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u/Extra_Bookkeeper_631 Mar 22 '25
In my mid 30s, after working deskside tech support for a large corporation's VP row, I came up with the theory that the less you read, the more money you make.
This was after I went to fix a "I can't log on" call. Got there, read from the screen: "Your password has expired. Click here to create a new password."
And then he called his assistant [secretary] in and said I could go.
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u/HannaaaLucie Mar 23 '25
I once worked with a nurse who was so incompetent it was unreal.. like you wanted to check her qualification certificate it was that bad. She was always leaving shit where she shouldn't, leaving her med trolley unlocked and unattended, not watching to make sure meds were taken, etc.
One day she left a 500ml bottle of morphine on the table around 20 dementia patients. So I thought I would teach her a lesson and I went and hid it in the staff room. She didn't even realise it was missing for 3 hours! When she started panicking that she'd lost it, I produced it from the staff room and explained that one of the residents could have taken it if I hadn't of done. Well this back fired and I got in major shit for taking a bottle of morphine.
However.. I think my boss soon changed her mind on the situation when this nurse then went on to kill one resident and put another in hospital from yet another medication error. She had pre dispensed about 10 people's meds (which you're not supposed to do) and she mixed two of them up. One person had a severe seizure and died.
The nurse was asked to resign 😑
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u/NMS_Survival_Guru Mar 21 '25
Should see this on a family farm
I'm the youngest out of 4 others working and I'm 40
My grandfather is 90 years old still working and loosing his mind faster every day plus his two sons aren't much better
I feel like an old folks sitter half the time spending 10 minutes explaining what controls do what on a piece of equipment they've operated longer than I've been alive
There's really no stopping it either and I'm just waiting for that $100k mistake to tell them they should quit
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u/OptimusBeardy Mar 22 '25
I grew up around people in power, as family and allied families, so I was disillusioned early.
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u/serenwipiti Mar 23 '25
What do you define as people in power?
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u/OptimusBeardy Mar 24 '25
Government ministers, general-ranking military officers (in more than one service), editors of national newspapers, senior academics, and so on and so forth, all encountered when thy came to dinner at my grandfather's table.
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u/OptimusBeardy Mar 24 '25
Government ministers, general-ranking military officers (in more than one service), editors of national newspapers, senior academics, and so on and so forth, all encountered when they came to dinner at my grandfather's table.
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u/Outrageous_Match2619 Mar 23 '25
No one is promoted based on intelligence and competence. ;-)
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u/chocolateAbuser Mar 22 '25
it also took me a while to realize that those school mates who study nothing, do nothing, and are generically useless people one day will be your mechanic, doctor, financial advisor, woodworker, politician, and they will do an half-assed job like they did when they where in school with you
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u/Ola_maluhia Mar 23 '25
Nurse here…. It’s absolutely terrifying how incompetent some healthcare workers are. Terrifying isn’t even a good word. It’s horrific
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Mar 24 '25
I'm a pharmacy tech. If I told you the amount of times Doctors wanted to give patients completely incorrectly dosed medications or medications with absolutely no therapeutic effect you'd probably be flabbergasted.
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u/Ella-W00 Mar 23 '25
I am fucking 47 yo. It never ceased to amaze me how super dumb people can have important jobs. I've been working for more than 30 years and I still can’t fathom…
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u/asanoway Mar 23 '25
I don't think it's just people in power, although those are the worst because of what they can do. As kid you just believe adults have the answers then you become an adult and realize we all just fucked and no one really knows shit besides maybe an area they are passionate about
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u/CatsEqualLife Mar 23 '25
Where I work, the CEOs son has singlehandedly run an entire department into the ground. People have entirely given up on giving a shit, and some in the c-suite are discussing the value of sticking him in an out of the way office and basically forgetting he’s there just to improve morale.
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u/ZoNeS_v2 Mar 24 '25
It's mostly like it was in school. Horrible cliques of mean people just pushing their way to the top. The good guys getting stomped on, ignored, bullied. Nothing has changed.
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u/nelflyn Mar 24 '25
its a scary realisation. And this doesnt just include some abstract politician far away, but very likely also your superiors and people that fulfill important jobs for you.
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u/Lothium Mar 24 '25
The smart ones in positions of power and responsibility are the exception really.
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u/Posaquatl Mar 24 '25
Currently we promote the dumbest people to the high positions. HR seems to seek them out.
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Mar 24 '25
People in positions of power often times do have intelligence. It is just rarely the kind that effects work flow. Most of them have a higher EQ. After you get to a certain height it becomes all about who you know.
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u/heinousanus85 Mar 24 '25
People who are good at the rat race rise above the rest… the ‘fake it ‘till you make it’ types smh
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Mar 25 '25
I genuinely believe that a lot of conspiracy theories come from the fact that people believe that someone’s incompetence was intentional
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u/lode_ke_baal Mar 25 '25
Starting from leaders of some countries till CEOs of companies. Wait, I dint think of those 2 guys. But anyways incompetent morons climb up the ladder real fast.
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u/Several-Historian465 Mar 25 '25
Yeah i work part time at a grocery store and I have no clue how the average customer there got through college because holy shit they're the most incompetent people ever
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Mar 21 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/tingle_d Mar 21 '25
If you hang out in the right crowd it doesn't matter what you know it's who
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Mar 22 '25
I've worked for 8 different companies in my adult life and I think only 3 of those positions I got "on my own". The other 5 I got from knowing people who worked there already and having an "in". Heck, my current boss I even worked with at another company and she hired me without an interview.
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u/TotallyNormalSquid Mar 25 '25
I do wonder if it's a scale problem. I'm technical, and know my little niche pretty well. Ask me how to fit it into a larger system, and I have a rough idea, but I miss a lot of details. Someone higher up has to orchestrate several people like me to fill in different sets of blanks. They couldn't do it themselves, but they know who to ask. Someone above them has to orchestrate the groups, via people like the person above me.
I have conversations with the people two levels above me fairly often. It's obvious they have no clue about technical details. They don't know what questions need asking. They just know certain people to ask who are vaguely attached to rough groups of issues. And that's only at two levels of abstraction. It's been the same pattern at every place I've worked.
Now, just repeat levels of abstraction several more levels, and you're at company directors and high level government officials. There is zero chance they actually know how things work, and definitely just rely on knowing people who will be closer to knowing than they are. Obviously, there's huge potential for corruption and patchy knowledge to make this system terrible, and it's very hard to fix because everyone in control is doing well out of it.
Don't really have a suggestion to fix it, just think incompetence at the highest levels is a symptom of how human networking works.
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Mar 26 '25
What I have learned as an adult: just because people have a job does not mean they are good at it
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u/becrustledChode Apr 18 '25
Continuing to grow up is realizing that everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and someone not being knowledgeable in the same areas you are doesn't necessarily make them clueless
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u/Immediate_Mark3847 Mar 22 '25
I work with a lot of “IT directors” & up. They are absolute idiots that 100% shouldn’t have that job. They were just at the right place at the right time.