.

          2. umami*

            Yeah. I’m that overpaid shill for The System and the term ‘admin’ has never been applied to my group (although I am married to a faculty member, so we can co-exist!). Admin is my admin assistant 100% of the time. A mid- to high-level position is likely to be a director or dean, and we love titles too much to shorten that to ‘admin’, plus the level of offense that would create! lol

        2. Itsa Me, Mario*

          Not only does this not entirely ring true to me, but a university administrator also is not an academic advisor. That person would likely have the same blind spots and lack of necessary training to advise students on what courses to take to fulfill degree requirements.

        3. Foila*

          Yeah, confusingly universities have several totally distinct jobs that can be called “admins”:

          1. The type of role I suspect we’re talking about, which used to be called “Department Secretary” or “Program Coordinator”. A long-tenured, competent one is basically god. They know the course requirements for all the department’s degrees. They know when every class is offered. They know how to override every quirk of the computer system. They aren’t considered “academic advisors”, but actually a big part of their job is helping students figure out what classes they need.
          (For some reason they’re often named Janie.)

          2. The upper-level roles contributing to “admin bloat”. They work in the chancellor’s office or similar and make five times as much as #1. Would not know how to find the course catalog, likely have not have seen a student in the wild in years.

          3. Admin assistants, basically the same as in any organization.

          So if CandleAdmin was #2 or #3, totally reasonable to not advise students. But if they were #1, totally unreasonable!

          1. Gumby*

            My #1 also remembered students years later when we came back for reunions. Like at my 10 year reunion she knew my name w/o me wearing a name tag or anything. I mean, we all knew her because there was one of her. But she dealt with all students who had declared that major. I don’t think I was high maintenance as a student…

            She was the absolute best. (Has since retired.)

      4. KellifromCanada*

        Admin in higher ed means a staff person, i.e. not faculty. There are staff positions called “Academic Advisor”, whose role is solely to advise students. They are usually awesome at this work. You would not want faculty members doing this.

        1. Barefoot Librarian*

          Sadly faculty do advising in a lot of colleges and universities. I’ve advised students as a faculty librarian. I’ve been advised by faculty as a student. I think it works fine in a grad program but it’s much, much trickier with undergrads. I was so very careful because I was really worried about causing a student to take something out of sequence or sign up for something they didn’t need. I don’t know if all faculty were as careful because many (rightly) saw it as a distraction from their actual work.

          1. Music With Rocks In*

            Huh. All of my undergrad advisors were faculty and it worked fine for me, but possibly that’s because I knew going in which programs I wanted and matched with relevant professors very early.

            1. Perihelion*

              It also really really depends on the school. Small liberal arts schools often consider advising a core part of the faculty job, and do quite a bit of training in it. Larger schools are less likely to invest in it the same way, which can cause problems if they do have faculty do it.

              1. Candace*

                I’m a faculty member at a community college, and we do advising, and man, it’s hard work. We do have a designated department for advising for my division, but since they can’t handle everything, we are the first line of defense. Since I’m at a two-year school, most of complications come with figuring out the transfer requirements for the four year schools. We do our best, but advising on top of teaching five classes is not a negligible job.

          2. umami*

            At my old institution, faculty were required to advise, and they were mostly great at and invested in doing so (my husband was the pre-professional advisor for a long time and loved it). I was advised by faculty at all three institutions I attended, and they all also were excellent at it. Where I work now, faculty do not advise, aren’t expected to advise, and would not even think of advising students, so it really depends on the institution.

        2. Pam Adams*

          I spent my first several years as an academic advisor taking over a lot of faculty advising ‘responsibilities.’ Luckily, my campus has seen the light and we know have full-time academic advisors in both the colleges and at the university-level.

          1. College Career Counselor*

            Co-signed. Spent the first several years of my career as a program coordinator, and I thought academic advising was the best part of the job. I knew enough to defer deeper questions about graduate programs or specific course content questions to the faculty in question, but I got a lot of business from students who said, “professor X said I should come talk to you to make sure that I’m on target to graduate.”

            This was because I also knew the other university requirements (which our faculty did NOT know well) and how they worked with students’ academic plans. One year, the faculty wanted to change the requirements for the program, and they had me draft the major-related course requirements.

            If you’ve got a good faculty academic advisor, that’s fantastic. Unfortunately, not all of them are knowledgeable about the requirements or don’t care to look them up/become knowledgeable. It’s sometimes deliberate weaponized incompetence (cuts down on the # of students asking to be their advisee); sometimes it’s the attitude that “we have other people to do that.”

        3. Rock Prof*

          I’ve been in places with different systems, and the one problem I’ve seen with professional advisors for the sciences (in particular) is that they don’t always fully understand how best to advise prerequisites (for example, taking intro bio really early on to be able to take all the upper level courses), infrequently offered classes, or things like math classes that would best lead to wanted outcomes (like graduate school). The professional advisor I worked with was great, though, because she regularly met with me (the department chair) to keep updated on scheduling and the curriculum. But some of them didn’t do this and students sometimes had to take an extra year of school because of it!

        4. sam_i_am*

          All academic advising at my undergrad was done by faculty, and it worked well. I didn’t even know there were places that did it differently until, like, two weeks ago.

      5. Mo*

        Because often times the admin knows more about things actually work in a department than faculty do. It’s not about overall “advising,” but about the nuts and bolts of getting things done.

        Like X professor wants to see a resume from cross-registration requesters, along with a polite email, while Y won’t accept anyone who doesn’t show up for the first class. Some forms need to be signed in a certain order, others don’t.

        1. Itsa Me, Mario*

          That’s not what academic advising is, though. I’m a career administrative assistant, and I definitely know a lot and have a lot of insider info about the nuts and bolts of getting things done. I’m happy to share that information with anyone who asks, and I find that to be part of my job (depending on the question and the asker, of course).

          But if I worked as an admin in a university academic department, I would not be qualified to be an academic advisor (even if I knew the ins and outs of major requirements, what courses are usually offered, which professors are useful to know, etc). Universities have entire structures for how that function is handled, and at least in my experience it’s usually not handled by administrative assistants.

      6. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        My sister was an admin at a major university for 44 years. She was the Graduate Student Admin Assistant. It was not career advising it was university advising.
        She did all kinds of advising about how/when/where for financial aid, registering for classes, one in particular, tracking if international students completed TOEFL classes.
        100% her job to help students (and faculty) navigate huge state university processes and procedures.
        She was invited to weddings around the world by grateful students (again, and faculty) who who felt like she was an advocate and friend.

      7. Shellfish Constable*

        Agreed! I am both faculty and serve as our department’s undergraduate advisor, and I don’t even let my departmental colleagues advise our undergrads. And it’s not a snobby “no one can do my job but me” thing — it’s that I literally did hours and hours of training so I can understand not only our department’s requirements, but also the requirements for the college and the university. If an office manager or admin wants to tackle that useless pile of knowledge? Then God bless ’em, but I’d personally love to delete those files from my brain.

        That said, my colleagues’ attempts at advising have been more along the lines of generalized, rather than weaponized, incompetence. Case in point: I am supposed to be on research leave this semester, but spend a good chunk of every day cleaning up messes they (and, ironically, other advisors) have made.

    4. PrincessFlyingHedgehog*

      An admin should not be advising students. She could indeed ruin a student’s time-to-degree and their financial aid. It sounds like there were a lot of issues going on with that staff member, but the example here is an appropriate example of staying in her lane.

      1. Little Bunny Foo Foo*

        My thoughts exactly. It almost sounds like she offered to advise students and was told no. And then when students would ask for help she just put out a passive aggressive bitter reply of “Oh its sooo hard, I could mess things up!”

      2. DEJ*

        And quite frankly there are plenty of people whose degrees have been messed up by actual advisors who don’t know what they are doing either.

        1. Kacihall*

          I’m totally not still bitter 16 years after my advisor told me not to retake a class the next semester because my grades were still good enough. then had to retake it over the next summer in order to register for fall. and to get it covered under my scholarship I had to take two classes. calculus at 730 am everyday for a summer, followed by a reading heavy English program every day PLUS working full time was not a great summer.

      3. KellifromCanada*

        No, this is an actual advisor position within University administration. This is not a clerical support position.

      4. kzucconi*

        I’ve been at my college for 26 years. I know more than anyone. Our students don’t graduate from our department, but I accept transfer credits and advise the advisors all the time.

      5. Nesprin*

        In my large R01 institutions present and past, “Department Administrator” is the person who makes the department function and knows the required course sequences+ how to bully the correct professors to get you into their classes.

        “Academic Advisors” cover the entire 30k+ student body and know not much more than how to look up the course sequence printouts, which are often out of date.

        “Faculty” at R01s are grant getters and grad student shepherds who should not be trusted to do anything. (myself included)

      6. Pop Aficionado*

        Yeah, I also worked in academia in a public-facing role (library reference staff) and routinely people would ask me to do things for them, including advising them, about stuff that was a) not my job, b) not something I knew anything about anyway, or c) something I was expressly not supposed to give advice on, and then getting mad at me for not doing it – I was accused of being lazy, heartless, etc. depending on the thing.

        Librarians’ task lists are always metastizing, and this is one of the ways where weaponing your incompetence is actually good and necessary. You cannot be a doormat in that profession or people will run roughshod all over you and take advantage of you. It’s endemic in the field in no small part because librarians are overwhelmingly female, and tend to go into the profession because they like helping people.

        But it does no one any good if an academic reference librarian who has been hired to provide quick research support in the humanities gives advice on the financial aid process (that’s student services), writing techniques (that’s the writing centre), registering for courses (that’s the registrar), or tech support for any but the most basic problems (that’s IT).

    5. SpecialSpecialist*

      The biggest example in my department was faculty showing up for the walk-in registration/advising sessions and stating at the door to the room “I don’t know my password to the system, so I can’t advise”. They signed up for the time slot and knew it was coming, so they had PLENTY of time to reset their password.

    6. Feral Humanist*

      She was, presumably, not supposed to be doing her side business when she was on the clock at the university, and it sounds like she was.

      Folks, not all “admins” are the same! As someone who directed a research center, I was also considered an “admin.” And in my department in grad school, we had student services admins assigned to individual departments who *definitely* advised students, because they understood the degree requirements inside and out.

      And don’t get me started on faculty advisers. When I worked as an academic adviser for undergrads towards the end of my PhD, I had students come in all the time who had been given terrible advice by faculty members who didn’t understand the bureaucracy and told them what to do based on how they thought things SHOULD work. (“Oh, you got sick? Just go ask them to let you drop the class six weeks after the add/drop deadline. You shouldn’t have to take a W for that!” –– Nope, not how that works.)

    7. Jezebella*

      I worked with an art professor who had been on faculty since 1972. In addition to being a racist, sexist, POS, he also refused to learn how to check voicemail, use email, use the learning management system, and submit grades electronically. The admin (who in academia is usually the person who actually runs the department day to day) printed out his emails for him and submitted his grades online. He’s still there. I hate him.

    8. Justme, The OG*

      As someone who works in HIED, I don’t want someone advising students who hasn’t been trained to. They really can mess things up.

    9. Aggretsuko*

      To be fair, we tell people constantly that we’re not academic advisors, nor can we advise on financial aid, and they should call financial aid. (Then they say, “financial aid transferred me to you!”)

      That said, I’m cracking up at the candles because we had an employee doing boudoir photography and she left her business paperwork behind when she quit.

    11. Butterfly Counter*

      Yeah. As stated above, for us, admin generally means staff rather than faculty. We have 2 admins in our department who do student advising. We are a research university, so faculty are not asked to do advising.

      Also, most people don’t have an issue with a side business. But staff and faculty are expected to do full-time jobs. If they aren’t doing their full-time job correctly because of their side business, it’s not a “side” business. The university job is the side business and most people are going to be mad they’re not pulling their weight.

  88. Giant space pickle*

    Had to deal with a guy who did this in my last job. I was new to the job, but not the industry. My coworker was twice my age and had been wuty the company over 10 years. The first time I worked with him, he was trying to get me to show him how gas powered hand tools worked. Over the course of several years, I’ve seen him ask how to do basic maintenance tasks, forget how trailers work, deliberately do tasks inefficiently or wrong, to the point where working with him was commonly referred to as babysitting him. It was amusing at first until you realize he’s higher on the seniority list and gets paid just as much as you do.

  89. Emily*

    I’ve been in a couple of technical roles where I was hired to code and then tasked with non-technical work that I find boring and wasn’t conducive to my career development. It’s hard for me to exactly say to what degree I intentionally didn’t do a great job, vs. I just wasn’t suited for it. I did wind up leaving on my own accord, though.

    And I’ve advised people similarly — if you want to do X, and you get hired to do X, and then you’re not being assigned X, you need to find a way to make your job X or find a different job. There’s no reward for compliance, and the longer you stay the more you are falling behind for the roles you actually want to be doing.

  90. Problem!*

    I had a guy in my (f) office, who was twice my age at least and therefore had way more corporate office job experience than me, try to make me sign him up for health insurance and benefits during open enrollment because he “didn’t know how to”. My company has a pretty good tool to help you figure out which plan you need based on your overall health (NOT a health screening, just “how many times a year do you see a doctor?” “Do you see a specialist regularly?” “Do you anticipate needing surgery or other big procedures this year?” etc) and stuff and makes it really easy. I told him I couldn’t help him because it’d be a HIPAA violation for me to walk him through the survey where he has to input how often and why he sees doctors. Not sure if it was actually a HIPAA violation but it got him to go away.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      Not a HIPAA violation, but not appropriate info to have on a coworker. I’d have referred him to HR. They might actually have had additional resources for him to use.

  91. MigraineMonth*

    I’m not sure if this counts as incompetence, exactly, but there are a bunch of business-critical functions in my org that use a 40-year-old technology stack. It’s important to migrate it to a newer technology for a number of security, efficiency and maintainability reasons, but like most infrastructure tasks we’re never given the time to actually do so.

    When the last person who knew how to use that technology retired 2 years ago, we refused to learn the old technology. If they want changes made, they have to give us the time to migrate it to the new technology.

  92. Abogado Avocado.*

    In the legal profession, there are two ways weaponized incompetence works among litigators. First, a lawyer will walk into your office and say: (1) “How does the rule regarding x work?” Now, we all have access to online research databases (Westlaw and LEXIS being the most well-known) and there are tons of publishers who print softbound rules compendiums. So, usually, the inquiring lawyer has failed to take the easy-peasy step of reading the rule, and instead expects you to read the rule and explain it. If you do that once, you will forever have lawyers in your office asking them to do the most basic legal research for them. My standard response is: “What does the rule say?” Which tends to keep those who won’t do their own legal research at bay; and (2) “Do you have a form motion for x? I need a go-by.” Again, every lawyer who litigates has access to online filing databases (such as the federal courts’ PACER) and it is easier than ever to find a sample motion (with briefing) on literally any topic you can imagine. So, my standard response is: “Have you looked on PACER?”

  93. Duolingo, but make it stealthy*

    I work at a nonprofit where the majority of clients speak Spanish, which I (and many other staff members) speak as a second language. Lately, we’ve been getting an increase in patients who speak Brazilian Portuguese. The languages are mutually intelligible enough that the native Spanish speakers can muddle through for simpler conversations (basic intake, household, income info), but for second language Spanish speakers it’s a bit more difficult. For conversations that require more precision, we really need someone who actually speaks Portuguese. There are a couple forms of strategic incompetence employed here:

    1. We have one volunteer who speaks European Portuguese, but swears up and down that we can’t ask him to speak to our Brazilian clients because they speak “low class” Portuguese. (I get that it can be hard to communicate in a second language when you’re not familiar with all the varying regions and speech patterns – that’s very much the case with Spanish! – but it’s still totally possible, and the classism is just Not It.)
    2. Because it’s so difficult to get the above volunteer to help out, anyone who reveals that they know/understand even a few Portuguese words ends up with ALL of the Portuguese-involving work dumped on them. This is understandably mentally draining and demoralizing, as it takes time and energy from their actual job duties.
    A couple of us (myself included) have started to learn Portuguese on Duolingo, mostly to enhance understanding during the inevitable Spanish-Portuguese conversations. Those of us who have made the mistake of mentioning our Duolingo practice even offhand end up in the above situation. Unsurprisingly, Duolingo is completely insufficient practice for the conversations that require Portuguese-Portuguese communication at our agency. Those conversations are also NOT “conversational practice” material. These are people in need; they didn’t sign up to be language tutors.

    So far I’ve been able to deny absolutely any understanding of Portuguese, which usually gets me/the client access to the phone interpretation service we use for languages that are less commonly spoken in our area. Fingers crossed I don’t let anything slip.

    The irony is that many of us would be willing to enroll in a “Portuguese for Spanish speakers” course if our agency would fund it, but that’s been repeatedly shot down. Apparently they had already attempted to fund Spanish courses for the monolingual English speaking staff/volunteers, and it had been underwhelming. But this is a completely different situation. The relevant staff already speak a closely related language and most of us have some degree of talent for/interest in language learning. But if the agency isn’t willing to invest in actually bringing us to the necessary level, we’re going to downplay any competence we do have.

    1. allathian*

      Languages are sometimes odd. My first languages are Finnish and Swedish, and I learned English as a tween/teen in the UK, although I switched to US spelling and vocabulary when I went online in my early 20s (don’t ask me why, I just did). I spent about 6 months in France as an exchange student and by the end I was pretty fluent, a couple years later I went to Spain as an intern at a chamber of commerce for 6 months and some of my work involved advising local small business owners on a tax-like payment they were supposed to pay (and many didn’t want to), so I was pretty fluent. With my Spanish skills I found Brazilian Portuguese much easier to understand than European Portuguese, I have no idea why this should be the case.

  94. I Have RBF*

    Back in the 80s I would deny that I knew anything about typing. This was before PCs were used in the office for document work. I did this even though I’d taken typing in high school, just so I wouldn’t get pigeonholed into the typing pool that was always women at low pay. I’m AFAB.

    When desktop computers became popular, I could command a premium because I knew how to use word processing software. And yes, typing on a computer is nicer than typing on a typewriter. The ability to backspace and delete without having to have a special ribbon or messy correction fluid made it worth it.

    My job now? Linux sysadmin. I love computers.

  95. GoryDetails*

    Ooh, I have one! My first job out of college was as keypunch-operator/computer programmer in a very small community college computer center (“very small” meaning there were two of us, the manager and me). As you might guess from the keypunch reference, this was long ago – mid-1970s, in fact. Anyway, I enjoyed the job, which included entering all the students’ course-registration info and the budget and expense data onto cards, sorting the resulting decks to produce reports, printing out the reports (on multi-ply carbon paper via a big line-printer, which had its own set of care-and-handling issues), and creating and maintaining the computer programs themselves – also via punch-cards.

    The reports could be generated in different ways, depending on how the cards were sorted, and I enjoyed using the big sorting machine to manage this; very satisfying watching all that data shuffle itself as ordered. But one day I took the finished budget reports – sorted by department name as I was instructed by my manager – to the bookkeeper, and she thanked me and mentioned rather sadly that it would be sooo nice if the reports could be produced in budget number order instead, to make it easier to match with the books. So I said “No problem, I’ll just sort the deck that way – be right back!” And I did, and it was easy, and she was astonished and very grateful.

    It seems my manager had told her, when she first asked him about it, that it “wasn’t possible” to change the printout order, flat out. And that was my first professional experience of someone who Couldn’t Be Bothered. (He didn’t last long after that, but I’m not sure if that incident had anything to do with it.)

  96. Proud teacher’s daughter*

    I’ve always liked my mom’s story of how she didn’t learn to type well in the early 70s so she wouldn’t be tempted to become a secretary, where you could make good money but wasn’t the career she wanted. She was a beloved middle school teacher for 36 years, where she did end up teaching typing and computers, albeit for much different applications!

  97. Ally McBeal*

    I think my favorite personal example of all time happened at my work-study job in college. I started working at the box office for my university’s theatre troupe early on in my freshman year, and I started at the same time as a guy I’ll call Ken. Two months or so in, the box office switched ticketing platforms from a Linux-based system to something more sophisticated, and we all had plenty of training and ongoing guidance. I picked it up quickly and was promoted to Student Manager by the end of the semester… but when we all came back in the spring, I discovered in a hurry that Ken had not learned a thing about the new platform. He attended all the same trainings but had absolutely no interest in using the platform. At all. Said it was too difficult (but somehow he’d figured out the Linux system??).

    Ken’s job, you see, was Bible. Ken spent 90% of his shifts with headphones on, reading his Bible. I was in the process of converting from his denomination to another branch of Christianity, so when he wasn’t actively reading, he was trying to pick arguments with me about why I was wrong. At first we tried “forcing” him to use the platform, and when that went nowhere we assigned him to check the voicemails and pass the info along to those of us who could make the changes on the platform, updating Playbills when an actor’s name was misspelled, busy work like that. He managed to run out the clock on that entire semester – I worked with my manager to schedule him on opposite shifts as me because I was simply unwilling to supervise someone so flagrant – and then we simply did not invite him back for a third semester of incompetence. It’s funny now but I was so angry back then.

      1. Ally McBeal*

        My favorite part is that he wasn’t even studying to go into ministry! I think he works in higher ed admin now, and not for a religious school. I’ve read the Bible all the way through several times (at least 3?), and I’ve managed work-study students who’ve needed to occasionally cram for an exam during their shift, but I can’t imagine having the audacity to tell my bosses that I would be avoiding work from here on out in favor of reading the Bible, at a work-study job when the Bible is not related to my academic work.

  98. Hawk*

    There was a period of time where a coworker, “Beth”, and I (out of our team of five, then four when Beth left) were asked to do a bunch of data entry. This data entry was part of a huge program that connected our organization to the local community, and was the main part of the project. Technically, all five of us were trained on it. When Beth left, the others were asked to help me with the project. Usually two out of the three did. The third, Jenny, would either be too busy or “didn’t know how” (quick fact: the core of this data entry was something she had been doing longer than any of us, but there was a small thing that needed to be changed). After a while, I got tired of doing the majority of them still and offered to show her how to do it the next time she asked me to do it for her. We went through it, and she still left me with some of the work. The next few times, she complained that she couldn’t find the instructions on our sharepoint site. I had already printed them out, and I told her where they were. Finally after Jenny kept complaining about not knowing where the instructions were (and still not doing the work, which we had a deadline on), I handed her my printed instructions. I think it was over a year before our rotating cast of managers finally figured out what was happening.

  99. summerofdiscontent*

    Department of mostly women with a few men. One young man didn’t seem to recognize that he needed to clean up after himself, keep track of his own schedule, etc. I pointed out to our director that I noticed all of his solutions to these problems seemed to result in more work for the rest of us and that it was feeling awfully gendered. There were other issues that were less about weaponized incompetence, but definitely had to do with gender. When I pointed out the pattern to our director, she effectively managed those tendencies out of him. I don’t believe it was intentional on his end- I think it was implicit bias/being sheltered. He’s actually become a really great employee.

    1. Sage*

      That is awesome!

      A (non-binary female presenting) friend of mine was hired as a software developer and was the only non-man in that role in that company. The men used to leave their used mugs unwashed in the kitchen sink. She was the only one told by the secretary (?) “how awful it looks in there”. Fortunately they understood very quickly what she wanted from them, and told her that they are as much as a slob as the men and walked away.

      She was later told that washing the mugs was already the cleaner’s task, and that if the secretary made such a comment again, to not to hesitate to point this out.

  100. LucyGoosy*

    The scene: a 501(c)3 nonprofit that is mostly reliant on federal funds has the tax status to get private funding, too. This means the finances are more complex than your standard charity/nonprofit. CFO resigns when his wife develops stage 4 cancer, and so we hire a new CFO who supposedly is an accounting consultant. She repeatedly tells us she’s been “using forensic accounting techniques” to decipher the accounting methods used by old CFO, and “I can’t figure out what HE was doing.” After a few months on the job, she tries to train the staff how to do our own accounting because “That’s how REAL organizations operate, and then you won’t be OVERLY reliant on me.” Another time, during an IRS audit, she stormed into my office (in earshot of the auditors) demanding to know where a certain invoice was–I just said, “Why would I know where you keep the invoices? Wouldn’t it be in your office?”

    A month or so after this, the CEO called her into the office to confront her about this mismanagement. I heard her scream through the wall, “I JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING!” and ran out the door, never to return. Our old CFO came back as a consultant–turns out he was brilliant at his job and previous CFO “couldn’t figure out what he was doing” because she literally didn’t know anything about finance.

    1. LucyGoosy*

      sorry, nonprofit that is reliant on federal funds BUT has the tax status to get private funding, too.

    2. the bat in the office popcorn machine*

      This is just regular, textbook incompetence. Some people have no shame!

    3. jane's nemesis*

      this is incredible – not even weaponized incompetence, just straight up, outright total incompetence!

  101. arcya*

    My current supervisor is the king of strategic incompetence. He started two years ago and is still saying he’s too new to know certain tasks! I’ve shown him how to work our internal systems to monitor projects and look at data, request equipment and reagents, and send forms to legal and document control, etc. He doesn’t do it, and every time someone mentions anything to do with the intranet he just says he doesn’t know how to use it. I always end up having to do it for him, because it doesn’t impact other people but I can’t do my job unless he does his. It’s so frustrating.

    Just the other day I heard one of my coworkers asking another if my boss had some sort of medical problem that meant he couldn’t remember things, because she had told him over and over how to do a simple task and he still says he doesn’t know how. I wish I could say this would come back to hurt his career, but no one above him seems to care.

  102. foxgloves*

    I had a writing/editing job for about 10 big poobahs (all male but one) at a very fancy organization. There was an older woman adminstrator who was the go-between between me and the poobahs. We and the poobahs had to all attend the same morning meeting once a month to go over the work. Many years earlier, this administrator had become the person who arranged food and coffee for this meeting. She would spend the start of each one receiving the catering and setting out all the food. So this was a thing at every single meeting.
    I deliberately did not participate in the food setting-out in any way even though I knew the administrator expected me to do so. I could tell she was annoyed but I knew that at least some of the poobahs already saw me as the “help” rather than the person who made their Very Important Words shine in some pretty important contexts. I felt guilty about it but I was the editor, not the catering help. And I think if I had been male she never would have expected me to do it.

  103. CTA*

    A tale of folks who are afraid of “tech.”

    I was doing some freelance website work for a friend who is the Director of a nonprofit. I provided some free virtual training to her staff because I wanted them to feel empowered to do website (WordPress) maintenance on their own. I allowed them to record the sessions so they could refer back to it later and I also answered questions over email. I gave them a task: back up the website so I could delete the backup that I made and had stored on my personal Google Drive. I did show them where to go in the admin and I explained how to do the back up. We didn’t do a backup together because that would eat up a lot of time during our training session and they needed to decide where in the Cloud they would put the backup. I gave them a month.

    Almost month later, the staff sends me a long email (leaving the Director off the email) that says the backup costs money, they did research and those options cost money, and asks what are their other options. I gently tell them that more research on my part is billable hours. I also say it’s not clear if they tried to do the backup and I tell them (again) that the backup plugin that’s already installed is free. I also cc my friend (their boss). They reply back that they tried the back up, it worked, and they downloaded the files.

    Later that day, I notice my Google Drive is full. They backed up to my Drive even though I had explained to them that they need to back up to their resources. WordPress can be confusing so I try to be patient. I email them about what happened and tell them that I need this deleted. They reply that the person who did the backup is out of office and will help on Monday. It was Friday. I was mad now. I was not waiting a whole weekend. Anyone could help. They were all present for the training, but they were just afraid. The “older” staff were pushing the “tech” things to the “young” staff so they couldn’t be blamed for mess ups (this was what I directly observed during our virtual sessions). I told them I was logging into their admin and doing it myself. In the admin, I see they did two backups back to back. The first went to my Drive and when they realized the mistake, they did a second one without deleting the first.

    My friend/their boss was out of office for all of this. I’m sure when she read those emails that she had a talk with her staff about critical thinking and paying attention. I’m also sure she’s hesitant to ask me for more help because of the weaponized incompetence of her staff.

  104. ArtsNerd*

    I had a job where only a few of the staff members were competent and almost everyone but my department had some level of techphobia. There was a colleague (not a high performer, but happy to admit it to me) I would chit chat with. Once when I vented about our director explicitly admitting to pushing work on me that was outside my role because he couldn’t be bothered to hold the other staff to any standards, she looked me straight in the eye and said “yeah, that’s *why* I’m unhelpful. I don’t answer those kinds of questions because I don’t want to answer them, not because I can’t.”

    Eventually, we needed to work together directly on a project that I cared about, and she started answering my emails asking for info or deliverables with “ok, got it!” I was like “C’mon Robin. You know I KNOW what you are doing here!” I do have to respect her ability to give zero fucks.

  105. UncleFrank*

    I engage in something that’s more weaponized absentmindedness (gotta use the absent minded academic stereotype to my advantage). I learned the hard way my first year of grad school that emailing IT to tell them the computer lab printer was broken some how ended up with me exchanging 20 emails with IT and being on standby for them to come to the computer lab. I tried to explain to them that any of the department assistants would have a key to the lab, but they insisted that the person who initiated the ticket had to be there. It of course took multiple afternoons of this to finally get the printer fixed.

    After that, I just refused to notice if something was broken. If I didn’t know it was broken, I couldn’t get roped into fixing it! “Oh, is it broken? Huh, I haven’t printed anything recently, trying to read more on my kindle, the environment you know…. good luck with it….”

    I will say that now I work at an institution with very competent and helpful technical support and I often report things to them because I do seem to be less absentminded than many of my colleagues. But it takes 30 seconds and things actually get fixed, so it’s worth it!

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      I’ve worked places with good and bad IT. Good IT staff are worth their weight in gold.

  106. merida*

    The company I work in has a few higher up leaders who seem to be top-level experts at weaponized incompetence. I’m sure this is common elsewhere too, but here’s a sample of the daily complaints I hear: I don’t know how to use the printer or make copies, I don’t know how to create a PPT deck, I don’t know where the light switch is in the conference room so I guess we’ll sit in the dark, I don’t how to use the autosum feature in Excel, I don’t how to reserve a conference room or schedule a meeting, I don’t know how to sign a PDF electronically even though I need to electronically sign hundreds of documents a year, I don’t know how to access any of our shared folders on the network, I’ve just never learned how to connect to the company VPN… I could go on for ages. Of course these are all in the context of “I don’t know how so do it for me and if you offer to teach me how to do it for next time I’ll complain loudly that it’s way too hard.”

    I recently learned that one of these higher ups makes approximately 5x more a year than I do. I cannot imagine a world where I could refuse to learn how to most of the tasks I need to do my job and thus make everyone else do my work for me… and yet still get a hefty promotion and raise at least once a year. So yeah. Weaponized incompetence is a justifiable power play when your position is high enough in a company, but if I employed those same strategies in my role as an seasoned underling I should expect to understandably be fired immediately. (That thought always makes me giggle. Good luck trying to turn on light switches and print things without me, Karen. I really have no faith that they’d be able to figure it out.)

    1. I Have RBF*

      I had a CFO, when I was tech support, always, always ask me to remount her network drives for her. I even wrote out instructions for her. Nope, she insisted I had to come to her office and do it. Finally, when I asked why she wouldn’t do it, she said “Of course not. That’s your job, you’re IT.” People, it was not my job to mount an idiot’s network drive every week. She easily made five times what I did, and also needed help with Excel. I hated her guts. Her department was all just about as bad.

      I now no longer admit to knowing how to do anything but basic user stuff on Windows.

  107. Sage*

    In the most toxic workplace I have been, the manager of the project I was in pretended to not to know the difference between a genuine compliment and sexual harassment*. After I told him for the millionth time that I didn’t want him to make any comment on my body he even whined about how he wasn’t able to tell me anything.

    I took this as everything he has to tell me is about my body, so my job as a software developer must not be important. I started working really slowly. The project failed badly, and he was the one having to face consequences.

    *Unfortunately I have seen this one from far to many men. Since I have stopped trying to educate them and started just ending contact with them, my circle of friends has become much more respectful towards me.

  108. Just so Tired*

    I was newly hired to a role. My counterpart in another part of the company was a few years younger than me and had been at that company as an intern before getting hired to the job we held. I say that because I think it contributed to her / somtimes me being seen as interns at times. So I was put on an implementation team where we were going to be getting waves of updated information from a large governmental body. In my view, the best way to keep track was keep digital copies, which I did for myself and would bring a laptop to all meetings. Others preferred giant binders of paper. At one point, a more senior person at the company said, “If only someone could be responsible for printing out X# of copies of the latest updates and disributing them” and looked at me. I looked right back until she looked away and it never came up again.

  109. avocadolime*

    A terrible colleague was wholly in charge of a local fundraising effort, and made sure everyone knew it. But when it came to actually logging the individual donations into the system, she just found the system too confusing! The first year I worked there I was suckered into entering them. The second year, I was blandly and non-specifically helpful, encouraging her to reach out if she had any questions. They were never recorded.

  110. Csethiro Ceredin*

    I don’t know if it was weaponized, but we had someone try to refuse to learn to cut and paste. She asked me for help with something else (I’m not IT, I was just passing) and while doing that I cut and pasted a note into our system, and she asked how I did that, wide eyed.

    I thought oh, she doesn’t know the keyboard shortcuts and wrote them on a stickie for her, realized she still looked confused, and I explained it did the same thing as right click cut/paste.

    She STILL looked confused and I asked her how she did it and she said she just retyped it any time she needed to copy something. So I tried to hide my shock and said well great, this will be much easier!

    But then she started coming and asking me to do my “special trick” when she had a long note to copy. I showed her one more time and realized she wasn’t even paying attention and clearly planned to just keep asking me. I had to explain that NO I was not going to come and do it for her each time she wanted to copy and paste!

    She said she was old (early 50s!) and learning all this technical stuff was hard. I told her I was confident that she could handle it, and it was common practice. Unsurprisingly it did turn out to be within her capabilities. I heard her asking a puzzled new staff member if they needed her to show them how to cut and paste something into the system a few weeks later.

    It still amazes me that she thought going to get her boss’s boss for help each time she needed to copy/paste something was a reasonable solution.

    1. Sage*

      Didn’t she realize that coming to you to ask you to copy/paste for her takes more time and effort than just doing it herself?

    2. Single Parent Barbie*

      My pet peeve is people who use age as an excuse. I turned 50 this year and 2 weeks ago I taught myself how to do workflow approvals in adobe. I felt like a bad ass.

      Age is just a version of weaponized incompetence. There are very few things I can blame on my age. (Old enough for AARP not old enough for a senior discount!)

      1. Csethiro Ceredin*

        Yes, so frustrating. And we have many staff members her age or older who do just fine with technology!

        1. But Not the Hippopotamus*

          My grandmother was using AOL and IM in her late 80’s. She only stopped because of physical decline (inability to use a mouse or keyboard) in her 90s. This was circa 2005, so that was pretty new stuff when she started (late 1990s).

          People who use age now for basic tech tools frankly look a bit stupid to me. I mean, assume they are 55… Then in 2000, they were 32ish. Somehow they were too old to learn basic shortcuts that have been around and widely used since their late 20s and early 30s?! Time to call BS.

          1. Charlotte Lucas*

            I am in my early 50s and have been using computers at work since my first job in the 80s! Someone that age probably has to learn DOS and simple programming. I take no age excuses. And I will argue about it with people.

            My grandmother also learned to use a computer in her 80s. And she has some things to say about it when her brother scoffed at the idea that she could learn. (She never did office work, so I think she also had to learn keyboards, too.)

        2. Emma*

          My mum is 70, and somewhere in the house is a programming book she and my dad wrote together before they were married. Dad wrote the text, and mum wrote the code.

          Admittedly, she stopped coding after that, and has lost those skills; but she’s still perfectly capable of figuring out how to what she needs to do on a computer, and over the years has built and maintained her church’s website and implemented the local school’s first (and second) digital library catalogue.

          I get that a lot of people haven’t really had to use computers much, and I myself have known plenty of 20-somethings who can’t use a word processor. There’s nothing wrong with not being great with computers, but I wish people would stop blaming age, instead of just saying “I’ve never learned to do this”!

      2. Anna*

        I’m 70 and am the one everyone in the office comes to with computer questions. I LOVE tech and am usually more up to date on anything new than any of my co-workers or friends.

  111. 2023 is Meh*

    I have been an admin assistant for over 20 years now. I don’t drink coffee and have managed to avoid learning how to make it in office all this time. Just the idea of it makes my skin crawl.

  112. Moira Rose*

    I’m a highly technical, midcareer woman, and at this point I just tell people that I don’t do PowerPoint. (Like, can I literally open it and look at slides? Yes. Am I going to make slides from scratch? I will not.)

    Making PowerPoint slides is how competent people in tech get turned into project managers and management soothers. Fine if you want that for yourself, but if you want to stay hands-on with the technical stuff you went to school for, fie on PowerPoint forever.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      Part of my job is editing PowerPoint presentations. I can confidently assure you that more people *think* they know how to create a PowerPoint presentation than actually *can.* (A lot of them make me think of the first essays I would get from my students when I taught Freshman Comp. It resembled a college paper superficially, but, well it really wasn’t.)

  113. DivineMissL*

    I work in local government. In 2011, local youth team won a championship of some sort and came into a public meeting to be honored. The city got the idea to buy a trophy display case for the lobby so they could display this trophy for a while, assuming they could do the same for other groups/teams in the future. I was tasked with ordering a fancy trophy case, wood and glass that was illuminated, and then maintenance had to install it (wiring for electric and bolting it to the wall for safety); it was expensive (tax dollars!). However, nobody was ever tasked with filling this case, and I certainly wasn’t going to volunteer – one single trophy would look silly in this 7-foot-high case, and I had enough work to do without taking this on.

    Every once in a while I considered creating a “community” space in the case with changing displays – maybe student artwork, or historical photos of city landmarks, seasonal displays, etc. But I know once I started, I’d be stuck with the job. That case has been sitting empty and untouched for 12 years.

  114. Horse named Blackie*

    I worked with a woman who had been working the front desk of an office for something like 15-20 years. She claimed everything was too hard for her to learn because she felt that the company wouldn’t be able to function without her. The only responsibilities she had was answering phones and then forwarding the calls, greeting people who came in (this was very rare) and stamping outgoing mail. Myself and another colleague tried so hard to get her to take on other tasks or skills but she kept saying it was too hard for her. She was absolutely capable of doing the things we were trying to teach her, but she just really felt like the company would never let her go.

    Eventually, she was let go and it took her completely by surprise. She had tried weaponized incompetence so she wouldn’t need to add anything to her day and unfortunately for her, the company called her on it and she lost.

  115. SnickerdoodleSandwich*

    I’m a woman in software development.
    When I first started working I was in a company with a lot of people who had just graduated from college. I very quickly noticed:

    1) Emotionally immature guys sought out the few women in our office and vented to them about their feelings quite often.
    2) People were quick to dismiss women as being emotional.

    So I started offhandedly joking about how much I hate hearing about personal drama. Whenever anyone came over to me to try to vent I’d just casually say “oh, I’m no good at discussing feelings, sorry. But did you hear about _work topic_”.
    If I got upset about something that needed to be discussed, I always framed it as frustration or anger because for some reason those didn’t count as emotions to the people I worked with.

    In reality, I love some good gossip and am probably average at emotional intelligence and conflict resolution. Establishing early on that I was “bad at emotions” helped me side step that entire sexist mess and be taken seriously until I had enough social capital to push back more directly.

  116. RunningUpthatSkill*

    I shared an office with a guy for a few years who was messy. His desk was usually a mess, he was bad about cleaning up common areas after using them — simple stuff like re-shelving office supplies, and he did very poorly when it was his turn to clean the office kitchen (which was VERY small, as was our staff, so the cleanup was typically about 15 minutes/week). He definitely leaned into a “bumbling” persona, which was bad enough, but our boss made it worse by somewhat regularly making one of two excuses for him.
    1 – “Bumbleton is young.” (He was almost to the day 1 year younger than me. I was 26 at the time.)
    2 – “Bumbleton is an only child.” (Implying, I guess, that he wasn’t used to sharing space, or was used to having his parents pick up after him?? Again, we’re talking about a 25-year-old man here.)

  117. Shoney Honey*

    I worked on a sales floor with an person whose policy was, “I don’t touch money.” This basically meant that he would sell an item, then when it was time for paperwork and payment, he would turn them over to someone else because he didn’t want to bother having to learn our computer system. He would tell clients this – he would work with them right up until they decided to purchase, and then say “I don’t touch money, so let me hand you off to (name) so you can finish up.” I remember one day I was also working with a client, and I could tell he was wrapping up a sale and wanted to hand it off but there was no one else around. I started stalling with my client, pointing out the most useless of features in nearly agonizing detail just so he couldn’t turn his clients over to me. He finally told his client, “I don’t touch money, so you’ll have to wait.” And then left his clients waiting for me to wrap up with mine. He got away with it because our boss thought he was a genius – and I suppose in a way he was, because he certainly figured out how to get out of working.

    1. BellyButton*

      On most sales floors, if you assist any sales person in anyway they have to split the commission. If I was doing his work I would ask for 10% of everything. F that guy.

  118. Potato Potato*

    My department head has limited power around policies. So technically, we’re all supposed to be working from the office with no flexibility and very little vacation time. But the tracking software is complicated. So complicated that the department head, a senior software engineer, can’t figure out how to work it. And he certainly can’t expect the managers to figure it out if he can’t. So while he’s figuring that out, we should use the honor system and take the vacation that we need without worrying about it. For now, as long as we do our jobs, he won’t penalize people.

    It’s been 10 years and who knows how many software changes. I appreciate him.

  119. Helen_of_the_Midwest*

    I am a marketer. I have an unusually sharp editorial eye, but editing isn’t my job. Everywhere I’ve ever worked, my bosses have realized that stuff I copy edit is a lot cleaner than stuff that goes out without my review, so I wind up being the final set of eyes on everything my team writes. For the most part, I like this.

    But I currently have one coworker, an older white man with multiple master’s degrees, who seems to use the fact that I’m going to copy edit his marketing emails as a reason to throw something together in the most slapdash manner imaginable, because “Helen will fix it.” This drives me up the wall. My biggest pet peeve in his emails is the random capitalization–he’ll do some section headers in title case, others in sentence case, and still others in a mix of the two.

    I used to email him back a list of his errors, how I had fixed them, and why they were wrong every time he asked me to copy edit one of his emails; there were usually 10-20 errors in an email that would take up about two pages of a Word document. I hoped this practice would either teach him punctuation and grammar rules he’d somehow missed in school or else shame him into following rules he already knew, but instead, he just responded to those emails with “You’re the best, Helen!” So now I just fix his errors without commenting on them.

    (At least I’ve finally gotten him to put the emails into the marketing software himself–he used to draft them in Word and then expect me to put them in the marketing software after I made my edits. He’s my coworker, not my boss, and I am not an assistant or a secretary. I’m just a femme-looking nonbinary person who’s 30-40 years younger than he is.)

    1. Jo*

      Unless this editing is part of your core job duties, I’d suggest giving him a paper markup so he has to make the changes himself AND he can advance his writing/grammar knowledge.

      As a transition, you could use some excuse…like you worked on it while waiting somewhere without a computer so took a hard copy. After the first time, “that method worked great! plus, we can streamline future changes as you brush up.”

      1. Helen_of_the_Midwest*

        Unfortunately, we’re both remote in different states! I also really don’t trust that he’d make the edits.

  120. gigi1025*

    A co-worker was going on maternity leave. Her position is customer facing (difficult customers at that!) and had to be covered. A male coworker & I (female) were supposed to share this coverage. I already had quite a bit of experience covering it, but he….didn’t really want to. And we all knew it. He put off training, always had other priorities. Finally our Supervisor came into town & pushed the issue. He proceeded to act very patronizing to my pregnant coworker who was trying to go over procedures with him, & said he would just do a trial run right then. It did not go well. He made a significant error which resulted in him having to run out the door to have our customer come back in. He became so flustered & angry that he then had a full blown temper tantrum, yelled “I can’t do this, you didn’t train me well enough! “; grabbed all his things & stormed out the door. Needless to say, I got to do the whole job, plus my own for the 8 weeks she was out. He just didn’t want to do it, & stated as much when he finally stopped giving us all (who had witnessed his bad behavior) the silent treatment.

  121. CubeFarmer*

    Our admin strategically poorly performs at things she finds too complicated, or things that she doesn’t want to do, knowing that one of us will need/want the thing so badly that we’ll do it ourselves (yes, this is a problem with her manager not actually, you know, managing her.)

    I started to notice that I was becoming admin 2.0 to backfill for the tasks she wasn’t doing, or was underperforming on. Some of these things (like data entry,) I needed to do my own job. I created shortcuts around her that made everyone’s lives easier. Other things require some office equipment and accounts that, ultimately, I’m responsible for.

    One example: our office’s Uber account goes on my work credit card. Our admin gets the ride details emailed to her. Ideally she would then ask colleagues about billing details (we’re talking less than six rides per month,) but every month she would “forget” then I would scramble to get the billing details submitted (because the charges were on my work card.) Until I got smart and just stopped. “Oh this is Admin’s area,” and didn’t back down. Our finance person backed me up, and insisted that Admin provide him with the information (because this is an administrative function and that’s the Admin’s job.) Well, wouldn’t you know, suddenly this worked her way into her schedule. I’m starting to notice a pattern that when a man tells her to do something, it happens, but when a woman tells her, she sees the request as optional…hmmm…

  122. Catabouda*

    Commercial property management company. My job was to take care of utility / maintenance / cleaning invoices for multiple locations. I was going out on maternity leave, trained the other office staff member.

    She didn’t pay one bill the entire time I was gone. They only figured it out when a building’s lights got shut off and the tenant called complaining. She claimed my directions were too confusing.

    Our manager called me on a conference call with her, asking how I can make it easier for her. I was not kind. I asked her if the lights at her house were shut off because she didn’t know how to pay a bill? No zoom then, so no idea what her face looked like, but I assume pissed because the manager jumped in and said nevermind, we’ll handle it.

    When I returned, I realized that she went in the complete other direction after that phone call. She paid the outstanding bills two or three times, overpaying everyone.

    The manager just kept commenting how happy he was I was back. Never did anything about her screw up.

  123. Alex*

    I’ve seen this so many times!

    But the worst was at my last job, when my manager forced weaponized incompetence on us. She was always overly concerned about new tasks being added to my department’s plate, which, fair, except that the reality was the core competencies of our role were changing along with technology, and she refused to acknowledge this. She would tell us not to learn new things, tell us that certain technical issues or tasks were not our job and we shouldn’t do them, etc. etc. The problem with this was that the actual stuff she DID want us to do was outdated and quickly becoming obsolete. I had to skill up in secret and get out of there in order to keep any kind of career momentum intact.

    I hear they are all now fearful that they are going to eliminate the department because it has become obsolete….well, duh.

  124. WritesFromHome*

    My mother, who was born in 1950, refused to take typing classes in high school so she could never be someone’s secretary. Instead, she built a career in healthcare, starting at the bottom as a lab tech and finishing as a consultant for a billion-dollar company. She’s now retired and still painstakingly types with just her index fingers.

  125. TootSweet*

    Again, with minutes, when another admin said the quiet part out loud. I was really good at this when I was an admin, and I regularly took minutes at (evening) committee meetings for the people I supported. Then others started asking me to take minutes at their (evening) committee meetings. It got to the point where I was staying at work late and working on transcribing them at home several days every week. My kids started to comment that when I was home, it was like I wasn’t even there because I was sitting at the home computer transcribing minutes so often. I finally approached another admin, J, about why she wasn’t doing this at her bosses’ meetings. J said, “Oh, I got out of that by doing them so poorly that they never asked me again!”

  126. pally*

    A few years ago, a certain professional organization was able to offer each of their volunteers a free Microsoft Office 365 account. These accounts were used to provide organizational information (via SharePoint and Outlook email) to these volunteers. This software was touted as The Way to communicate between volunteers and headquarters. It would lead to improved service to all of the members.

    To this end, the organization threw itself into training volunteers on how to use SharePoint, how to get into one’s Office 365 account, Outlook account, etc,. Quite a bit of effort was expended in creating -videos, slides, screenshots, and answering questions via email- to get folks up to speed.

    Well, Microsoft changed the rules recently. They now charge for these Office 365 accounts. So this professional organization did a survey to determine if they should spend the money to maintain all of these Office 365 accounts for the volunteers.

    The result: Only 29% of the volunteers had activated their Office 365 account in the past year.

  127. West coast*

    Mine is cooking. I have often found myself in small groups, often predominantly male in camp like situations where someone needs to cook. I state clearly that I do not cook. I do not like to cook and that I’m not a good cook. I will help prep, I will most certainly clean up, but I will not do the labour of planning, timing etc. Sadly this also applies when I am at home where me myself and I don’t wanna cook dinner. I been doing girl dinner before there was girl dinner.

    1. Dr. Doll*

      See, this is honest refusal – completely unlike weaponized incompetence, and imo extremely respectable and reasonable. Especially because you backstop it by helping with the things you ARE okay doing.

  128. learnedthehardway*

    For YEARS, I managed to not be capable of online video conferences. Right up until COVID, in fact. After that, everyone had to transition, so I had to as well. Before then, though, I successfully avoided work video calls for over 10 years.

    Reader, during this time, my husband worked overseas on and off for 3 years, and we had regular video calls.

  129. Not Me For this*

    I am so fed up with weaponize incompetence. I currently have some staff members that try to delegate things up to me when they don’t want to do it or believe it is above their pay grade. The first time I am nice about it and explain how they should proceed (who they need to talk to, what they need to do, etc.). After that, they get much more direct and curt guidance finally resulting in a you need to figure this out as it is your job.

    1. Dinwar*

      I’ve been dealing with that too. “I thought this was X’s job.” Sure–but in the same breath you’re complaining that you aren’t moving up in the company. How do you expect to move up if you don’t take on additional responsibilities? This is literally how we train people, assigning them individual tasks for the next level; that way they always have a safety net and we don’t overwhelm them.

  130. Not A Girl Boss*

    I am a manager and know that one of my weaknesses is that I often will jump in and do something for an employee to save them the time or inconvenience, or because I’m just generally not a great delegator. Then I get burned out and cranky.
    We have a task that needs to be done frequently on off-hours, and we have a coverage schedule for it (including comp time if you get called on), but employees frequently would “forget” to keep their phones on them, and I’d end up spending every single night and weekend doing the task.

    When a software glitch deleted the appropriate software from my computer, I declined to put in a help desk ticket. Which forced me to force the issue with the employees whos job it really is.

  131. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

    I was one of only 3 female engineers . It was the early 90’s and the organization had decided that engineering admins were a waste with everyone having emails and computers, etc and all of the engineers would have to do their own typing, etc.

    A mid-level engineering manager tried one by one to make us his unofficial admin “since he never learned to type”. None of us worked for him and all of us told him we had never learned to type either so couldn’t help him. (As we turned our backs and started typing our own work.)

    It was a battle of weaponize incompetence. Eventually someone left a copy of Mavis Beacon on his desk.

  132. Team PottyMouth*

    My team receives electronic tickets that are entered by another internal team. One of the fields on this form asks for a “Branch Officer” (ie: the sales person who “owns” the customer), so that we know who to cc any communications on. The form is very clear. The team that submits these forms regularly enters the name of the person who sent the initial information (usually the Branch Officer’s Assistant) and NOT the actual officer. We’ve explained our need a million times to no avail, so every ticket comes in with the wrong contact name and we have to research it to correct. Instead it comes in wrong, we get the ticket, search for the originating team’s ticket, search for the form they used during their step of the process, open in and correct the name. On their side, it’d take 2 seconds, tops, to double-check the name, on our side at least 30 seconds of extra research. 30 seconds doesn’t sound like much, but multiply that, and over time it becomes extremely frustrating. I’ll never understand why they think they can complete a form with whatever info they feel like putting on it instead of the correct info.

    1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      The only way I’ve ever found to fix this is to just close out tickets quietly as “incoherent” when the information is screwed up. It’s a tidal wave of fury initially, but after that passes, the underlying cause gets dealt with harshly.

  133. ONFM*

    I worked for a director who would constantly send me last-minute requests for things that were not in my area of responsibility. I have enough general knowledge about the organization to be dangerous, so I could usually drop everything and put it together for him by the end of the day. I found out these were tasks he was supposed to produce, which he had forgotten about, and he would submit my work as his own (no changes at all) and blame me for turning it in late. After I found out, I quit doing them. I would respond blandly with “I’m sorry, that’s outside my area and I wouldn’t have any idea how to do that…” I wouldn’t even direct him to the right person or department. Eventually he was fired, and after he left we found a stack of similar assignments from the head of the organization that had never been completed.

  134. Selina Luna*

    This one isn’t gendered; it’s ageist: “Selina, I’m too old to learn how to use a computer. Would you do this completely obvious thing for me?”
    Luckily, I understood the intent pretty early in my career, and I always offer to guide them as they do it themselves the first time, but I never do things for them. Since this is not their end goal, they leave me alone after this.

    1. jellied brains*

      My answer is *apologetic smile* “oh I don’t really know that program/operating system, sorry! Have you tried googling it?”

    2. Throwaway Account*

      I worked in a public library and so many patrons (younger than I!) would say, Oh, I’m old, I cannot type or learn computers so I cannot do “thing that all patrons do for themselves.” If they wanted to learn, they asked to learn. These were the folks who wanted someone to just do it for them, like a servant, they did not want to learn.

      I countered this with relentless cheerleading and enthusiasm for them and for learning new skills. I would stand by for ages cheering them on while they pecked at the keyboard (they had to type a book title or their name at most!) and clicked a button or two. I enjoyed every moment of it! And a few actually liked figuring it out!

  135. handfulofbees*

    Ooh my big one right now is a weaponized allergy. My first year at this farm, I got a horrible rash after working in the tomatoes, and have been excused from tomato work ever since. Tomatoes are awful to work with so I’m very ok with this.

    I’m starting to think though, that the reaction may have come from laying down straw instead of the tomato sap. I’d love to get out of straw duty as well, but…

    Anyway I’m allergic to a stupid amount of plants for a farmworker.

    1. CzechMate*

      Someone in my office is suspected of weaponized allergy to mold, carpet glue, and dust. She changed offices three times because “something is just getting to me” in this part of the building. She now has a lovely office with a fireplace (we work in an old house) and a balcony overlooking a luscious green lawn and hedges. Interestingly, there does not seem to be any mold, carpet glue, or dust there.

      1. handfulofbees*

        Well of course it’s such a nice office it must be kept scrupulously clean of any allergens ;)

        Honestly I should probably try this more. I’ve spent entirely too much time suffering the aftereffects of dusty work.

  136. Jay*

    I’m a doctor in my 60s. I’m a cis woman. I have thus spent my entire career being assumed to be anything other than a doc. Well, not anything – since I’m white no one ever thought I was housekeeping staff.

    As a result I simply never learned to do any administrative or nursing tasks. And my handwriting is so bad that I can’t possible take notes on the meeting. Or be the scribe at the flip chart. It’s such a shame.

    Among the things I never knew how to do: sign off on a supply delivery. “Sorry. You need one of the nurses.” One courier snapped “and what do you think YOU are?” Um.

    1. RandomName*

      I’m kinda doing this in my job currently!
      I’m a general practitioner working in a psychiatric hospital. It’s a transversal role : I come and go in pretty much all units.
      People will ask anyone wearing white for help, some of which I could actually provide (think things like getting a towel, opening a locked door, dropping a paper in So-and-So’s inbox).
      I’ve quickly learned that the only way to avoid getting swamped with those kinds of requests is “sorry, I’m only the GP, I’m not in a position to help you, you need one of the nurses”.

    2. Nurse Diesel*

      Many years ago when I was a brand new baby faced student nurse, a very angry old man demanded that the male nurse not come near him & wanted me instead – it was somewhat satisfying explaining to him that as he needed a cannula he would be better off with the male nurse who had lost count of the number of people he had successfully cannulated as I had, at that stage, done zero on a real live patient & only been successful on the oranges they made us practice on!!!! Choose mate, fast & relatively painless procedure or a long drawn out procedure with pain (his) & tears (mine). He chose wisely & allowed my wonderful male preceptor to quickly & efficiently cannulate him & got his IV bags set up & running un under 10 minutes (I was still calculating the volume to mass ratios).

  137. jellied brains*

    In another lifetime, I worked for a highly dysfunctional hellhole. The receptionist took weaponized incompetence and turned into an art. My boss was trying to get us to go paperless (an industry-wide move, not just one ineptly run small business decision) but the receptionist refused to learn how to use the software or a scanner. So it fell to everyone else, whether they worked the front desk or not.

    But God forbid you tried to take over any of her “tasks.” She purposefully made the documentation overly complicated so no one else wanted to do it. I guess she thought she’d keep her job by being the gatekeeper of supply ordering.

    I moved onto another job in the same industry and was amazed to see what a competently run place looked like. I even became the company expert in one of the things she refused to explain, hah!

  138. Common Taters on the Ax*

    Ages ago, I worked in a public library with a cantankerous paper copier. They all were back then. The reference librarians were for some reason in charge of the copiers, I guess because there was no one else with any technology expertise at all. One part-time reference librarian, who had pretty, fluffy white hair, was always dressed to the nines, and gave off an air of a society lady filling up her free time by helping out the underclass, used to regularly pull one of the full-time reference librarians over whenever a paper jam meant the beast had to be opened up. She would tell the waiting patron, “I’ll let her help you with this. She’s much better at it than I am.” They all grimly yanked the paper out with their lips pressed together.

    1. Workerbee*

      Oh how I hope the full-timers started refusing to be pulled over to that beast of a machine! Part-time lady had way too much power over them, somehow.

  139. thelettermegan*

    I, a millenial women, will gladly ask any genX / boomer man why he works in engineer if he hates computers so much. Shuts down a lot of whining fast.

    I’ve also found that being very good at the new up-and-coming thing sometimes means you can get out of routine/obsolete tasks, and sometimes getting out of routine/obsolete tasks so as to have time to get very good at new up-and-coming thing requires a little weaponized incompetence.

    And sometimes you just have to stand your ground and tell managers that you’re not going to sit through training on their pet project/antiquated-and-sunsetting tools and procedures.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      I, a GenX woman, would ask the same thing of a GenX man. Computers were everywhere, and cantankerous beasts, in our youth.

      Then again, my manager is a Millennial man who claims to have minored in computer science. When his GenX staff members heard that, we all had a hard time keeping straight faces. He does not do technology well.

  140. anon for this*

    This is a little stretch off the topic, but I think it will be appreciated here…

    I was a mid-20’s young woman straight out of graduate school working for the federal government. Almost everyone in the office was my parent’s age or older. I’d been there maybe 5 months and holidays are rolling around when my boss (genuinely a nice guy, but… of a different generation) tells me that we usually have an office holiday party and maybe I’d like to help plan it?
    I am cosmically terrible at event planning. I hate it and am not good at it. I also don’t like large gatherings in general, so I don’t have much experience with what they entail. I felt immediate fear that I would somehow be expected to know/do this sort of thing in my job (something like Analyst). I looked him in the eye and said, “You do NOT want me planning an event. It will Be Bad.” I think I followed with something like, “I’d probably forget plates or something.”

    This was probably 2005 or so. I just realized last year that it was probably a sexist expectation that I would want to/be good at such things and most events were arranged by the women in the office. I was just so horrified that it didn’t even cross my mind. However, I was never again asked to help plan any sort of event. I don’t think he would trust me to reserve a conference room after that.

    1. The Rural Juror*

      I’m a project coordinator that supports several departments in my company. At any given time I touch 5-15 different projects. I’m one of five PCs currently, though we’ve had up to seven in the past. Our jobs include supporting project managers in the departments, but NOT doing tasks for them just because they don’t want to do administrative work. It’s astounding how much we get asked to do things because it will “be faster” or “look better” if we do it.

      Luckily, we’ve been given clear boundaries to lay down. “I’m not authorized to do that for you.” has been a satisfying phrase to use!

      Right now, all PCs are women, but we did have one man in the past. Most of the requests for things we’re not supposed to do seem to come from men -_-

    2. SB*

      One of my favourite days at work EVER was when a new mid level (male) manager turned to the only two women in the meeting & asked which one of us was going to be taking notes…both of us were higher on the org chart than him (just different departments) & as a team lead it is part of his role to ensure that any meetings he chairs have a note taker (as in, he was supposed to bring one of his admin people with him to take notes or do it himself).

      I was only one level above him but the other woman was exec team level with no one above her but the CEO & Owner. She asked him to step outside with her & when they returned he was beet red & asked if anyone in the room objected to him recording the meeting so he could have them transcribed by his admin team afterwards. I still get a little serotonin from that memory.

  141. Kathy the Librarian*

    We had one person in our “company” that used weaponized incompetence. He was one of the worse people I ever worked with and our customers hated him, too. He kept getting moved around because HR couldn’t seem to legitimately fire him. We’re a government entity and firing someone can be difficult.

    He always claimed not to know how to do things and that he was never taught how. So he did as little as possible in his job. Eventually it backfired on him and he was let go because he needed too much supervision for a job he held for 17 years! He should have never made it past probation.
    I loved watching karma in action! Buh-bye!

  142. LabSnep*

    I recently commented at my job that I imagine there are a great number of people I work with who have fridges full of nothing but cartons of beverages with one gulp left for the amount of things I find around the lab with ONE THING left because they don’t want to go to the VERY CLOSE store room (like you don’t even have to leave the lab) to replenish it.

    Or the people who know how to fix our automatic Llama groomer but expect me to do it when it alarms, I’ve been given permission to ignore its wails when I am not grooming llamas that day and I’m busy, the people putting it on me know what they’re doing. I had to leave and have a snack before saying something thay would get me dragged to HR one day.

  143. DJ Abbott*

    I’m fortunate at my current job that the men don’t behave in disrespectful or sexist ways.
    There is one though- who has a habit of asking staff to do simple support tasks. Not often, a few times a year. He’s been told several times not to do this and figure it out himself… and he still does occasionally.
    He’s not disrespectful in other ways. He’s friendly and helpful and never behaves badly. So he’s not asking as a weapon? He is from the generation of men who had secretarial support for every little thing. As far as I can tell, it’s a deeply ingrained habit… That he’s not trying hard enough to break.

    1. Workerbee*

      And there’s the crux of that chap – he doesn’t care enough about the people he works with to try harder. In my experience this can happen when someone does not actually see the people they work with as actual people instead of “workers” or “assistants” or “assets.”

      1. DJ Abbott*

        I think he does see us as people. It seems to be some lingering feeling that he shouldn’t have to. It’s not that hard to do these things for himself- he’s just making himself look bad.

  144. nm*

    My supervisor and I are the only women on our team, and for a long time she would say things in meetings like “btw can one of you do [admin task]?” without specifically assigning them or confirming who would be responsible for them. In the beginning I was always the one who actually did these tasks. Around a year ago I decided to intentionally stop doing these tasks and see if the guys picked up the slack. They didn’t, so the admin tasks just stopped getting done.

    We’re researchers, so I presented my findings to my supervisor and now she makes an effort to single out individuals for these tasks (equitably, imo.)

  145. Generic Name*

    At my last (very small) company, I had a major role in the QC program and I learned more than my fair share about Word and Word templates. Now that I’m at a different company, I’m not telling anyone how much I know about Word. I’m not amazingly skilled, but better than average. I could probably make a decent template using styles, etc. But no way in Hell am I going to get roped into that stuff. So, I’m ignoring issues with styles and making my own documents look passable without diving in and fixing the root of the problem.

  146. Rock Prof*

    I like to think it’s because I know women tend to be implicitly roped into doing stuff like taking notes and putting together minutes, though really it’s more laziness, but I weaponize my handwriting, which is objectively terrible, so I never have to do this. (In meetings I’m leading, I’ll keep notes and do the minutes digitally)

  147. nora*

    A previous employer had a very, very ancient van that allegedly all the staff had to learn how to drive. In no way shape or form was that thing road safe. Management would not consider purchasing a new van (or at least one that was younger than the interns). Every time someone approached me about learning to drive it I feigned an unreasonable terror of big vehicles* and wormed my way out of it. Worked there 14 months, never drove it once.

    *not entirely unreasonable given the van and also some personal historical trauma

  148. Guin*

    At a new job when I was fairly young, I was in a office that was near the shared postage meter-machine. It was big and complicated, but I had nothing to do with sending out mail, so I ignored it for a couple weeks. One day there was a kerfluffle, and someone from a different office came up to me and said, The meter is out of postage! “Oh?” “It needs more postage!” “Oh?” This went on for quite a while, until I finally said they should go find whoever was in charge of the postage meter. Eventually I learned that my desk used to be occupied by the office manager until the floor plan was restructed when I was hired.

  149. StarTrek Nutcase*

    Early in my work life, I worked in a secretarial office (5 of us, each assigned 4-6 professors). I loved using every available Word function to save time and effort especially on tasks done multiple times each semester (ex. merging long lists into letters & envelopes). But several coworkers always pretended to “forget” how and wanted my help to basically do it. This got old fast, so I started “forgetting” how too. I might have just done a big merge in am, but forgot how after lunch. Technically, no one believed me but those lazy coworkers were also too chicken to call me on it – as was our supervisor so she & they would do things manually.

  150. iKit*

    I have, over the last couple months, REALLY come to hate the term weaponized incompetence personally.

    And let me be clear, I do not deny that this is a thing that happens. I’ve also USED it intentionally myself with a past roommate (and even professionally with a few people on other teams that just won’t try to find the correct resources). But I still hate it. Because it gets thrown out a LOT on other forums I participate in. And it gets thrown out in scenarios and situations where I think other explanations might fit better.

    Just over two months ago I got hit with my autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. It’s been a journey. Years of off and on “but that sounds like me” moments when other autistics would share anecdotes. “Why am I broken” moments. Breaking down crying because I CAN’T DO A THING that my friends and family can do but I just *can’t*. Not understanding what someone is saying (literally or figuratively).

    One of the things that autistic people do is often think very literally. And that’s where I struggle with, and start to hate, “weaponized incompetence” as a term. A lot of the uncharitable accusations of it aren’t looking at the person in the larger picture, in my observation. Are they feigning ignorance and weaponinzing incompetence? Or are you not giving them clear direction? If a task is unfamiliar to me, such as the making coffee example Allison gave, then I need clear step-by-step instructions. You can’t make assumptions on what I “should” know. I’m not weaponizing incompetence or ignorance… but I sure as frack would be accused of it.

    It’s the same problem I have with the phrase “common sense isn’t common any more”. Because common sense is just shared good sense. It’s predicated on common experience giving us shared good sense. As a person who grew up in urban environments, I learned in time to use the metro/bus systems. Knowledge of how they worked was common sense. My current roommate grew up in a rural environment. Looking for mountain lions in the tree tops was common sense for him; navigating metro systems, not so much.

    So I really REALLY don’t like, not necessarily the use of the term “weaponized incompetence” but how readily we want to throw it out. Because I think that maybe we want a quick and dirty explanation that absolves us of the responsibility of having to try to connect meaningfully with different people at times? Again, yes it’s a thing that happens… but… as often as we want to claim? I don’t think so.

    1. i like hound dogs*

      Interesting response. I think the reason I like the term is because it gets at something that’s frustrating to a lot of people but otherwise hard to define.

      But I do agree with you that the line can be fuzzy. My husband gets frustrated with me because I am extremely bad at directions (and to some degree, technology). But I swear I’m not trying to be bad at them. I just am! I am smart in many ways — I have a PhD — but extremely bad at a few things! He, on the other hand, cannot tell a hand towel from a dish towel from a rag from a (insert pretty much any other linen here) and it drives me to do all the laundry but I also … don’t think he’s trying to be so bad at it?

      1. iKit*

        “…I like the term is because it gets at something that’s frustrating to a lot of people but otherwise hard to define.”

        It’s all the “should”s in the assumption of weaponized incompetence that bugs me.

        There are two, at least in my observation, forms of it:

        1) A task that someone has in the past demonstrated they CAN do competently but in this instance INTENTIONALLY fails at

        2) A task presumed to be simple enough that anyone can do it with minimal or no instruction

        In both cases it is assumed that the task is one that anyone SHOULD be able to do. And if it is something anyone SHOULD be able to do, the uncharitable leap is to presume that someone failing at it is weaponizing incompetence.

        In scenario 1 we want to ask what is different this time that lead to or contributed to the failure. With ADHD and autism, we neurodiverse people often relying heavily on behavioral scripting that we pick up from observation (from our peers, our authority figures, and even from media consumption). If the task the first time followed the script, we succeeded! But if the parameters and the situation for the subsequent attempt did not follow the script, we may not have a back up script to pivot to account for the difference. We don’t have the means to accomplish the task because it changed in a manner otherwise imperceptible to most neurotypicals.

        In scenario 2, we have the same issue just without the baggage of a successful first run: we don’t have a script for the task. But because it’s a “simple” task, we also aren’t given instructions for how to do it. Making coffee is a great example. Most people regard that as a simple task. I, not having EVER done that in my life, would fail spectacularly. How many filters do I need? How much water? How many grounds? Where does the water go? Do I have to wash anything first? When do I have to make the coffee? And that’s just the first thoughts I have while writing out this response. Plunk me down in front of an actual machine and my brain will shut down as I stare at it and try to figure all that out in real time and find things. But if someone SHOWS ME once or twice, I build a script and I can repeat that. I’m also flexible enough in my thinking, despite being autsitic, that I CAN go off-script a bit and problem solve if a few things go awry but that’s not always the case for some autistic people.

        However in both scenarios, because of the existence of the presumptions of things that “should” be the case, asking questions has always in my life lead to the presumption that I am incompetent, stupid, or trying to shirk responsibility. Or I’m being lazy. Because I “should” be able to figure out a simple task. Or I “should” be able to see how this task is “basically” the exact same as this other task that, to me, is completely unrelated.

        And then along comes the term “weaponized incompetence” and it starts getting thrown around a lot on other forums. On stories I relate to. About people who don’t really seem to be malicious just… confused. It’s a term that I’ve never had actually used to my face but it’s something my ex-roommate might have said to me if it had been popular when we lived together. It’s something previous managers might have accused me of. And aside from the handful of times when I HAVE done it (which I admit), it’s not something I do. I’m just confused. Because the correlations and connections other people make… I don’t make.

        1. Clare*

          It’s ok to say “The way you explained that just doesn’t mesh with how my brain works. Words go in one ear and out the other with me! Would you mind walking through the first couple of goes with me? I’m pretty sure I’ll have it down after that and I won’t need to bother you again.”

          Or, “Written instructions just don’t do it for me, is there a YouTube tutorial?”, or whatever alternative you need. In such situations, you can use variations on the formula “X teaching method doesn’t work for my brain. Can we please try Y instead?” to avoid being mistaken for someone who is weaponising incompetence.

          If you’re actively engaging with trying to find a way to learn instead of giving up because you didn’t get the first teaching method, that’s not a problem!

    2. Helen_of_the_Midwest*

      Hard agree! The first time I encountered the term “weaponized incompetence” was in a post about women realizing their husbands were pretending to be bad at grocery shopping so they wouldn’t have to handle that task anymore. And like, is that a thing that happens? Sure! But also, grocery stores are VERY difficult for me from a sensory perspective (I’m autistic too), and I also have a lot of trauma around groceries/cooking/food from my mom being way too harsh with me when I, say, accidentally bought a cucumber instead of a zucchini, or yelling at me while getting boiling water on me when I “didn’t move out of the way fast enough.” So when the comments on that post devolved into “no one could ever legitimately struggle with grocery shopping,” it felt awful and really made me question my own experiences of having panic attacks in grocery stores/struggling with finding the right ingredients/etc.

      I shared an experience above of an older male coworker trying to use me as his secretary even though he’s not my boss and that’s not my job, and I think that’s a real instance of weaponized incompetence, but I also agree that a lot of nuance gets missed in these discussions, particularly around disability/neurodiversity, and that’s unfortunate.

    3. Helen_of_the_Midwest*

      Fellow autistic person here, and YEAH. I first encountered the term “weaponized incompetence” in a discussion of women realizing their husbands were pretending to be bad at grocery shopping in order to get out of doing it, and the discussion quickly turned to assertions that no one could possibly struggle with grocery shopping, so of course the men were faking. And like, probably some of them were, but as someone who really does struggle with grocery shopping (both because grocery stores are a sensory nightmare and because my mom used to yell at me for accidentally buying, say, a cucumber instead of a zucchini), I found the whole discussion really invalidating.

      I shared a story of a coworker’s weaponized incompetence above (an older man in my department trying to use me as his secretary), and I do believe it’s a real phenomenon. But I also think a TON of nuance gets missed in these discussions, particularly around disability and neurodiversity, which is a shame.

    4. persi*

      Thank you. I don’t doubt that a lot of the stories in this thread are legitimately people faking ignorance to get out of stuff, but some of them sound way too familiar for comfort.

      I’m autistic as well as having some memory issues and a lot of things that are intuitive or instinctive for other people just aren’t for me! If you tell me to flip all the labelled, unlocked breakers, and leave all the unlabelled, locked breakers and there’s a a single unlocked, unlabelled breaker I’m not going to automatically know whether it needs to be flipped or not! It’s gotten to the point where I /hate/ needing to ask for clarification on things because I have to do it so often and I hate feeling like people are accusing me of trying to get out of doing my job.

    5. Clare*

      I hear what you’re saying, but what you’re describing in yourself isn’t weaponised incompetence. It’s just incompetence. And there’s no shame in that; as you described, not everyone learns how to use the metro. But in most of these stories, the commenters know that the incompetence is malicious because of subtle social cues and signs that your autism makes it really hard to pick up on. You look at the villains and anti-heroes of these stories and think “How would anyone tell the difference between them and me?”, but please be assured that NT people can and do tell your behaviour apart. Weaponised incompetence is, at it’s heart, acting. These people are pretending to be incapable of doing things or learning how. If you simply can’t do a thing but are happy to try and learn, or the training won’t stick because of your neurodivirsity, that’s ok. Weaponised incompetence incompetence doesn’t apply to you. You have to remember that most people can very easily tell the difference. I understand that’s hard to imagine. It’s a bit like trying to tell an NT person to imagine being able to see ultraviolet. But in the same way that we can know bees see ultraviolet without being able to experience it ourselves, you can know intellectually that most people can see almost instantly the difference between inability and weaponised incompetence, without being able to detect the subtle social cues yourself. Please don’t be anxious! There aren’t scores of NT people attributing selfishness where it’s not present. When you do your best, we see it!

  151. Tim C.*

    When I was young (and dumb) I encountered many times where I heard “I don’t know how to do X”. I would always step up and volunteer. I was usually successful, and soon became the “go to” for many things. I was raised with the belief that hard work pays off. I received much praise but got the crap worked out of me to the point of burn out. I eventually caught on and began saying “no”. That caused much crying and gnashing of teeth. After I quit, management called me up several times begging me to reconsider and come back. In retrospect, I believe my manager or at least someone more senior should have stepped in and explained it to me.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      I think you’ve gotten to part of the problem for some people (especially those who have entered an industry dominated by a different demographic). Sometimes (especially early in your work life), you need to be willing to learn and expand your skills, which can lead to promotions, etc. But it can lead you to just doing everything, even things that others should be doing.

      This is why some people won’t admit they know how to do certain things, because it takes away from the work they were hired to do. But some people pretend not to be able to do things that they absolutely can and should. And then there are the excuses… So many excuses. (If you have a diagnosis that affects your ability to do or remember certain things, I consider that a reason, not an excuse.)

  152. fem engineer*

    I have one main one – as a woman engineer at an engineering company, i have tried to avoid as many admin or housekeeping tasks as possible. We have a break room with a dishwasher that people take turns unloading whenever that needs to be done, but I always make sure to be mysteriously unavailable at those times.

    1. Clare*

      That’s fine so long as you’re not adding dishes. Otherwise it’s totally understandable but a tiny bit unfair. I hand wash all my dishes for exactly that reason.

      Around three weeks after we bought our dishwasher my boss made a lot of comments about the full dishwasher one lunch time. As he stood forlornly in front of the mystery device I took the opportunity to jump up, grab a tablet from the bag, plop it in his hand with a “There you go” and walk off. He prides himself on being the smartest person in the room at at times, so he was trapped. He had to run the dishwasher or lose face. Lo and behold, he worked it out!

      The last time we ran out of dishwasher tablets it was two weeks before one of the men finally broke from the stench, poured a load of dish soap through the machine and turned it on. I’m amazed it didn’t end it tragedy, but they were lucky. I’m also amazed one of them didn’t ask their wife/girlfriend to give them some tablets, but maybe they all did and the women all told them to do it themselves. I hope so.

  153. fine tipped pen aficionado*

    Other folks have already said this but I’m gonna say it anyway: people who refuse to learn how to use the software tools at their job! Like, if you hate working on a computer that’s totally fine but that’s what office jobs require now and you don’t get to keep making twice my salary while I’m either doing or redoing half your work.

    I never judge folks for not knowing and I love teaching what skills I have, but the folks who refuse to learn drive me up the wall. Grates my cheese even harder when they blame it on their age! First of all why would you invite people to do an age discrimination, and more importantly I have taught loads of older folks and they learn just as easily as younger ones when they want to.

    1. Beka Cooper*

      I hate it so much. My comment is similar to yours and ended up right below it. Why are they making so much money when I, the entry-level admin position (entry level in name of the position, not my experience), am the one running everything and making it happen??

      1. nnn*

        I think comments like that really devalue the skills and judgment necessary for senior level positions. Running the administrative logistics of an office well is not the same thing as doing high level, strategic, top of the organization work well. Most people I’ve known in entry-level admin positions, even the really great ones, wouldn’t be able to do those strategic senior level jobs well. It’s a different skillset.

    2. Gumby*

      One of my jobs specifically said in their onboarding materials, etc. something like: “We will never penalize you for not knowing something. But we do expect you to ask and learn new skills.” And I remember that bit, kind of, so it was probably in the company creed or something and not just a line in the onboarding paperwork. This was a good 20 years ago. So.

  154. Beka Cooper*

    I had to continually answer questions for a director in another department who refused to learn to use Salesforce. I would point out that all of the information he needed was attached to the student’s record in Salesforce (higher ed recruitment) and he could easily look it up himself. It wasn’t actually my job to give him updates in emails several times a day, and additionally, information got lost in the bajillion emails I had with different student IDs scattered throughout. After the umpteenth reminder, he wrote me an email that simply said “I’m hopeless at learning things like Salesforce so I’m bound to make errors,” and then signed off on the email. Salesforce was just the tip of the iceberg for that one; I had so much stress each semester when the same problems came up over and over because he and his department ignored everything we told them about our process and played dumb and attempted to accuse us of dropping balls for things that were his responsibility.

  155. Throwaway Account*

    Waaay back in 1985, my best college friend got a professional job before I did. I was so shocked to hear that there were tasks we did in college that she told her coworkers she did not know how to do.

    She patiently explained to me that they were tasks that were not her job and if she did them, she would wind up doing them all the time and she would not be able to do her own job. My mind was blown! We should all help each other! lol

    Now I look back and wonder at how quickly she learned this lesson!!

  156. Veryanon*

    I don’t drink coffee and have never learned to make it, so no one can ever ask me to get it for them.
    I deliberately have never figured out how the office printer/copier works, so no one can ask me to show them.
    Yes, I am a woman.

  157. Work from Home life*

    When discussing return to office after lockdown, our C-suite decided that we had to be in office 100% of the time – even though our productivity and revenue had increased significantly when folks were working from home – because it was “too hard” to learn how to manage people remotely, and a few of our managers (my peers) complained that they would have to learn something new and didn’t want to.

  158. Lucy P*

    I work in admin supporting highly degreed, scientific and technical people. Years ago, one of the newer admins was supporting a person who was consistently bad at doing the paperwork portion of their job. Whenever a deliverable went out, they were supposed to print it, review it, sign it (to signify that they have reviewed and approved it) and then give it to the admin. Every day at closing time, this person was the last one to give the admin the details on the deliverable, making them stay late. Every day it was the same thing, “Oops, I forgot to print my report. Can you do it for me?” I saw a pattern forming and tried to get the admin to just say no on occasion, but they insisted that they had it under control.

    Now that admin is gone and I’m stuck with this person. They actually came to me this week and asked me where a file was that grandboss told them to work on. Said that they couldn’t find it. I opened the only file in that project folder. Bingo! There was the information they were looking for.

  159. fff_ffs*

    I have a colleague who claims to “not be good with email.” He typically responds to any request for people to help out with something with a sincere “I can help with this” … 6 days after the work has already been claimed by someone else. He’s a very nice guy, and has somehow managed to set things up so that if anyone mentions his inability/refusal to deal with email (which is still very much the primary mode of communication at our work), someone else laughs and says, “oh, that’s just how he is!”

    1. Ugh...*

      I had a colleague like this. I actually kicked him off of a project team because he had promised to do a time sensitive thing, then was completely unresponsive when asked for updates by 3 different people. And this was during the pandemic when we were only in the office sporadically, so there was no popping by his office to try to get information. I was beyond thrilled when he retired – his email ghosting tactics left the rest of us to do diving saves on nearly everything he was involved with.

  160. i like hound dogs*

    My manager told me he’d help me proofread the backlog of documents that had built up while I worked on another big project, but then wouldn’t use the software that goes along with it, making me download each document separately, email it to him, receive it back via email, read over his edits and then apply each edit manually to the version of the document that WAS within the software we are required to use. After doing this twice I decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

  161. Kat*

    LOL are there any tips on how to do this? I’m always the one who gets stuck with work from the incompetent people. I’m scared to be like, “I can’t do this”

    1. Workerbee*

      If there’s a Pregnant Pause in the conversation where someone (you) are expected to jump in and offer to help, DO NOT SAY ANYTHING. Just sit there. It’s hellishly uncomfortable at first if you’re not used to it. Practice, practice, practice. And remind yourself that these people have no problem collecting a paycheck for the work YOU are doing for them.

      If someone is actively trying to dump work on you, say No. “No, I am not able to do that.” “No, that isn’t going to happen.” “No, that isn’t possible.” Then stop talking. Elaborating further can just give people like that another opening to drive in their wedge of work.

      Again, this can feel uncomfortable! I get it. It won’t always, though. It helps to recall that people who want other people to do/think/exist for them are also very good at making you feel guilty or responsible. Think about that: They made THAT their job – skulking through life without accountability – rather than learning or doing something actually worthwhile.

      It is not YOUR job to help them be the least they can be.

    2. SB*

      You have to practice a blank look. A good blank look can convey plenty if you are too nervous to say the words!!!!

  162. i like hound dogs*

    My husband is one of several directors at a nonprofit. He was once told to bring food for some people who had agreed to be in a focus group.

    He brought … a bag of clementines.

    He swears up and down to me that he thought this was a good snack — one he would have personally enjoyed.

    If I signed up for a focus group that promised free food and was offered a clementine, I’d be pissed.

    I don’t think he was ever given this task again.

  163. hayling*

    My desk got moved from a shared office to being in a hallway right next to a printer and fax machine. It was super distracting! And people would ask me all day long about the fax machine. “Do you know which way the paper goes in?”, etc. I would just play dumb and pretend I didn’t know how to fax. I’m of a generation that plausibly didn’t grow up with faxes so it worked. (In reality, I worked in my mom’s bookkeeping office my whole life and became familiar with fax machines at a very young age!).

    1. Guin*

      My desk was in a hallway for several months. It was horrible. My productivity plummeted, because I spent at least a third of the day going for walks around the building, to get away from that cursed space. Fortunately our department was moved to a different building, where I had my own cube. It was like a luxury resort after that hallway.

  164. Rey*

    My last role included all of the housekeeping stuff for my department (birthdays, holiday luncheons, etc.) and my boss was known for saying “if you have to ask if it’s good enough, it isn’t”. Over 7 years, I got pretty good at handling catering orders, event set-up and clean-up, etc. But now that I’ve moved to a new job with more casual norms, I purposely suggest lower maintenance options, like group order links, which they are totally appreciative of and seems to meet everyone’s expectations.

  165. Gumby*

    There is certain software that my company uses for purchasing. On my first day there a co-worker told me to never let “them” put that software on my laptop because it was a pain to deal with. It wasn’t central to my role, so I didn’t.

    There are rare occasions when I need information from within that system and I get it from other people. To be fair, I regularly pull reports from another piece of software that is old, outdated, and bug-ridden for other people. Still, that software is not as bad as the purchasing software. So I feel like I still come out on top.

  166. hayling*

    I used to run a weekly meeting at my last job. I started out leading the meeting and taking notes. Then we had a training on meeting best practices, so we decided to set a schedule of rotating leading and note-taking. Turns out nobody likes taking notes so they would all just “forget” to type the notes as we were going (it was on Zoom with a shared screen so you could see the agenda and notes), or would leave things out or be very vague. And I could tell some of them weren’t crazy about leading it. Finally I was like “do you all just want me to take this back over?” and they said “yes!” I am a fast typer and can take notes as I talk, so it was fine. (Also the secret is that whoever takes the notes creates the record, so actually I find that being the note-taker is a position of power.)

    1. magc*

      Whenever I was taking notes (even for myself in a meeting I was leading), I used to joke that I got to define reality that way.

  167. I drink it, I don't make it*

    I (female, 50) have staunchly refused to learn how to make coffee, and the first and only time my Dad asked me to mow the lawn I was so terrible at it, I never had to do it again.

    1. SB*

      I was the opposite. Deliberately ballsed up the inside housework so I could claim the lawns as my one & only job…I managed to turn a weekly two hour lawn & garden tidy into a leisurely all morning task that I loved & left my brothers to the cleaning of the entire house every Saturday morning.

  168. KJ*

    Administrative weaponized incompetence is not just practiced by men! I worked on a project for a couple years with an older woman in a senior position, who insisted that she couldn’t figure out how to use Google Docs. The team had to pass multiple inconsistently-versioned Word documents back and forth over email because “it’s just easier that way.” I took advantage of an all hands meeting that brought together people from outside our usual small team and set up all of our event materials in Google Drive, then cheerfully gave a brief tutorial for her at the event in front of the whole group when she raised a fuss. She claimed to have been surprised at how easy it was for her to make edits – but once we were no longer in a group setting she never ventured into a Google Doc again, instead dictating her edits to her long-suffering project manager.

    1. The Rural Juror*

      I worked on a project recently where we weren’t allowed to use Google Drive (our go-to) for security reasons. Lots of folks who have been slow to learn to use Google were complaining about the (much slower and seemingly antiquated) process we had to use without Google. It cracks me up when they say, “there’s got to be a better way!” When I say, “yeah, that’s why we usually like to use Google” They STILL don’t get it! Agh!

  169. Holy Carp*

    Apologies if I ever told this here before, but when I was a lowly second lieutenant in a new unit, I was assigned to make coffee every morning.
    I was not a coffee drinker but I approached the large old-fashioned metal coffee urn with confidence. This urn was the type with a large metal basket at the top, and I filled that sucker to the top edge with coffee.
    I was never required to make coffee again.

  170. (Required)*

    OMG…my mind instantly went to someone (“Jane”) I worked with a few years back. While we still work for the same company, she’s way off in another state, and I’m still quite concerned that she has been able to grow in the company in spite of the lack of maturity I saw from her.

    Jane liked to skip from office to office across the country. She would take temp positions (normal for the company) and jump around. She reached my office one year and shockingly decided to stay for another round with a break in between (also acceptable). When she came back, knowing her history, I asked her, “So how does it feel coming back to the same office?” She answered, “It’s weird. I like being the new person so they don’t rely on me for things.” I had no words!

    Both times Jane was always a bit immature. She avoided certain tasks she despised and would negotiate with her teammate to take on the task just so she could avoid it. She tried that with me once, and I got the other work done first so it forced her into doing a task she loathed. She whined through the whole thing. I could have done what she didn’t want to do with no problem; it was a part of my job too. But Jane’s actions leading up to the task showed me she was getting ready to be in position do the other things needed to be done while the other person did the loathesome task. But I beat her out to show I wasn’t going to play into her games. Immature on my part? Probably. Would I do again? Absolutely. It’s her job as much as it was mine.

    Like a friend of mine says, “We don’t suffer fools gladly.”

  171. Sabrina*

    My boss refuses to use an office issued laptop, he will only use his personal machine. This was fine before the pandemic when he was at the office every day but now we’re mostly at home and his personal computer can’t remote access the network. So if you need him to review documents you need to send him all the files and he’ll email you back his edits. It’s ridiculous, but it means he doesn’t need to learn the file structure at the low cost of annoying everyone else. (Before the pandemic he got around learning the file structure by insisting on only editing hard copies so you’d have to print everything out and he’d return them marked up. He’s really dedicated to not understanding a large portion of how the office works)

  172. Warrior Princess Xena*

    I don’t believe this is weaponized incompetence, exactly, but I have now run into a number a new hires and notice that there is a distinct difference between “people who will try to solve the problem themselves” and “people who struggle tremendously the moment the process to solve a problem changes”. To a certain extent, I think it’s generational and cultural; I know my Grandma struggles with her phone after a software update, when all the icons look different, because she’s not used to looking for categories/generics of apps (IE, she doesn’t think “web browser”, she thinks “Safari” and the moment you switch to “Chrome” she will struggle). I’ve also met a number of interns who struggle tremendously with the idea of “Google the problem/use the inbuilt tools to solve the problem/use a workaround to the problem”. And it’ll be systematic. I’ll usually walk interns/new hires through problems the first few times, because not everyone is taught how to troubleshoot and it can be daunting originally, but there are some people who just do not/will not/can not get it. They do not last long at our office. And I get that learning new processes is hard, but what’s missing is any element of self-sufficient learning or learning in general concepts. And for the life of me I cannot figure out how anyone survives living like that. It seems miserable!

    1. Llama Identity Thief*

      I wouldn’t be surprised, especially on younger new hires, if what you’re seeing is a symptom of bulldozer parenting, aka the specific branch of helicopter parenting where the parents actively blow through any obstacles for the student themselves. As a tutor, it was pretty clear to me when students were trying to learn vs “retain enough techniques to get through test,” and there was a pretty strong correlation between the latter and then having to tell their parents “actually, if you care about the quality of college your student wants to go to, I’d really recommend letting them do more extra curriculars/things they decide to do, and railroad them a little less.”

      1. Warrior Princess Xena*

        I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right – though I’m not that old of a hire myself! These are mostly people 3-4 years younger than me at most. I had a pretty nontraditional schooling with a big emphasis on self-learning though.

    2. Stuff*

      I mean I grew up knowing how to Google answers myself, but the last few years, Google has gotten increasingly worthless at answering questions, and very prone to just throw out “Featured Snippets” that are either totally irrelevant to my question or factually wrong, AI generated Quora answers that obviously can’t be trusted, and then a bunch of links to cites about a totally different thing tangentially related to my thing. Also, I have sensory processing issues, and with some subjects Google now throws up all these infoboxes and videos and pictures that totally overwhelm me and make it really hard to even read the search results. It’s not at all the problem solving tool that it used to be.

      1. Warrior Princess Xena*

        I understand what you’re talking about, and it’s a tremendous amount of input to deal with. However, most of the time I’m getting people coming to me who haven’t even tried it, and then when I do recommend reliable resources are then unwilling to or incapable of (I’m not entirely sure which) using them to move forwards. It’s a mindset they’re in, I think.

      2. Tea Time*

        Google is indeed broken. Everyone should be switching to a browser that doesn’t manipulate the search results, and also doesn’t track you data, like Duck Duck Go.

        (I received no compensation for this egregious product placement. I’m just a really big fan of Duck Duck Go.)

  173. Dr. Doll*

    Not my department but it made me scream with rage when I heard: For faculty meetings, usually the admin assistant would take notes. When she was not available, the chair would ask a faculty member to take notes. Shockingly, it was always the young untenured women faculty he asked. When they pointed out this pattern, he was rightfully chagrined and apologized.

    Next faculty meeting, he points to a male faculty member (I’m not sure if he was tenured or not) and says, “Please take notes since Admin Lady is not here today.” The young man faculty is flabbergasted and says “You want me to take NOTES? With what, like, a PEN?”

    I sooooo wish I could have been a fly on the wall. I don’t know how it’s shaken out in the long term.

    1. Warrior Princess Xena*

      Kudos to the chair for owning up to his mistake and trying to improve, anyways!

  174. admin mouse*

    As unwilling lifer in admin support, I cannot with weaponized incompetence. It always seems to happen when I have more than enough on my plate when someone with three degrees more than me can’t figure out how to load paper and where it’s stored. It’s in the drawer marked ‘copy paper’ and it goes in the drawer marked ‘paper load here’.
    This is a power move and I very rarely respect people who do it. Asking me to stop what I’m doing so I can do the thing I’ve shown you how to do multiple times is really mean, honestly.

    1. DaniCalifornia*

      I feel this so much, also an admin.

      The amount of grown men who are highly respected and have multiple degrees that can’t do simple things and most importantly, who AREN’T MY BOSS, is frustrating. I regularly get left empty battery boxes on my desk or other empty supply boxes. My weaponized incompetence is I just throw them away because there is never any note or email or text saying, “Hey can you order more I took the last one.” Is that how they treat their spouses at home, leaving empty milk jugs? (Probably.)

  175. Goosey*

    I don’t know that it counts as weaponized INcompetence, but I’ve certainly had situations working as someone’s assistant where I’ve downplayed my competence so I could ask the appropriate series of questions to get them to talk themself through understanding why something we were about to do was a bad idea without overtly questioning their authority, played up my “golly gee, can I try one little thing I learned?” to get them to let me implement newer best practices they otherwise would’ve eschewed if someone had demanded them, or strategically conveyed the necessary information to other collaborators through seemingly social chit-chat needed for those collaborators to be able to pull off the expected magic trick of reading my superiors’ minds and delivering what they wanted without them actually saying so.

    It sounds shady, but I was VERY good at those jobs and made everyone’s lives run more smoothly by being the non-threatening grease the system needed.

  176. HaterOfMainframes*

    I used to deny any knowledge of coding in VisualBasic, although i managed to get a few projects done in that language.
    Also i kept denying having any skill in Windows, although i hold an MCSE(which i hide) and used to be quite competent in that area, thus avoiding any projects related to Windows server administration.
    Currently pursuing the same strategy with z/OS, although some relentless recruiters would only back off after i told them i’d rather rob orphaned children off their food.

  177. DaniCalifornia*

    I’m currently an admin, first day on the job 3.5 years ago I was asked about making coffee. I told them absolutely I could make coffee but they’d need to show me how. They laughed. I told them honestly, I don’t drink coffee, don’t like the taste so I don’t know how to make it. They got really serious and said, “Oh never mind.” This group is very VERY serious about their coffee, they even have special permission to order their own while the rest don’t. On one other occasion I was asked to make some but it must have not been made well because no one in the meeting drank it and the cups were mostly filled when I cleaned up. LOL. No one asks me to make it anymore.

  178. fishheadsfishheadsrollypollyfishheads*

    We call it “neck down” backstage – if your crew chief/road person is an abusive type, we just go “neck down” and stop thinking, asking questions, showing initiative, and problem-solving. We just do exactly what we are told to do. It seems appropriate when someone is raging at you, and for whatever reason you can’t walk away in the moment, to just be a robot.

    I’ve been blamed for costume failures, when the costume doesn’t fit; for something that doesn’t move when it’s supposed to move and/or vice versa; for someone else’s mistakes; for someone’s bad mood…. Fortunately it doesn’t happen often. Most people are very nice backstage. But some are… special.

    1. fishheadsfishheadsrollypollyfishheads*

      and my grandson, who is 17, and an expert at weaponized incompetence, just acts like he doesn’t have hands. They just hang there, lifeless. lol Ok well, there’s the door, off with you.

    3. KathyG*

      fishheadsfishheadsrollypollyfishheads, I love your username. I haven’t thought of that song in ages! Thanks for the reminder.

  179. ConstantlyComic*

    I work at a public library, and a frequent frustration is patrons who want us to fill out job applications for them because they don’t know how to use a computer. I understand that technology is difficult for people who didn’t grow up with it, but I feel like generally speaking typing things on a keyboard is pretty self-evident, but some people would rather tell a complete stranger their social security number than touch a keyboard.

  180. Ymmv of course*

    A friend of mine is a musician who frequently performs in public and fields the odd song request. When he doesn’t want to play it, he’ll just say, Sorry, I’m not familiar with that one. It’s wild to see how upset people get when they can’t hear Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or The Farmer in the Dell (those aren’t the actual songs, mind), but they can’t *make* him play it. It’s beautiful to watch “I’d rather not to” in action.

  181. Ugh...*

    During the pandemic, a colleague feigned confusion over company rules about masking, despite the fact that we discussed the use of masks repeatedly in our staff meetings. It became clear over time that his “confusion” was a cover for his disagreeing with masking, and he used his “confusion” as an excuse every time he was seen not complying with the policy. Which was often.

  182. Ann*

    It’s been a few years, but I still haven’t really learned the parts of my job that involve multiple pieces of heavy equipment. I didn’t set out to not learn these things – I was just so terrified at getting one of these assignments that I kept avoiding them. Unfortunately I’m just not strong enough to pick up some of these things, never mind a whole bunch of them. This work is usually done with subcontractors who tend to be very strong, and I think some of my coworkers rely on the subs to help with the heavy lifting… but I just can’t get rid of the thought that the subs might show up later or leave earlier, and I’ll be stuck somewhere with all this stuff I can’t move.

  183. Chirpy*

    I have a coworker who I think is trying to use a combination of weaponized incompetence and general-knows-better-than-all-women to get out of doing a task that falls on him when I’m not there.

    Originally, he did things correctly. Now, he can not follow my instructions on basic things, allows customers to handle things they are not allowed to, and sells items as completely different things (which messes up the inventory, the things are very different in price, and customers have ended up with wildly different items than they asked for and it’s a huge problem.) And, he trains the teen boys at night to do things his bad way, and I can’t make too much of an issue about it or none of them will do it at all.

    This concerns the well-being of baby animals! It could literally kill them!

    1. Guin*

      Ok, you need to report this to your Corporate Head of Baby Live Animals Division. Lay it out, and ask that they send a Baby Live Animal Handling Specialist to your store ASAP or there are going to be dead hamsters when customers with six-year-olds are shopping. Go right over your store manager’s head, because obviously they don’t care. There are USDA regulations that govern your store, and they are not to be trifled with.

      1. Chirpy*

        I haven’t been able to convince the managers that having full staffing in my department at night so we don’t have to rely on the random night people from other departments is a big deal…and corporate thinks we’re not making enough money so I’ve been told we’re not hiring more people anyway.

        The animals are unfortunately very cheap and known to be fragile, and aren’t sold year round, so they seem to think writing off a few is fine. It’s only a couple a year out of 3500 ish (so far) but I haven’t been able to convince anyone that when I worked at a different location that sold exponentially more animals, we had *less* deaths, because they had better people working there, and management actually cared.

  184. Why Me?*

    I’m a female freelance musician, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked to tell my male counterparts the set list order, the call time for the show, and other basic gig details that we all received by email.

    The worst offender was a guy who claimed he didn’t understand how to put the music in the right order on his iPad and literally handed it to me so I could do it for him. Imagine my satisfaction when I noticed the iPad only had a 2% charge on it. I was then able to tell him he had a bigger problem than the set order, hand the iPad back to him, and walk away while he pestered someone else to help him find a charger.

  185. Teapot Operations*

    I work in tech, and our Teapot Marketing Managers decided that our content review and copyediting process took too long. Some criticism was valid, but mostly it was due to understaffing and poor planning/inability to abide by SLAs on the TMMs part.

    Leadership reorganized the whole department, assigned each teapot-style their own copyeditor and allowed the TMMs to bypass copyediting if they passed a rigorous comprehensive exam, submitted all their work to a repository for auditing, and agreed to be personally liable for any content errors up to and including termination.

    Now that they have to do most of the work themselves, guess who’s grumbling! Lead times have increased because there’s no longer a pool of copyeditors to share work between or coverage when folks are sick or on PTO.

    “Oh it was much simpler with the old content review process…”

    Yeah, because you got to shove all your work off onto a scapegoat and blame them when they couldn’t meet your impossible turnarounds.

    1. Teapot Operations*

      For example, an important teapot document hasn’t been posted and distributed to the Teapot Sales Team for over a month. The TMM submitted the document with the wrong privacy label, despite signing off that it abided by all Teapot Document Standards + Regulations.

      The TMM would rather leave the Teapot Sales Team without proper sales support for a month and counting than take 2 minutes to fix the privacy label.

  186. Red*

    We have a couple different people in the company I work at who do the weaponized incompetence thing but I just do it right back at them. They ask me to fill the copier because “they don’t know how” and I’ll be like “well it definetly needs paper cuz that’s what we print on. Do you see a paper box? Oh I wonder where it goes, I can’t read the side of this thing” and then they’ll find the drawer and put the paper in and I never even get up from chair.

    Lol we also work in an industry where we get those free industry magazines sales calls all. the. time. and I usually just tell them whoever they’re asking about “can’t read, sorry :( “

  187. Not Incompetent Just Lazy*

    My boss is the queen of weaponized incompetence. One example is our jobs involve sending email communications regularly. She has never actually deployed an email from our email platform in the 2 years I have worked here (and she was here 2 years before me). Once I took a half day on a day an email was supposed to go out that I had completely set up the campaign for, she literally just had to hit the button and she wouldn’t do it and I had to login on a hotspot from my appointment to hit send. It’s super annoying but nothing I can really do about it since she is my boss…

  188. Chirpy*

    On the other side, I know a skill for a different department from when I worked at a different location. I’m very slow at it, as I was just trained as a backup and don’t do it often – I’m now like 10th down the list of who should be doing this, since my current location has a totally different backup plan.

    I have spent the last 5 years making sure not to let on to one coworker that I know how to do this, because I’m very sure she’d start asking me to do her job all the time so she didn’t have to.

  189. cleo*

    I witnessed a beautiful example of this in one of my first jobs, many decades ago.

    I worked in retail, in a local store that sold high end materials for a niche craft. A sales clerk for the department selling some of the specialized machines wanted to get outside training on using some of the machines. The (male) store manager didn’t want to pay for it and he didn’t think it was necessary. So EVERY TIME a customer asked this clerk about one of the machines she wanted to get extra training on, she called the office and asked the manager to come out and do a demo for the customer “just in case” she missed something. After like a week of that, he sent her off for the training.

  190. GreenDoor*

    I’m finding this whole discussion fascinating. I’m one of 8 kids. If my parents needed something done, they just pointed to the nearest one of us to do it. If we said, “But I don’t know how!!!’ my dad’s response was, “Well, come here and I’ll show you so you’ll know for next time.” That’s how I grew up….so that’s how I manage. And boy, people do NOT like having their incompetence taken away! The idea of using “but I don’t know” as an excuse to not do something is just so foreign to me.

  191. Emotional support capybara (he/him)*

    At the job where the boss frequently “forgot” to do payroll: at the time I did not drink coffee. My job description did not in any way include “make the coffee.” The admin who normally made the coffee called in one day and instead of yelling at one of the coffee drinkers to make the coffee or, heaven forbid, making the coffee her damn self, the boss chewed ME out for not making the coffee.

    The next morning I made the coffee. And, when the boss complained about how bad it was, I reminded her that I didn’t drink it.

    I was not asked to make the coffee again.

  192. UnderwritersRUs*

    When I worked in a commercial insurance office, back in the mid-90s, it was full of men in power and bad suits and women in lesser positions, putting up with their mantics. One of my friends worked for a guy who shambled about the office in his socks and a sweater with holes. He’d stand at the fax machine and it was amazing he could figure that out. When he wrote correspondence or documents, he literally cut and pasted – well, taped – bits and pieces from his scrawled notes into a semblance of order which she then had to type up.

  193. mdv*

    I had a TERRIBLE Associate Director in a non-academic department of a major public university, to whom I reported for many years, then eventually got lucky enough to just work for him while reporting to the Director instead.

    In his first week here, he stepped into the Director’s office to complain that the admin assistants were just saying “no” to him when he asked them to make photocopies … she just started laughing. “Everyone does their own copying.”

    For the next … 5 years or so, he acted as a gatekeeper to all information, so he would attend operational meetings, then come out and tell me he had a task for me to do, but he wouldn’t tell me all the things I needed to know to do it. So the (same) Director told him he had to invite me to these meetings.

    THEN, I was not allowed to speak for myself, I had to give him my list of items to bring up. That ended when he made an extremely inappropriate comment about not really understanding why the (still same) Director would have given me TWO WEEKS IN A ROW off work … when I had not been able to schedule any meaningful vacation time for more than 5 years because he always scheduled his many months in advance. (If I was going to tell the whole story, it would make sense why this was a relevant reason to end this particular habit, but that is a very long post for another day.)

    He did a bunch of other things like this, but these are the most obvious examples.

  194. Calcifer*

    Years ago I had a terrible job in higher education and I had a coworker who admitted to me he was messing stuff up on purpose. When our boss would give him something to do that he didn’t like, he’d mess it up over and over again until eventually she got sick of it and gave the task to someone else. He ended up being a major component of why I quit. There were many, many other problems (he was having an affair with someone else in our department and they were sneaking off together for hours, there was a catfishing/outing incident, I was sexually harassed by a different guy in the department, etc.), but one day I showed my boss proof of his lying and her response was to ask me why I didn’t confront him with the proof in the middle of our last department meeting. It finally occurred to me how stupid that job was and how miserable it was making me and I resigned the following Monday.

    1. LucyGoosy*

      I was going to say how wild it was to me how many of these are about higher ed, but honestly reading these posts have just convinced me that two of my superiors are just using weaponized incompetence. (One victory though was that a higher-up in her 40s was saying, “Oh, I don’t really know how to do this new digital process” and her boss, who is in her 60s and actually pretty tech savvy, just very pointedly said, “So, why don’t you know how?”)

  195. Willow Pillow*

    I worked at a real Monet of an organization – it looked great from a distance, but up close it was a mess. I (misguidedly) joined the engagement committee, which encouraged people to write positive notes to others… there was this complicated process where givers and receivers would get points, and eventually get rewards. It was like the worst parts of Excel and algebra combined.

    The person running the engagement committee – let’s call her Aly – showed me how it worked as she was stepping down. I went on short term disability a few months later (everyone in my department had severe anxiety). When I returned after another two months, Aly had quit. The person who replaced her asked me if I knew how to do the scoring process and I said I couldn’t remember. I would have if I consulted the notes I’d taken… They stayed buried in OneNote until I, too, quit.

  196. AnonRN*

    I’m not sure if this is deliberate incompetence, but none of my co-workers seem to know how to change the toilet paper in our break room. They’ll put a new roll on *top* of the holder, but I’m apparently one of the few who knows how to unclip the side of the holder, swing it open, and clip it shut again. These are standard “household” size rolls, not the big industrial ones that go in a locked holder that only the housekeepers can change. And I’m sorry but if you can figure out how to change the IV tubing out of the pump when it’s beeping, or hang and prime new feeding tube setups, or operate the warming blanket (all of which we all do regularly) …you could figure out the toilet paper holder.

  197. Going Against The Flow*

    I don’t really believe there is good and bad strategic incompetence. It’s all people deciding they don’t want or need to do a task and hoping someone else steps up.

    While I agree menial & admin tasks disproportionately fall to women, strengthening stereotypes, the thing is everyone playing the card is just looking out for themselves. The reason doesn’t really matter they don’t want to do it or get stuck being the one who does it because they volunteered once.

    I highly doubt the guy who can’t figure out the coffee maker cares about the gender of who makes the coffee as long as he keeps getting fresh coffee without lifting a finger. Same for getting more paper for the printer or taking notes.

    Honestly taking minutes can be a huge power move b/c you ensure what’s were written down, who got assignments, dates, and can to some extent control the tone. No one can conveniently forget when you get to be in charge of minutes.

    1. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

      If those guys who “can’t figure out the coffee maker” didn’t care about gender, they wouldn’t all be trying to guilt trip their female colleagues to do it. They’d be glaring at each other and saying things like “Why didn’t you make coffee when you got here, Fergus?”

      But they expect Jane to magically intuit that coffee-making is her job, or stand at her desk and say “there’s no coffee” and look surprised when she doesn’t get up and make coffee.

      Yeah, most of those Ferguses probably wouldn’t object if John started making the coffee, but they don’t think it’s John’s job, and they do think it’s Jane’s job. Even when Jane doesn’t drink coffee, and it’s not officially anyone’s job.

      It’s not an accident when men pressure all and only the women to take notes, order lunch, or do their typing.

  198. Wendy Darling*

    I’ve spent my career working in data analysis/BI/data engineering type jobs, and although I lean hard to the more technical side of those roles, due to some mix of misogyny and wanting to pay me less some workplaces try to railroad me more into the non-programmer data analyst type jobs. These usually primarily work in Excel and VBA. I don’t want to do these jobs. I lean hard toward the data engineer end of my skillset. I work in Python and SQL, and those are the jobs I apply to.

    So I just… refuse to learn VBA. I’m actually pretty good in Excel, but I won’t go within a hundred yards of VBA. I would not know how to write Hello World in VBA. Whenever someone really leans on me to learn it, that’s a sign it’s time for a different job. “Can’t you just write an excel macro to do that?” Nope, don’t know VBA!

    1. Warrior Princess Xena*

      As a person who knows how to code in VBA:

      Smart. Never, ever, ever release macros into the hand of your office’s general public, because they will screw them up and it will be a disaster. The only time I’ve ever seen them deployed successfully are in our firm’s template documents, which users do not have admin rights to and thus can only type in a couple of the textboxes. And nothing else.

  199. Butter Scotch*

    In the days before we had a phrase for this I was asked to craft an oncall rotation for the engineering team. I put _every_ engineer on the rotation, order assigned at random. Jim’s boss reached out to me and asked that I remove Jim from the rotation because he was terrible at it. Despite having basically no authority I simply told him “no. We’ve all played that game–doing the dishes so bad that mom never asks us to do them again. I’m not going to reward him for being bad at his job. The only way he’s going to get better is to not get out of it.” Jim’s boss was confused (I mean, how, dude?) by my assertion and analogy, but I refused to back down. This was a hill I was absolutely prepared to die on.

    And, with that, Jim served his on call rotations for at least a full year until it was no longer my responsibility.

    Once the term came along I was glad–Jim’s boss may be a little dense, but he’s up enough on social justice that had I simply called it by it’s name the conversation would have ended.

  200. TrackingCookieMonster*

    I’m in the middle of sort of one right now. My department implemented a ticketing system two years ago to manage our workflow because we get literally thousands of work requests of varying sizes each year from across our Teapot Education workplace.

    The other day, I receive an email from an admin assistant asking for an update to a page correction she had requested previously. I didn’t have a ticket for it so I asked her if she had submitted a ticket.

    “No, I used *ineffective reporting system that we unfortunately can’t get rid of* because were told in the past that’s the way to do so.”

    This admin assistant would have been told this no less than 5-7 years ago. Again, my department has been on a ticketing system to 2 years. This person has submitted plenty of tickets, including for the very type of work request that is happening here.

    So I told her to please submit a ticket. I haven’t gotten a ticket yet.

    Now, could I, in theory, easily go in and do the work requested without a ticket being submitted? Sure.

    Am I going to do so before I see a ticket? Absolutely not.

    1. Mia*

      Good for you!! It drives me nuts when people try to get around the process and then keep doing so, despite us telling them the process multiple times.

    2. Anonymask*

      I am literally dealing with this exact issue right now as well. My boss and grandboss say they’re going to enforce the ticketing system (1.5 years old at this point), but then fold like a house of cards whenever an email marked “high importance” comes in.

      …Even when the email is for the most minor of requests.

  201. Mia*

    I had a coworker like this (haven’t we all?). They spent so much time asking questions and changing how they were saying something couldn’t be done that everyone on the team hated working with her and it was easier just to do it ourselves. The boss could get her to do stuff, but we couldn’t. And the boss didn’t do anything about it. Everyone resented her. Eventually the boss got promoted into another department, and while I didn’t like her replacement, the new guy managed to fire the jerk.

  202. Eireann*

    My entire career (I’m retired now) as an admin assistant/office manager I presented myself as extremely poor at dealing with numbers. No accounting, no payroll, no financials of any sort beyond just petty cash (in a few jobs).
    My remaining professional skills were always excellent – organization, documentation, research, facility management – you name it, I was very competent. That competency led many bosses to say “You’re so good at (X), I’m going to give you the (Y=financial type task) also!” I would immediately reply that I am really embarrassed to confess it, but I’m terrible at numbers and I have frequently messed up assignments so badly that someone else has had to clean up my disasters.
    That usually nipped it in the bud but once in a while (over the years), a boss would try it out anyway – so I had to prove them right. In reality, I’m not a mathematician and I really do dislike math, but I’m nowhere near as incompetent as all that. And I can use Excel pretty well, which is how I got outed one time, but that’s another story!

  203. redflagday701*

    I had given my boss a few months’ notice because it was a very small business and I was in a pretty critical position that involved everything from customer service to dealing with our manufacturers. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time on the phone. My replacement was hired, and I was supposed to be training him. Handling phone calls was the first thing he took over.

    Not two days later, our office manager told me I needed to take over the phones again because my replacement just…couldn’t do it. He claimed that he didn’t know how to answer calls and was unable to master basic professional phone etiquette. I didn’t even know what to say.

    But it all resolved itself a day or so after that, when I inadvertently discovered my boss was paying my replacement $18,000/year more than he’d been paying me, after telling me he knew I wasn’t making enough but that he just couldn’t afford to give me more at the moment. My several months’ notice became a week and a half. Hope they got the phone situation figured out!

  204. Just no.*

    The boss at my day gig is “too busy” to read anything for comprehension, look at the company calendar, or use a basic search function to find the email or text message he needs. But he manages to find plenty of time to scroll social media and play videos at full volume from his phone.

  205. LetsGo*

    I am smarter than my brother. To give him something that was “his,” I purposefully didn’t learn any computer stuff in school or at home until well into college.

  206. Ari*

    When I was a professional stage manager, on one underfunded tour I was tasked with ensuring all the elaborate costumes got dry cleaned. I was urged by the production manager to not use the dry cleaner recommended by the venue, as they were “pretty expensive.” I guess I was supposed to do research on nearby dry cleaner rates, physically take all the costumes somehow to the dry cleaner even though the production did not provide me with a vehicle, and endure everything arrived in expected condition by the following performance. There’s a reason why wardrobe crew are specifically hired for this kind of task. I was union but the rules did allow the producer to request this of me. The week I needed to solve this problem, I asked the local wardrobe girl where she’d recommend I get the costumes dry cleaned, and she told me the place the venue worked with would pick up and drop the costumes off for me, all she had to do was place the order. I figured this was worth whatever additional expense, and if the company really wanted me to go somewhere else, they would have provided me with a salient alternative option, instead of leaving me to figure it out. So I threw up my hands and was like “they need to get dry cleaned; i refuse to figure out an alternate solution when a very reasonable one already exists.” I think they thought I could hack this cause I’m a woman; the reality is that I don’t even get my own clothes dry cleaned. The dry cleaning bill ended up being over 5k, which didn’t make the producer happy, but at the end of the day they couldn’t argue with the fact that it was a greater risk for me to try to manage it all on my own, risking the destruction or loss of costumes. Did a real “oh oopsie I forgot you told me not to use them!!!” with the producer on the phone when they got the bill :D

  207. swingbattabatta*

    Is it too much of a cliche to note the (many times) that my male coworker would come up and ask the women (complete peers) to make a pot of coffee because “I just don’t know how and you do it so much better”? Add in the wide innocent eyes and wheedling voice.

    ….9 years later and I’m still incredibly annoyed.

  208. Kayem*

    I have a coworker I’m pretty sure is doing some weaponized incompetence to push his work off onto others. Every year, the boss hands out half a dozen chapters from the Annual Llama Grooming Standards to each of us. It’s our responsibility to learn everything there is to know in each of our chapters on llama grooming, then train newbie llama groomers on it so they can become certified llama groomers. We have to create our own training materials and llama grooming practice exams. We’re given a generous amount of lead time on this before training the newbies start, coupled with step deadlines every week so everyone on the team is always working on the same phase.

    Last year, the week before we were to start training, he’s suddenly behind and it’s all hands on deck. The rest of us each agree to take on a chapter of his incomplete prep work and finish it in the nick of time. So now it’s time to train newbies and he’s saying “but you know the material better so you should be the one to train them.” We’re like like haha no, we have our own groups to manage. But then he pleaded lack of knowledge to the boss because “we need to succeed,” so she had us each train his groups on the chapters we each prepped, while he worked in a “support” function. Which amounted to occasionally he would be available to answer a logistical question.

    This year, boss assigned him only four chapters and borrowed someone from another team to do the extra two. But he only managed to finish half before it started again. Since I finished all my prep early, I got handed his prep. Then I had to also train those two groups of his on top of my six groups. Then in the middle, I was handed his other two groups to train because he insisted “Kayem is so much better at training than I am.” Except I didn’t know anything about his llama grooming chapters! So in the middle of training eight groups of newbies, I had to learn everything there is to learn about llama tooth polishing and llama pedicures so I could competently train the newbies so they could pass their llama grooming certification exams.

    I’ll probably see him again during the next annual llama grooming training project because we’re so short handed.

  209. ticktick*

    When I was an articling student, there was a large divide between the lawyers (mainly older folk) who would use the dictaphone and dictate everything for their secretaries, and the students, who had all been introduced to computers at a young age and were comfortable with them. The students were assigned one secretary to do work for them – but she was older, very slow to get work done (probably why she was assigned to the students, as their work was generally less urgent – but she would take weeks to do a simple document), and honestly a little creepy to deal with. We students were all provided with dictaphones and instructed to use them, and have our shared secretary type up the dictated memos and briefs, but FOR SOME REASON, I just wasn’t able to get my dictaphone to work, so, oh well, guess I’ll have to type it up myself using my computer!

    1. Why is it usually men?*

      To be fair, your example is less weaponised incompetence & more efficient incompetence.

  210. a*

    There was one particular test that literally everyone in my 3-shifts lab refused to do…except me. It was a little delicate, but mostly just time consuming and requiring the use of lots of sulfuric acid. I repeatedly tried training others to do the test, but they refused to learn. I laughed when I quit, because no one else really knew how to do it. I don’t even know why they objected to doing it – I got to go to another part of the complex and use a fancy piece of equipment to get results. I thought it was entertaining.

  211. Queer Columbo*

    I have deployed this with people who refuse to give you actual answers, you all know at least one of them. Usually, I roughly know what the deal is, but I have found that by asking a question with the completely wrong information, they will always correct you and give you what you need, and at this point I am not worried what they think of me because everyone else knows I know my stuff, AND I was able to get the answers from The Difficult One.

    “So just so I’m clear, we want to do XYZ on Date and that will do ABC?”

  212. Why is it usually men?*

    I am one of about 10 people who can raise purchase orders in my office, however raising purchase orders is not part of my role. I was given access & taught when I agreed to fill in for someone on the AP team last year. Since then, all the men on the team seem to have forgotten how to raise a PO & I will get several requests for POs each day (yesterday I got 23). My manager has said that I should just consider it part of my role now because “these guys are too busy to raise their own POs”. I have become a victim of my own competence & have vowed never to volunteer for anything at work ever again. Never. Let the men do it.

  213. Grim*

    Mea culpa time! I’m a personal carer in aged care, and I work for an agency, so I get sent to a few different facilities to make up staff shortages and cover for absences. There’s a lot of aspects of the job that are the same no matter where you go, but everywhere has idiosyncrasies, so you sort of have to figure it out on the job— what’s the schedule, where’s the spare bed linen kept, what are the policies for documentation? The last part is especially annoying, there’s always an excessive amount of (digital) paperwork that needs to be done. Some of it is stuff that really does need to be documented and kept track of, a lot of it is honestly just busywork. And every place has their own system for doing it and uses a different program, and it would take longer for the permanent staff to teach it to every single random agency worker who comes in than it would for them to just do it themselves.

    Anyway, the point of all this is, at the facility where I get the most shifts, I actually did manage to get someone to show me how to use the computers and fill out paperwork. I work a lot of night shifts, where staffing is so tight that I have no choice but to do the paperwork for my section, because I’m the only one there to do it. But on day shifts, I’m definitely guilty of letting the permanent staff assume that because I’m from an agency, I won’t know how to do the paperwork, so they’d better take care of it (while I keep an eye on residents and cover the call bells, of course. I’m not slacking off, I just hate doing paperwork!).

  214. Kayem*

    My partner (E) works for the IT department in local government. Some larger departments have their own IT person, who sometimes coordinates with the IT department, but usually do their own thing. Fergus, the IT person for one of the big departments is what we’re theorizing is either a nepotism hire or has blackmail material on someone because he doesn’t actually do anything. It’s gotten so bad that when they need support, they don’t bother asking Fergus and just call E directly.

    * E is scheduled to deliver a new computer to Fergus’s department. E texts Fergus that E is on their way and will be there in five minutes. Fergus responds with confirmation. E gets there and no Fergus. Eventually, E gets in the building to find Fergus on the phone in a meeting. When asked why Fergus wasn’t there to let E in, Fergus stares blankly and says “I thought you hadn’t left yet.”

    * It was widely accepted that support tickets from Fergus’s department were handled by IT, which made no sense because it takes longer for IT to handle them than Fergus. One day, E discovered that Fergus is supposed to be handling support tickets for his own department and asked about them. Fergus said “I’ve never gotten any support tickets before.” E looks at Fergus’s dashboard (which has a very large and prominent notification indicator showing 99+ new support tickets right at the top and says) “You just click here and you can view all the tickets and take care of them.” But Fergus still doesn’t do the support tickets. Why? Because somehow he keeps “forgetting” that he has to scroll down slightly to click the button to view the support tickets.

    There’s worse examples but I don’t remember them offhand (these are the most recent). I’ll have to ask E tonight if there’s any new tales of Fergus being incompetent.

  215. Laura*

    When I started working, I didn’t know enough to keep silent about my ability to find everyone’s spelling errors (except for my own, of course). The German spelling reform a few years later gave the longed-for opportunity to refuse to do any proofreading in German ever again.

    “Hi Laura, can you quickly proofread this? It’s for a customer.”
    “Sorry, can’t do.”
    “But, but, why not? You always did it! I cannot send it out like this!”
    “Reformed spelling. Can’t do it. Use a spellchecker.”

    (The relevance of correct spelling has dropped a lot since then.)

  216. Lorikeet*

    As a young, baby faced woman with a degree in a traditionally male field, I learnt VERY early on never to get sucked into taking notes at meetings, emptying the dishwasher, organising birthday cakes/farewell cards/Christmas lunches or any similar work that women traditionally do and men don’t.

    I’m now in my 50s with decades of experience behind me so I’m happy to help with these things now, as my standing in the workplace is such that this clearly an optional extra and not a core part of my job.

  217. Lalaluna*

    I don’t know if this counts as weaponized incompetence per se, but it still cracks me up at the audacity. At one of the public libraries I worked at, one of the librarians refused to take over a specific book club group that occurred in the morning because the library provided coffee/tea and light snacks, and this particular librarian “didn’t like coffee”. Not an allergy or anything. Just “boo coffee!” – I guess. Her dislike was apparently so strong that she couldn’t even be in the room where others drank the coffee? I don’t know. But she got out of running that book club, and other programs due to various ridiculous reasoning. Also, she worked part time, and refused to attend any department meetings (which were like once a quarter) if they happened to occur on a day she didn’t normally work. Even when the meetings transitioned to Zoom during COVID. Plenty of others attended meetings even if outside their normal schedules. There the branch managers would be, zoom-ing in obviously from their living rooms/offices – but not our one rogue librarian. She was a terrible worker, all-around. Everyone was relieved when she left for another job.

  218. RandomName*

    Healthcare here! I’m a general practitioner, working in a hospital.
    Among other things, I’ll ask the nurses to do ECGs. Every now and then they may misplace electrodes. Except for one nurse who somehow ALWAYS misplaces them. So I’m sick between doing the ECG myself, or making sure to never ask him when I need an ECG, or doing the same dance everytime and needing 2 or 3 tries to get something readable…

    I’m also reminded of a team (now gone) which would often delay things, even when told to do them ASAP.
    For example I’d decide at 10:30 AM that a patient needed a bladder catheterization. Checking in at 11 AM I’d get told that they “didn’t feel comfortable” doing it because of lack of experience.
    I’d offer to come in with them and supervise. “Yes, as soon as I’m done with (insert something that needed to be done by 11:30)”
    Back at 12 : “oh, he wanted to eat and I couldn’t say no, maybe we can do it afterwards? ”
    1 PM : well the afternoon team is coming in, no point in me doing it right now, they’ll do it after handoff
    2 PM : “oh, I don’t feel comfortable doing this, haven’t done it in ages, let me reread the procedure”
    3 PM : “but the procedure says (obscure detail) and I need to clarify!”
    4 PM : I give up and either do it myself or call in reinforcement.

  219. M.*

    I stopped offering take minutes at meetings when I realized men never offered to do it. And I’d politely decline anytime I was asked. I was at the same level executive level as the men, but was younger and a women.

  221. The coworker who wouldn’t clean*

    I shared a co-working space for meeting clients with someone who agreed to lease an office space with me. We each had our own offices, but a shared bathroom and lobby area. When we picked out the place, it was agreed we would swap off cleaning the bathrooms and the lobby every other week since neither of us could afford to hire a custodian and it wasn’t that much space to clean. Not once, in the two years we shared the space did they clean anything. They were always running in late or having to leave in a hurry and saying they’d get to it later. Because it was a client space, I never wanted it to look dirty, so I always ended up having to do the cleaning. When they left the lease and I walked into their office to get it ready for a new co-worker, there was a layer of dust and several boxes of garbage on the floor because they never even took their garbage out. Not even when they vacated the building. They work out of a new place they don’t share with anyone and I wonder sometimes if it’s a dust trap full of boxes of garbage.

  222. It's Me*

    This doesn’t exactly fit the brief, but I am surrounded (SURROUNDED) by coworkers who hold a deep an abiding interest in astrology. It’s one of the first things they ask about any new person, it comes up in every single group conversation, etc. etc. I refuse to remember what my sign is, no matter how many times they tell me, nor will I volunteer my birth date so they can figure it out and tell me exactly how I’m supposed to be. (You’d think years on the same team would’ve clarified that without hooey prescriptivism. Guess not.)

    1. Clare*

      Only tangentially related, but one of my best friends has a PhD in astronomy and I like to call her an astrologer as a joke. The only problem with that is occasionally when someone asks what she does ‘astrology’ will slip out by mistake. Luckily I can always tell by the bemused reaction when I need to correct myself! ‘Astronomy’ receives far more enthusiasm. (I also said ‘modelling’ once without thinking and immediately had to clarify that it was galaxies, not fashion. Whoops!)

  223. Warrior Princess Xena*

    This one’s reaaally minor, to the point where I almost don’t know if it counts, but I occasionally use some performative ignorance.

    I work in a client-facing regulatory role. Sometimes I’ll run into a situation where I need some information from the client that they haven’t given us and are, for whatever reason, pushing back on giving us. Frequently it will be a situation where they’ve given us a tenth of the info we need and I have to go back and get more. In those situations, I’ll write an email asking where they’ve put it into the sharefile – clearly, I must have missed that document (when in reality both of us know that they just haven’t been bothered to upload it). 9/10 times I get a notification that there’s been a document upload and get an email back saying whoops, sorry, they thought they’d given that to us. Very reliable.

  224. Natebrarian*

    I hate taking notes with a white-hot passion. I’m also horrible at it (probably not a coincidence). So when I’m in a mtg and someone asks for note-taking, I very clearly say that I am horrible and you don’t want me doing f it.

    It’s highly effective.

  225. Just me*

    I am not a coffee drinker. I have made coffee a few times in big urn type coffee makers but had never used the standard one with the paper filter and the glass pot. Got a job at a small business doing data entry. Since I was also checking in the daily shipment from our wholesaler I was going to be the first one coming in. Naturally it was assumed I would make the morning coffee. Apparently I did not make it to the taste of my coworkers. After two or three days I was relieved of that task. I did not complain! Still don’t know how to properly make coffee and don’t care either.

    1. Sad Desk Salad*

      I would completely fail this excellent version of weaponized incompetence. I’m an early riser and a huge coffee lover. I’d be making the coffee just because I need it myself! You’re on your own for tea, though.

  226. Big dog*

    We hire PhD-level staff in my department, so many of our new hires are riding high on their newly-minted doctor status and feel basics like punctuation and formatting are below them. There’s a spectrum of responses to the reprimands, but by far the worst are the ones who have bought into the ‘ditzy genius’ persona and earnestly explain: “I just get so carried away with the numbers and the data, my amazing brain can’t handle such quotidian matters as full stops and complete sentences and not leaving gaping holes in spreadsheets”. Sometimes it’s accompanied by an infuriating giggle. It shows a bizarre lack of awareness and self-centeredness. The rest of us came up through the same channels and certainly didn’t obtain our doctorates in advanced punctuation research or nitpicking.

  227. Emmy*

    I work in a government office where 90% of our staff is bilingual in Spanish and for the vast majority of our customers, Spanish is their preferred and sometimes only language.
    We have a handful of employees who only speak English, but who applied for and accepted the job knowing most of the work would be interacting with people who speak Spanish, and a couple of them have tried to weaponize this by saying they can’t figure out how to call an interpreter, the wait for the interpreter is too long, can’t they just take my customer who speaks better English or can’t I just come translate for them?
    I did it once but never again, and luckily my manager backs us up. Why should I be doing the work of people who don’t speak Spanish on top of my own?

  228. New Senior Mgr*

    A new (to the pharma field) coworker came out of retirement as an elementary school teacher to be our receptionist. She was a friend of our admin support coordinator. After 3 months of training, she claimed not to know how to make copies, log on/off ADP to log her time, transfer calls to/from the answering service, or use the postage meter. Until. She was in the office alone for 3 days while everyone else attended a conference. While away, we received no panicked calls, when we checked on her, she said everything was going well, and when we returned, she had magically handled each duty on her own. The next day, she tried asking her friend for help with these duties again. Her friend told her to do whatever she did while we were away. That was the end of that. She’s had no issues since then.

  229. Biscuit_Love*

    For Christmas a few years back, my husband got us a biscuit making class (we’re from the South, he loves to cook and I love to bake). I realized too late that it was the same day as the nationwide Women’s March in January 2017, and although the class was great, I cried a bit when I got home that I’d missed participating in our local march in order to take a baking class.

    However, since that day, I have yet to make a single biscuit, BUT my husband has perfected the initial class recipe and is now a biscuit-making pro. I am regularly rewarded with buttery, pillowy-soft biscuits. Now, I love asking for gifts that I will never use–last year, he gave me a steam cleaner for my birthday, and I have never touched it. If our cat throws up on the rug, he is in charge of cleaning it up. I am brainstorming future gift/class requests that will continue benefitting me for years to come.

  230. Frank the potter*

    My first job out of college was as graphic artist in the publicity office of said college, a liberal arts institution founded by Franciscan nuns. There were still a sizeable proportion of them on faculty and staff who thought calligraphy was the height of fine design. Made it a point not to know calligraphy, of course. Can I interest you in some Letraset?

  231. Clare*

    I have a problem with my IT department where a ticket such as: “LlamaSnip won’t open because the old LlamaSnip drivers are incompatible with the latest Windows update, could you please install the latest LlamaSnip drivers on my machine?” will send them on a massive hunt for literally anything else that could be causing the problem, because how dare I presume to know their job??!!! I’m fairly certain a request phrased as “Please update LlamaSnip drivers to version 8.4.7 on my machine” would send them into a frothing rage.

    In order to get anything fixed I’ve had to come up with a technique where I send them a bunch of screenshots and context to essentially tell them exactly what the problem is without naming it, then finish with “I have no idea what’s going on, please help!”. So the example above becomes:

    “My computer told me to do a restart for Windows updates an hour ago, so I did what it said. But then when I tried to open LlamaSnip 6 from the desktop icon it came up with this message about something being out of date (screenshot). So I tried to follow the instructions and went to the website (screenshot), but then when I clicked the download my computer asked me for a password (screenshot). I have no idea what’s going on, please help!”

    For the record I’m perfectly aware there would be no point in trying to run the exe myself without admin privileges, but laying it out so clearly for them and then declaring I have no idea allows them to feel superior when the answer is so obvious to them and not poor dumb little Clare.

    Yes, having to play the innocent idiot to protect their fragile egos does send me into a frothing rage, but being an adult and a professional I’m able to still get my job done. I also get my tickets resolved the fastest of anyone on my team, so I guess it’s worth it.

  232. Paralegal Part Deux*

    When at my old job, I was trained to do litigation, real estate, probate, estate planning, transactional work, along with admin work. At my new job, I seem to only know how to do real estate. They’re training me on other things as needed.

  233. Sad Desk Salad*

    Corporate lawyer here. We have a system for requesting vendor/individual contracts that is fairly easy to use, but it takes some getting used to. It’s the only way you can get a majority of contracts. You put in the bare essential information (name, address, scope of work), we start the draft and negotiate it to the end. Every company in our industry has some version of this, either internal or run by an external company. This has been in place for several years, and is ramping up as we are growing.

    I have had the same person complain to me, my colleague, my boss, and absolutely abuse the administrator of the program because some of her contracts are ending (10-15) this year, and she needs to request amendments. I’ve drafted the amendments, which, truthfully are well below my pay grade but I did them because they needed to be done, and they’re ready to go, but this stakeholder is pushing back at requesting them in the system. She has input requests before, multiple times, and they go very smoothly. But for this crop of amendments, which will take more actual work because there are so many of them, suddenly she doesn’t understand the system, I donno, how much do we pay these guys, what is fair market value, do I really need all this documentation? If she had spent the amount of time she’d invested in complaining, she would have these requests in by now, and we’d have had the contracts signed well in advance of the finish line. But because she’s dragging her feet, her committees of key opinion leaders are at risk.

    She wants to complain so much that we just offer to do the requests for her. But a) we are not capable on an IT level to do requests for other functions and b) none of us have any more time in our days than she does. On top of that, we’re lawyers. We’re more stubborn and less people-pleasing than anyone.

  234. Not Flossie*

    I (female) worked in quality assurance in food factories about 10 years ago, in the industry for about 15 years prior to that (just using the timeline to show that it was back in the days when I was called ‘the girl’ or ‘flossie’ and noone seemed to care). I deliberately did not get my forklift licence because no other person would help me with anything else and that was the one thing they had to help me with because I couldn’t legally drive the forklift.

  235. Amy R*

    Not sure if this counts, but I worked at a restaurant where one of the most hated closing tasks was cleaning the bread machine. no one wanted to do it. I honestly thought it was pretty easy, but pretended to hate doing it too. I would “begrudgingly” agree to clean the bread machine after the other servers agreed to give me part of their tips, lol. Easy way to make a few extra bucks!

  236. I Live There*

    There’s the exec who refuses to figure out how to print to our Xerox and instead just emails you stuff and tells you to print it for them.

    The execs who email you to close out entries in the database when it took them longer the type and send the email than if they had just done it themselves.

    The coworkers who refuse to learn new software that requires they do more frontend work because it’s so hard and complicated, who then pass the work to you so you have to do more work and don’t mind at all that they’re using up your time.

    But I think the biggest one are those who act forgetful or disorganized and portray it as cute or funny and then use that to foist the responsibility for doing, remembering, tracking, etc., “for them” onto everybody else like we don’t have our own stuff. Like… Why are you my boss?!

  237. Silverose*

    I don’t think any of the supervisors in my department learned how to connect a laptop to a smart TV for giving presentations until a month or two ago….and I’m still the de facto tech guru at in person staff meetings when something doesn’t go exactly as they expect it to. And no, my actual job is not tech related. I’ve tried to educate along the way but only one showed interest in actually learning any of the troubleshooting steps.

    1. Clare*

      The number of people who refuse to learn the general principle of ‘Find a cable with ends the same shapes as the little holes on the two things you want to connect’ and get lost every time a new standard comes along blows my mind! If my Grandfather can use a USB dock to attach peripherals to his MacBook, you can plug in an external monitor to yours, Fergus.

  238. Hex*

    I think I accidentally weaponized incompetence’d/failed up my way into becoming a pretty decent manager? I always hated repetitive tasks, even if some of those repetitive tasks actually needed a decent amount of discretion/subject matter expertise. So I suffered through it for a few years before moving up high enough in the company that I started getting direct reports. And then I went into full mentor mode. Let me give you all the agency you need. Let me train you on everything, give you context and guidance and then have you…just…take over these repetitive tasks. For your career growth, of course. And it genuinely has helped everyone’s career growth! I’m still amazed this works. I feel like I’ve discovered a hack in the system.

  239. MAC*

    Decades ago, I was a TV reporter in a mid-sized market. This was before everything went digital. We typed scripts on 4-page carbons. The white copies were taped together to run through an old-school TelePrompter that worked kind of like a school projector with mirrors. Little wheels fed the sheets through a frame in one long sheet, so the pages had to be aligned and taped carefully to prevent corners catching and causing a jam. Theoretically, we took turns preparing the scripts, but I was usually excused because I worked 6am-3pm and typically wasn’t there by the time the 5:00 broadcast was being prepped. Another reporter (male) was excused for the BS reason that he’d been there a year or so longer and had “paid his dues.”

    That left it to rotate between the other two reporters who weren’t on the desk during the broadcast. One of them (male) would purposely do a crappy job, lining them up crooked and using only one piece of tape right in the middle so there were loose/uneven edges. When things inevitably jammed, he’d bungle fixing it, leaving the anchors hanging. When things were moving smoothly, he’d run it through too fast or slow. Because our female news director/anchor favored men and would only criticize the women on her staff, she just stopped making him do it and it always fell to the only other female reporter, because she always did a professional job. Then he would loaf in the newsroom and make long distance calls to his girlfriend across the country until the news ended. It was maddening.

  240. Ironic*

    I (mid-40s woman) have deliberately never learned to iron. I did it a few times as a teen and hated it so decided never to do it again. I choose clothes that do not need ironing – it’s fairly easy for women’s office clothing compared to men’s. I suspect that if I knew how to iron I would have ended up ironing the work shirts of many a boyfriend or spouse.

  241. Kayem*

    Earlier this year, I discovered I could make a little Python script to do the most tedious and hated part of my job. A whole week of work done in less than an hour with a click of the mouth. It. Is. Glorious. Gives me so much more time to focus on development tasks.

    But I’ve already learned my lesson the hard way about letting coworkers in on my previous task hacks. I was happy to teach them how to do it themselves but it became “you already know how to do it so you should just do mine and it will save me so much time!”

    Oooh, sorry, looks like I’m still working on this tedious task we all hate, it’s taking me foreeeever, you know how it is haha, I don’t think I’ll be done before 4:30 on Friday, sorry.

  242. Spoondroid*

    I think this counts, although I’d call it performative Disability rather than weaponised incompetence. As a young-looking female-looking person, I found I was expected to take the minutes in meetings. So on meeting days it would happen to be a bad arthritis day so I needed to wear my hand braces, which I could wave apologetically.
    I also got our of having to run an organisation’s social media (on top of my regular work) through posting only stiff, overly formal and generally fun-free (but materially and grammatically correct!) tweets etc.

  243. Janne*

    My colleague’s weaponized incompetence has been coming back to bite her recently. She had been refusing to do more and more tasks because she doesn’t feel comfortable with them, but now she’s only left with the boring simple tasks and she’s getting so annoyed! It’s perfect. And she’s actually been requesting to get trained on some of the tasks that she refused earlier, and doing her best on those tasks too.

  244. MAOM79*

    I have done it in my current job. We have incredible turnover at about 40%. I’m the person who’s been with the department longest, at just over 12 years. I’m the only one that carries history for our department, because I’ve stuck it out. Fortunately, my position in the department leaves me slightly on the fringes, and my job is technical, so people don’t quite understand what I do. And because of this, I’m able to avoid most of the drama that causes the majority of the turnover. 3 years ago during the height of the pandemic, somebody walked out who was doing another technical type job. The boss decided I should do that job in addition to my own, and my own job took more than 40 hours a week during our busiest times. I deliberately pretended like I couldn’t learn the job. I deliberately messed it up, and I have no regrets. It didn’t take long for them to find somebody else to push it off onto. I do think the boss knew I did that on purpose.

  245. Ainsley Hayes*

    This might be more weaponized competence, but…my grandboss decided to get involved and micromanage our department. She asked for specific reports that were both going to be overly long and also tell us nothing. She wanted a set of hard copies of all of the reports for each person at the meeting – basically 500 or so pages times 4 people. I brought all the copies into the meeting, she said “What…is that?” and after I went through the stack of paperwork, there were no more reports printed for future meetings…

  246. SFW*

    In 2011-12 I worked in a place with an office manager who was a paranoid control freak. She refused to learn how to use a computer properly (although she would occasionally read email), insisting on using an electric typewriter for everything so she would have the only copy in her always-locked banks of filing cabinets. When MADE to send an attachment by email to a customer she would type it in Word but ask someone how to attach it to an email (EVERY time). Eventually it came out that she hadn’t been saving any of these files! She deleted them after sending so again the only copy (if any) would be in her own paper files.

    She also took meeting notes in shorthand specifically so no one else could read them. Maaaaaan was she upset when someone once looked over her shoulder and corrected her opposite interpretation of the issue because they could read shorthand.

    A few years later the owners finally followed through on their threats to physically get rid of her typewriters. She retired shortly thereafter.

    1. Hex*

      She sounds unbearable to work with; my sympathies. But wow, what I wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall when she encountered the person who read shorthand. That’s like one of those stories where you cuss someone out in a different language and it turns out they’re fluent in that language.

  247. DisabilityMayBeAFactor*

    Hopefully this isn’t considered off topic, but I want to put something out there for folks to think about.

    I am disabled and there are a whole bunch of “normal” or “expected” things I can’t do in an office that have gotten attributed to this type of behavior but weren’t. I generally can’t physically do any of the following:

    – Change toner cartridges in large or heavy printers/copiers
    – Fix paper jams
    – wash dishes
    – load a dishwasher
    – get stuff out of high cabinets/shelves
    – carry heavy things

    and more. I also don’t make extra trips that can be avoided which may mean I take a full day’s worth of snacks from a kitchen area supplying free snacks as opposed to dropping by 4, 5, 6, or more times throughout the day and grabbing 1-2 items. Similarly, when free lunch is supplied and I know from experience that there will be enough for seconds I take more the first time because I won’t be able to go back.

    So don’t always attribute to malice behavior that could be necessity.

  248. Cake Diva*

    There are 2 pieces of equipment in the bakery that I refuse to learn how to use. They are not part of my job. And since the time I decided to help out by learning how to mix some recipes, the people whose job it is like to push a lot of it on to me or expect that I will always do them if they get left undone for too long. I have my own job to worry about.

    So the last thing I want is the expectation that “She knows how to use that so we can just tell her to do it/leave it for her.” And the equipment is large and complicated and things can go really wrong if you don’t know how to use it properly. So I just make sure I don’t know how to use it.

  249. SimoneFiles*

    At the point that we all went home at the beginning of the pandemic, my colleagues and I were in the middle of project. One of the [older, male] Partners at our firm had taken some photos the week before that we needed for the project, and we asked him to upload them to our servers. He replied that he couldn’t because he ‘didn’t know how to get the photos from his camera to the computer.’ I was a bit worried about insulting his intelligence, but nonetheless sent him step-by-step instructions on how to connect a camera to a computer and copy over the photos. He told me it was much too hard and he couldn’t do it, so we just had to submit the report without them. It turns out that ever since digital cameras became A Thing he’d just handed the camera over to an admin to deal with whenever he got back from a trip …

  250. DameB*

    I’m so late to the party but there was a dude I worked with named Bob (that’s his real name!) and he was the KING of this. There was one task I showed him how to do a dozen times and he kept just asking me to do it. When I made him write down all the steps, he did, and then STILL asked me to do it. When I said, “Just follow your notes” he screwed it up so bad that it was a mini PR disaster for my company.

    This was a toxic work place and I was young and dumb, but I did eventually just tell him I wasn’t doing it anymore. He got one of the other women to do it instead.

  251. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

    Here’s one that backfired. I worked for a woman in her middle age who had done the don’t-know-how-to-do-anything-administrative to her benefit. She was an executive and no one expected her to do anything pink-collar, ever. So, brava.

    BUT. It’s 2023, and she honestly(?) didn’t know how to print something, or cut and paste, or find a distribution list in her own Outlook Contacts folder. Like: zero.

    We worked in a very fast-paced environment, and sometimes everyone was running about with their hair in flames and guess what? Executives sent their own pages to the printer, or looked up Jane Doe’s phone number all by themselves, etc. She would flap her wings and loudly scream for help, while people who *outranked her* managed these simple tasks while their admins were literally running about doing other, critical tasks. It made her look incompetent, ditzy, and like she had no concept of priorities, and yes, she was let go.

  252. LongTimeReader*

    I love when weaponized incompetence can be used to undermine limiting/oppressive systems/stereotypical thinking.

    My partner had a deep friendship with a much older woman, one of the few female attorneys of her time, in our major city. When my partner tried to teach her to use her computer and suggested practicing by typing up a document, she replied “But I never learned to type. My mentor told me 50+ years ago, in law school, to never learn to type or I’d be sent to the typing pool and would never get a proper job as a lawyer.” Needless to say, she had a long and very successful career, became a partner at a major law firm, and never needed to know how to type.

    When I was an office temp in my younger years, I was accidentally weaponizing my incompetence. I truly didn’t know how to make coffee as I didn’t drink it. The office expectation was that the newest admin assistant would be in charge of the first pot of coffee in those industrial sized machines. I would either under serve the coffee grounds and made tan water, which made me think the machine was broken, or over serve the machine and it looked like crude oil. Either way, my office mates were unhappy, their executive level banker bosses were annoyed, and by day 5, they gave up on me. I went back to reading my book and very little was expected of my sweetly naive, ignorant, and inexperienced self.

    Finally, my partner isn’t white and grew up partly in the US and partly in a Spanish speaking country. They are bilingual and fully fluent in English and Spanish but have an Anglo last name. Because of the work they do, they are in a “language closet” and have never shared their language skills with the “well-intentioned white ladies” they work with. They have witnessed how coworkers who are openly bilingual get pushed to do translation/interpretation work (not their skillset/job/expertise) and their career path is limited as they may not get chosen to do more prestigious work since they’re “busy” doing translation work.

    1. Kayem*

      One of my colleagues is often the only bilingual person on the team and often gets roped into helping others translate Spanish materials that sometimes get mixed into our data. It eats into a lot of her time and I know it frustrates her to get piled with extra work. My Spanish speaking/listening skills are barely kindergarten level, but I can read it well enough that I can handle most of those materials as long as I have a dictionary available to look up unfamiliar vocabulary.

      She and I made a deal: I clear out anything that I can translate on my own, which is the bulk of it. Then I do my best on the remaining materials (usually more complex technical language or a lot of idiom/colloquialisms I might not understand) and send them to her for a cross check. It works out great for us both because it reduces a lot of extra work for her and I get to practice my Spanish reading skills.

  253. Goose*

    Potlucks at work. I can’t cook, and somehow our team meetings always turned into potlucks. Why did other teams get to order lunch? Hmm, maybe because they have more guys? Sorry, not my fault as a 22 year old making 35k, I will not make a side dish. Please budget better

  254. CafeRadioEarwormSurvivor*

    While working at a cafe in my younger days, I asked the young man I was training to refill the jam packets on the salad bar since they were almost out. I showed him where the big box of packets was in the cupboard under the bar and went on my way. A few minutes later a customer complained that there was no jam. I asked the young man if he’d had a chance to refill the jam yet; he said “he’d tried but there weren’t enough packets to fill it up.” He had used the remaining packets displayed on the salad bar to “refill” the storage box in the cupboard! He also *refused* to learn to sweep the floor at closing, and had to be instructed how to do it every single time, down to being shown how to draw the broom across the floor instead of jabbing at the dirt with it, and needing every table he was supposed to sweep under pointed out individually. Mysteriously, he was perfectly competent at anything that could be done whilst lounging behind a cash register. Thankfully he didn’t last long.

  255. Former Admin turned Project Manager*

    Maybe not exactly a weaponized incompetence, but we have a program that I use for my job function that also includes the database management for another group in my department. The two groups used to be combined, so I have access to the database management side and could make updates myself if I needed to, but I always put in the ticket for the other group to do it because their manager is notorious for trying to shuttle her group’s work to other and I don’t wan to set a precedent for entering/updating data that is not in my group’s area.

  256. Mermaid of the Lunacy*

    About 20 years ago I (f, 20s at the time) was attending an earnings call, which consisted of a phone bridge that people would call into. I was in the room with the CEO and when the call started, there was a technical glitch and no one could hear him. I jumped in to help, on my hands and knees, unplugging and plugging the phone cord, trying to get things back on track. Fast forward a couple of weeks later. The CEO’s regular speechwriter was on maternity leave so I was assigned as her backup. I went to his office to talk to him about an upcoming speech, and when he saw me he said, “Oh, I thought you were the phone girl.” WOW – it really made me think twice about ever jumping in to help with things that weren’t my job.

  257. Nina Bee*

    I have a direct report who is a bit ‘helpless’ and uses the ‘I don’t know’ card often.. it’s frustrating and I’m less inclined to give him more interesting tasks he’d be interested in doing because of that. Now I just keep throwing the ball back in his court whenever there’s an easily solvable issue in his work to solve.

  258. Stove Top Burner 01*

    Oh this issue gets on my nerves!! For the past year I have developed the sudden inability to 1. Pick up the mail and sort it. If I happen to pick it up, I pitch it on my supervisor’s desk for him to deal with. 2. Order anything for the office, or put it away when it is delivered. The boxes can rot by the door. 3. Deal with calls about a specific topic I am not trained on or paid to deal with. Those messages are politely noted and sent to the supervisor.

    I used to do all these things and more: decorate for holidays and then take all the decorations down; ask everyone what supplies they needed and put in a request; clean desks of people who left for the new hires, deal with all the mail and I refuse to do it anymore. I’m a woman and I am nobody’s assistant or the department secretary. I’ve seen the men not bothering to lift a finger, much less put paper in the copier and I refuse to clean up and deal with the daily needs of office work.

  259. Styx-N-String*

    I’ve been doing this at my new (4 Mos) job! The truth is, I do have several health issues that make my job painful and difficult, as well as just getting older. One reason I took this job with this employer is bc employees who do my job have opportunities to change positions after a certain amount of time, without a pay cut, which isn’t the case at most employers of my job. But I have to put in my time at my current position now. So, I miiiiight over exaggerate how much pain/discomfort I’m in some days, so that I don’t have to do the physically harder jobs. I do them sometimes, to be fair, but I’m just trying to survive until I qualify for one of the sweet sweet at-home positions

  260. Selena81*

    Whenever someone calls I will always be indisposed and unable to pick up.
    When someone emails I answer within minutes.

    Someone please invent a phone without calling functionality.

  261. CozyDetective*

    My boss had a bad habit of assigning tasks to me right before they were due. He would provide little context to the assignments but stress that the deadline couldn’t be missed. This obviously had the impact of stressing me out and forcing me to work longer hours to get assignments in on time. The last time he did this, it was right before he went on vacation, and at a time where we had major work to turn in. Instead of rushing, I interrupted him every day of his vacation and feigned an inability to understand how to do the assignments. Given the tight timeline, he ended up doing it all for me. He stopped giving me last minute tasks after that. He also got better about providing necessary context to get the work done.

  262. Capt Tuna*

    As a boat captain some deckhands would claim not knowing how to paint. Fine you are here to learn, grab a brush a clean rag and a can of paint. If you make a mess, clean it with the rag. If you do a poor job, you get to do it tomorrow until you get it right.

  263. Strategic Failure is Boss Management (SFBM)*

    As a person in a highly technical role (think “engineering” but in a well-known, seemingly-large but actually very small field – there’s maybe 1000 of us nationwide at most) strategic failure is a necessary life skill. The bosses in this field most often tend to come from sales weasels (the nature enemy of engineers) who’ve risen through the ranks, or big-idea “visionaries” who are mostly indistinguishable from cult leaders. Unless you want to work 80 hour weeks, most of which between 11pm and 4am, then you better know how to:

    1. Make something fail in a way that cannot be ignored.

    2. Make the failure seem, to the rest of the company, to be the responsibility of the cheap-ass boss.

    3. Make sure it fails such that the consequences would’ve been avoided if the boss has funded your project and/or replaced the dying widget/device.

    My favorite example of this was at one job with the utter boss from hell. He was the founder/owner, and was diagnosed bipolar. He was also a total asshole. The fact that he was bipolar wasn’t why he was an asshole, but it sure magnified the hell out of it. After two years with the company (I left when it imploded and the paychecks stopped coming) I was the most senior employee (other than the boss) and that included his now ex-wife who was his VP in the company until she divorced him after I’d been there about 10 months. That was a fun month where the company’s assets were frozen and my paychecks were coming from the boss’s mother’s checking account.

    ANYWAYS, the job had a “weekly project” kind of schedule. The projects were always slightly different but typically had near-identical workflows and tasks. One key project lead…who did a lot of creative work…was in a different city, and he had to be regularly connected to us and to other teams across the country. This was nearly 20 years ago, long before COVID and Zoom, before mobile computing/smartphones were a thing, and really long before teleconferencing worked worth a damn. So it was a real nasty and error-prone Rube Goldbergian setup to link him into all the other locations so they could communicate in real time.

    The boss was insistent that we send this project lead guy to a particular shared-working-environment facility, because they allegedly had the hardware and personnel to manage these sorts of teleconferences.

    Except…they didn’t. AT ALL. They kinda-sorta did, but not really. And they didn’t even pretend that they did. They didn’t want us as clients, even! But there was a cache to having this guy (he was a semi-famous author, too) being in their space in such a visible way 3 or 4 days a week.

    Meanwhile every goddamn time he was in their space, the tech setup invariably had problems. And their personnel would not know what to do. Or they’d have their own needs for the teleconference space and the scheduling would be a mess. On and on it went, several times a week, for months with nothing but problems. Never quite bad enough to force us to stop the teleconference, but always a last-second rabbit-out-of-a-hat fix that left all us engineers tearing our hair out.

    Finally I concocted a schema, with a little help from my weary friend at the shared-work facility, where we’d make sure things failed completely EVERY TIME. We figured out a plausible excuse about how something outside our control was about to change, and it might affect things negatively. And maybe we should re-think this setup and buy the gear to host things at OUR office, which would remove at least 95% of the problems from where the project lead guy was based.

    Boss says NO. TOO EXPENSIVE.

    A month later, we put our plan into action. Almost immediately, everything just ground to a halt. No “fix” we tried ever worked. Things had to be continuously cancelled and re-scheduled. Project deadlines are being missed. Semi-famous project lead started getting vocally bitchy with the boss. Everyone is screaming at the boss. Outside payments for our invoices are being withheld. It’s bad.

    After two weeks of this crapola, I gently suggest to the boss maybe we should try my idea I suggested last month? Here’s what it will cost (less than all the outstanding invoices we’re being stiffed on) and here’s how long it will take me.

    Boss says YES. GET IT DONE YESTERDAY. NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW (typical)

    Takes me about two weeks to assemble all the hardware and data connections, and now everything works flawlessly! No more connection issues. No more interruptions. No more complicated setups outside of local tech’s knowledge bases. Everything just…works.

    Strategic failure. It’s a critical part of “boss management”. :)

  264. Wolf*

    At my office, it’s birthday/retirement/baby/whatever cards. “Can you write it, girls have such a nice handwriting.” We use lots if handwritten documents, so they are well aware that my handwriting looks like someone dipped a spider in ink and let it walk across the sheet. They just want me to think of a nice text.

  265. Scot Librarian*

    I had an employee stand by some shelves and say ‘I can’t reach, can someone help me’, while fluttering her eyes and using a high pitched, breathless voice. I’m two inches shorter than her and said, ‘the kick stool is there beside you’. She tried other ways to get off doing some parts of the job (like using the till) when there was someoneelse there to do it for her, and each time I’d say, what part of the training wasn’t clear (in a helpful tone) and then retrain her. if she tried it twice I’d say, ‘I’ve trained you on this before, is there something you don’t understand? ‘ and she’d say no, it’s fine. After a bit she stopped trying to weaponise her incompetence and left. She was exhausting. it was as if she was Tring to look like a sweet little girl who needed help from the big strong adults – but she was in her 40s and 90% of the staff were women so none of us put up with it

  266. Hybrid Employee (Part Human, Part Wolf)*

    Weaponized deafness. I worked at a live performance where my team were all on radios with earpieces. We had one team member who was overly scrupulous and would put questions out over the radio that were essentially philosophical debates masquerading as work questions. Like “If my llama scream monitor goes down at the same time that the general llama signal monitor goes down and I can’t get downstairs to the backup llama scream monitor station in time, should I pull the emergency switch on the other side of the room?”

    When one of these came in, one of us would heave a sigh and prepare to answer with why this is not a plan we actually need to have, and also, we’re minutes away from our cue so can this wait? Until one day inspiration struck and I just responded “Copy!” brightly, as if she had delivered information I needed. The non sequitur led to no follow up.

    The next 2-3 times she did it, my teammates did the same thing, and she moved her baroque scenarios to our team meetings, where our boss was able to shut them down.

  267. Coin Purse*

    Late to the game but here’s my story: I am a skilled knitter and it occupies most of my free time. I made the mistake at second to last job of knitting on my lunch minutes. I’d get mobbed with people asking me to teach them to knit, to fix their knitting, “can you quickly show me how to crochet”, etc. Move forward to my last job, I never mentioned it at all and if anyone asked me where I got my knitwear, I’d just say “Nordstrom’s”.

  268. HeraTech*

    I worked for three years at a national bookstore chain that includes a cafe inside their stores. The entire time I worked there I managed to dodge being sent to cover shifts in the cafe because I do not drink coffee and never learned how to make it. Even when I was a store supervisor, with the combination to the store safe, I never learned how to make coffee (luckily my store manager agreed that if I didn’t drink it there wasn’t much point in putting me in a position where I couldn’t recommend any of the various coffee drinks to customers).

  269. Jasperdog*

    Not sure if it’s because I’m a nurse but all I could read was “weaponized incontinence” and thought, damn, this is a thing in offices???!!

  270. O'Bun*

    A good friend of ours is 97 years old, female, and *deliberately* never learned to type (in the UK, if it matters) because she knew that if she could type, she’d do nothing but…

    As a result, her research is still being used today, 60 years after she did the research,

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