The Ineptitude is The Point
On weaponized incompetence.
It was the year before all of this started.
A friend came by my office to tell me she was quitting. She told me a story that summed up her daily experiences working in my university's IT office. One day, she asked a colleague to fix a mistake he'd made before breaking for lunch. Instead of adulting, he pretended not to hear her. As she repeated herself, raising her voice, he started shuffling toward the exit, eventually bursting into a full on charge through the door. He came back two hours later, smelling of hot wings and ranch dressing, and smiled at her.
He asked if she "still needed help."
She told him no.
He grinned to himself. Then he walked over to his supervisor's office, where he spent the afternoon schmoozing.
Sometime around then, I read an article by a relationship coach, describing how her husband spread the flu throughout their house by constantly "forgetting" his medical mask, sneezing into his hand, then touching handles and doorknobs. She let him have it,…