I say as little as possible and hope no one notices 😶

I sigh, shake my head, then redo the work the way I should have done it the first time.

Wildly depends on the context.

If someone will legit get hurt or killed by incompetence, you speak up. That’s time-sensitive, and you can’t afford to twiddle your thumbs just because you’re anxious or whatever. Immediacy of physical harm is the one situation where action is most important above all and even if you’re shy and withdrawn and generally don’t get along socially with people, you can’t cater to that in certain situations and you have to do something yourself to fix the situation if incompetence is going to cause physical harm.

In situations where an entire company is being incompetent as a whole or is doing something terrible, you leave/quit. Yes, it’s sometimes a choice between removing yourself from an immoral situation or starving–and I have, absolutely, chosen to be poorer and starving rather than be a part of certain things. But other people make that choice on their own knowing their own internal situation and context.

If someone’s just being dumb and the consequences of their dumbness are my own irritation or frustration but nothing that actually matters but my poor feelings, I often ignore it. There is no way as a human to fix everything that is wrong with everyone everywhere, so it becomes important to learn how to internally deal with your disappointment when you discover that the world is imperfect.

Online, I don’t believe really in “debate” (I don’t learn from active, aggressive live-action debate–it’s more likely to trigger me to shut down and STOP learning, which is bad), I learn more from reading other people’s convos. So I will sometimes respond to someone who is being dumb, not as a way to get into a debate with them, but to get my perspective out there so lurkers who learn as I do by reading more than interacting have something to chew over that’s better than the bullshit I saw. I don’t expect anyone to take my words uncritically–that’s not how people learn–I’m just massively disinterested in debate since it fucks up my own ability to keep pressing forward with learning. (Trauma in my past means my responses to stress are all fucky, so I jury-rig things to work around it.)

I don’t know and I don’t care

I explain slowly and patiently why what management is asking us to do is foolish, not feasible, or can’t be accomplished properly in the timeframe given.

Then I start working on it anyway.

I try to think about my next work day before. I recently sat down and made a big nested bullet list of all the aspects of my job I need to master, and that helped.

I make sure to tell my clients that I’m not an expert at what I’m doing and that we need to move carefully. When I say thinks I’m not sure of, I let people know that it’s just speculation.

Mostly I just try to remember that I’m learning, that I’m capable of learning, and that as long as I continue to try, my competence will increase steadily.

Also, I make extensive use of other more experienced people who do my same job. I show them work I’ve done and ask for their criticism and advice.

I try to maintain respectful and friendly relationships with my collaborators, but this is very difficult as my mental health is poor. To the end of being my best self and not my shittiest self, I try to avoid inflammatory foods, keep my hydration going, and exercise.

Mostly my attitude responds to whether or not I’m doing my best. If I don’t do my best, and give everything I have, then my attitude goes downhill fast and I feel resentful, afraid, bitter, angry, and it shows up in my work.

Patience primarily. But if it’s important or someone is going to get hurt, I’ll speak up. You don’t want to be that guy that is always trying to tell them they are wrong. No matter how helpful it could theoretically be, that isn’t how psychology allows that interaction style to go. Pick your battles so they are ready and willing to hear you the times when it really matters.

Eventually, hopefully they will start asking your opinion. But yeah, the most important ingredient is that they aren’t annoyed by you first.

My own? Or that of others? Ignorance is usually fixable, learn what you need to. Incompetence can often be remedied through practice. Nobody starts out knowledgeable or competent.

If it’s someone else’s incompetence and it’s affecting me (like we had an A/P person at work who could not get one vendor paid at the right amount, ever, and it was making my job harder) I usually look at the systems around the person, thinking things should be set up to avoid human error - people are often asked to do things that don’t make sense. For example, to keep the same example - “make sure you don’t pay an invoice twice if it’s sent to us twice”. I mean, sure, but the system should be preventing that, people are always going to fuck it up.

Long answer but I generally approach it thinking people aren’t trying to do bad work, and certainly not doing bad work to annoy me, there is something in their way.

You can get some very good diapers for adults nowadays. Also special bed linned help a lot. /s

In Dutch we have a saying “A donkey never walks into the same stone twice”. I conclude that donkeys are a lot smarter then most humans, sigh and hope nature will sort this one out.

I honestly don’t know how I deal with myself sometimes… Ah wait you mean with other incompetent people… Uuh, I just let them do their thing and put on a huge ignore wall around them.

I generally try to avoid possessing these traits

In others, I try to ignore it or find it amusing.

In myself, I try to learn things to keep it at bay.

Naturally I cover up with more trivia and try switching switch to a more fundamental topic.

I just don’t talk to those people anymore. It’s just not worth it. I’ve walked away from jobs just to be rid of those folks.