Here is a hard truth about office life.
If you are good at fixing the printer, you will fix the printer forever.
Competence is punished with more work. If you show people you can do a low-value task quickly, it becomes your job. The only way to escape is to use Strategic Incompetence.
What Is Strategic Incompetence?
It is exactly what it sounds like. You deliberately fake being bad at a task so people stop asking you to do it.
It sounds manipulative. However, it is actually a boundary tool. It protects your time for the work that actually matters.
If you are “too busy” to take notes, they will ask you next week. If you are “terrible” at taking notes, they will never ask you again.
3 Ways to Use It (Without Getting Fired)
1. The “Tech Idiot” Defense
Never learn how to use the communal coffee machine. Never learn how to change the toner.
Once you demonstrate that you can’t figure it out, the office manager will stop waiting for you to do it. You are officially off the hook.
2. The “Messy” Dishwasher
This is a classic for home life. If you hate loading the dishwasher, do it poorly.
Put the bowls on the top rack. Leave food on the plates. Eventually, your partner (or roommate) will ban you from doing it. You lose the chore, but you win your time back.
3. The “Slow” Response
If someone sends you a pointless email, do not reply instantly.
Wait 48 hours. By the time you reply, they will have usually solved the problem themselves. You are training them not to rely on you for instant answers.
The Golden Rule
Do not use this for your core job.
Be a genius at the 20% of work that makes you money. Be “incompetent” at the 80% of admin tasks that waste your day.
Conclusion
You teach people how to treat you.
So, stop being helpful. Be useless at the small stuff. It is the only way to be great at the big stuff.
Tell me in the comments: What is one chore you are secretly “bad” at just to avoid doing it?
