On Incompetence — an inability to carry out a task satisfactorily
Considering that I just wrote a piece on imperfection, it is paradoxical to write on the topic of incompetence. Not all of us are gifted, to be successful at what ever we do. Some of us realize our ineptitude, and change courses along the way to find something we are better at. Others don’t for they are afraid to lose what little they have and get comfortable with their incompetence. They trudge along often making life miserable for those that they associate with. Now how do you deal with incompetence in your daily life?
Recently, I had been to the airport to receive my family who were returning after a long international flight. There were many dreary passengers making the exit with overflowing carts, filled with overweight suitcases. After a sixteen hour flight and an hour to clear immigration and waiting for bags, they had to wait an additional thirty or more minutes to get on the elevator to Level 4 of the parking garage. How incompetent could the airport managers be? If this is happening every day, don’t you think someone would have developed a system to fix it. Worst part was unless you wanted to wait much longer, you were better off, to take the down elevator to the subterranean so you could get your place assured as it made its way back up.
We get in the car and are getting ready to leave the airport and spent 15 minutes in line to pay for parking. Couldn’t they have a payment machine on each floor. How can making a dreary passenger wait in a long line to exit a parking garage be of any value to anyone. Once again all I could do was to sigh in frustration at the incompetence of the parking lot managers.
Every time it rains in Houston, the stop lights somehow always go out and start flashing red. This inevitably leads to long lines leading to the light. Sometimes this happens in the least busy intersection and turns a 30 minute commute for some to an hour and a half. It’s not as if the power is out, it seems like it takes for ever to reset the light to function normally. In the 21st century in America this is a shame. This happens in multiple locations perhaps around the country. How incompetent can our traffic managers be? The traffic managers haven’t stopped just with that. On average everyday I get stopped at least at two red lights with no traffic perpendicular to me. It can’t be hard to install a weight or proximity sensor so the light doesn’t change when there is no cross traffic.
Just the other day we went to a concert in Reliant Arena. On our way there I realized I had left my wallet at home. Luckily my son who was with me that day was carrying his. He had $10 in cash and his cards with him so we felt like we could wing it. We arrive at the gates only to see a big sign saying — Parking — $20 cash only. After haggling with the gate agent who rightfully refuses to let us in for $10 we began our hunt for an ATM to get some cash. Isn’t it strange that in a world full of automation where electronic payment abounds that we can’t pay for parking without cash. Sometimes whilst some parts of the wheel are turning fast, others are in the 1800’s.
Incompetence does not restrict itself only to our private lives but also abounds in our work place. Even in a highly productive workplace such as the US there are gross inefficiencies in how things are done. The very reason true automation and pseudo automation ( read RPAs … Robotic Process Automation) are taking over is because for years people did the same thing over and over again never once questioning why they had to do things that way. All you needed was a twenty something Generation X, Y or Z’er to come and question everything, for change to happen.
It requires a growth mind set to question what you do and how you do it. But many of us are complacent and don’t want to do the hard work of initiating the change. I am certain what is frustrating for me is inconvenient for others too. So it’s not that we all feel differently about something that is imperfect but only some us will go the extra step to make change happen. Sometimes our ability to make change happen evolves as we age. As we get set in our ways we become more accepting.
We do things very differently at work than at home. Once we leave work we have the luxury to purchase things with a single click using Amazon or hail a cab using the Uber app. But if you have ever tried getting something at work — goods or services you will agree how antiquated this world still is. Technology is available to take us forward but inertia holds us back from advancing.
Look around you with an open mind and you will probably find something that’s run poorly and inefficiently. Get engaged and let’s pledge to make this world a better place tomorrow and not wait for someone else to do the job for us !
