Coping with Gormless People

I met a lady who said she was having difficulty coping with gormless incompetent fools. Right off the bat I had every sympathy with her. But then after a moment’s reflection thought that my wife might have more reason to hold such a view.

If you assume a sort of bell-shaped curve of distribution of gormlessness and incompetence and you are at the more competent end of the spectrum then you’re going to feel frustrated a good deal of the time.

So, since the world will continue to contain an endless supply of gormless folk, the task was to help this lady change her point of view. She could either let it go or fix it - both “winning” responses. She normally took the third option which was to neither let it go nor fix it.

The circumstances of the revelation was that the lady was the Office Manager of a small team in an Engineering firm.

Every Thursday one of her team would ask her in a voice all in the office could hear, “I’ve finished all the estimates – shall I take them through to Alex (the boss) for signing-off?”

My lady said how it irritated her beyond measure and that she wanted to reply, “No just throw them through the effing window.”

I asked her why she didn’t say that, and she replied that Marjorie would be hurt and offended.

When I asked if it would end the irritating show, she said it would.

“So, it’s your choice that it continues,” I suggested.

We batted backwards and forwards whether that was quite true and I suggested that we’ll see what effect this suggestion effects how she feels next Thursday.

At the next appointment I restrained myself in asking how things worked out with Marjorie. Eventually she said, “You haven’t asked how things went on Thursday afternoon.”

I asked, “How did she react when you told her just how irritating her asking about taking the estimates trough for signing made you.”

“I didn’t, “You knew I wouldn’t, didn’t you? she replied.

“But it didn’t annoy me – I almost laughed.

These options are not spread across a spectrum it’s either/or.

If you’ve read the piece on Communication you’ll see the ways in which people can disguise the fact that they are neither fixing things nor letting go.

You can choose to spend a long time in the “neither” response position but to do so requires you to disguise the fact that you choose this response.

There’s something awfully fulfilling in holding on to resentment that you can’t do anything about the incompetent or gormless neighbour, relative, colleague or spouse. However, (there’s always a however) it’s almost never true - you can do something about it, and you choose not to.

OK, it may not seem much of a choice, e.g. telling your boss, spouse or friend just what effect their gormless behaviour has on you could result in you being either jobless, single or friendless, so you tell yourself that you have to put up with it. Well, no you don’t - you choose to put up with it.

You may think, “big deal," but grasping this reality can be truly liberating, though you do have to give up on the wonderfully comforting wad of resentment that you’ve kept in the side of your cheek for all this time.

When you blow away the fog and accept that you choose not to fix the problem the gormless person is causing you – particularly if you add, “for now,” to your choice - it still liberates you from powerless resentment. Give it a try.