- Joined
- Sep 25, 2021
I am a male but I've had to deal with people feigning incompetence before and had some thoughts about it.
I think it's become a huge problem at home, with men pulling this with women because it's somehow become accepted in that setting. Its a shitty thing to do and sadly it will keep happening as long as the person gets away with it. Ive seen it happen many times where the woman does things because the man "doesnt know how" or "isnt good at it" and at first the woman pushes back but gets sick of trying to make him do it or decides its easier to do it herself rather than force him to do it and then re do it herself because it was halfassed.
That being said, I think it is a human problem and all people will pull this tactic if it works for them. Whether they are conciously aware of it or not their brain realizes "if i say X then i get to avoid Y". I've seen both genders pull this shit in the workplace. A male or female doesn't have to do the shitty tasks because they "aren't good at it" or "don't know how" and the boss just ends up asking the same people to perform that task because it's easier. Those people get it done and don't fuck it up. It's more effort for the boss to get the incompetent person to do it because the boss has to walk them through it and babysit them.
I've seen it countered before a few times. When the person feigns incompetence or ignorance the boss just says "oh that's okay. I'll teach you. Then you just need experience. So once I've taught you, you can get experience by being the only one that does this job until you're up to speed then it will become a shared job again". When faced with having to do it all the time instead of just some of the time it's amazing how quickly they stop being incompetent. Then when it's a shared job again and you ask them to do it they can't claim to not know or not be good at it because they were good at it when it meant not having to be the only one doing it anymore. You just have to be more stubborn than them and pretend like you're nurturing them.
I don't know how this would work with stuff at home. Maybe it would work like:
"do you mind loading the dishwasher?"
"I can but I'm not good at it"
"It's okay. You just need practice. How about you load and unload it everyday until you get the hang of it and then when you're as good at it as I am we can share the responsibility again?"
I don't know if this would work but maybe someone is willing to give it a shot and report back?
We had to do this shit in the army after it became touchy feely and we weren't allowed to call incompetent Privates retards anymore because that's bullying and also performance punishment is bad. Getting the same competent Private to do a job all the time because you knew they wouldn't fuck it up is the same as punishing them for being good at it. So if someone was bad at something (or pretending to be bad because they think theyre clever) we had to first make sure they had been taught how to properly do it. Then make them do it all the time until they were as competent as the others. Then it'd go back to which ever Private is closest when I need the job done.
That being said, I think it is a human problem and all people will pull this tactic if it works for them. Whether they are conciously aware of it or not their brain realizes "if i say X then i get to avoid Y". I've seen both genders pull this shit in the workplace. A male or female doesn't have to do the shitty tasks because they "aren't good at it" or "don't know how" and the boss just ends up asking the same people to perform that task because it's easier. Those people get it done and don't fuck it up. It's more effort for the boss to get the incompetent person to do it because the boss has to walk them through it and babysit them.
I've seen it countered before a few times. When the person feigns incompetence or ignorance the boss just says "oh that's okay. I'll teach you. Then you just need experience. So once I've taught you, you can get experience by being the only one that does this job until you're up to speed then it will become a shared job again". When faced with having to do it all the time instead of just some of the time it's amazing how quickly they stop being incompetent. Then when it's a shared job again and you ask them to do it they can't claim to not know or not be good at it because they were good at it when it meant not having to be the only one doing it anymore. You just have to be more stubborn than them and pretend like you're nurturing them.
I don't know how this would work with stuff at home. Maybe it would work like:
"do you mind loading the dishwasher?"
"I can but I'm not good at it"
"It's okay. You just need practice. How about you load and unload it everyday until you get the hang of it and then when you're as good at it as I am we can share the responsibility again?"
I don't know if this would work but maybe someone is willing to give it a shot and report back?
We had to do this shit in the army after it became touchy feely and we weren't allowed to call incompetent Privates retards anymore because that's bullying and also performance punishment is bad. Getting the same competent Private to do a job all the time because you knew they wouldn't fuck it up is the same as punishing them for being good at it. So if someone was bad at something (or pretending to be bad because they think theyre clever) we had to first make sure they had been taught how to properly do it. Then make them do it all the time until they were as competent as the others. Then it'd go back to which ever Private is closest when I need the job done.
