Why does watching someone incompetent annoy me ?
Why does watching someone incompetent annoy me ?
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ExPat2B

Original Poster:

2,159 posts

231 months

Wednesday 16th September 2015
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I don't know why, but for as long as I can remember, watching someone do something in an incompetent fashion really annoys me.

The effect is magnified when it is something I am quite good at.

Why ? I have never understood it, but the impulse appears strong and reasonably universal...

StevieBee

15,492 posts

286 months

Wednesday 16th September 2015
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Yep. I'm the same.

Watching my wife type and send an email is akin to nails scraping down a blackboard.

slomax

7,286 posts

223 months

Wednesday 16th September 2015
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I get this all the time.

Its an internal dilemma/argument within yourself. This is because you know its something you could do much faster/better, but deep down you know its not your job. This is their job, and well, if they can't do the job they are supposed to be doing, then they have no purpose (within that job role). So you let them struggle on.

This is what I feel anyway.

Pixel Pusher

10,427 posts

190 months

Wednesday 16th September 2015
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Professional pride.

The trick is not letting it develop into micro management.


rohrl

8,984 posts

176 months

Wednesday 16th September 2015
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If you mean that urge you get to shout "What the fk are you doing, you fking spastic?" when standing behind someone dithering about with a self-service till in a supermarket or a crappy driver not pulling out at a junction then I think this happens to everyone.

Fishtigua

9,786 posts

226 months

Wednesday 16th September 2015
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Having spent many years in the 3rd World, it just washes over you.

BUT just sometimes you want to throttle them.

CarAbuser

712 posts

155 months

Wednesday 16th September 2015
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rohrl said:
If you mean that urge you get to shout "What the fk are you doing, you fking spastic?" when standing behind someone dithering about with a self-service till in a supermarket
That's one of the reasons I stopped going to Morissons.

Instead I pay a little more at Waitrose and leave the shop without wanting to abuse the self-service spazzers.

Watchman

6,391 posts

276 months

Wednesday 16th September 2015
quotequote all
Fishtigua said:
Having spent many years in the 3rd World, it just washes over you.

BUT just sometimes you want to throttle them.
This is just begging for examples. Please? hehe

Quhet

2,958 posts

177 months

Wednesday 16th September 2015
quotequote all
Watchman said:
Fishtigua said:
Having spent many years in the 3rd World, it just washes over you.

BUT just sometimes you want to throttle them.
This is just begging for examples. Please? hehe
Surely there's just the same amount of incompetent people wherever you go? It's just that people are not as competent as others at certain things.

Not having a dig here, but that first statement made me feel a little uncomfortable implying it's the third world becayse they're all incompetent. I'm sure it wasn't meant as suchsmile

TorqueDirty

1,916 posts

250 months

Wednesday 16th September 2015
quotequote all
Quhet said:
Watchman said:
Fishtigua said:
Having spent many years in the 3rd World, it just washes over you.

BUT just sometimes you want to throttle them.
This is just begging for examples. Please? hehe
Surely there's just the same amount of incompetent people wherever you go? It's just that people are not as competent as others at certain things.

Not having a dig here, but that first statement made me feel a little uncomfortable implying it's the third world becayse they're all incompetent. I'm sure it wasn't meant as suchsmile
Flared corduroys, velvet jacket and nut cutlets.

That is all.





northwest monkey

6,370 posts

220 months

Wednesday 16th September 2015
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I never understood why people found Frank Spencer funny. The bloke was an incompetent, annoying, unfunny .

ExPat2B

Original Poster:

2,159 posts

231 months

Thursday 17th September 2015
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rohrl said:
If you mean that urge you get to shout "What the fk are you doing, you fking spastic?" when standing behind someone dithering about with a self-service till in a supermarket or a crappy driver not pulling out at a junction then I think this happens to everyone.
I get this, and I can understand the emotion then, they are getting in my way and wasting my time, and frustration is a natural result.

StevieBee said:
Yep. I'm the same.

Watching my wife type and send an email is akin to nails scraping down a blackboard.
Yes this is it exactly - I have no personal stake in my Wife typing an email to someone else, her performance of the task has no bearing on my life at all, and yet somehow watching her painstakingly use two fingers. t.o....t.y.p.e....e.a.c.h....w.o.r.d....whilst intently staring at the keyboard really bugs me.



Simon Brooks

1,527 posts

282 months

Thursday 17th September 2015
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CarAbuser said:
That's one of the reasons I stopped going to Morissons.

Instead I pay a little more at Waitrose and leave the shop without wanting to abuse the self-service spazzers.
Like being able to spell Morrisons correctly smile


Du1point8

22,963 posts

223 months

Thursday 17th September 2015
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Just get the tube daily... the amount of times you reach the barriers and the fktard in front then realises at that moment in time 'Oh... I need the oyster card to get out/in'... then spends the next minute or so looking for the fking thing.

You hope and pray people are not that stupid that they don't get it ready a few seconds before hand.

Almost as bad are the people that don't realise the self service scanners won't work until you place the previous item in the bagging area, so complaining it won't work whilst having the previous scanned item in one hand and trying to scan the next one with other hand is just fked up...

Hoofy

80,166 posts

313 months

Thursday 17th September 2015
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Yesterday, in a supermarket car park, I spotted an X5 with blacked out windows (including front side windows) looking like it was dumped rather than parked. The space next to it would be impossible to use due to bollards on the other side.

What a st person, I thought.

Then she came back, loaded her shopping into the car, began to reverse, had a white van horn at her while driving past because she hadn't checked. Then had an MPV horn at her because she didn't check again.

Yep, what a st person.

AJS-

15,366 posts

267 months

Thursday 17th September 2015
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Watchman said:
This is just begging for examples. Please? hehe
Thailand throws up some crackers. When I moved house a couple of years ago I watched them doing some work and saw:

A guy paint the stairs from the bottom up then realise he couldn't get down.

The same guy started to put a window latch on the outside.

Wall paper only glued on around the edges and fell off within the day.

Another guy trying to cram 3 feet of cable behind a wall socket. When he finally relented and cut the cable to a more reasonable length he put the cover and and promptly drove a screw straight through it.

I actaully decided I couldn't watch in the end and left it to my wife, only insisting that it really is a good idea to earth a shower.


I also bought a bike recently and the guy tightened up the small allen bolt holding the pedals on by standing on the allen key and stripping the threads.


Every single day you see a myriad of driving sins that make you want to shake them violently. The best of these was a staggered cross roads near my old place where every single Saturday you would get a circular traffic jam where no one could move, and every available gap soon filled up with motorbikes and food carts.


And ask XJS John about the police's efforts to improve traffic flow at rush hour. Proper comedy.

cootuk

918 posts

154 months

Thursday 17th September 2015
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Even worse when the wife insists you get a "professional" in, so you also have the privilege of paying them to do a half-arsed job.

C.A.R.

3,993 posts

219 months

Thursday 17th September 2015
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Incompetant but still quite productive?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujExJN6jYgU

Moonhawk

10,730 posts

250 months

Thursday 17th September 2015
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StevieBee said:
Yep. I'm the same.

Watching my wife type and send an email is akin to nails scraping down a blackboard.
I'm the same when watching my wife use a PC.

Stop double clicking fking web links!!!!!!!!!!!

Type R Tom

4,338 posts

180 months

Thursday 17th September 2015
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Watching some of the older chaps in the office try to do simple MS Office functions after I've already shown them 10 times this week.