Competency Crisis™
Navigating the Kidult Economy
Ask yourself, when was the last time that any interaction you had with a business was easy? When was the last time a service or software worked as advertised? When was the last time something was built or completed on time, on budget? I’ll save you the headache, it hasn’t happened in the last decade. The Competency Crisis™ is in full effect.
So how do you navigate this? How do you stop the incompetence of others from costing you? From sapping all your productive time and ruining your business? Unfortunately, it will cost you. It’ll cost you in both time and money. By knowing this you can mitigate how much of each gets taken from you. But if you ignore the problem the cost will be exponentially higher. Here are some things you can do to reduce the pain and minimize the time penalties.
Steps to Mitigate the Incompetence
1. Never send more than one question in an email/text/DM. People can no longer hold two thoughts at one time. If you send two questions, you will get one answer. Likely it won’t be an answer to either question. Send one question at a time. Depending on the person at the other end, you might have to wait for an answer before sending a second question, even if it's unrelated.
2. Use appointment apps as much as possible. People have the memory of a goldfish. If you don’t set the appointment for them, and automate a reminder to them, then the appointment is forgotten. Punctuality is a lost form of respect.
3. If you have not heard back from someone in the last twenty-four hours, you are not going to hear from them. Ever. Doesn’t matter if it’s a voicemail, email or text. If you don’t have a response in twenty-four hours, contact them again. Just get used to being pushy and persistent.
4. At the risk of being a Karen, when dealing with tech support ask to speak to the supervisor/manager. Completely bypass the Kidult that answers the phone. The purpose of said Kidult is to discourage you and make you give up. Being a roadblock is their only value to a company. This goes double for SaaS (Software as a Service).
5. Make yourself a micro expert in everything. Taxes and banking are the big ones here. Unless you’re paying $5k+ to your CPA then odds are you have a glorified H&R block person. If your business has anything remotely unique about it you need to know the tax implications and bring them to the CPA. After watching the meltdowns of SVB and Silvergate, if you are dealing with sums greater than two hundred and fifty thousand, you should know your bank's risk exposure.This rule applies for everything; medical problems, legal issues, everything.
6. Understand that when time is critical, you will have to offer to do their job for them. Filling out forms, getting inspections scheduled and completed, and contacting others. When you wait for others to do things on their schedule, you risk missing important and crucial deadlines. Bigger money is at risk if you don’t take control yourself. Yelling at them over the phone will only result in the Kidult crying. While this is satisfying in the short term, it still leaves the job unfinished.
7. If you meet someone from a Six Sigma Six Lean Team, treat them with nothing but hostility and contempt. If you’ve ever worked with one, you need no explanation. If you haven’t, you’ll see. BLUF-they are the enemy. The first Kidults.
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, and subsequent panic, are just the latest installment of the Competency Crisis™. A bank run by woke Kidults that was more focused on DEI and ESG then they were on running a bank. The very short and oversimplified version is they couldn't operate without low interest rates and had no ability to handle the consequences of their incompetence.
The train derailment and toxic chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio are just another example of the Competency Crisis™. The intersection of failing infrastructure and inept government response is nothing new. Had the train not been carrying toxic chemicals it would have passed under the radar, like every other derailment. After the crash it was revealed that there are over 1,000 train derailments each year. That’s three per day.
This sort of normalized ineptitude is not limited to the banks and railways. Near misses in airplanes, military and civilian ships colliding in harbors. The problem stretches across all industries. Personal banking, software, medical. Two factor authentication for everything, with a fifty percent chance it fails on the first try. My favorite lately has been when a website or software crashes and a cartoon animal pops up with a “oops, something went wrong message”. Because Paw Patrol is what I need to fix your failure, SaaS Chase is on the case. I can’t remember the last time I got through an entire week without bank software failing on me, and wasting hours on the phone with a Kidult who was simultaneously unable and unwilling to help. It’s such a normalized part of my life that I schedule time for it in my day.
The incompetency has become so pervasive that we are numb to it. When you step back and look, you realize that nearly everyone and everything is incompetent. So what the hell happened? Somewhere along the way the theme became “it’s not my job to do my job”. It’s not my responsibility to be responsible for my failures. These are the mantras of the Kidults. This is their guiding philosophy.
Somewhere along the way the theme became “it’s not my job to do my job”
Work is not a place in which you exchange productive time and labor for money. No, that is the antiqued and evil model of capitalism. Instead what we have is a reverse daycare system, where Kidults are paid to show up (eventually), play all day (in some cases literally with legos and indoor playgrounds), get fed like you’re in elementary school and most importantly of all, not produce a thing. This is so far beyond the entitlement of socialists. No one was prepared for the rise of Kidults.
Instead of training the next generations to be skilled and able to take over their industry of choice, we raised two generations of Kidults to be prepared for adult daycare. In any given industry, there is one competent adult carrying the burden of five to ten Kidults. These suckers are keeping the whole thing from collapsing. Their work ethic demands that they solve the problems that others aren’t addressing. Eventually they hit burnout and give up entirely. They quit, retire, or start their own business. When enough of them leave, the company implodes under the weight of incompetent Kidults.
Gone is the work ethic of showing up early, leaving late, and ensuring the work is done. Now it’s show up late, leave early, and that’s enough. Doing actual work is beyond the scope of a Kidult’s duties. You cannot offer enough money to make them productive. They don’t have the capabilities even if they wanted to.
There is a silver lining to this. If you are one of the rare, competent people, you have a license to print money. Start your own business, in your area of expertise, and solve the problems created by the Kidults. A Reputation for reliability and competence is the most valuable form of marketing for an entrepreneur. When you solve the problems the Kidults create, people will be lining up to do business with you.
If you’re not in a position to start a business yet, cultivate a twitter timeline that demonstrates accountability and effectiveness.
Now is the time to highlight that you are competent. That you are punctual, accountable and, unlike your competition, a functioning adult. Whether you are interviewing for a job or establishing a new business partnership, don’t be afraid to mention that you can navigate past the incompetence of Kidults. Let me say that again, do not be afraid to mention that you can navigate past the incompetence of Kidults. If that offends the people you are talking to, then you are with the wrong people.
Moving forward I will be specifically asking this question when I interview candidates or potential business partners: How do you get shit done in this environment? This is not a standard interview question, yet. It will be soon, since it is possibly the only question in the interview that matters. If you can get past the software failures, Kidults and cartoon “oops” messages on a website, you can practically name your price.
We are still in the beginning stages of the Competency Crisis™. You need to drop the fantasy that competent people will magically appear to help you with your problems. Plan for the incompetence, follow our advice above, and you can minimize the damage created by the Kidult economy. Good luck.