Is competence too much to expect?
I have had my share of dealing with incompetence today. I went to a meeting for our neighbourhood to discuss a community wide security initiative. Cool. There were probably 200 people there so while an average ratio of normal humans was in effect, there were enough incompetent idiots to ruin it all.
I like people, I really do. I define people like the Bene Gesserit do. The majority of humanity are not actually people. The rare specimens who are competent, who can follow a train of thought, who can see something coming before it slaps them in the face, has it's way with the family pet and steals their wallet are people. The idiots who couldn't organise a pissup in a brewery are not people, they're more akin to merino's. There for when we need fleece.
Anyway, today's meeting was simply to get a show of support for this initiative, a simple majority yes or no vote. But no, some people felt it was absolutely essential that the effectiveness of electric fencing be discussed. Or the fact that we pay as much tax as northern European countries do but have to defend ourselves. Or that some statistics showing that vehicle related crimes constituted 60% of all crime in our area in 2003 was so important that we needed to spend 15 minutes discussing it. Small minutiae that was as relevant to the proceedings as a discussion on the growing of tulips.
What could have been a 30 minute discussion ran for an hour and a half. And most of it because slow witted people felt the need to make a contribution. Maybe it is unfair of me to expect people to stick to the topic at hand, maybe I shouldn't expect people to stick to the core issues. Big picture thinking, they can't do it. We weren't there to discuss what to do, just to get approval for the committee to research and invite proposals.
People who latch onto something small and make that the whole of it. You can't contemplate Australia by looking at a grain of sand. Why can people not realise that and acknowledge to themselves that they are the mentally deficient meat sacks they are and shut the fuck up.
I constantly run into this though. I have discussed marketing proposals with people and landed up being told that one tv advert was really good. I have had clients who can only comment on the use of Arial when they prefer Times New Roman on a design. The client who thought that having a download section structured just the way he wanted would make a 100 room forum simply take off with no need for moderators or people driving it. The md who figured rationing exam pads would save his company from the financial straits it was in and kept discussing that in financial meetings.
Big picture people. If you can't see it, shut up, let those of us who can get on with it. Don't just shut up, go and hide in a corner and stay out of the way of those of us who actually can see it, who can do something. Don't reveal yourself to have an intellect that would make mouldy bread embarrassed.
Labels:
big picture,
competence
