2 posts tagged “stupid people”
It takes a lot to build distrust in me. I am by nature a very trusting person. I trust people to know their jobs and to do them correctly. I trust people to be nice. I trust people to do the right thing.
Most of the time, I'm justified in behaving as if everyone is trustworthy.
But every now and then, someone comes along who destroys that trust. And once they do, it takes a very long time and a lot of effort on their part to rebuild it.
We have a new security service where I work. They aren't really that new since they've been stationed there for over 2 months now - more than long enough to learn our routines and get their act together. The first people they had in were good - they learned quickly, they were friendly, and they were willing to comply with our routines and rules. They quickly replaced these people with others who were far less efficient, and as soon as we had them up to speed, they were in turn replaced by others.
This third set is a mixed bag. The day shift person has finally made a slight turn-around and is doing better. I still resent that she takes up to 4 hours' worth of smoke breaks in a place of business that is smoke-free. I'd resent her taking up to 4 hours' worth of break whether she was smoking or not, the smoking is just gloss on it all. The Sunday night person is fantastic - smart, quick to learn, friendly, doesn't make the same mistake twice. I'd reluctantly trust the day person, whole-heartedly trust the Sunday night person. There's a rotating shift person whom I think is slow and on the stupid side, but I will give him that he rarely repeats a mistake, so yes, I'd trust him.
And then there's the one I already ranted about - who uses passive-aggressive techniques to slide out of doing his job. This morning, I caught him digging around my desk, looking for who knows what. He's the security guard! There's nothing at my desk that he would need. Nada. I've been slowly losing my patience with him. I've had reports that some of my co-workers suspect he's digging around in their areas, but we've had no proof it was him, or some other security guard. Today, I had proof he was doing it at one desk for real - mine. And if he's been doing this at my desk, the chances are high he was digging in other people's areas, too.
He, too, is a serious abuser of breaks - either he has a serious prostate problem, or he's procrastinating for long periods of time very frequently (like every half hour to an hour for at least 10-15 minutes each time) in the men's room.
I want the first group of people back we trained. I'll even take most of the ones we currently have, if we'd just convince the security agency to replace this one who is not trustworthy.
Not people who are genuinely stupid, slow to learn, or ignorant. I am annoyed by people who pretend to be stupid so they can get out of doing their proper job. I refuse to make excuses for them. And now I'm to the point where I am refusing to deal with them.
One in particularly has annoyed me by his passive aggressive techniques. I speak clearly and enunciate well. I am employed because I have a voice and diction that are lucid and understandable to most people, even ones who don't speak English as their native language. Yet this one asks me to repeat myself up to 9 nine times before he finally admits he understands me. I use as many words of one syllable with him as I can because he does this to me often. Today, I decided that it is not my problem if he doesn't understand me the first time. I will repeat once and once only. After that, he's on his own.
Another little technique he uses is to deliberately misinterpret what I tell him. Because what he does impacts on my job directly, I have made it as clear as I can what the expectations are. I've made written notes detailing what we are each supposed to in those tasks we both do. That way, he knows what I do and what I expect to have accomplished with the task. Since it is a security function, I am rather anal about how it is done. We issue keycards. The keycards need to be inventoried every day. I keep them in numerical order, in groups of ten, divided in drawers by the buildings they open. The security guard or myself writes down the keycard number as it is issued, and logs it back in when it is filed. He issues keycards without writing down the right number, or sometimes without writing down the number at all! He returns keycards to the cabinet without logging them as returned, and he puts them in the wrong drawers and the wrong numerical order. After six weeks of doing this simple task, he has yet to get it right.
Because I normally have a work-related errand to hand deliver important papers at the end of the day, I usually leave my desk half an hour before my shift end. He's been tasked with forwarding my phone at 5:00, and told not to forward it one second before. Today, because I didn't have to leave early to run a work-related errand, I stayed until my proper shift end. He came five minutes early to forward the phone. When I asked him why he was so early, he said it was because his watch - <b>his watch!</b> - said it was 5:00. I informed him that we didn't operateby his inaccurate time piece. The time to forward the phones was when the phone clock said 5:00. I asked if he'd been forwarding the phones this early every day. He asked me to repeat myself. I did. Once. Then waited for his answer. All he could say was, "My watch said 5:00."
Grrrr! The man is <i>not</i> stupid. It's all an act, and I will not tolerate it.
He can try to play all the passive aggressive games he wants. He can pretend to be as antagonistically stupid as he wants. He knows what his duties are. When I have to speak to him (and that will be as infrequently as feasible, considering we have to convey some information to one another) I will repeat only once, and then the ball is in his court. I will have told him the information as clear and concise as possible twice. If he can't understand it - or refuses to understand it - that's his problem. Not mine.
I hate people who act deliberately stupid.
