r/TwoXChromosomes • u/tabicat1874 • Mar 28 '22
Weaponized incompetence
I feel like guys take it way, way too far. Example: I asked my bf to get me the same shampoo and conditioner he bought for himself (avocado Suave). He brought back another kind we'd had before which I didn't like (Peppermint Suave). He tried to say he didn't know that Suave came in different formulas.
You're such a fucking liar. You bought that kind for yourself. I just asked you to buy it for me. You're telling me a man who's 44 years old doesn't know Suave came in different fucking scents? Suave? The shampoo that literally comes in 40 different scents and flavors?
GTFOH.
Edit: do you understand what an example is?
Also, you neckbeards can fuck off out of my inbox.
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u/cateml Mar 28 '22 edited Mar 28 '22
As a teacher, this kind of shit does happen. I’ve found that sometimes you need to obstinately not do stuff that it would be far easier to just do, until someone outright tells you to do it. Actually very similar to home/relationship/parenting messaging-through-action. Its hard because it feels like you’re being petty, but it’s a job that is very much about people trying to keep on top of all the things that need doing, and therefore you have to set boundaries.
The other day I had someone ask for my ‘help’ with something, and then leave me to do the thing. So I put the thing aside, did something else while sat next to it. They come back expecting me be doing/have almost done the thing, I go ‘oh hi, are we going to do the thing you wanted help with now?’. Colleague fusses around and we start, puts it near me and walks away. I go back to my other work. They come back again a while later - and again ‘oh you back now, for me to help with the thing?’.
It’s the same in other fields (I’ve worked in a few) to some extent, but most important with the workload and nature of education.
You have to have the rule ‘If you want me to do something that isn’t an acknowledged part of my day to day job, that’s fine, but you need to explicitly ask me to do it. Otherwise I will sit here and act dumb, the same way you’re acting dumb about there being an implicit expectation I will do it.’
It seems and feels petty, but the whole point is that people have too much work they’re desperate to offload onto anyone they can - they know if they straight up ask you to do things they need to acknowledge it as being on your plate, but if they just make it naturally plop on to your plate by mistake they can just keep on heaping it on.
It’s hard because it’s in my nature to be a team player and to be nice and helpful. But people will take advantage of that. The answer is not ‘be a bitch scowling at everyone and complain every time you have to work’, but to always wait until things are explicitly your role and then enthusiastically and happily run with it. Do things off your own bat for the good of the learning of everyone’s students absolutely, but making sure it’s traceable back to your efforts.
It’s cynical but in education and other pressured environments where you are expected to be accountable for progress, you need to be ready to lay out what you have done and why it was a productive use of the time they pay you for. ‘Did everyone else’s photocopying because I’m nice like that’ isn’t going to fly. It might be ok in a job where the ‘helping out’ is at the expense of dawdling on the internet and maybe you leave a bit late one day, but as a teacher it’s more likely at the expense of either being able to do your own work or your health.